HENRY M. CHRISTMAN
APR 4
PLA OCT -i 1978
3 1148
OCT 2 1 19T(T
270.6 J33c 60-00133
Jaaelle
The Catholic reformation
SCIENCE AND CULTURE SERIES
JOSEPH HUSSLEIN, S.J., PH.D., GENERAL EDITOR
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THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
WTTERLfBWRY I'm
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OCT3H9S7
THE CATHOLIC
REFDRMATIDN
B Y
PIERRE JANELLE
PROFESSOR IN CLERMONT UNIVERSITY
THE BRUCE PUBLISHING COMPANY
MILWAUKEE
Nihil obstat: JOHN A. SCHULIEN, S.T.D., Censor librorum
Imprimatur: % MOYSES E. KILEY, Archicpiscopus Milwaukicnsis
Die 15 Octobris, 1948
Copyright, 1949, The Bruce Publishing Company
Made in the United States of America
In loving memory
of my father
ERNEST JANELLE
(1861-1940)
to whom I owe
the little that I am
Preface by the General Editor
IN HIS brief Foreword the author deems it imperative to call
attention to the obvious impossibility of dealing in a single
volume with every phase and circumstance of so vast and
momentous a movement as the Catholic Reformation. Yet the
prime value of his work consists in the fact that he has made avail-
able, for Catholics and non-Catholics alike, an adequate and readable
record of the characteristic features of this important event, whose
duration extended from the fifteenth on To^JHe ^seventeenth century.
"Few indeed would have the leisure or the patience to search
through piled-up volumes for the information amply conveyed for
their purpose in the chapters of this scholarly work. What they seek
above all to learn is the nature, spirit, and ultimate result of this
most significant movement whose importance in history, whether
religious or secular, can hardly be overestimated. But what lends its
particular value to this volume is the candor of its presentation com-
bined with equal thoroughness of research.
In fact it is a lesson by itself to learn how profoundly the results
of religion become calculable and visible, not merely in the arts, the
architecture, and the very conventions of mankind, but no less in the
progress of industry and the tilling of the soil. The latter in par-
ticular is evidenced especially in the case of retarded peoples under
the influence, material as well as spiritual, of the Church's undaunted
missionaries. Stress, however, is rightly laid by the author upon the
magnificent results achieved m education, and this in every truest
sense that could make of it a beneficient power for the progress of
mankind.
Whatever was humanly wrong on the part of any of the Church's
prelates, clergy, and the laity; whatever clamored for reformation in
regard to any of her members; whatever demanded in any place
viii PREFACE BY THE GENERAL EDITOR
wheresoever a more thorough and effective instruction is clearly
and inoffensively stated. But no less vividly are we shown in turn
these evils of the day gradually righted by devoted souls men and
women freely dedicating their lives to God and happily bringing
about the most glorious fruits of renovation at home and conversion
abroad in distant lands. All this is convincingly presented on the
sole evidence of unquestionable facts and of documents freely quoted.
Human failings, as well we know, at any time may sadly display
themselves on the part of certain of the Church's members, whether
in the highest places or in the lowest ranks, yet nonetheless, for the
Church Christ founded upon Peter, the assurance stands infallibly
that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
The solicitude, in fine, of Christ for His Church is beautifully
expressed in the Epistle of St. Paul to the Ephesians when he says:
"Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the church, and
delivered himself up for it: that he might sanctify it, cleansing it by
the laver of water in the word of life: that he might present to him-
self a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such
thing; but that it should be holy, and without blemish" (Eph. 5:
25-27). In the words of the Douay commentator, the Church, as here
described by St. Paul, "is ever obedient to Christ, and can never fall
from him, but remains faithful to him, unspotted and unchanged to
the end of the world." To aid their own successive generations in
approaching ever more closely to what Christ desired of them within
His Church was the labor of the most signal, the most illustrious, the
most holy of the great leaders of the Catholic Reformation whom
the reader is here favored to meet, however briefly, in this , volume.
JOSEPH HUSSLEIN, S.J., Pn.D.
General Editor, Science and Culture Series
St. Louis University
October 22, 1948
Author s Foreword
NO ONE can be more painfully aware than the author him-
self of the shortcomings to be found in the present work,
due as they largely are to the vastness of its subject matter
the Catholic Reformation. Some, in fact, of the major aspects of
this great movement could barely be hinted at here, within the scope
of a single volume, while some of the very countries in which it
flourished could be dealt with only in a summary manner, if at all.
Nor need attention be called to the still wide possibilities of a
development of the theological background of this subject.
As for the bibliographies at the end of the chapters, it should be
explained that they are meant to serve mostly as an acknowledgment
of the main sources, and are therefore not intended to be exhaustive.
Surprise, however, may readily be expressed that they include mostly
French books. The reason for this does not consist merely in the
fact that the present work has been prepared in France, and with
the help of French libraries, but also that the literature bearing on
the subject is more plentiful in France than anywhere else. Such
works as Bremond's Histoire du sentiment religieux or Emile
Male's Histoire de Tart religieux have no equivalent elsewhere.
I owe a debt of gratitude first and foremost to the Reverend
Father Joseph Husslein, S.J., of St. Louis University, editor of the
Science and Culture Series, who gave me every possible encourage-
ment and help; also to my father, Ernest Janelle, who went over the
former half of this work, and provided much useful advice; to the
late and much regretted professor John Swinnerton Phillimore, of
Glasgow University, who bequeathed to me several rare books; to the
Reverend Father de Dainville, S.J., editor of Etudes, and to the
Reverend Fathers Bourg and de Mondadon, of the Clermont resi-
dence of the Society of Jesus, who put their excellent library at my
x AUTHOR'S FOREWORD
disposal, and made valuable suggestions; to Father Leo Hicks, S.J.,
of Farm Street, London; to Messrs. Le Chapelam and Dousse,
librarians of Clermont university library, whose assistance was gener-
ous and unstinted; to Monsieur Renucci, lecturer in Italian at
Clermont University; to Monsieur Burlurut, the Clermont musicol-
ogist; and to many others, whom it is not possible to name here,
but whose kindness will not be forgotten.
PIERRE JANELLE
Clermont-Ferrand
November 5, 1946
Contents
PREFACE BY THE GENERAL EDITOR, vii
AUTHOR'S FOREWORD, ix
Chapter I. ANARCHY THE DISEASE WITHIN THE CHURCH.
Causes of moral evil in the Church, i. Difficulties in the way of
reform, 3. Exempt bodies inside the Church, 5. Decay of monasti-
cism, 7. Financial malpractices in the Church, 8. Properly religious
abuses, 10. Inferior condition of the parochial clergy, 12. Abuses
among the regulars, 12. Enfeeblement of the Papacy, 14. Financial
straits of the Papacy, 15
Chapter 1L EARLY REACTIONS AGAINST DISEASE IN THE CHURCH.
The eve of the Reformation; devotional literature, 20. Wills, 21.
Family life, 22 Guilds; religious instruction, 23. Revival among
the regulars, 24. The mission of Nicholas de Cusa, 26. Early refor-
mation in France, 29. The Lateran council, 31. The French Con-
cordat, 32. Christian humanism, 34 The Jesuit Plan, 37.
Chapter HI. REFORMATION AGAIN DELAYED.
Improvement of conditions at Rome, 39. Revival of devotional art,
41. Sadolet, 42. Continuation of financial abuses, 44. The Turkish
peril, 45. The Machiavellian spirit, 46. External difficulties of the
Papacy, 46. Adrian VI attempts reform, 48. Various schemes of
reform, 49. Steps taken by Adrian VI, 50. Reasons for failure, 52.
Clement VII and nationalism, 53. Attempts at reform, 55.
Chapter IV. PREPARING FOR TRENT.
Reasons for delay of the council, 58. Clement VII's efforts towards
the council, 61 His reforming activities, 62. Giberti's reforming
action, 63. Paul III, a reformer, 65. Sad state of the Church, 66.
Early attempts to convene a council, 68. Preparations for the holding
of the council, 70. The Consdium delectorum cardinalium, 72. Its
effect on reform in the Curia, 75.
xii CONTENTS
Chapter V. THE COUNCIL OF TRENT.
Papal leadership at Trent, 78. Drawbacks of Trent as a seat for the
council, 80. Sittings of the council, 80. Its composition, 83. Various
tendencies among the Fathers, 84. The opposition of various sover-
eigns, 85. Episcopalian opposition, 86. The Trentine decrees, 88.
Spiritual enthusiasm of the Fathers, 89. Their Christian humanistic
ideal, 91. Episcopal jurisdiction strengthened, 93. Papal powers
limited, 95. Exemptions and pluralities suppressed, 95. The re-
cruiting of the clergy, 97. Superstitious practices put down, 98.
The popes continue the work of the council. Paul IV, 100. Pius IV
and Borromeo, 102. Confirmation of the Trentine decrees, 103.
The Index, 104. The Catechism, 104. The Missal, the Breviary,
the Vulgate, 104. The ratification of the Trentine decrees, 105.
Conclusion, 109.
Chapter VI. THE RELIGIOUS REVIVAL AMONG THE REGULARS.
The Oratory of Divine Love, in. Gaetano di Thiene, 112. Gian
Pietro Caraffa, 112. The Camaldulese, the Dominicans, the Capu-
chins, 113. The Clerks regular, 115. The Theatmes, 116. The
Somaschi and the Barnabites, 117. The Oratory and St. Philip Neri,
119. Conflicting tendencies in the Oratory, 122. Personality of St.
Philip Neri, 123. The Jesuits, 124. St. Ignatius' Spiritual Exercises
the strengthening of the will, i2 c >. "Adaptation," 127. Love, 129. The
Constitutions, 130. The Jesuit vows, 131. Internal discipline 133.
Working from above, 135. The government of the Society, 135.
Chapter VII. EDUCATION AND SCHOLARSHIP.
Predecessors of the Jesuits* the Brothers of the Common Life,
Montaigu College, 139. The tuition there, 139. Protestant education
first in field? 143. John Sturm, 144. The Jesuit and Oratonan
colleges, 145. The Protestant schools less classical, 146. The Jesuit
colleges, 147. The Ratio studwrum, 149. Pedagogy in Jesuit col-
leges, 150. The praelectw, 152. Discipline and emulation, 153. The
religious purpose, 155. The syllabus of studies, 156. The Oratorian
colleges, 158. The Ursulmes, 159. The Jesuits and theology, 162.
Bellarrnme and Baromus, 163.
Chapter VIII. THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AND LITERATURE.
Licentiousness in the quattrocento; reaction of the Catholic refor-
mation, 167. Reaction among the Christian humanists, 168. Posse-
vinus, 170. Pontanus and "imitation," 171. Artificiality and sincerity,
172. Epigrams, 173. Torquato Tasso's Discorsi, 174. The cycle of
remorse* Tansillo's Lagnme, 175. His imitators, 177. Valvasone's
Maddalena, 178. His imitators, 180. Artificiality and emotion, 181.
The drama, 182. How prosperous, 183. Predecessors of Catholic
reformation drama, 185. Various types, 185. National classes:
CONTENTS xiii
Italian drama, 186. German and French drama, 188. Theodoricus,
188. Nabuchodonosor, 190. Felicitas, 190. Pierre Corneille and
Polyeucte, 191.
Chapter IX. THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AND ART.
General character of art of the Catholic reformation, 196. Trent
and images, 197. Possevinus on the plastic arts, 198. Decency,
feeling, morality, 199. Pious painters: Reappearance of mediaeval
themes, 200. Death and the saints, 201. Nudes and fancifulness
proscribed; truth in the painting of martyrdoms, 203. History ad-
hered to but mediaeval legends respected, 205. Dogma asserted
through painting, 206. The Bolognese school, 209. The Carracci
brothers, 210. Sculpture, 211. Architecture, 211. Jesuit churches,
212. Brother Martellange, 214. Reappearance of mediaeval tenden-
cies, 216. Corruption of Church music in the fifteenth century, 218.
Palestrina, 219. The Oratorio, 221. Liturgical music, 222.
Chapter X. PIETY AND MYSTICISM.
Optimistic piety of the Catholic reformation, 224. The mystics also
reformers, 225. Theory of the three ways, 227. Erasmus* Enchiridion,
228. Spanish mysticism, 229. Predecessors of St. Teresa, 230. St.
Teresa of Jesus, 230. Her life, 231. Her mystical scheme, 233. Her
bravery, 235. St. John of the Cross, his life, 236. His mystical
scheme, 237. The Italian school: the spiritual fight, 238. Optimism
of the Italian school, 240. St. Francis de Sales, 241. His sweetness
and imagery, 242. His seventy: direction of conscience, 243. His
spiritual scheme, 243. Its moderation, 245. The French school and
its austerity: Pierre de Berulle, 246. Doctrine of the French school,
247. New devotions, 249.
Chapter XL THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AFTER TRENT.
The period after Trent: Pius V, 252. His reforming action, 253.
The new liturgy, 255. Moral improvement of the clergy, secular and
regular, 256. Gregory XIII, his reforming activity, 257. Sixtus V,
his life, 260. His reforming activity, 260. His mistakes, 261. Suc-
cessive popes to 1650, 262. Germany, 263. Deplorable conditions
there, 264. First Jesuits in Germany, 265. St. Peter Canisius, 266.
His work of education, 267. His Catechism, 268. Conversion of
Bavaria, 269. Difficulties at Fulda, 270. Catholic revival in Ger-
many, 271. The abbey of Melek, 273. Poland and Switzerland, 273.
Chapter XII. THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION IN FRANCE.
Wars of religion in France, 275. Provincial councils. The Capuchins,
277. Jesuit colleges: College de Clermont, 278. Maldonat there, 279.
Other colleges, 280. Charitable work of the Jesuits, 281. Caesar de
Bus and Romillon, 283. Joan de Lestonnac, 284. St. Jane de
Chantal, 285. The Berulle circle, 287. Father Joseph, 287. Peter de
xiv CONTENTS
Berulle and the Oratory, 289. Oratonan seminaries. Adrian Bour-
doise, 291. St. John Eudes, 292. St. Vincent de Paul, 293. His
seminaries, 295. John James Olier, 296. The provincial missions.
St. Francis Regis, 297. The company of the Holy Sacrament, 299.
Its social work and its faults, 300.
Chapter XIII. THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION IN THE
BRITISH ISLES.
Triple nature of the Catholic reformation in the British Isles, 303.
Religious conditions in Scotland, 304. William Elphinstone, 304.
The statutes of Archbishop Forman, 305. Successive councils, 305.
Canons of 1552, 307. Ireland, 308. Council of Dublin, 309. English
Christian humanists, 310. Influence of the Trentme movement, 311.
Provincial councils in England, 312. The Convocation of 1556, 313.
Pole's decrees, 314. His scheme for seminaries, 316. Seminaries on
the Continent, 318. Scottish and Irish colleges, 319. Parsons'
Christian Directory, 319. Its gloominess, 321. Its devotional scheme,
323. Its popularity, 325. Other devotional works, 326. Influence of
continental devotion 326. St. Teresa and Southwell, 327. The Caro-
line poets and Southwell, 328. Their common moral ideal, 330.
Chapter XIV. THE MISSIONS.
The missionary movement and the Papacy, 333. Conversion of
Mexico, 334. Practical problems, 335. The teaching of Christianity,
336. Priesthood refused to Indians, 337. Regulars in the province of
Lima, 339. Their rule of life, 341. Provincial councils, 342. Jesuits
in Brazil, 343. Jesuits in Paraguay, 344. Conditions in the East
Indies, 345. St. Francis Xavier, life, 346. His travels, 347. His Jesuit
temperament, 348. Immorality of the Europeans, 349. Xavier's mis-
sionary methods, 350. His apostolate in Japan, 351. Fr. de Nobili
in India, 353. The Chinese mission, 354. Comparison of Spanish
and French missions in America; Conditions in Canada, 356. The
French revival and the Canadian mission, 357. Missionary methods,
359. Difficulties of the Canadian mission, 361.
CONCLUSIONS.
Unity of the Catholic reformation. The spiritual movement about
1500, 364. The Middle Ages both superseded and continued, 365.
Church assumes a purely spiritual character, 365. Church refrains
from Puritanism, 366. Jesuit modernity, 366. Results of the Catholic
reformation. The rescuing of ancient culture, 367.
INDEX, 369
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
CHAPTER
Anarchy, the Disease Within the Church
IN ONE of the scenes of Marlowe's Doctor Faustus here a
mere reproduction of its German source we are introduced
into the pope's private chamber at the Vatican. Mephistopheles
asks Faustus, who is eager to go and admire the marvels of ancient
Rome, to stay awhile:
I know you'd fain see the Pope,
And take some part of holy Peter's feast,
Where thou shalt see a troop of bald-pate friars,
Whose summum bonum is in belly-cheer.
Then the pope and the "Cardinal of Lorrain . . . enter to the
banquet, with friars attending." They sit down at table, while
the friars bring in "dainty dishes" sent by the bishop of Milan and
the cardinal of Florence. But Faustus, who is invisible, snatches
the food from them, and is therefore cursed "with bell, book and
candle." The scene is, of course, a farce, and an unduly coarse one;
yet it can hardly be termed a pure libel. That the moral condition
of the clergy, and especially that of the Roman Curia, had by
the end of the fifteenth century become deplorable, is asserted by
eminent Catholic writers of the time, whose evidence cannot be
gainsaid. The spirit of lucre and sensuousness was manifested in
many abuses, especially various forms of simony, which were in
urgent need of reformation.
There was no need, however, of reformation such as the Protes-
tants understood it. According to their contention, the primitive
simplicity of the Church had become disfigured by manifold super-
stitions, these being in turn the source of the lowering of her
morality. Remove these superstitions, purge Christian doctrine of
an excessive belief in the supernatural and marvellous, relieve
2 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
Christian discipline of the strain of excessive asceticism, and order
would be restored.
Now, if such a view were true to fact, if mediaeval superstition
had engendered corruption, the "Eve of the Reformation" ought
to appear as a particularly barren period, both in regard to devotion
and virtue. Such, however, is not the case. A careful study of the
late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries shows that there was,
at the time, a flowermg-forth of piety and mysticism. The question
then arises, how could the above-mentioned abuses be met with
in the midst of so much faith and charity? This strange contra-
diction is to be accounted for, not by false beliefs, but by defective
organization, and consequently defective discipline.
The Church had become cut up into a number of independently
functioning bodies; authority, jurisdiction, and possessions were
divided among them, and inextricably entangled. This, on the
one hand, made the enforcement of ecclesiastical canons and regula-
tions extremely difficult, and provided numberless loopholes where-
by to evade them. On the other hand, the struggle of many con-
flicting interests gave rise to constant litigation. It heightened, at
the expense of the regular hierarchy, the importance of those offi-
cials who were empowered to settle differences and who were but
too often tempted to take bribes or to exact undue payments. This
was especially the case when favours were sought from the Roman
Curia. There was an understanding between those who sued for
dispensations or for exemptions from the performance of their
clerical duties or the observance of disciplinary rules, and those
who granted graces against payment for the benefit of the papal
exchequer or to fill their own pockets. Money assumed as much
importance in the Church as in any temporal state, and where
money reigns supreme, sloth, lechery, pride inevitably follow.
Thus the moral disorders in the Church really had their source
m the overgrown development of an officialdom, the members
of which had come to identify the Church with their own class.
They could scarcely be expected to deal severely with a system
to which they had become accustomed for generations past.
Reformation had to hack pitilessly through a network of vested
interests; it could only come from the very authority that had
connived at the abuses, and must now, in correcting them, correct
itself. The result would be a strong papacy, supported by a strong
ANARCHY, THE DISEASE WITHIN THE CHURCH 3
and independent hierarchy, which, becoming more conscious of
its own dignity and prestige, would be less likely to let them be
debased in the eyes of Christendom.
Unfortunately centrifugal tendencies had been at work since the
time of the Great Schism, and the Councils of Basle and Constance.
These two councils had met as a response to the general clamour
for reform; but in fact they ushered in the spirit of nationalism,
which was to be the mam obstacle in the way of reform. The
various European sovereigns cared little for the moral welfare of
the Church; they preferred to consider her, in each country, as
a department of the State, to take her dignitaries into their employ-
ment, and use her preferments and benefices as a reward for their
loyal subjects; thus countenancing abuses which they were later
to denounce, once they had found it to their advantage to chastise
the Church by seizing her property. Even when they were not
actively hostile to the work of reformation from inside, they refused
to give up their private quarrels and claims in order to ensure
general peace; and the correction of abuses in a divided Europe
remained well-nigh impossible.
In fact, whatever may be said about the corruption of the Holy
See, it was far from being altogether the fault of the popes if
they had little time to attend to such matters as monastic discipline
or the education of the lower clergy. Whether they liked it or not,
their safety, their independence, nay, all but the very existence of
the papacy, were involved in the wars between the European
princes. They were threatened by the French or Imperial invasions
of Italy, or by the Turkish advance. They had to struggle pain-
fully to defend their temporal dominions, which alone could ensure
their spiritual independence and authority. Had they not contrived
to hold their own against national interests, there might never have
been a Catholic Reformation at all.
They might, it is true, have taken less account of political dangers
and inconveniences, and attempted to carry Christian opinion along
with them, by boldly asserting their will to perform the task of
reformation under any circumstances. But they had become too
much absorbed in worldly matters to realize the driving force of
a purely spiritual appeal. The Renaissance had not merely corrupted
the personal morality of the popes and their court; it had done
even worse in lowering' their notion of their proper function. For
4 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
apostlcship, it had substituted "policy," the art of playing upon
human passions and motives. Taking things as a whole, the condi-
tion of the Curia was such as to make any Christian blush. Its
bureaucracy was self-centred and self-seeking; it had come to
halo its privileges, its greed, and its lusts with the sacred character
of Christianity itself. Only a huge evangelical revival could breed
enough of the spirit of sacrifice in the Church, to sweep away all
selfishness; and in fact the Catholic Reformation was due first and
foremost to a reawakening of the spirit of the Gospel. But it would
still have failed to achieve success if it had merely been a reversion
to the intellectual and sentimental outlook of the Middle Ages. It
would not have been possible to fall back upon the Renaissance; it
must perforce be made use of toward a Christian end.
Such was the task of the movement known as "Christian human-
ism/' which began about 1470 and was steadily gathering strength
in the early sixteenth century. It served a double purpose: it saved
the Church from paganism, while retaining, in the philosophy,
literature, and art of the ancients, whatever might serve toward en-
riching Christian life. Hence its peculiar quality, which was new and
attractive, and which St. Thomas More represents better than any-
one else. It was fully flourishing before Luther arose, and was likely
to blossom into further flowers of wisdom and holiness, when the
religious war forced it for a time into the background. Yet it was to
come to the front again, with the Council of Trent and the Society
of Jesus, and henceforth to be one of the chief elements of the Cath-
olic Reformation.
How Church conditions, especially in regard to administration
and discipline, remained defective all through the fifteenth century,
and were calling for improvement; how repeated efforts were made
at the time to amend them, and were bidding fair to achieve their
purpose when Protestantism appeared upon the stage, it will be the
task of the following pages to show.
According to early Protestant controversialists, such as Tyndalc,
the abuses in the Church were the consequence of false doctrine:
errors in faith led to errors in conduct. A close study of fifteenth-
century conditions brings us, however, to a wholly different con-
ANARCHY, THE DISEASE WITHIN THE CHURCH 5
elusion. The abuses may be shown to have sprung, not from mis-
taken notions on justification, the worship of the saints, Purgatory,
etc., but from the state of administrative anarchy which had pre-
vailed since the Great Schism. In the early centuries of its history,'
the organization of the Church, aside from the divinely instituted
headship of Peter and his successors, had been modelled on that of
the Roman Empire: there was a regular hierarchy, gradually de-
scending from the pope of Rome to the primates, metropolitans,
bishops, and deacons. However, with the advent of feudalism this
fine architectural order had been in many ways disturbed. As in civil
society, many smaller, self-governing units had been founded, which
did not come under the authority of the ordinary superiors. There
was not much harm in this, so long as the Holy See was strong
enough to assert its general overlordship. But when it had become
enfeebled by the Great Schism and the conciliar movement, it was
unable to put a stop to the scrimmage which took place between all
sorts of ecclesiastical bodies. The authority of the hierarchy was
openly flouted by clerical or lay patrons, cathedral chapters, religious
orders and houses; this being made easier by the practice of exemp-
tion, which national sovereigns naturally enough turned into a
weapon against Church independence, but which the popes, in a
misguided attempt to extend their jurisdiction, were themselves im-
prudent enough to foster.
Whatever efforts the bishops might make towards a general refor-
mation of morals were set at naught from the fact that they were
unable to compel the obedience of a very large section of their
clergy. In the late fifteenth century, many parishes were really in
the hands of clerical patrons, generally religious houses, which held
the advowsons and drew the tithes, but often did so from a con-
siderable distance. Such patrons were obviously unable to help in
the enforcement of Church discipline, and were mainly intent on
the maintenance of their rights. To quote some instances, while
there were 469 parishes in the diocese of Paris, the bishop appointed
215 incumbents only. In Paris itself, the episcopal appointments
were only 6 out of 30; in Grenoble diocese, 221 out of 515; worst of
all, in the diocese of Lyons, only 21 parishes out of 392 were in the
hands of the archbishop.
Nor was the disciplinary influence of the bishops merely counter-
vailed by the power of the patrons. The various religious communi-
6 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
ties that had come into being inside each diocese also asserted their
independence. Whether cathedral chapters, collegiate churches,
brotherhoods of secular priests, monasteries, priories, or convents,
they had their elected heads, their assemblies, their statutes, and
their estates; they had vassals and tenants, and commanded con-
siderable influence. Besides, most of the chapters, many collegiate
churches, all the greater monasteries, and such religious orders as the
Carthusians and mendicant friars, had been granted by the Holy
See exemption from episcopal jurisdiction. They were at liberty to
refuse the bishops admittance to their churches or convents; they
had their own officers, their own courts of justice and prisons;
within their boundaries, they exercised sovereign powers. Through
the incumbents of their benefices, they held whole blocks of parishes
under their sway. The authority of the bishops was threatened with
total disappearance.
The practice of exemption was steadily growing in the fifteenth
century, and it is but natural that the episcopal body should have
attempted to minimize its effects. Hence a permanent struggle,
which led in many cases to scandalous disorders. At Vendome, the
bishop, having succeeded in entering the collegiate church by stealth,
was surrounded by the monks, insulted, and mishandled; the abbot
tore from him his rochet, his square cap, and "part of the hair of his
head"; then he was seized by the hands and feet, carried out and
flung into the street, amidst the shouting of the mob. Similar hap-
penings occurred, between 1470 and 1515, in a great many places in
France. Cathedral chapters were equally unruly. They were com-
posed of men of learning, and had great social influence, besides
their actual share in the government of cathedral towns, and their
powers over a numerous retinue. The late fifteenth century is a
period of constant wrangling between chapters and bishops. Both
parties go to law over the most trifling points precedence in a
procession, or the whipping of a choir-boy. In 1517? the canons of
Langres manifest their displeasure to the archbishop by regularly
standing up and having the bells rung when they reach the follow-
ing verse of Lauds: "Fiant dies ejus pauci et eptscopatum eyus reci-
piat alter." Even the archdeacons try to extend their authority at the
expense of the bishops. What wonder, then, that the latter should
have turned in disgust from their religious duties, in which they
found rebellion on every hand, to the field of political life, and will-
ANARCHY, THE DISEASE WITHIN THE CHURCH 7
ingly accepted the favour which princes offered to them in exchange
for their able service?
They did try, however, to countercheck the encroachments of
exempt bodies; but the means they used for that purpose still further
increased the disorder in the Church. Just as the popes peopled the
Curia and the College of Cardinals with their own kin, because
other appointments would have been unsafe, the bishops endeav-
oured to open the cathedral chapters to their nephews and relatives
and often succeeded in so doing; thus laying themselves open to the
charge of nepotism. In regard to the religious houses, since they
could not be held in curb, the simplest plan was to gam a footing
inside them. Therefore, in the latter half of the fifteenth century,
monastic dignities were more and more frequently conferred upon
members of the hierarchy. The circumstances were wholly in favour
of such a change, for both the popes and kings wished to have the
greatest possible number of benefices in their gift and discounten-
anced the old practice of appointing abbots, priors, and other officers
by election. Thus in France the episcopate easily acquired control
over the largest and richest abbeys, such as Saint-Denis, Fecamp, or
La Chaise-Dieu, and even over most of the houses of the Cistercian
Order. It is obvious that the prelates, who thus held abbacies in com-
mendam, could not fulfil the duties of their charge. The monas-
teries were ruled by deputies, from whom the flaming enthusiasm
of the founders or reformers of religious orders could certainly not
be expected. Thus the attempt of the hierarchy to correct an obvious
disorder led to a state of things which was even worse.
But, it will be asked, was the increase of monastic influence in
the Church of the fifteenth century necessarily an evil? About the
answer there can be little doubt. Indeed, in the early Middle Ages,
the religious orders had spread culture and true religion every-
where, and the work they had then done towards civilizing Europe
can scarcely be over-estimated. But now conditions had changed,
and the old spirit of heroic enterprise had been as a rule superseded
by remissness and perfunctoriness. To such decay there were, of
course, exceptions, which will be mentioned in due course. In
Northern Europe especially, in the Low Countries, Germany, and
England, the monastic spirit had not exhausted its powers of recu-
peration and creation. Yet, it cannot be doubted that, as a whole,
conditions in most monasteries left much to be desired. Here again,
8 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
we are faced with a process of admiijistrative disorganization which,
far more than any "superstitions," was at the root of moral evils.
Discipline could only be enforced by a central authority, which in
the case of religious orders was that of the general chapter, held at
regular intervals, and strong enough to compel obedience. Now m
the fifteenth century, the general tendency is all toward disintegra-
tion. The various houses of each order tended to loosen the bonds
which united them to the others, and to assert their independence.
This was, of course, easily achieved in the case of the so-called
"autocephalous" monasteries, which had been the earliest-founded,
and mostly belonged to the Benedictine Order. The drawbacks at-
tending their isolation had become apparent in the fourteenth cen-
tury, and Pope Benedict XII, through his bull Sum mi Magistri, had
attempted to gather those of France into six provinces. The system,
however, soon broke down, and many large monasteries, living for
and by themselves, came to assume the position of great landowners
rather than that of religious institutions. But the same individualism
was equally at work in those monastic orders which up till then had
constituted real federations, with the general abbot as their head and
the general chapter as their parliament. In the late fifteenth century,
the general chapters of Cluny, Citeaux, Premontre were vainly striv-
ing to assert their authority. Each house claimed a right to dispose
of its own property and to select its own members. If visitors are
sent, the prior of St. Euverte writes, "they are received at great cost
and richly entertained. Neighbours and great personages are invited
to come and feast with them, and gold is freely spent to shut their
mouths." The same individualistic spirit led the officers in each
house to make themselves independent, to rebel against the old com-
munal spirit of monasticism, and secure for themselves private in-
comes out of the common property. Thus did monastic offices be-
come real benefices, which often fell into the hands of non-resident
seculars. Here again, administrative anarchy led to a general relaxa-
tion of discipline, with the worst possible consequences in morals.
We have shown that the main obstacle to reformation in the
Church was the complicated entanglement of vested interests. Now,
those interests were reducible to terms of money: hence the im-
portance of the financial aspect of the ecclesiastical problems of the
time. The clergy needed resources to carry on the various branches
of their work, and owing to the disorganized state of the Church,
ANARCHY, THE DISEASE WITHIN THE CHURCH 9
those resources were not forthcoming, or were diverted into other
channels. In the case of bishops, these ought to have included the
ordinary dues levied on benefices, and the chancery and law fees.
But all the exempt bodies, with their dependencies, refused to pay
the former; while the latter brought in far less than they ought to
have done, from the fact that so many people withdrew themselves
from episcopal jurisdiction. In 1482, the General Chapter of Cluny
forbade all the houses of the Order to pay to the bishops the usual
duty on their accession to their sees, or the visitation fees. About the
same period, many parish priests also claimed exemption from taxes,
as for instance in the Rheims and Chartres dioceses. As a conse-
quence, the exchequer of many sees was in a sad plight. In 1461, the
revenue of the archbishopric of Rouen had fallen to the paltry sum
of 2000 French livres.
It was no easy task to extend or increase the taxes on benefices;
but other duties imposed upon the laity might be made to bring in
more, and the bishops turned their efforts that way, from 1450 on-
wards. A steady effort was made to extract more from various mar-
riage fees and the proving of wills. At Paris, in 1505, parish priests
would refuse to bury the deceased whose wills had not been proved.
Ecclesiastical censures were used freely against those who refused
to pay; and in France the evidence of royal officers even though it
should be taken at a discount throws light upon a stupendous
state of affairs. In 1500, in the Clermont diocese, if we are to believe
a procurator royal, there were some thirty or forty thousand excom-
municated persons. Authentic records show a steady increase at Sens
from 1468 to 1505. The dignity of the Church could be no gainer by
such a cheapening of her censures; and while in the long run this
increased pressure on the part of the clergy did little towards improv-
ing their financial position, it paved the way for the Protestant
rebellion. In England popular feeling against Church taxation was
running high towards 1520; and Henry VIII made use of the lever-
age thus offered him in his struggle against the Holy See.
The parish clergy was even worse off. Indeed, the churchwardens
had quite considerable resources at their disposal, in the shape both
of taxes, bequests, and foundations; but these funds were reserved
for the building, repairing, and furnishing of the churches. The
priest himself had no claim upon them, and might in most cases be
described in Chaucer's words as "a povre persoun of a toun." Here
io THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
again, the root of the evil lay in the faulty organization of the
Church. Lay patronage had to some extent been reduced, but cler-
ical patronage was fast gaining ground. The monasteries or chap-
ters to which benefices were appropriated were entitled to draw the
tithes, on condition that they should provide a decent income for the
incumbent; but in fact they generally proved to be close-fisted, and
failed to fulfil their obligations at all adequately. There was a con-
stant wrangling over the tithes between the patrons and the rural
clergy. The parishes were too numerous and too small, and in many
cases the priests were literally starving. We hear of some in Nor-
mandy living on an income of less than one "sou" a day, only half
the pay of an artisan. What wonder, m the circumstances, that the
lower clergy should have made shift as best they could to grind a
livelihood out of their parishes? Some took up a trade; most raised
the duties for burials and churchmgs, begged for Masses, quarrelled
over their revenues with monks or friars, and charged fees for the
sacraments.
We have now reached the point where financial maladministra-
tion led to religious abuses properly speaking. The doctrinal con-
tentions of the Reformers were, to a very large extent, the transla-
tion into theological language of a protest against undue payments
exacted from the laity; these being in their turn the consequence of
faulty administration. This applied not merely to Church taxation
proper, but also to voluntary contributions. Public chanty had done
beautiful work in building churches, cathedrals and hospitals, roads
and bridges, under ecclesiastical supervision. But towards the yeai
1500, amidst the general confusion which we have described, there
was a scramble for alms in which the most objectionable means
were used. "Pardoners" often went far beyond the letter of the
bulls which authorized them, or even hawked indulgences about
without any permission at all. The piety and credulity of the people
was taken advantage of by a number of swindlers, who carried about
false relics or spurious indulgences. In 1506, the chapter of Soissons
cast into prison a cleric who had produced forged bulls, allowing
him to beg alms for the ransoming of prisoners; and there are many
similar instances. Worse still, the sale of indulgences was pushed by
means of unorthodox doctrine, as for instance that "whoever paid
into the almsbox for the Crusade a tester for a soul in Purgatory,
would free that soul from Purgatory incontinently."
ANARCHY, THE DISEASE WITHIN THE CHURCH n
This abuse of Christian truth was bad enough in itself, but it was
not the only moral evil that followed upon the disorganized state
of the Church. We have shown how tempting it was for the mem-
bers of the hierarchy to neglect dioceses in which they met with
resistance on every hand, and to migrate to the courts of princes,
where at any rate their abilities would meet with recognition. Thus
in every country of Christian Europe the episcopate became an aris-
tocracy of courtiers. Too much has been made of the serious moral
lapses of some of them; but the least that can be said of the others
is that they led a brilliant and pleasurable life, far removed from
the obligations of their charge. They entrusted the care of their
dioceses to deputies and accompanied the sovereign in his wander-
ings from castle to castle, or even in his campaigns. During the
Italian wars, three cardinals, two archbishops, six bishops, and an
abbot were m the following of Louis XII of France when he en-
tered the city of Milan in 1507. Some of these took part, with much
gusto, in the actual fighting. At a court festival, about the same
time, two cardinals danced before the king.
The prelates soon became accustomed to an easy and luxurious
life. Cardinal d'Amboise erected a real palace at Gaillon, for the
building and furnishing of which he spent no less than 50,000
French livres; the house was decorated with tapestries and painted
windows, carpets, pictures, and statues; there were found in it col-
lections of jewellery, porcelain, medals, rare manuscripts, and
printed books. Wolsey's residence at Hampton Court immediately
suggests itself as an English parallel. Much money was of course
needed for the life which was to be led in such surroundings. Each
bishop endeavoured to obtain a growing number of benefices, and
the crying scandal of pluralities becartie quite general. ''The higher
clergy," the German Johann Butzbach writes, "are much to blame
for the neglect of souls. They send to the parishes unworthy pastors,
while they themselves draw the tithes. Many seek to heap up for
themselves as many benefices as possible, without fulfilling the duties
incumbent upon them, and squander the ecclesiastical revenues in
luxury and servants, pages, horses and dogs. Each one tries to vie
with the other in pomp and pride." That the influence of temporal
sovereigns, in attaching to themselves those whose services were due
to the Church, was largely responsible for this state of things, can-
not for a moment be doubted.
12 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
The lower clergy had reasons of their own for disliking residence
in impoverished parishes, where it was impossible for a clever man
to "get along" or to proceed with his studies. Towards the end of
the fifteenth century, when the archdeacon of Paris was engaged
upon a visitation, he found that 36 incumbents out of 83 were non-
resident, while 12 had left their cures without permission. Those
who supplied their places were the poorest and least qualified part
of the ecclesiastical body. Indeed, no systematic provision at all was
made for the religious upbringing and training of the parochial
clergy as a whole. Some few of them only, who belonged to the
gentry or to well-to-do burgher families, were lucky enough to
attend a university or a chapter-school. The others had to be con-
tent with the teaching given at a village-school, or the lessons of the
rector of the parish; they gathered a few scraps of Latin, learnt
enough theology and liturgy to be able to say Mass, administer the
sacraments, bury the dead, and keep the church accounts. They took
orders without ever leaving their native place. No effort was made
to develop the priestly spirit in their souls. They considered them-
selves as very much on the same level as their parishioners; and
this lack of clerical dignity, coupled with their poverty, caused them
to lead the same life, and indulge in the same pleasures, as the
common rabble. They might often be seen gambling in alehouses.
We hear of a parson, in the diocese of Rouen, who was leading a
dance on the public square, with a crown of leaves and flowers on
his head. There is truth indeed in Rabelais' satire of the lower
c^rgy.
/ In the case of the regulars also, financial and moral decay went
hand in hand, the main cause being, here again, an administrative
abuse. A growing number of religious houses were held in com-
mendam by Church dignitaries or members of the aristocracy who
considered them merely as sources of income, never visited them at
all, refused to pay for the necesssary repairs, and reduced them to
sore financial straits. In 1486, the monks of Saint-Denis lodged a
complaint against their commendatory abbot. The roofs of the
church, cloisters, and dorters, they said, let in the rain; most barns
and manors were falling to ruin; the scholars of the college which
the abbey kept in Paris had been turned out; they themselves were
scarcely able to obtain the necessaries of life; the sums allotted for
their clothing and wine had been pared down; and their bread was
ANARCHY, THE DISEASE WITHIN THE CHURCH 13
so bad that they could not eat it; all this because the abbot had built
extensive lodgings for his own convenience, and granted the bene-
fices "to strangers who let everything melt away." Such a state of
things seems to have been quite general. Many monasteries were
heavily in debt, such as Saint Amand Abbey in Flanders, which in
1507, had lost 190,000 livres. Financial distress, the spirit of revolt,
and relaxed discipline went of course hand in hand. To this must
be added that the feudal aristocracy had gradually found their way
into the religious houses as well as into the hierarchy. Monastic
dignities and offices were reserved for the younger sons of noble
families. The ideal of equality and common property had therefore
disappeared. At Paris, in 1481, during the public festivities of the
Epiphany, a number of monks joined with the students, dressed up
as fools, armed themselves, and ranged about the city, abusing and
attacking the passers-by. Women's cloisters were in the same pitiable
condition. At le Vergier, it was found in the course of a visitation
that the abbey was not closed, that the nuns had not gone to con-
fession for six months past, and that the abbess had not received
Communion for fifteen months past.
* # *
Dioceses in which most parishes were in the hands, not of the
bishops, but of distant and neglectful patrons; in which exempt
bodies of all kinds asserted their independence and spent their time
in private quarrels; in which the higher clergy were elegant cour-
tiers, while the lower clergy scarcely managed to live from hand to
mouth; financial conditions which resulted in increased taxation for
the laity, and the peddling of holy things by ecclesiastical mounte-
banks; monasteries which refused to submit to the heads of their
orders, and in which the offices were held either by non-resident
seculars or by disdainful and profligate noblemen, while the monks
and nuns were left uncared for, both in regard to their material and
spiritual needs; such is the state of affairs that we are faced with on
the eve of the Reformation. The surprising thing, in such circum-
stances, is not that the level of Christian morality should have been
low, but that it should still have been so high. In any case, a general
administrative readjustment was needed; but no Church assembly,
however holy and well-meaning, could effect it by its own means.
Only a powerful central authority would be able to override all the
vested interests which were unwilling to let themselves be dislodged.
14 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
Now, it was the tragedy of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth
centuries that the papacy was disabled, almost until it was too late,
from undertaking the necessary work of reconstruction. Of course
the Holy See would have enjoyed greater authority and heightened
respect if its moral decay had not made it, for some time at least,
unworthy of its task; and yet, the very evils and abuses which are
rQost frequently denounced were largely brought about by external
causes, over which the popes had no command. The nationalism
which had been prominent at the Council of Constance (1414-1417)
asserted itself anew, as the century wore on, in a less democratic
shape. The power of national sovereigns was fast becoming abso-
lute, and was attempting to embrace the ecclesiastical province as
well. The attention of rulers was focused upon "policy," upon what
was purely human and temporal m the government of their states,
and they no longer even suspected the necessity of an independent
spiritual body. The administration of the Church must be solely in
their hands; and the pope must be content with the part of a chap-
lain, who might be allowed to preach, so long as he did not make
himself offensive, but who might not on any account be granted
actual powers of government.
Long before such theories were expounded by Bishop Stephen
Gardiner as a justification of the Anglican schism, they had been
put forward and acted upon by most sovereigns in Europe, even in
countries which were afterwards to be considered as the staunchest
supporters of the papacy. In 1498, Spam was threatening to break
off its allegiance to the Holy See, and Pope Alexander VI had to
placate the Spanish sovereigns by granting them supreme authority
over religious affairs within the whole extent of their dominions.
Later, in 1508, the Spanish government claimed and obtained full
rights of patronage over all churches in the West Indies. France
very nearly started a schism of her own at the time of the Council
of Pisa, convened by Louis XII (1511-1512). Venice went almost
to the same lengths. Not merely did the Signory, m the first decade
of the sixteenth century, arraign clerks before its tribunals the
question of clerical immunities being a debatable one but it went
the length of appointing to benefices and even to bishoprics, not
even allowing the pope to withhold confirmation of these acts.
Nor was this struggle to maintain the spiritual independence of
the Church the only difficulty that the Holy See had to contend
ANARCHY, THE DISEASE WITHIN THE CHURCH 15
with. Its liberty and the very life of the popes were constantly
threatened, in the late fifteenth century, and indeed within the very
walls of Rome, by feuds between powerful families, such as the
Orsinis and the Colonnas, who wished to have the pope in their
dependence. Maintenance of order in the papal dominions, or in the
Eternal City itself, was a formidable problem. The nobility of central
Italy was unruly and turbulent. The papacy was no better protected
against the undertakings of mightier neighbours. France, Spam, the
Empire, Venice, all wanted to extend their influence in the Penin-
sula, nibbled at the patrimony, took cardinals or Roman noblemen
m their pay, and raised rebellions against the Holy See when their
wishes were not complied with. Italy was overrun with foreign
armies. In the circumstances, since the papacy had no sufficient mili-
tary force at its disposal, the only possible policy was to play of? the
powers against each other, and to such a policy was Julius II re-
duced throughout the length of his pontificate (1503-1513).
Here again, the disorders of the times were reflected in a finan-
cial crisis. Huge sums were needed for the administration of the
universal Church, and for its defence against the Turkish invasion.
Now the older sources of income had well-nigh dried up. Extensive
parts of the patrimony had been usurped by the local nobility; feudal
dues, rents, and tributes were not forthcoming, or lost in value
through being farmed out. At the end of the fifteenth century, the
total produce of customs, salt taxes, and feudal dues amounted to
the wholly inadequate sum of 125,000 ducats. There was buf one way
out of the difficulty, the same one which both parish priests and
bishops had taken, and one which was not likely to make the
Church popular: namely, to raise the fees which were due to the
Holy See for its spiritual services. Apart from tenths, first fruits, and
various duties to be paid by the holders of benefices, the fees for
dispensations of different kinds were raised to twice their figure
from 1471 to 1515.
Unfortunately, this oppressive system of taxation, while breeding
much discontent, brought in far less than it ought to have done.
Sovereigns insisted on retaining their share of all subsidies granted
by their clergy to the papacy; the taxpayers took advantage of the
fact that as a rule no compulsion was available against them, while
tax-collectors, secretaries, and notaries of all descriptions retained
for their own use a large part of the sums paid in to them. Two-
16 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
thirds at least of the assessed moneys never reached the Curia at all.
The budget of the Apostolic Chamber, which was the centre of
papal administration, had fallen, in the space of sixty years preced-
ing the Reformation, from 300,000 to 150,000 ducats. On the eve of
the Reformation, the sum total of all papal revenues amounted only
to a maximum of 450,000 ducats, while in such a small kingdom as
Naples, the poll-tax alone brought in 600,000. In 1484, Pope Sixtus
IV had to pawn his tiara for 100,000 ducats. From 1471 to 1520 jthe
Holy See was constantly in debt. In fact, it had become impossible
to enforce a system of papal taxation throughout Europe, at a time
when the ideal of an united Christendom was being battered down
by the spirit of nationalism.
The dangers which threatened the independence of the papacy on
the one hand, and the financial straits to which it was reduced on
the other, account for many of the "abuses" which had creptiotq the
Curia. The position of the popes in the early sixteenth century can-
not be compared to what it is nowadays. European public opinion
might be devotedly loyal; but distance made it difficult for it to
count in Italy, while the papacy was really dependent on the play
and counterplay of intrigue and strife between Roman or Florentine
factions.
It was impossible for the popes not to engage in that intricate
game of local politics; and first of all, they were compelled to recruit
a body of faithful adherents, who were not likely to turn traitors.
Now, in a country where the ties of blood count for more than any
other bond, none were better fitted than the pontiffs own kinsmen
to form that bodyguard. Hence arose what has been so often
branded as "nepotism" hence, too, followed even the appointment
of juvenile cardinals, whom it was safe to attach to the papal for-
tunes as early as possible, and who did not always turn out to be
scapegraces.
There is less to be said in defence of the sale of ecclesiastical
offices, or even cardinals' hats, though this was but one of the make-
shifts used by Alexander VI to fill in his treasury. At the consistory
of May 31, 1503, nine cardinals were appointed, "most of them men
of slender reputation." Some of them had paid up to 20,000 ducats
and more, the total sum received amounting to 130,000 ducats. Such
simony, however, still failed to fulfil its purpose. Sixtus IV, Alex-
ANARCHY, THE DISEASE WITHIN THE CHURCH 17
ancler VI, Julius II, and even Leo X, were compelled to have re-
course to bankers. In 1513, the debt of Leo X to some of these rose to
125,000 ducats. Since the bankers such as the Medici at Florence,
the Donas at Genoa, the Fuggers at Augsburg naturally enough
wanted pledges, permission was given to their local branches to collect
the papal taxes directly. They even acted as intermediate agents be-
tween suitors for papal exemptions, dispensations, or benefices, and
the Holy See. Thus there arose a huckstering in properly religious
favours, which could but be detrimental to the good name of the
Church.
The situation was really the same in regard to the head of the
Church as to her limbs. The times were changing. A system of ad-
ministration, which had been possible and satisfactory as long as
Europe was spiritually united under the authority of the Holy See,
ceased to work altogether, once the disruptive spirit of lay statecraft
gained the upper hand. The worst of it was that the papacy itself,
being compelled to act less as an universal spiritual power than as a
second-rate Italian principality, became infected by the new spirit,
that of the pagan Renaissance, and tended to model itself on tem-
poral courts. Thus moral evils arose, which cannot on any account
be excused or justified. In fact, however, the most scandalous period
was not of very long duration, since it coincided with the pontificate
of Alexander VI, which lasted from 1492 to 1503. But the condition
of the papal court at the time might well give rise to righteous indig-
nation. The pope showered favours upon his children, especially on
Caesar Borgia; and the worst instance of his paternal generosity is
the lavish way in which he granted to his son, who needed much
money for his campaigns towards the enlargement of his dominions,
much of the sums brought in by the jubilee of 1500. Beside such a
misuse of the pope's power and such a betrayal of the trust shown
to him by the pilgrims, common immorality will fall almost flat.
Yet one imagines the impression produced on pious foreigners by
such events as the solemn festivities for the second wedding of Alex-
ander VI's daughter, Lucrece Borgia, one of the shows consisting in
licentious dances, at which the pope himself was a spectator.
The moral level of the Roman court was much higher during the
following pontificate, that of Julius II; nepotism disappeared, and
the revenues of the Holy See were no longer squandered. But ad-
1 8 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
mimstrative and financial malpractices were not discontinued. The
same old means were used to fill the papal treasury: the sale of
offices, of benefices, of indulgences. Ecclesiastical censures were
being constantly used for temporal purposes such as the recovery of
Bologna from the Venetians.
In short, the same thing had happened to the Church which
happens to most human societies. Without any deliberate evil inten-
tions on the part of anyone, abuses creep in, which are gradually
sanctioned by conservative habits and become almost respectable
through age. They no longer give rise to wonderment or protest,
and things are allowed to glide down the slope of perdition, the
more comfortably, as so many vested interests would suffer if a root-
and-branch reformation were undertaken. Only a man of uncom-
mon sanctity, enthusiasm, and clearsightedness is able to cope with
such a state of things; and in fact it did take a good many such men
to plan a new organization for the Church, and keep her abreast of
the times. They could hardly have succeeded, however, had Chris-
tendom been really corrupt at heart; but it was not. The material
was lying ready for the hand of the builders: Christian Europe was
rich in faith, chanty, and devotion.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
This chapter is very largely based on the beautiful work of P. Imbart
de la Tour, Les ongmes de la Reform?, torn. II (Pans, 1909), L'Eglise
catholique, la cnse ct la Renaissance. The writer is mainly concerned
with France, but the situation which he describes was in most respects
the same m other European countries. The book is one of remarkable
insight, intelligence, and clearness, -md should be consulted in every case
The whole question of the moral condition of the clergy in France about
the turn of the century is dealt with at length in the bulky and scholarly
work of Auguste Renaudet, Prereforme et humamsme a Pans pendant
les premieres guerres d'ltalie (1494-1517}, (Paris, 1916), Part I, the
conclusions of which may to some extent be questioned, but which pro-
vides a mass of material. For England, see Cardinal Francis Aidan
Gasquet, The Eve of the Reformation (London, 1900), which casts a
new light on a much-controverted question. Some particulars referring
to Germany have been borrowed from Johannes Janssen's standard work,
Geschichte des deutschen Voltes seit dem Ausgang des Mittelalters
(Freiburg-im-Breisgau, 1887), translated into English as: History of the
German People at the Close of the Middle-Ages, Herder, 16 vols., in
which, however, comparatively little is said regarding abuses. On the
ANARCHY, THE DISEASE WITHIN THE CHURCH 19
Councils of Basle and Constance and the general condition of Christen-
dom in the fifteenth century, see the excellent first volume of Ludwig
von Pastor, Gcschichte der Pdpste seit dem Ausgang des Mittelalters
(Freiburg-im-Breisgau, 1901), or Vols. I and II of the English transla-
tion by Frederick Ignatius Antrobus, of the London Oratory, The His-
tory of the Popes from the Close of the Middle-Ages (London, 1891).
CHAPTER II
Early Reactions Against Disease in the Church
HOWEVER deplorable the abuses which we have described,
their influence upon the faithful was far less than
might at first be expected. They persevered in the straight
path despite faulty institutions. This is clearly shown by a
careful study of the religious literature, the piety and mysticism, the
parish life, and the very Church a'chitecture and decorative art o
the period. The impression arrived at is not that of spiritual im-
poverishment, but on the contrary, almost that of a Renaissance.
Indeed we may safely draw conclusions from the type of books
which were turned out by the first printers, who like those of to-day
had an eye upon vSales. Out of 54 works published in England by
Wynkyn de Worde between 1490 and 1500, 30 have a religious
theme. While the English public seems to have had a preference
for the lives of saints, numerous editions of the Bible appeared in
Germany, France, and Italy, where the Fwrettt of St. Francis were
also especially popular. Mystical and ascetical treatises were many,
the Imitation being, of course, foremost among them; but there was
a blossoming forth of countless other works of the same description:
Pilgrimages and Hills and Ladders of Perfection, Gardens and
Guides and Consolations of the soul.
This flowering of fifteenth-century devotion was to have a con-
siderable influence upon the mystical writers of the Catholic Refor-
mation, especially St. Ignatius Loyola. It is manifested not merely
in printed volumes, but also in the private correspondence, pious
effusions, diaries, commonplace books, and the wills of contemporar-
ies. A magistrate of Florence, Feo Belcan, who died m 1484, wrote,
among other works, a letter for his daughter's edification. In it he
says:
EARLY REACTIONS AGAINST THE DISEASE 21
"Lowliness is a priceless treasure and a gift of God. It is an abyss
of self-humiliation, against which the powers of darkness may not
prevail, a tower of strength raised in the face of the foe. Lowliness
is a divine protection and guard, a veil before our mind's eye, which
screens from our sight our own merits and our own virtues; it is the
perfection of faith and purity. Penance lifts up the soul, suffering
brings her to the gates of Heaven, lowliness throws them open.
Amongst the means of reaching lowliness, the Holy Fathers name
bodily pains, and St. John Scholasticus says that it is reached through
obedience, simplicity of heart and whatever checks pride. There are
also other ways which lead to it: as for instance, poverty, pilgrim-
ages, the concealing of one's own knowledge, simplicity in speech,
begging for alms, manual labour, taking no account of one's high
rank, restraint in talk, mistrust of men, trust in the Saviour alone.
Meditation on death, Judgment day, and the passion of Jesus-Christ
also gives birth to lowliness. It breeds in the soul mildness, gentle-
ness, devotion, patience, peace, cheerfulness, obedience, sym-
pathy, and chiefly a zeal free from sadness and an unwearying
vigilance. . . ."
We have quoted this passage in full because it brings home to us
the general tone of a period in which the evangelical spirit held its
own against the pagan Renaissance. The same quality of sweetness
and peace is found in England about the same time. A Yorkshire
will of 1507 begins with the following words:
"In the name of the most blessed and holy Trinity, the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Ghost, one God almighty and everlasting, of
whom is all, by whom is all, and in whom is all; I Walter Cawood,
inwardly remembering that all men living have here no city abid-
ing, but be as pilgrims passing toward the promised city of Heaven
by this temporal and wretched life, not sure of the hour nor time
when the Lord of the house shall come, late at midnight, or early;
lest that death, as a thief, unawares might throw adown this house
of my earthly living, that at the coming of the great Spouse, when
His pleasure shall be to call me, I be not found sleeping, willing
therefore to dispose me through the gracious assistance of Almighty
God in all things to His pleasure. ... I recommend and bequeathe
my sinful soul to Almighty God my maker and redeemer, to His
blessed mother and virgin Saint Mary, my whole trust and succour
after God, and to the holy company of Heaven. . . ."
22 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
As far as can be ascertained, all the wills of that time are couched
in the same style, and begin with the same pious exhortations, fol-
lowed by considerable bequests for the churches and the worship
conducted within them, for prayers and Masses, and for good works
of all kinds. Nor were the well-to-do alone generous. One is touched,
even now, by the will of the poor woman of Northallerton, who left
"a towel to the high altar and a brass-pot to the church."
There is indeed something especially simple and graceful about
the period, which is reflected in its religious architecture. The
effusiveness of personal piety gracefully combined with the growing
prosperity of the times to produce a new type of art, naive and skil-
ful at the same time, rich and yet restrained, tender and fanciful.
Everywhere churches were being built or repaired; hundreds of
these are still extant in central and southern Germany, while even
in half-civilized northern Germany, some forty were built on the
"eve of the Reformation." The marvellous churches and chapels of
Brittany mostly date back to the same period, to which also belongs
such a finished masterpiece as Notre-Dame de I'Epme in Cham-
pagne. England, as usual more solemn and stately, evolved the per-
pendicular style, which is exemplified in the wonderful chapel of
King's College at Cambridge, and Henry VIFs chapel in West-
minster Abbey. Nowhere is the spirit of the early sixteenth century
better revealed than in its painted glass as found for instance in the
cathedral at Moulms or in Notre-Dame church at Chalons-sur-
Marne. The happy, elegant blending of late Gothic and Classical
motifs in the frames and setting; the range, richness, depth, and
delicacy of the colouring; the airy lighting of the backgrounds;
the intense devoutness of the feeling, especially m the kneeling
portraits of the donors all these combine to produce a mixed im-
pression of beauty, serenity, and peace; of artistic refinement and
spiritual perfection, greater even than those suggested by the half-
Eastern gorgeousness of the thirteenth century.
The artistic beauty of the churches had its counterpart in the spir-
itual beauty of the home, which remained a safe shelter for reli-
gious truth and piety. Many treatises and books of devotion provided
rules for the everyday life of families and for the education of
children. In the Austrian Road to Heaven the head of the family is
exhorted to attend the sermon and recall it after dinner with his
home-folk.
EARLY REACTIONS AGAINST THE DISEASE 23
"Then he sits at home with his good wife and with his children
and his servantfolk, and asks them what they remember of the
sermon, and tells them what he himself remembers. He questions
them also, whether they know and understand the ten command-
ments, the seven deadly sins, the Our Father and the Creed, and
teaches them. Finally he has a little drink brought in for them, and
makes them sing a charming little hymn referring to God, to Our
Lady or to the dear Saints, and rejoices in God with all his
home-folk."
This charming and homely picture of an Austrian household is
not the only one of its kind. Italian families were being advised,
about the same time, though in a somewhat soberer key, by St.
Antonine, in words like the following: "When you go visiting
abroad, even to see relatives, speak as little as possible, and only if
you are compelled to do so. ... Do not fail to watch over your
children, so that they may live in the fear of God, and keep aloof
from evil society. Guard yourself from evil not merely in your
actions, but in your thoughts as well."
The same spiritual ideal inspired the corporate life of tradesmen
and craftsmen to an extent which might surprise many Christians
nowadays. The guilds in which they assembled were more than
trade unions coupled with mutual insurance companies: they had
a higher purpose, attending to the religious as well as to the tem-
poral interests of their members. For those of their members who
died, they had Masses sung m their own chantries. They had prayer
meetings before the statues of the Virgin or saints, such as that
gathering in the streets of Amiens which surprised Bucer so much
as late as 1549. They went on pilgrimages. Those of Our Lady of
Walsingham in England, of Loretto and Assisi in Italy, were in fact
still extremely popular in the early sixteenth century. Moreover, the
statutes of Italian guilds often made it compulsory for their mem-
bers to go to confession two or three times a year, to refrain from
swearing, to hear Mass on Sundays and feast days, to keep a devout
attitude in the house of God, and to remain in it until the very end
of the divine office.
Though the administrative confusion which prevailed in the
Church made it harder for the clergy to perform their duties, one
should not believe that the churches were silent and the pulpits
empty. Once again we may turn to the early productions of the
24 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
printing press. In England, among the first books published by
Caxton, we find a number of collections of sermons; the old Quat-
tuor Sermones of 1281 ran through no fewer than seven English
editions between 1493 and 1499. In Germany, the sermons of the
Dominican, Johann Herolt, had been printed forty-one times before
1500, which implies a sale of forty thousand copies. One should also
remember that, besides direct preaching, many other means were
used to teach the lay folk. The list of early printed books includes
catechisms, such as that of the German friar, Dedench Colde, which
dates back to 1470.
At no period of Church history had the biblia idiotarum, the
"books of the unlettered" painted windows, frescoes, tapestries,
and more frequently still stone-carvings assumed such an impor-
tance in church decoration. The vanity of this world and the
supreme importance of the hereafter is especially insisted on, as in
the frequent theme of the "dance of death," of which the wonderful
wall-painting in the abbey of La Chaise-Dieu in Auvergne provides
such a haunting instance. At the same time religious drama was
reaching a high degree of perfection, and remained true to its
original purpose. The mystery plays flourished in the late fifteenth
and early sixteenth centuries. The huge composition known as the
Old Testament was published m France about 1500, while the still
vaster Acts of the Apostles of Arnould and Simon Greban were
printed in 1538. The parliament of Paris stopped the performance of
mystery plays only in 1548, while in Italy, as late as 1517, a guild of
religious players was founded by the Dominicans at Pistoja, and
performed the life of the Virgin Mary, to the great edification of the
townspeople.
In a Europe which was imbued so deeply with the spirit of the
Gospel, it would be surprising indeed if no reforming efforts were
to have been registered prior to the advent of Lutheramsm. In fact,
such efforts were constantly being made between 1450 and 1520,
and often with a measure of success. They were a prefiguration of
the Trentme plan, but they were frustrated by political circum-
stances, and most of all by the temporal and spiritual weakness of
the Holy See. Among the huge body of the regular clergy, the
monastic ideal was far from having spent all its strength. The
Carthusians were famous for the holiness of their lives both m Eng-
land and in Germany, where the Charterhouse at Cologne was con-
EARLY REACTIONS AGAINST THE DISEASE 25
sidered as "offering to all religious orders a pattern of perfect
ascetical discipline." The attraction of their spiritual life was felt at
the English court; and it will be remembered that St. Thomas More
spent "four years among them, dwelling near the Charterhouse,
frequenting daily their spiritual exercises . . ." and that "for the
religious state he had an ardent desire, and thought for a time of
becoming a Franciscan."
In Italy, the movement which was to bring about the birth of
new orders, amidst the very turmoil of the battle against Luther,
had begun twenty years at least before the Reformation. At Vicenza
in 1494, at Genoa in 1497, brotherhoods had been founded, which
were a link between the Franciscan and the Jesuit schemes of reli-
gious life. It is significant that the "Oratory of Divine Love" of
Gaetano da Thiene, which was to develop into the Theatme Order,
and exert such an influence upon the Catholic Reformation, was
founded just one year before Luther posted up his theses on the
gates of Wittenberg castle.
The partiality shown by the popes themselves to various religious
orders may well be an instance of mistaken zeal, since it led to the
weakening of the authority of the hierarchy. Yet the Holy See was
no doubt right in thinking that the vitality of monastic life, if main-
tained, would strengthen the militant spirit in the Church. It would
be tedious to rehearse the many favours granted to the regulars,
even in the darkest days of pagan sensuousness at Rome, by Sixtus
IV, Alexander VI, and Julius II. They began with Sixtus IV's bull
Marc magnum (1474) which granted to the Franciscans exceptional
faculties for preaching, hearing confessions, and burying the dead
in their churches. It seems obvious that the popes, especially while
protecting the friars, wished to further the work of the most active
section of the Church; and one is struck by the fact that in many
cases, the orders which they encouraged followed an austere rule
inspired by burning piety. Such was the case of the Minims, the
Tertiaries attached to them, the Brothers of the Common Life, and
the Apostolic Brothers. Besides, reform and re-union were fre-
quently attempted by the popes in the case of the larger orders:
the Franciscans (under Sixtus IV), the Dominicans (under Alex-
ander VI), the Benedictines (under Julius II).
However, no real reformation of the regular clergy was possible
so long as the practice of exemptions made each order and within
26 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
each order each house practically independent. In fact, while
granting favours to individual monasteries, the popes, far from
strengthening their authority, as they believed, really played into
the hands of what remained of the conciliar party. Viewing things as
a whole, the conciliar movement had tended to the breaking up of
the Church, not merely into nations, but also into numberless separ-
ate units. Those who stood against the supreme authority of the
pope and hierarchy were generally defending privileges, which in
most cases were no better than abuses. At all events, they were pro-
viding safe hiding holes for all kinds of moral evils. The point is an
important one, and is perfectly illustrated in the happenings of the
mid-fifteenth century, when Pope Nicholas V attempted with great
earnestness the general reformation of the Church. His purpose was
manifested in the full support which he lent to the popular preacher,
St. John of Capistrano. He also sent Cardinal Guillaume d'Estoute-
ville to France, where he was to reform the collegiate churches,
schools, and universities, and in fact, did give new statutes to Pans
University. But both the evils to be amended and the resistance to
correction on the part of privileged bodies are best revealed in the
mission of Cardinal Nicholas de Cusa, a Rhinelander, who in his
capacity as a papal legate ranged over the whole of Austria and Ger-
many in the years 1451 and 1452.
The main object of his mission was to proclaim and distribute the
indulgence granted for the Jubilee of 1450; but he had received
extensive powers of visitation and reformation and, in the course of
a series of provincial synods, issued many drastic regulations. The
evils he had to deal with were those which have been described
above. He took steps against the exactions of secular or regular
patrons and endeavoured to improve the financial condition of the
parish clergy, who in their turn were to refrain from simony in
every shape, such as the receiving of fees for confession. The prac-
tice of keeping concubines had become widespread, especially
among cathedral chapters, the members of which belonged to the
nobility. Nicholas de Cusa forbade it under the severest penalties.
Spurious indulgences, miracles, and pilgrimages, the unnecessary
swarming of brotherhoods which withdrew their members from
parish life, and generally all petty devotions inspired by supersti-
tion, were no less summarily dealt with. Visitors were sent to many
monasteries, reforming movements like that of Bursfeld were en-
EARLY REACTIONS AGAINST THE DISEASE 27
couraged. Where compliance was not forthcoming, new abbots were
substituted for those who refused to obey. A further impulse was
given to preaching; all parish priests were ordered to have a copy of
St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa of the articles of the faith and of the
sacraments of the church. Rules were prescribed for the dignity of
public worship and against the undue exposition of the Blessed
Sacrament.
That all those decrees might actually be enforced, Nicholas de
Cusa did his best to strengthen the powers of the pope and of the
hierarchy. He ordered all priests to recite after every Mass the fol-
lowing invocation : "O Lord, guard from all adversity Thy servants
our pope and our bishop, as well as the whole Catholic Church."
He safeguarded the rights of bishops' courts against archdeacons.
He compelled non-exempt monks to acknowledge episcopal author-
ity, and in one case, at least, made use of the latter even for the
reformation of exempt monasteries.
All in all, his work anticipated, on many points, that of the Coun-
cil of Trent by a hundred years. Why, then, was its effect only tem-
porary? The reasons for its failure are easily ascertained, and pro-
vide food for thought. In fact, the very same causes which stood in
the way of Catholic Reformation in the fifteenth century were to
bring about the Protestant revolt in the sixteenth^ was greed, the
thirst for power, and the lusts of the flesh, which induced one gen-
eration of princes to support every local resistance to Rome, and
perpetuate abuses which no centralized Church would have toler-
ated. It was greed, the thirst for power, and the lusts of the flesh
which induced another generation of princes to take up the so-called
Reformation into their own hands, and to tear up the body of the
Church$|ln either case "independence" meant freedom from all
spiritual restraints. 1
Despite the efforts of Nicholas de Cusa, the spirit of nationalism
would not allow of any sums being sent to Rome for indulgences
or otherwise; the mendicant friars were hostile; so was the con-
ciliar party. Besides, those whose conduct had been reproved often
put up a more or less open fight. Hemold, abbot of St. Godeshard
at Hildesheim, after having sworn obedience, went on living in his
1 The above judgement applies to temporal rulers only. The real moral earnestness
or many leformers, especially after the fir^t phase ot the religious struggle was over,
will certainly not be questioned here.
28 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
old way. At Dedclmgen, when a reformer was sent to the monas-
tery, the monks broke his carnage to pieces; at St. Ulric, Augsburg,
an emissary from the reformed abbey of Melk was imprisoned for
a fortnight. The alliance between the vested interests of the clergy
and the secular power appeared clearly when Nicholas de Cusa
was consecrated to the episcopal see of Brixen in the Tyrol, and at-
tempted to correct the abuses in his diocese. He made it compulsory
for his parish clergy lo meet in chapters thrice yearly; unified the
liturgy; and warned the faithful against the beautiful tales of the
Golden Legend. But when he undertook to reform the nunnery at
Sonnenburg, where many daughters of the nobility had found a
home, he came up against the determined will of the temporal
ruler, the duke of Tyrol, Sigismund, who refused to acknowledge
any authority but his own. A quarrel ensued, m the course of which
the duke more than once had recourse to violence; it was to assume
huge proportions and to last many years, and we are not concerned
with its history. But Nicholas de Cusa's own view of the position is
significant. In his mind, the freedom of the Church was the nec-
essary condition of its reformation; no reforming bishop ought to be
a court prelate, the compliant servant of a temporal ruler. He in-
duced Pope Nicholas V to define in the following words the duties
of the bishops of Bnxen: "They shall be neither the chancellors nor
chaplains of secular princes, but will be bound to reside in their
diocese."
The efforts of Nicholas V were continued for some time by his
successor Pius II (1458-1464) under whose pontificate Cusa admin-
istered the papal states in the same spirit in which he had governed
his diocese and composed a plan for the reformation of the Curia.
Unfortunately, the evangelical ideal was gradually being smothered
at Rome by the enthusiasm which ancient literature, philosophy, and
art were arousing, and various feeble attempts to improve the state
of the Church at large proved abortive. Alexander VI, when struck
with awe and repentance by the murder of his son, the duke of
Gandia, resolved to mend matters. He called up a committee of
cardinals to prepare a general reformation, and drafted a bull
against abuses (1497). But it was, alas, never to take effect. At last
a sincere and well-meaning man, Pius III, was raised to the papal
EARLY REACTIONS AGAINST THE DISEASE 29
throne; but his untimely death (1503) frustrated his schemes. When
reading the history of the period, one has almost the uneasy and
painful impression that a perverse fate was set on defeating all
reforming plans, and that things would never come to a head.
Yet, in the absence of guidance from above, individual move-
ments for the betterment of Church conditions had begun in several
countries. These movements anticipated the Catholic Reformation
proper, insofar as they tried to restore morality in the Church; but
they were different from it, insofar as they merely looked back-
wards, expecting salvation merely from a general restoration of the
old forms of discipline, especially in the monasteries; and took no
account of altered conditions, which made adaptation a necessity.
Savonarola's attempt to establish the kingdom of Christ at Florence
(1481-1498) was in fact but the reaction of mediaevalism against the
Renaissance. In France, the conservative wing of the reforming
party could think of no remedies but a reinforcement of the strict
rule in the various religious orders, and a reversion to the old
system of elections throughout the Church, culminating in general
councils of a parliamentary type. And yet, though it was not realized
that a new world demanded new methods, important results were
obtained; and it is not a little significant that this true reformation
should have taken place twenty years at least before Luther.
At the French States General of 1484, the representatives of the
clergy raised a protest against those very administrative malpractices
which were the cause of corruption, ignorance, and superstition in
the Church. The Provincial Council of Sens (July, 1485) issued a
whole set of canons on public worship, monastic discipline, against
excessive taxation and the disorderly life of clerics. In Paris, the
principal of Montaigu College, Jean Standonck, mystic and scholar,
gathered around him a circle of reforming spirits. Similar groups
began to appear everywhere, with abbots and bishops as their heads,
Their influence soon spread to the civil authorities and to royalty
itself. It culminated in the general assembly of the French clerg)
which met at Tours on November 12, 1493. There the sores of the
Church were laid bare: the peddling of holy things, the abuse oi
indulgences and collections, various forms of simony, the wandering
about of monks, the ignorance of preachers, the exactions of eccle
siastical judges; all these being due originally to the neglect of ok
canons, to the fact that no synods were held, to the granting o
30 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
benefices to unworthy persons, to exemptions and dispensations, and
the holding of benefices in commendam.
At the same time the French king, Charles VIII, applied to the
pope for his help towards the enforcement of the decisions of the
assembly; and on July 24, 1496, Alexander VI appointed three
Benedictine abbots as visitors of all the French houses of the order.
But spontaneous reformation had already begun. Several bishops
called up synods, as at Langres, Chartres, Nantes, Troyes, and
undertook to improve matters in various monasteries. The move-
ment was gathering momentum among the religious communities
themselves. At Cluny, from 1481 to 1486, the general chapters under-
took the work of concentration. In 1486, statutes were issued for the
restoration of the rule, the re-enforcement of fasting, silence, and
the common life. Steps were taken to help materially decayed
houses, and to apply part of the revenues to the repair of monastic
buildings. In 1494, the chapter organized visitations and prescribed
a minute inquiry into every detail of the life in the monasteries.
The visitors were empowered to suspend and excommunicate
abbots or priors if they rebelled against them. Still harsher measures
were taken in 1499. The reforming action was continued right up
to the appearance of Protestantism. A similar process took place at
Citeaux, Tiron, and elsewhere.
The pressure brought to bear upon Rome by the reforming
movement made itself felt more and more after 1500. On the request
of King Louis XII, Pope Alexander VI granted to Cardinal d'Am-
boise full powers as a legate in France in 1501. The Cardinal under-
took the reformation of the mendicant orders. He had to struggle
against huge difficulties, and had recourse more than once to main
force. In order to effect the reformation of the Benedictine abbey of
St. Germain in Paris, he sent to it two religious from Cluny accom-
panied by a party of men-at-arms, who forcibly and without any
parley expelled three recalcitrant monks. In the case of the Paris
Franciscans, he had to send to them a company of one hundred
archers and several sergeants, who put them under arrest and
threatened them with expulsion. The method used by him in France
was the same as was being used beyond the Channel: it con-
sisted in furthering the action of reformed branches, such as that of
the Observant Franciscans. In England King Edward IV had estab-
lished them at Greenwich in 1480. Henry VII founded another
EARLY REACTIONS AGAINST THE DISEASE 31
house at Richmond, and another again at Newark, in 1499; then
turned out unreformed Conventuals to make room for them at
Newcastle, Southampton, and Canterbury. In 1502, the Greenwich
Observants prevailed upon the Conventuals to "change their reli-
gious habits" for coarser ones. In France, Cardinal d'Amboise in-
troduced small groups of them into each Franciscan house. He did
the same sort of thing in the case of the independent Benedictine
abbeys, restored moral and financial discipline among the nuns of
Fontevrault and other houses, and finally gathered detached monas-
teries into unions or bound them to existing orders. His religious
dictatorship, which lasted nine years, produced lasting results.
As the Protestant outbreak drew near, the Church in France, as
in England, seems to have been, not on a downward, but on an
upward slope. New ecclesiastical buildings of all descriptions were
being built or repaired. The number of ordained clerics, secular and
regular, was steadily increasing. In Seez diocese, it rose from 270 in
1445, to 840 in 1470, 902 in 1490, 1086 in 1510, and 1196 in 1514; and
the same was true at Rouen and Toulouse. The progress was no
less notable in regard to quality, the proportion of university grad-
uates and members of the bourgeoisie and nobility also rising
higher and higher.
Yet the regular clergy had put up a hard fight against Cardinal
d'Amboise; and once the reforming movement had spread to Rome,
and had brought about the gathering of the Later an Council, that
same resistance of vested interests was to bring its impulse into
immobility. The council first met on May 2, 1512, and after lasting
through twelve sessions broke up on March 12, 1517. It was clear
from the first that the Fathers were alive to the needs of changed
times. Two points were made clear by the speakers: first, that the
temporal overlordship of the Holy See had to be set aside and to be
replaced by agreements made with each sovereign and safeguarding
the interests of religion; secondly, that the spiritual supremacy of
the papacy was a necessary preliminary to any general reformation.
In his sermon at the opening of the first session, Giles of Viterbo
advised the Church to give up the use of material weapons, and to
confine herself to that of spiritual weapons, piety and prayer, the
cuirass of faith and the sword of light; while on May 10, the Vene-
tian, Bernardino Zano, preached on the unity of the Church, which
could only be ensured, he said, through the submission of the limbs
32 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
to their head, the Vicar of Christ. On May 17, Thomas Cajetan
further stressed the necessity of papal authority, and made an on-
slaught upon conciliar theories, and especially upon the council of
Pisa, which had been called by the French king, Louis XII, No
voice among the assembled Fathers was raised to assail his views.
In fact, the Lateran Council did succeed in giving effect to these
two principles when sanctioning the Concordat of 1516 with France,
which gave the death-blow to conciliansm there, and ensured spir-
itual supremacy to the Holy See. But in regard to Church reforma-
tion, it did not probe the sore to the bottom, and was content with
timid, though well-meaning, recommendations. It did pass a decree
with the following provisions: that bishoprics and abbacies should
be conferred only upon worthy persons and according to canonical
rules; that resignations, transfers, dispensations, and reservations
should be limited; that cardinals and members of the Curia should
adopt a stricter rule of life. But when thorough reformation of the
administrative and fiscal systems of the Church was suggested, the
assembly split up into two parties, and it was soon clear that nothing
drastic would be done. A quarrel arose between seculars and reg-
ulars, especially over the bull Mare magnum; eventually the powers
of the bishops were somewhat strengthened. But the general atmos-
phere seems to have been lukewarm. It was a pity that France,
England, and Germany should have been practically absent from the
council; their moral earnestness and their critical temperament
might have altered matters. Unfortunately the Italian wars allowed
of no general gathering.
While the Lateran Fathers struggled feebly with the difficulties
of the hour, things were developing on new lines elsewhere. Leo X
was giving proof of his clearsightedness and political sense in the
matter of the French Concordat. It seems surprising, at first sight,
that he should have relinquished into the hands of a temporal ruler
so much of his properly spiritual authority. The king of France
was henceforth to appoint to all ecclesiastical livings and prefer-
ments, while the pope would be allowed to veto such appointments
only if the canonical rules had been infringed. The moral influence
and wealth of the Gallican Church were thus placed at the disposal
of the sovereign. At the same time Leo X, while striking a bargain
of doubtful advantage to the future interests of the Church at large,
was trying to turn it to the best possible account, by inserting
EARLY REACTIONS AGAINST THE DISEASE 33
clauses which were to ensure the reformation of the French clergy,
even more so than the Lateran decrees. The very nature of the
agreement did away with all papal reservations and expectative
graces. University graduates were to have one third of the benefices.
Excommunication and interdict were henceforth to be used only in
certain specified cases. The most important provision by far was that
which forbade seculars to hold regular benefices and the reverse.
Steps were taken against concubmary priests. In each cathedral or
metropolitan church, a canonry was now reserved for a graduate in
theology, who was bound to lecture to the faithful at least once a
week on Holy Scripture.
Leo X dealt similarly with other countries as well. Though tem-
poral princes were later to make use of his very concessions to bar
the way to the reforming action of the Council of Trent, it cannot
be denied that, for the time being, his policy had beneficial effects.
In the case of France, by granting the king extremely wide powers
over his Church, it took away from him the main reason he might
have had of joining hands with the German princes or with Henry
VIII and declaring a schism; it also bound him to the interests of the
Holy See, and made him the foremost instrument of reformation
in his dominions. Besides, by ensuring the removal of the most
blatant abuses and the spiritual health of the French Church, it de-
prived Protestantism of its chief grievances, and made it difficult
for it to gam a firm foothold. In the case of Spam, Leo X respected
the ecclesiastical independence of the realm, thus attaching it to the
papacy. He granted many privileges to Portugal, and concluded an
agreement with Poland, much on the same lines as the French
Concordat. Had the latter been extended to England and Germany,
the greed of princes would have been everywhere sated, and the
theological revolt of Luther would have been deprived of all State
support. Within its limits, the policy of Leo X appears as wise and
full of foresight; and it has done much to lessen the effects of the
Protestant outbreak.
* * *
"Policy" alone, however, could not repair the ruins heaped up by
more than one century of maladministration and moral decay.
Devotion, sacrifice, enthusiasm were needed, as also a feeling of
deep remorse for what had been wrong in the past. These fine quali-
ties indeed had not disappeared, since the spirit of reform was at
34 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
work everywhere; but they would not have been sufficient, if men
had only looked backwards, had only attempted the re-enforcement
of the old rules and canons, a reversion to early monasticism and
to the disciplinary practice of the Middle Ages. The changes which
had taken place could not be ignored, and reformation must now
develop along new lines. It had to take into account, not merely the
division of Europe into national units, but also the cultural, literarv,
and artistic development brought about by the Renaissance, which
could not be ignored.
In other words, while no amendment of Church conditions was
possible without an evangelical revival, that revival must consist
mostly in chastening the spirit of the times, must be a combination
of a cultured Christianity and a christianized Renaissance. This
combination, which was to be the essence of the Catholic Reforma-
tion, had its root as early as the late fifteenth century in the move-
ment known as Christian humanism. It was the natural reaction of
the genuine piety of the body of the Church against corruption in
its head. Its progress was to be simultaneous with the progress of
the reforming party; its representatives were slowly to force their
way into the College of Cardinals, the curial offices, and eventually
to conquer the papacy itself; and it was then that their efforts were
to mature and bear fruit in the Council of Trent, while they also
inspired the work of the Society of Jesus.
The task which the Christian humanists set out to perform was a
new and original one. The harm which had been done by the
Renaissance, they thought, must be undone by the Renaissance. Nor
was the duty thus to be fulfilled such an ungracious one; for there
was much which was of lasting value in the speculative philosophy
and practical everyday wisdom of antiquity, in its perfection of
literary form and artistic beauty. There was much also which might
be used to help in the strengthening and spreading of Christianity.
For one thing, the labours of profound study might be reconciled
with Christian seriousness of mind. Then again, antiquity might be
viewed as having had at least glimpses of the absolute truth; and
to that extent, its teachings might still be profitable. Why not learn,
Erasmus wrote, "holiness from Phocio, poverty from Fabricius . . . ,
magnanimity from Camilus, sternness from Brutus, cleanness from
Pythagoras, steady temperance from Socrates, integrity from Cato?"
The poets of ancient Greece and Rome were in various respects
EARLY REACTIONS AGAINST THE DISEASE 35
worthy of imitation, for despite the pagan fables in their works,
they had felt, at least obscurely, the beauty of divine things. Ancient
philosophers yearned for communion with the absolute perfection
of the Godhead. Plato especially is almost a forerunner of Christian
theology and mysticism. Besides, antiquity should not be wholly
identified with false beliefs. It had its Christian period, which lasted
for centuries. St. Paul himself was a Greek writer of note; and the
first Christian interpretation of the ancient world was supplied by
the. Fathers of the Church. The Christian humanists of the late fif-
teenth and early sixteenth centuries were but following suit: they
gathered, from antiquity before the Revelation, enough knowledge
to serve them as a guide for the study of antiquity after the Revela-
tion of the sacred texts and patristic literature.
This attempt to seek Christianity even in pagan Greece and
Rome, to rescue the Church through the very means which had
produced her downfall, may seem somewhat paradoxical; and in-
deed it did, upon occasion, run to lengths which are to be deplored,
were it but in the name of good taste. Besides, it was to be feared
that the flaming ideal of apostleship might be damped by the
classical philosophy of the golden mean. But the danger was not as
yet a real one. The Christian humanists ardently wished for a reli-
gious revival. They aimed at a true reformation not merely a
correction of abuses, but a cleansing and a lifting up of hearts,
grounded on a more sincere acquiescence in the Gospel, a deeper
love of Christ. They did not want every man to set up as a theolo-
gian; but they wanted him to read the Bible humbly and piously,
and to gather from it spiritual truths. They insisted on the impor-
tance of preaching the right sort of preaching: not by means of
divisions and distinctions of the scholastic type, but sweetly, kindly,
m words that all might grasp, that might win through love rather
than strike with fear. In this respect they were decidedly different
from the early Protestants, both in Germany and England;
though they have often been said to have unwittingly been their
forerunners. 2
2 Such was the theory defended in 1869 by Frederic Seebohm m his book entitled
The Oxfoid reformers, John Colet, Etasmus and Thomas More, being a history of
their fellow-work^ It has been brought forward again more recently, for instance in
History of religions, Vol. II (International theological library), Edinburgh, 1920, by
George Foot Moore, professor of the histoiy of religions in Harvard University. That
humanism is not to be confused with the Reformation has been conclusively shown
by Cardinal Gasquet in his Eve of the Reformation.
36 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
Calling "Pre-Reformers" all those who attempted to improve the
state of religion before Luther is a common enough mistake. But
whatever we know of the deeper feelings of the Christian human-
ists runs clear against such a view of things. It cannot be shown thai
they ever took up the theological position of the Protestants, or that
they shared their political or social views. Erasmus clearly asserted
that works must be conjoined with faith in the task of salvation,
and both he and Lefevre d'Etaples looked up .to the pope as the
supreme head of Christendom. It is true that they themselves, as
well as their school devoted much time to the critical study of the
Scriptures. But what likeness is there between the patient efforts oi
scholars to elucidate, through linguistic and historical research, the
true meaning of the sacred texts, and the free interpretation of those
same texts, through the "Spirit," which the Protestants claimed as a
right for everyone of the faithful, however unlearned he might be?
It is true also that the Christian humanists denounced intellectual
evils, and attempted to substitute for the debased remnants of me-
diaeval theology a new type of religious culture, both more enlight-
ened in its thought and more evangelical in its spirit. In so doing,
however, they laid the groundwork, not for the Protestant but for
the Catholic Reformation.
Thus were the gentle wisdom, the temperate persuasiveness of the
best among the ancients outward tokens, now, of a love of Christ
which was anything but merely moderate made to spread the
teachings of Christ. The aim which the Christian humanists had
before their eyes, when reviving classical studies, was strikingly ex-
pressed by the German scholar, Trithemius: "The ancient authors
we are engaged m reading," he says, "should be for us but the
means of reaching a higher goal. We may with a clear conscience
recommend the study of such books to all those who wish to take
it up, not in a worldly spirit and with a view to witty trifles, but
for the earnest development of their intellectual faculties, seeking in
it, according to the example of the Holy Fathers, ripe fruits for the
improvement of Christian knowledge. Nay, such studies, in our
judgment, are necessary for this purpose." Indeed there are thus
spoke Johannes Butzbach "in the ancient authors many descrip-
tions which hurt moral delicacy, but we may not on that account
dispense with the study of the classics. Only we should as far as
possible, and according to the advice of St. Basil, go to work as the
EARLY REACTIONS AGAINST THE DISEASE 37
bees do, that do not suck in the whole of the plants or the poison
that is m them, but absorb only the honey."
Three quarters of a century later, one of the refugees at Douay
College was to use words almost similar to these, when referring to
the educational scheme of the Jesuits. Grounding the teaching of
the young upon the study of the classics, and especially of classical
form rather than substance, might lead to superficiality and dryness;
it did, in fact, have that result after a certain length of time, when
the enthusiasm of the Renaissance had given way to a humdrum
routine. But our present point is that the Jesuit plan, in all its
essentials, was already outlined m the educational practice of the
Christian humanists. Ancient literature was set up as an absolute
ideal, which it was not possible to improve upon. Only through imi-
tation of it could perfection in prose or poetry be attained. The
subject-matter of each work was to remain Christian; but its out-
ward form ought to be thoroughly classical.
Many treatises were printed to teach adult or juvenile scholars
the principles of grammar and eloquence, as expounded by the
ancients. Thus the French humanist, Gaguin, the author of a poem
on the Immaculate Conception, also wrote a handbook for poets
called Ars versificatona; and another French humanist of a some-
what later generation, Clichtoue, who was to wage a controversial
war against the Lutherans, published with his own commentaries
the DC eloquentia of Stefano Fieschi and the Opusculum in elegan-
tianum praecepta of Agostmo Dathi. Schoolboys and students soon
had at their disposal a number of fine editions of the classics, of
dictionaries and grammars. That this was not merely a lay move-
ment, and that pagan antiquity was made to help m the study of
Christian literature, appears from the syllabus of a German parish
school, of the year 1500 or so; it included the Iliad, Aesop's Fables,
Terence, the Aenetd, Cicero's De Amicitia but also the historical
part of the Old Testament, the Gospel and the Acts, works of Boece,
St. Jerome, and St. Basil.
Though "imitation" might become superficial after a time, the
mingling of all that was best in classical culture with all that was
best in Christian piety, on the "eve of the Reformation," produced a
particularly attractive type of religion. Clear minds, freed from all
the lumber of decadent scholasticism, temperate, reasonable, and
elegant in expression; kind hearts, imbued with all the sweetness of
38 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
the Gospel, eagerly spiritual, trusting and humble; both minds and
hearts filled with the supreme thought of peace, and therefore disin-
clined from all social or political troubles, averse to individual self-
assertion, to rebellion against the established order, whether in
society or in the Church; conservative in their actions, and yet free
in their thoughts; trusting enough in the permanent unity of the
Christian commonwealth to allow themselves surprising flights of
imagination as in the Utopia or outbursts of satire as in the
Encomium Monae which they never thought of turning into
explosive charges towards the disruption of the Church; such were
the contemporaries of More and Clichtoue about the year 1500. That
their "moderation" was not exclusive of absolute devotion to their
Christian ideal, the martyrdom of More, like that of John Fisher,
was to show.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
It is impossible to give even the sketch of a bibliography representing"
the very wide subject dealt with in the previous chapter. The most im-
portant sources are once again P. Imbart de la Tour, Les ongines de la
Re for me, Vol. II (providing original information on the reforming
movement in the French Church and on Christian humanism in
France); Marcel Renaudet, Prereforme et humamsme a Pans, Parts II
and III; Johannes Janssen, Geschischte des deutschen Voltes, Vol. I (on
devotion and humamsm in Germany), and Pastor, History of the Popes,
Vols. VI, VII, and VIII (especially on the Lateran Council). On the
latter, also see Hefele-Hergenroether, Conalien-geschichte, Vol. V1II-2,
and the speech of Giles of Viterbo (Egidio Canisio), Oratw pnma
synodi Lateranensis habita . . . (1513). On Montaigu College, see below,
Chap. VII. Many other works have been used for particular points: on
wills, see Surtees Society Publications, Vol. II, Wills and Inventories, ist
Part, and Vol. LIII, Testamenta Eboracensia, 4th Part; on piety and
devotion, Alfred von Reurnont, Bnefe heiliger und gottesjuichtiger hal-
lener (1877), and Kleme histonsche Schnften (1882); on reformation in
the fifteenth century, the excellent thesis of Edmund Vansteenberghe,
Le cardinal Nicolas de Cues (Cusa) (1920); on the religious revival in
early sixteenth century England, P. Janelle, L'Angleterre cathohque a
la veille du schisme (1935); on Christian humamsm, see The life of Sir
Thomas More, Kt., by his great-grandson, Thomas More (Cresacre
More), (London, 1726); The Life and Illustrious Martyrdom of Sir
Thomas More, by Thomas Stapleton, translated by Philip E. Hallett
(London, 1928); The Life and Death of Sir Thomas More, by Nicholas
Harpsfield, ed. by E. V. Hitchcock and R. W. Chambers, and other
works on Thomas More by the latter author; the works of Tnthemius,
Johannis Trithemn . . . opera (Francofurti, 1601); P. de Vaissiere, De
Roberti Gagumi . . . vita et openbus (1896).
CHAPTER III
Reformation Again Delayed
THE administrative results of the Lateran Council were not
such as might have been desired; but it was the outcome of
a reforming movement which could not be withstood, and
which had borne fruit long before Luther's protest was heard in
Germany; it created a new spirit, which made itself felt very soon
in the government of the Church as well as in the intellectual and
artistic life of the Roman court. Granted that the pontificate of
Leo X was not a pattern of Christian austerity; yet the time of the
worst abuses was now overpast. The state of Christianity was im-
proving; and it would have improved much faster, and wholly
forestalled the Protestant upheaval, had the papacy been free to
concentrate upon home problems. Unfortunately, the correc-
tion of abuses, even indeed, some years later, the suppression of the
German revolt, ranked only second among the difficulties which
Rome had to contend with. Just about the year 1517 the whole of
Christendom was threatened with a Turkish invasion, which might
have done away with Western civilization altogether; while the
ambition of various Christian princes constantly endangered the
independence of the Holy See. It compelled the popes to turn most
of their attention to international politics, and to play the part of
temporal rulers rather than that of religious leaders.
On the other hand, it is true that they also lacked the necessary
insight to anticipate the Lutheran uprising. Not, indeed, that they
were prevented by lukewarmness from understanding its religious
motives, but that the spirit of the North was foreign to men who
were surrounded by the exuberance of Italian art and culture, with
all the wealth of external expression these possessed. The Renais-
sance was no longer responsible for monstrous crimes; but its in-
39
40 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
tellectual and moral ideal still inspired the life of the Roman court.
Man's highest pursuits were still held to be, in the natural order,
the acquirement of knowledge, the erection of monuments, the
production of works of art, and the government of states. Indeed,
such an ideal had a greatness of its own; it might be reconciled with
the Christian spirit, and was no bar to personal devotion; but its
outward splendour made it difficult for the Curia to understand
the puritanical mysticism of the North, to realize its explosive force,
and to obviate its consequences.
Much has already been said in the preceding pages about the
pontificate of Leo X (1513-1521). Contemporaries described it as
being the reign of Minerva succeeding upon that of Venus. The
rising soberness and seriousness thus denoted were not confined to
the intellectual sphere. Abuses current but one generation before
had now become unthinkable. Bribery had been made impossible
at papal elections by a bull of Julius II. At the conclave which chose
Leo X, the personal virtue of the candidates was taken into account.
The new pope himself, however cultured and refined m his tastes,
was sincerely devout. Every day, even m the midst of pressing busi-
ness, he would hear Mass and read his breviary. His moral character,
both before and after his election, remained unspotted. In his ap-
pointment of cardinals, he was not always, it is true, guided by the
highest motives. The first batch, in 1513, included worthless relatives
or associates, one of them being the scandalous Bibbiena. But the
second batch, a few months before Luther defended his theses at
Wittenberg, showed marked improvement. Some of the new cardi-
nals owed their appointment to their high connections or to their
kinship with the Medici family, to which Leo X belonged; but the
others were men of great learning and personal dignity. Such were
Tommaso de Vio, better known as Cajetan, the general of the
Dominicans; and Egidio Canisio, often called Giles of Viterbo, the
general of the Augustmian Hermits, and reformer of his order, a
man of deep piety, of undisputed moral and intellectual eminence.
The college of cardinals was now open to rejuvenating influences.
That the age of Leo X should be considered as a preface to the
Catholic Reformation will, it is true, give rise to some wonder. The
material prosperity and the artistic magnificence of Rome at this
time seemed to some contemporaries, and still seem to many nowa-
days, hard to reconcile with the soberness and lowliness of the true
REFORMATION AGAIN DELAYED 41
Christian spirit. On the other hand the period was profusely praised
by humanists and artists as a kind of golden age, and its memories
were later treasured and cherished by them, after the sack of Rome
in 1527 had put an end to it for ever. The city had but lately been,
in the eyes of the Florentines, little more than an uncultured village
of cowherds; now it rivalled Florence herself through the beauty
of its palaces and private houses, the luxurious dresses of its in-
habitants, their proficiency in music and dancing. What is more,
it might rightly hold itself as being, in regard to culture and art,
the capital of the Western world. And yet all this refinement and
splendour were not, as Luther thought, tantamount to moral de-
pravity. It was possible for refined Romans to lead sincerely pious
lives. That very beauty of outward form of which they were so fond
might be made to glorify Christian truth. The example of Leo X
himself is a typical one. He ate but one dinner a day; and fasted
three times a week; yet he delighted in listening to music after his
meals. He was a composer himself, and spared no expense to attract
performers from various parts of Italy and from countries abroad.
His own private chapel included singers from Italy, Spain, France,
and the Netherlands. But his purpose, in thus encouraging the
musical art, was the beautifying of public worship. The Renaissance
was still there, but it was being Christianized.
It is true that pagan forms of speech and pagan motives in paint-
\ng, sculpture, and decoration were still freely used. When Leo X
took possession of the Lateran after his election, triumphal arches
were raised in the streets of Rome through which the procession
was to pass. One of these, built at the expense of the banker,
Agostino Chigi, was adorned with the .figures of Apollo, Mercury,
Pallas, of Nymphs and Centaurs. Another arch had a statue of Moses
between those of Perseus and Apollo, Mercury and Diana. The
paintings m the loggie at the Vatican, completed under Leo X,
exhibited the same abundancy of profane motives: the legends and
even the lighter side of classical mythology revived there, with
Venus and Jupiter, Bacchus and Ariadne, Apollo and Marsyas,
Medea, the Sphinx, Centaurs, Satyrs, Nymphs, Harpies, frolicsome
Eros, Tritons fighting with marine monsters. Yet the very fanciful-
ness of such a decoration shows that it should not be taken too
seriously. It testifies mostly to a taste for playful amusement, and
to antiquarian curiosity, the later being evidenced by pictures rep-
42 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
resenting sacrifices, an augur, a ruined temple, the App*,an way, etc.
In fact, the pious inspiration due to the reforming rrovement was
already present in the major compositions of Raphael (1483-1520),
who was entrusted by Leo X with the supervision -of all building
and decorative work at the Vatican. Pagan motive? had not wholly
disappeared from the tapestries of the Sistme Chapel, the cartoons
of which are now preserved in South Kensington Museum: the
Parcae, the labours of Hercules, were strangely mixed with Faith,
Hope, and Charity; but the central spaces were occupied with sub-
jects taken from the Old and New Testaments, and especially
from the lives of SS. Peter and Paul. Though the intimate, naive,
and somewhat awkard devotion of an earlier age had now given
place to perfection and magnificence, yet such pictures as the
Sistine Madonna or the Transfiguration testify to the depth of
Raphael's devout feelings, and to the influence of the Lateran Coun-
cil. It is significant that not merely Leo X himself, but also poets
such as Anosto, courtly humanists such as Castiglione, deeply
mourned Raphael's untimely death, which had surprised him while
he was at work on the Transfiguration, and preparing for further
religious work.
The revival of devotional art was paralleled with a similar revival
in the world of letters. Among Raphael's friends was the Christian
humanist, Sadolet, one of the most prominent and attractive figures
of the time: a man of sober and earnest piety, whose presence at
the Roman court, and whose favour with Leo X, show that life
m early sixteenth-century Rome was far from being an orgy of
pagan revelry.
Sadolet, who stood high among contemporary Latin writers, and
wrote Ciceronian epistles, had achieved fame through his poem
on the discovery of the Laocoon group of statuary. He spent his
time in serious studies; from time to time he would gather his
literary friends for tranquil debate. After a plain meal in some place
reminiscent of the classical age, poems were recited and orations
were read. Years after, Sadolet would cast back a glance of melan-
choly regret upon those happy hours. Indeed, the period just pre-
ceding the Protestant Reformation seems to have been, in Italy as
well as in England, bathed in a golden light : the general atmosphere
was not one of riotous sensuousness, but rather one of self-denying
industry, of patient research, in which men freely, quietly enjoyed
REFORMATION AGAIN DELAYED 43
the pleasures of intellectual enquiry. The charm of literary pastimes
was no bar to personal holiness. Sadolet was concerned with the
amendment of Church conditions; he took no advantage of his
influential position, rejected the gifts that came to him from every
hand, and sought after no benefices. In him an enthusiastic apprecia-
tion of classical letters was perfectly blended with ardent piety; and
if he happened, in his Latin writings, to use such expressions as
"by Hercules" or "ye immortal gods," it was, he said, to give greater
force to his style, so as to make it fitter to serve justice and truth,
and to urge men to righteousness.
Many believed, like Sadolet, that classical elegance and purity
of style were necessary for the fostering of Christian piety. This was
not altogether an illusion in an age which set such store by purely
literary accomplishments, and the notion was to inspire Catholic
methods of education for centuries after the Council of Trent. It
might lead to exaggerations, as when Zaccaria Ferren, at the bidding
of Leo X, recast the hymns of the Breviary and substituted for their
robust roughness and fervour an even smoothness which betokened
the polished craftsman more than the ardent worshipper; or when
he referred to the Virgin Mary as felix dea, or nympha candidissima;
a kind of tastelessness into which, fifty years later, in the very height
of the Catholic Reformation, Father Robert Southwell was still to
lapse, when he called the Mother of Christ Sponsa Tonantis.
Thus, in Italy as well as in France and in England, Christian
humanism was the keynote of the age. Leo X was consistently
friendly towards Erasmus, whose scholarly work on Scripture and
the Fathers he greatly encouraged. The learned Dutchman was
allowed to dedicate to the pope his edition of St. Jerome and his
Greek New Testament; and the pontiff was most unwilling to
believe the charge made against Erasmus, of having secretly con-
nived at the Lutheran heresy: thus showing that, in his mind there
was no necessary connection between Scriptural scholarship and
new-fangledness in doctrine. Leo X also granted privileges to Aldo
Manucci, the Venetian printer of Greek books, and founded in
Rome a Greek college, of which the rector was Jan Lascaris. Chris-
tian poetry was no less encouraged than Christian scholarship. In
1521, the pope hastened the publication of Sannazaro's Latin poem
De partu Vtrgims, and he befriended Marco Girolamo Vida, a
young priest who, before the end of Leo's pontificate, set to work
44 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
upon his fine Latin epic on the Gospel story, the Chnsttas. Nor were
Roman circles incurious in regard to the higher mysteries. Giovanni-
Francesco Pico della Mirandula was the main representative of that
Christian Platonism which was to last on right through the century,
and dedicated to Leo X, himself a former pupil of Marsilio Ficino,
his treatise De amore divino.
# * *
Thus the spirit which was to inspire the Catholic Reformation
was already present in all its essentials. Deeply devout men were at
work everywhere in Western Europe extracting from the Renais-
sance all that was of lasting value, and moulding anew the intellec-
tual, the artistic, and even the devotional life of the Church. But
individual efforts were of little avail against the unwieldy system of
ecclesiastical government. Administrative abuses were continued
which, as one should never tire of repeating, were the real cause
of moral corruption, and which only drastic action from above could
remove. These abuses were the more bitterly resented, as they were
of a financial nature. Huge sums of money had to be levied in order
to satisfy the universal wish to beautify public worship. This was
felt not merely at Rome, but also in Germany, France, and England,
in the early sixteenth century. But the Roman Curia, like all bureau-
cracies, was slow of mind and lacked imagination; and the collec-
tion of money by means of indulgences was allowed to go to ex-
tremes which met with opposition even in the Latin countries. In
Spain, a protest was raised by Cardinal Ximenes against the in-
dulgence published towards the completing of St. Peter's Church;
and Venice, independent-minded as usual, forbade it altogether. We
need hardly recount here the causes of the Lutheran revolt. The
essential point is that a religious practice, first created as an incite-
ment to repentance and moral improvement, was now being used,
in a mechanical and dned-up form, as the equivalent of any other
money-raising device.
Thus were financial abuses continued in the Curia, in the shape
of indulgences, taxation, duties, the sale of offices, etc., at the very
moment when Christian humanism was refining and purifying an
elite of worthy souls. Their aspirations found too little satisfaction
in the reality around them. Many voices not those of rebels, but
those of devoted adherents of the papacy began to complain of
the existing state of things. In his Storia di Milano, Giovanni Andrea
REFORMATION AGAIN DELAYED 45
Prato denounced those monks who, "having nothing, yet own every-
thing." The Sienese canon, Sigismondo Tizio, bitterly inveighed
against financial malpractices. The illustrious Pico della Mirandula,
a layman, in his address to the Lateran Council, shortly before its
close m 1517, uttered severe warnings and demanded, not merely
the proclamation, but also the enforcement, of reforming regula-
tions. "If Leo X," he concluded, "leave wickedness yet unpunished,
if he refuse to heal our sores, God Himself, it may be feared, will
open up and destroy the ailing limbs, not with lancet and lint, but
with fire and sword."
And yet such complaints and denunciations failed, throughout
the reign of Leo X, to bring about the long-desired Reformation.
When all has been said about the pope's love of "honour and
glory," the luxury of the Roman court, the loose living of some of
its members, the corruption and bribery, the mam cause of the
delay still has to be mentioned. It seems hard to realize nowadays
that the Turks were pressing hard on Hungary and Poland, that
European civilization stopped at the Adriatic, and that Italy and
Rome were threatened with an Ottoman conquest. Yet such was
the danger that the popes had to face from 1500 to 1530. The policy
of Leo X aimed first and foremost at bringing about the union of
Christian princes against the invader; but the sovereigns who were
appealed to seemed to care little for the common welfare of Chris-
tendom, and were governed by none but the most selfish motives.
They sought the favour of the papacy to use it as a weapon in the
game of political and armed warfare, and tried to win it at small
cost, with emphatic protestations of friendship and lavish promises;
accepting the pope as an ally, but steadily refusing to grant him
any real freedom of judgement or action, or even that territorial
independence which alone would have enabled him to play the part
of an umpire and leader: thus making a crusade or a drastic ref-
ormation of the Church equally impossible.
From the beginning of Leo X's pontificate, the Turkish peril
weighed heavily upon his mind. The new sultan, Selim, was of a
warlike temper. The Polish ambassadors soon reported upon the
danger which their country was in, and the pope was moved to
tears and sobs. And now, throughout the remainder of his pontifi-
cate, the thought of a crusade remained uppermost in his mind, and
whenever the international situation seemed to clear up, he reverted
46 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
to it. As early as 1513, money and encouragements were sent to
Poland, Hungary, and Rhodes. In 1516, the French king, Francis I,
was appealed to. In the autumn of 1517, a congregation of the
Crusade was formed, with representatives of most European powers;
every aspect of the campaign was fully discussed, from its finances
to its tactics. In March, 1518, the Crusade was preached in Rome,
amidst great religious festivities.
Unfortunately, despite the sending of legates, the various princes
of Christendom displayed no eagerness to follow the pope's lead.
Venice might have put at his disposal the most powerful fleet in
Europe, but she had a treaty with the sultan which safeguarded her
trade, and kept him informed of all papal preparations. Henry VIII,
then the ally of Spam, thought that Leo X would be better employed
in siding with him against France. The French king was equally
lukewarm. As for the Emperor, he was unwilling to grant the pope
a free use of the sums collected for the Crusade m Germany, part
of which he hoped to turn to his own purposes. Thus at the very
moment when the Lutheran outbreak made it more necessary than
ever to reform the Church, Leo X was compelled, in order to save
her from complete destruction, to struggle in vain against the na-
tionalism of every country in Europe.
This nationalism, or to speak more accurately, this exaltation
of the State as personified by its sovereign, was just then finding
expression in Machiavelli's treatise of the Prince. In this work the
interest of the State was considered as sufficient justification for
even the most immoral acts, whereas on the contrary, when the
pope proclaimed the ideal of united Christendom, he appealed to
a common moral ideal. It may therefore rightly be said that the
Machiavellian spirit which was in existence long before the
Italian writer gave it a name was in its essence contrary to that
of the Catholic Reformation. Besides, it was directly responsible
for its postponement.
Each sovereign was seeking his own aggrandizement, and that
even at the expense of the Church. The Emperor Maximilian had
not forgotten the dreams of his predecessors in the Middle Ages.
He still viewed himself as the overlord of Europe and the supreme
temporal governor of the Church. When his envoy, Cardinal
Matthaus Lang, came to Rome in 1513, he was followed by a
retinue of four hundred horsemen, and insisted on taking precedence
REFORMATION AGAIN DELAYED 47
of all the other cardinals. The emperor considered himself as en-
titled to take the reformation of the Curia into his own hands, and
in no friendly spirit either. He said that "before warring against
the Infidels he would have to prune God's vineyard." He was
constantly bringing pressure to bear upon the pope in favour of
Spam, whose king claimed sovereignty both upon northern and
southern Italy. The French kings, Louis XII and Francis I, also
wished to lay their hands upon Milan and Naples as well. Now if
both the North and the South of the Peninsula were in the same
hands, there was an end of territorial independence for the Holy
See, and consequently of spiritual independence also. Leo X himself
said, in 1515, that he could not suffer "the head and tail of Italy"
to be in the hands of one and the same prince, even if that prince
were his own brother. Therefore his efforts were constantly directed
towards avoiding such a reunion, and the story of his pontificate is
mostly a tangled tale of intrigue and petty warfare, in which he
was constantly attempting to play off France against the Empire,
and sided now with one, now with the other, according to
circumstances.
It was indeed much to be regretted that the papacy should have
to mix in the game of international politics. Its spiritual prestige
could only stand to lose from the fact that religious and temporal
issues were constantly being mixed up: examples of this are the
French secession and the Italian wars in the early days of Leo X's
pontificate. Later on the emperor was constantly urging the pope
to use ecclesiastical censures against Francis I, and in fact the
French general, Thomas de Foix, who had invaded the States of
the Church, was threatened with excommunication and interdict.
And yet, though Leo X might take a part in the political fray,
there is no doubt that from the first and ever after, his aim was to
be a mediator between all European princes, to establish peace and
to rescue Christendom from the Turkish invasion. He was already
pleading for reconciliation through his ambassadors, Campeggio and
Robert Challand, within a few weeks of his election. That he was
not unduly engrossed by the thought of external dangers, the events
which followed hard upon his death were to show. Internal reforma-
tion could hardly be attempted while the very well-being of the
Church was at stake.
48 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
The task that the refined and lovable Medici had been unable
to perform, was taken in hand firmly by his successor. Adrian VI
(January 9, 1522 September 14, 1523) was the first pope who
attempted a root-and-branch reformation; and though he did not
succeed, he has a particular claim upon our attention. In most
respects, Leo X and Adrian VI stand at opposite poles. While the
former was in every respect a southerner, the latter was no less
typically a northerner. He was a native of the Netherlands, and had
been educated in a school of the Brothers of the Common Life.
He imbibed their sober, grave, mystical piety, their evangelical
spirit, their love of biblical and patristic studies. Yet he was not,
properly speaking, a Christian humanist. He spent ten years in the
old-fashioned 'University of Lou vain, where he read in theology,
philosophy, and canon law. He himself was mediaeval in his tastes,
and had no love for the Renaissance. On seeing the Laocoon group,
his only remark was that "here were statues of pagan gods again."
When on coming from Spam he arrived in Rome, he refused to
let the townspeople erect a triumphal arch for him; this, he said,
was too pagan a custom, and one unsuitable for Christians. His
distrust of classical culture seems to have extended even to Sadolet,
whose valuable help might have been useful for the work of reform,
but remained unemployed.
No wonder, in the circumstances, that Adrian VI should have
met with all but general opposition among the Italians. As soon
as his election was known, the satires which were pinned on to
Pasqumo's statue called him a "Barbarian." Nor was he disliked
merely on account of his aversion for the Renaissance. The pros-
perity of Rome was largely linked with those very abuses which he
had set out to correct. The lavish distribution of papal favours to
worthy and unworthy suitors alike, attracted crowds both from
Italy and foreign countries. Trade flourished, money flowed in
freely. The city had become a nursing-bed for all the fine arts. All
this seemed threatened. The pope was no longer regarded as a
benevolent ruler, one who understood the weaknesses of men and
knew how to play upon them, a clever manager of state affairs;
but a stern disciplinarian from the North, a slave to absolute prin-
ciple, who knew nothing of life, and "ought to have remained shut
up in a monastery." All through his pontificate, and even after his
death, the mob of Roman poetasters kept baying at him; they called
REFORMATION AGAIN DELAYED 49
him an ass, a wolf, a harpy, compared him to Caracalla and Nero.
In fact, the story of his pontificate is a sad tale of reform undertaken
in the face of popular hostility, of high ideals struggling with over-
powering difficulties.
Nothing else, indeed, was to be expected; for how could a purely
moral reformation arise from the selfishness of vested interests?
But among men of real culture and virtue, Adrian VI met with
ready support. As soon as it was known that the new pope took a
serious view of Church matters, all the reforming aspirations that
had been lately gathering strength, came to light, and advice began
to pour in from every hand.
When the college of cardinals was first introduced to the pope,
one of them, Carvajal, addressed him in a set speech, in which he
outlined his future policy. It would be necessary, he said, to do
away with simony, ignorance, tyranny, and the other vices which
disfigured the Church; to appeal to righteous advisers; to keep the
officials in curb; to honour and promote right-minded cardinals
and prelates and to take care of the poor; to bring about a truce
among Christian princes, and gather funds towards a crusade.
From various parts of Europe, many memoirs were sent in to
Adrian VI. One had been composed by the Spanish humanist, Luis
Vives, who had settled down in the Netherlands. He also clamoured
for peace among Christians, and for a reform of the clergy. This,
he said, might only be effected by a general council. In another
writing, Cardinal Schinner, a Swiss, recommended a reform of the
Curia. The pope was to reduce his household and thereby set an
example for the cardinals. The selling of cunal offices was to be
discontinued, and those who held them were to receive no other
than fixed salaries. Chancery duties were to be reduced to a mini-
mum, and no other payment was to be exacted.
The fullest scheme of reform came from Cardinal Campeggio,
who was a devoted adherent of the Holy See, and began with an
assertion of the supreme power of the papacy. But such power, he
said, implied duties as well. He advised a remodelling of the system
of benefices. The holding of plural benefices was to be proscribed,
and that of benefices in commendam regulated. The appointment of
foreigners should be avoided in each country, and only honest and
virtuous candidates should be selected. All rights of patronage should
be reserved for the Holy See, and all concessions made to princes
50 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
in that behalf should be deplored. The memoir further showed the
unwisdom of allowing the Franciscans to dispense "indulgences
freely, and the necessity of a sounder plan for the jubilee year, 1525.
Lastly it considered the financial problems with which the papacy
was faced, and the means of obtaining money hitherto resorted to.
The creation and sale of new offices, Campeggio thought, should be
given up, and a voluntary contribution should be obtained from
Christendom at large. Like the other advisers of Adrian VI, he
referred to the Turkish peril, which weighed heavily upon men's
minds. Most memoirs, it should be noted, expressed the wish that
work on St. Peter's Church should by all means be continued : thus
showing that the nascent Catholic Reformation was not puritanical,
and was willing, in regard to art, to walk in the footsteps of Julius
II and Leo X.
Adrian VI himself was more indifferent to artistic beauty; but
he realized from the first that only a strong pope would be able
to correct abuses, and he struck the right path at once. He had not
yet left Spam when he ordered that all vacant offices should remain
at his disposal, and that the cardinals should not be free to sell,
give away, or promise them to anyone. As soon as he arrived at
Rome, he issued an edict which forbade the carrying of arms, ex-
pelled all loose livers from the city, and made it compulsory for
clerics to be clean shaven, lest they should look like soldiers. In
his first consistory, on September i, 1522, he addressed the cardinals,
and made it clear that he wished to carry out a thoroughgoing
policy. Rome, he said, quoting St. Bernard, was so inured to sin-
ning that its people did not even notice the evil odour of their lives;
its corruption had become a byword throughout the whole world.
He entreated the cardinals to turn out all lewd persons from their
households, to give up excessive luxury, and to be content with an
income of 6000 ducats each. Nor was Adrian VI slow in enforcing
his own advice. All cardinals, except Schinner who was an out-
standing reformer, had to leave the Vatican, and their retinues were
forced to comply strictly with the order against carrying arms.
Cardinal Cibo, a scandalous liver, was denied access to the pope.
At the beginning of 1523, Adrian VI undertook, much to the dis-
may of his Roman environment, to rescind all new offices created
by Leo X, a congregation of six cardinals being appointed to that
effect. In regard to appointments to benefices, he was equally firm:
REFORMATION AGAIN DELAYED 51
all candidates had to satisfy him as to their age, morality, and learn-
ing, and he dealt vigorously with pluralities and simony. From the
first he had selected his advisers among the reforming party, with
a preference for northerners; he later realized that he ought to
conciliate Italian public opinion, and called up to the Vatican Gian
Pietro Caraflfa and Tommaso Gazzella to help him in his work of
correction. But as his brief pontificate was drawing towards its close,
he seems to have lost heart in his struggle against the huge admin-
istrative machine which he had set out to remodel.
A religious bureaucracy, Pastor says, is the worst of all bureaucra-
cies. The pope's difficulties and his concessions began when he
applied himself to the reform of the datary. Since the treasury was
empty, it was hardly possible for the Holy See to give up the fees
for bulls and dispensations; and Adrian VI had to be content with
lowering the latter as much as possible. In March, 1523, in order to
finance the Crusade, he reverted to the practice of his predecessors,
when hard pressed for money, and resumed the sale of offices and
dignities.
Meanwhile the attention of Adrian VI had been engaged by the
condition of things in Germany, where the Lutheran movement was
rapidly spreading. As early as November 25, 1522, the nuncio, Chie-
regati, appeared before the Diet gathered at Nuremberg, in order
to explain to the assembly the reforming intentions of the pope.
"You will promise," the latter said in his instructions, "that we shall
apply ourselves with all our strength to the amendment, first of the
Roman Curia, from which maybe all the evil has sprung; and so too
the healing, like the disease, will come thence." Unfortunately,
Adrian VI found 'no response among the German bishops, who
lacked the necessary energy. Rather than firmly oppose the Lutheran
movement which threatened their very lives, through controversy
and internal reform, they pursued the suicidal policy of letting things
shape their own course and forgetting the imminent danger amidst
feasts and dances. The pope's eyes were fully opened when Johann
Eck, the famous Catholic reformer, arrived in Rome early in 1523.
He made clear to Adrian VI that the decrees of the Lateran Council
had not been observed by the German clergy, and that a new gather-
ing of the whole Church was necessary. He further made sugges-
tions for the correction of abuses: papal visitors with full powers
should he sent to every country; the holding of provincial and dioc-
52 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
esan synods should be resumed; the number of pensions and ex-
pectancies should be reduced; no benefices should thenceforth be
granted in commendam.
Here again, Adrian VI was prevented by his untimely death
from carrying out his plans. But in any case, one wonders whether
he would have been successful. We are apt to be given the curious
impression that he was both ahead of his own times and lagging
behind them. Roman society was not ready for the Catholic Refor-
mation. It had not been chastened by suffering. The German revolt
was only beginning, and the sack was a thing of the future. Besides,
the people of Rome greeted with ill-humour a pontificate which they
considered as a descent of the barbarian North upon Italy. In a
famous satire, Berni reviled Adrian VI, while the latter vainly strove
to stop the writing of pasquinades by means of heavy penalties. Nor
was the movement of opposition wholly unjustified. The Italians,
however pious, were conscious of the intellectual and artistic en-
richment which had accrued to them through the Renaissance;
while the pope, on the other hand, fell into the same mistake as
Savonarola, viewing the fine arts and classical literature as so much
needless and even harmful luxury. Before the Catholic Reformation
could mature, it was indeed necessary that the easy attitude of the
age of Leo X should give place to a more militant and bracing at-
mosphere; but it was no less necessary that the value of classical
antiquity, even for the Church, should be recognized.
Proh dolor, quantum refert in quae tern for a vcl optimi cujusque
virtus incidat! "Woe! how even a most righteous man's power to act
depends on the times in which he happens to live!" This epitaph
on the grave of Adrian VI is even truer if applied to his successor,
Clement VII. He was a well-meaning and virtuous pope. But his
good intentions were frustrated from the first by a succession of
calamities which make his pontificate the darkest period in the
history of Christendom. Within the space of a few months, the
national Lutheran Church was founded in Germany; the Hungar-
ians were beaten at Mohacs by the Turks, who entered Buda-Pesth
on September 10, 1526; and Rome was sacked by the imperial armies
(May 6, 1527).
But the saddest feature about those sad events was that they were
to be put down to one and the same cause: the utter selfishness of
Christian princes, and the predominance of State over spiritual in-
REFORMATION AGAIN DELAYED 53
terests. We are here faced with a general European movement of
national self-assertion. The custom had grown among sovereigns to
view the religious power of the papacy merely as a means towards
the attainment of purely temporal ends. The pope might be made
to confirm territorial conquests, to prevail upon the clergy to part
with their income for the benefit of royal exchequers, or to confer
ecclesiastical promotion upon royal favourites. If he complied with
the wishes of one prince, he became tied to him and incurred the
enmity of all others; if he refused to obey, he was first emphatically
reminded of the innumerable benefits that had been showered upon
him, and which were so many titles to his favour; then he was
threatened with a national schism, and lastly with an appeal to that
general council which all Europe was eagerly awaiting. Thus the
assembly of the Church, from which everyone was expecting the
correction of abuses, was turned into a club for the use of kings; it
might, they suggested, remember the tradition of Basle and Con-
stance, and depose a recalcitrant pope. The religious ideals of the
age and the very hope of a Catholic reformation were made to sub-
serve the political schemes of princes, and thus lost much of their
spiritual efficiency.
The process of alternate cajoling and intimidation outlined above
was that which Henry VIII of England made use of, in the years
1527 to 1534, in order to induce Clement VII to annul his marriage
with Katharine of Aragon. But it would be a great mistake to think
that he had invented it. Most European sovereigns, about the same
time, were now flattering, now bullying the pope in order to enlist
his support towards their own personal ends. The French wished
to retain Milan, which the emperor also demanded; and when
Adrian VI, in 1523, became reconciled with Charles V, and pro-
claimed a truce in Italy, Francis I wrote to the pope a long letter of
recrimination. He reminded him of the services rendered by all the
French kings to the Apostolic See. Those who ought to have been
grateful for such services were now preventing France from availing
herself of her rights upon Milan. The pope ought to have justice
and equity before his eyes, to think of the salvation of souls, of his
own honour, of his approaching end. Should Adrian VI seek to
enforce a truce through ecclesiastical censures, he might fear the fate
of Boniface VIII, who had tried the same sort of thing with Philip
the Fair of France and had had to suffer for it. The pope would do
54 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
no more than his duty if he granted to Francis I, as he did to his
enemies, subsidies out of the revenues of the clergy. These threats
succeeded in terrifying the pope, who was afraid lest the French
king should favour Luther's heresy and establish an independent
Gallican Church. In fact, the sending of moneys to Rome was for-
bidden in France shortly after.
The reverse happened in 1525, when Clement VII sided with the
French in order to prevent the Emperor from seizing the kingdom
of Naples. Charles V then exclaimed "that Martin Luther might,
now or later, be a valuable man/' One year after, when the pope
had, for the same motive joined the League of Cognac, which was
headed by France, the Emperor addressed him in a severely worded
letter. He insisted on the fact that the pope, being the supreme
pastor, had no right to unsheathe the sword; that when a cardinal
he had been shown much favour by the Emperor; that when con-
spiring against the latter he forfeited his right to be called a pastor
and a father. Clement VII ought to remember that he drew most of
his income from the empire. If he persisted in having recourse to
arms, the Emperor would appeal to a general council that would
settle all pending differences.
In fact, the imperialist theories of the Middle Ages had not
wholly died out. The Fraticelli and Marsilius of Padua, two hun-
dred years before, had granted to the Emperor wide spiritual powers,
with a right to call up general councils. Charles V still considered
himself to a large extent responsible for the spiritual welfare of the
Church, and entitled to take the work of reform into his own hands.
Before the expedition against Rome, the extent of his duty towards
the pope was freely discussed; and it was considered a moot ques-
tion whether he ought to submit to ecclesiastical censures. The other
European princes, just as they aspired to the imperial dignity, also
shared the pretensions of the Emperor in regard to ecclesiastical
matters. Wolsey was trying to make England the hub of the Chris-
tian world. When Clement VII was imprisoned by the Emperor
after the sack of Rome, the cardinal assumed quasi-papal powers,
took the whole of Church administration for France and England
into his own hands, and called up a gathering of the Sacred College
at Avignon. These attempts to rob the papacy of the government of
the Church were similar in character in all European countries; they
ended in schism in Scandinavia, Germany, and England, and might
REFORMATION AGAIN DELAYED 55
well have done so elsewhere. They made it practically impossible
for the Holy See to proceed with the work of reform.
And yet Clement VII did his best, even during the distressful
years 1523 to 1528, to make the Catholic Reformation possible. He
was himself a Christian humanist, and immediately took Christian
humanists, such as Giberti and Sadolet, into his service. He had a
sincere wish to maintain peace between the Powers. Whenever he
found himself able to do so he reverted to the policy ot papal neu-
trality, and even succeeded in effecting a short-lived reconciliation
between Charles V and Francis I in 1533. Unfortunately, as Bishop
Stephen Gardiner said, he was of a weak and wavering temper,
animi semper incertus fluctuabat; he gave the impression that he
was irresolute even more than peace-loving. He was indeed a true
Christian, but he did not take the ample view of the situation which
was then necessary; he behaved like a man who, m a huge con-
flagration, would only be anxious to save some trifling item of his
possessions. He was rightly desirous to preserve the independence
of the States of the Church; but his wish to recapture Ravenna and
Cervia, which Venice had taken, assumed in his eyes an inordinate
importance and governed his external policy for many years. In
1530, Clement VII induced the emperor to lay siege to Florence in
order to restore the power of the Medici in the city. The fall of the
town, he wrote on June 3, would enable the Emperor to turn his
attention to the Lutheran heresy and to the Turkish peril!
No dwelling on the rights and privileges, however legitimate, of
the Holy See, could save the Church from impending disruption
and ruin. It would have been necessary to proclaim in a ringing
voice a spiritual ideal that would have carried away the whole of
Christendom. Unfortunately Clement VII did not seek salvation
outside and above the ordinary game of international politics. His
attempts to play off the powers against each other eventually in-
volved him in the most terrible calamities. When he had joined the
League of Cognac, Charles V, wishing to be revenged upon him,
entrusted Ugo de Moncada with the task of raising a rebellion in
Italy. The pope had made an alliance with the powerful Roman
family of the Orsini. Moncada joined hands with their enemies, the
chief of whom was Cardinal Colonna. The latter gathered an army
of five thousand men, bore down upon Rome, and entered the city
by ruse on September 20, 1526, while Clement VII was taking flight
56 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
to Castel St. Angelo. The soldiers plundered the Vatican, stole the
relics, the crosses, the sacred vessels and vestments, even the precious
ornaments on St. Peter's altar; "the artillery drivers," a German
diarist says, "rode along in the purple robes of the Holy Pontiff, and
others, having put on his hat on their heads as a sign of contempt,
gave benediction. . . ."
The worst, however, had yet to come. On May 6, 1527, Rome was
taken by storm by the imperial armies, which had been largely
recruited among the German Lutherans, but included Catholic
Spaniards as well. The sack of the city lasted for one whole month.
Twenty thousand mercenaries, together with the riff-raff of army
followers, went roaming about the city looking for gold and silver.
They set fire to the houses, tortured the inhabitants, raped and
slaughtered women before the eyes of their husbands, girls before
the eyes of their fathers. Some of the townspeople were shut up and
starved to death. A Bavarian captain dressed up as the pope and
held out his foot to kiss to his lansquenets, or gave benediction with
a glass of wine, as a signal for general sousing. After clothing ,1
donkey as a bishop, some soldiers tried to compel a priest to incense
the animal and give him Communion. As he refused to do so he
was cut to pieces. Innumerable works of art were destroyed; tombs
were opened and searched; nuns were sold on public squares for a
couple of ducats.
Never had Christianity fallen so low. Never, it seemed, would the
Church flourish again. And yet, forces had been slowly gathering
which now, braced up by suffering, were to make it young again. In
the very hour of its direst distress, the tide was turning, and the
Catholic Reformation was at hand.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
This chapter is very largely based on Vols. VII and VIII of Pastor's
History of the Popes, and the works quoted by him. On the Renais-
sance view of government, as against that of the Catholic Reformation,
refer to Machiavelli's Principe and to his Deche, or commentary upon
Livius' Decades (numerous ed.). Luis Vives' address to Adrian VI, urg-
ing him to call up a council, is entitled De Europae statu ac tumultibus
and published in loannis Lodovici Vivis Valentim declamationes sex
(Basileae, s.d.), the whole volume being of interest on the state of
Christendom shortly before the sack of Rome. Also refer on the same
subject to P. Janelle, op. cit. On Christian literature at the same period,
see the poems of Vida, Marci Hieronymi Vidae Cremonensis Albae
REFORMATION AGAIN DELAYED 57
episcopi poemata omnia . . . (Cremonae 1550), containing the Christias
and the ode to Giberti, and the excellent article on Vida in Biographic
unwerselle (Michaud); also Actti Synceri Sannazarii de partu Virginis
hbri tres, Lamentatio de morte Chnsti . , . (Parisiis: Ex officina Roberti
Stepham, 1527). On the religious assemblies in Germany, see Pallavicino
(Sforza) Istona del Concilia di Trento, 3 vols. (Roma, 1664).
CHAPTER IV
Preparing for Trent
THE Sack of Rome sharply divided one period from another:
it put a sudden end to the golden sunset of the Italian Renais-
sance, and introduced a period of stress and strain which was
to be that of the Catholic Reformation. The latter had been pre-
pared for by the Christian humanists, and was gaining ground even
before 1527; but its necessity had not yet been brought home to the
papal court and to the Italian population at large. Such a dreadful
calamity as the Sack was needed to shake them out of their com-
fortable ease. A new religious earnestness spread to all classes. Many
men and women of the nobility retired to monasteries in order to
bewail their past transgressions. At the meeting of the Council of
the Rota, on May 15, 1528, Bishop Stafileo described the sufferings
of the capital of the world as a visitation for her sins. She had been
struck, he said, "because all flesh had given itself up to corruption,
because we no longer are the inhabitants of the holy city of Rome,
but of the perverted city of Babylon." He and others, however, could
see a new hope dawning ahead. "If we satisfy God's wrath and
justice," Sadolet wrote to Clement VII, "if those terrible punish-
ments open the way for purer manners and juster laws, perchance
our misfortune will not have been so great."
Some years were still to elapse, however, before the Catholic
Reformation was in full swing. Many reasons account for this delay.
The chief agent in the correction of abuses could be no other than
a general council. It had been in men's minds for many years, and
especially since the outbreak of Luther anism. It was appealed to on
every possible occasion, by sincere reformers, by heretics, by self-
seeking sovereigns. Though most people disagreed as to its desired
composition, location, and syllabus, its authority was as a rule un-
58
PREPARING FOR TRENT 59
disputed. Its very name was one of those which, though their mean-
ing be hazy, and perhaps even because their meaning is but dimly
grasped, rouse the enthusiasm and hopes of a whole generation.
Now before a general council could be held, many difficulties,
mostly of the political order, had first to be cleared away. The
mutual jealousy of the chief European princes stood in the way of
any great international undertaking. Each one of them objected to
the holding of the council in the dominions, and consequently un-
der the influence, of his enemies. Each one of them made the hold-
ing of the council dependent upon satisfaction, to be obtained
by the pope, regarding his own political claims. The dispute between
the Emperor and France over the possession of Milan was the cause
of years of delay. The prelates could hardly be gathered during a
war; hence the establishment of peace was necessary. To that end,
the pope himself must keep out of the wrangle, but take up the
superior position of a disinterested umpire. Lastly, the Lutheran
revolt in Germany had given rise to further problems. The Emperor
needed the help of his Protestant subjects to fight the Turks and
was unwilling to irritate them. At first he hoped that a general
council would placate them and bring them back to the Fold, but
later, finding that they refused to have anything to do with the
Holy See, he resorted to direct negotiations with them in political
assemblies, in which religious matters were the object of mutual
give-and-take. The very high idea he had of his own power and
function induced him to try to settle the religious difficulties by his
own means and apart from the pope. Therefore after first agreeing
to the council, he who was the mightiest sovereign in Europe kept
putting it off for many years.
To overcome all these obstacles, as well as the resistance of the
Roman bureaucracy, a strong hand was needed. Unfortunately
Clement VII was ill-suited for such a task. He was a serious and
well-meaning pope, neither lax nor wanting in dignity; yet he was
a man of the past. He still belonged to the political age, and looked
for salvation to the old policy of balance, to prattiche, to close dip-
lomatic fencing now with one, now with the other party in the
European struggle. He did not realize that the papacy now had to
play quite another part, that it ought boldly to assert its spiritual
authority. His attitude towards Henry VIII is typical in this respect.
About his opinion on the divorce matter there can be no doubt; nor
60 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
did he give in to the threats and blandishments of the English king.
Yet he failed to understand that by making, at the very outset, an
open declaration of right and wrong, he would have earned the
English people along with him, and won the day for the English
Church. He preferred an attitude of diplomatic shilly-shallying,
which deprived him of all his advantages and allowed him to be
fooled by his adversary. The same happened m the case of the
council: instead of attacking the obstacles in a spirited way, he
stood weighing difficulties, and was at best but lukewarm.
It should be owned that there was, for the pope and the Roman
court, no lack of justifiable reasons why the council should be put
off. The memory of the assemblies at Basle and Constance was still
alive in men's minds. The attempt to establish democracy m the
Church might still be renewed at the expense of that very papal
power which was needed more than ever for the correction of
abuses. The mere announcement of the council had brought about
a fall in the price of venal offices in the Curia. Who knew but that
the financial position of the Holy See might be seriously threatened?
Besides, the attitude of temporal sovereigns might well give rise
to concern. In the past, they had so repeatedly clamoured for a gen-
eral council whenever they thought themselves wronged by the
pope, that one might be forgiven for viewing it as a means of dis-
possessing the papacy of its authority for the benefit of princes. This
was true even of Charles V. It was now clear that they had been
insincere, and that they did not in the least wish for a general as-
sembly of the Church, in which their privileges might be curtailed.
Their latter attitude, however, was no less dangerous than the
former; for Henry VIII and Francis I threatened schism if any
attempt were made to compel their attendance. Lastly, the Protes-
tants insisted that their ministers should be admitted on equal
terms; but if the Holy See had granted such a request, it would
have granted thereby that the Lutheran revolt was legitimate. All
these obstacles were so formidable that more than common faith in
the likely benefits of the council was needed; but Clement VII had
more of worldly prudence than foresight or enterprise.
Nor were the circumstances otherwise as favourable as they might
have been for a Catholic reformation to be effected either by the
pope himself or by a council. For one thing, it is easy to issue re-
forming decrees, but they are not worth the paper they are written
PREPARING FOR TRENT 61
on if the will to enforce them be lacking. In other words, it was not
enough to .forbid the continuation of abuses; for the administrative
personnel of the Church which derived profit from them could
easily nullify any such prohibition. It was necessary that the said
personnel should be gradually renewed, so that it might give up of
its own accord advantages which the older generation were unwill-
ing to relinquish. Hence the slow progress of the reforming
movement, and the futility of the Lateran regulations. The seed
that was sown by the Christian humanists of 1510 was to take thirty
years to ripen into fruit; long enough, that is, for people inspired
with the new spirit to reach positions of authority in the Church.
Between 1517 and the first session of the Council of Trent, the
Catholic Reformation, like a rising tide, slowly submerged the col-
lege of cardinals and higher offices in the Curia, until it could be
withstood no longer.
This tide was already fairly high in the days of Clement VII,
though the cardinals he created were "no saints," as the Venetian
ambassador described them, "but lords, true and worthy gentlemen."
The pope did m fact give some satisfaction to the general wish of a
council. He was sincerely desirous to effect a reconciliation between
Francis I and Charles V. He urged both sovereigns to agree to the
council. The latter was the main theme of the conversations held at
Bologna between Clement VII and the Emperor in December, 1^2,
January and February, 1533. In the consistories of December 16 and
20, 1532, the various means of restoring unity and discipline in the
Church were discussed. It was suggested that recourse might be had
to arms against the Lutherans, but the proposal was rejected. The
majority of the cardinals advised a council; and it was finally agreed
that it should not be a national assembly to be held in Germany
for then Henry VIII and Francis I would have declared that it was
under imperial influence and would have rushed into schism but
a general gathering of the whole of Christendom, to be called in a
suitable place, after all the Christian princes had given their assent.
The decision was an important one, though its effect was to be
suspended for twelve years. It would now have been impossible to
go back upon it. Pursuant to the vote of the cardinals, the Emperor's
agreement was first sought and obtained, and then briefs were sent
to the kings of France and England, and to the other Christian
princes, including the imperial electors.
62 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
No sooner had this step been taken, however, than further difficul-
ties began to arise. The Emperor, in order to quiet the Lutherans,
wished for immediate action, contrary to his later policy. The pope
preferred to wait for the universal agreement of the sovereigns. That
this might be obtained, nuncios were sent, in February, 1533, to
Germany, France, and England. But the Lutherans refused to bind
themselves to compliance with the decrees of the council, while
Francis I and Henry VIII returned dilatory answers.
Meanwhile, the king of France held out hopes to the pope,
through his ambassadors, of easing the difficulties between England
and the Holy See, if the latter sided with the French against the
emperor. The pope, who feared Charles V's power in Italy, agreed
to an interview with Francis I at Marseilles, which took place in
October and November, 1533. In his conversations with Francis I,
he did try to bring about a reconciliation between him and the em-
peror, and pressed the matter of the council; but as the French king
obstinately advised delay, the weak-willed pope gave in to his
reasons and let the matter drop. In March, 1534, he wrote to Charles
V's brother, Ferdinand, king of the Romans, declaring that he
meant to put off the council to better and less troublous times. In
such circumstances, the great historian of the papacy, Ludwig von
Pastor, considers it a piece of good fortune for the Church that
Clement VIFs pontificate should not have lasted much longer. The
pontiff died September 25, 1534, leaving Christendom in a more
critical position than it had perhaps ever been.
And yet, while the pope's adherence to the political traditions of
the past, and his waverings compromised what hopes might be left
of preserving the unity of the Church, the reforming movement was
gaining strength, both inside the Curia and out of it. "Reformation,"
like "the council," had become one of those words which, m a given
generation, will not bear discussion. Such was the very spirit of the
age. Already before the Sack, Clement VII himself had attempted
to correct abuses. He advanced the question of the reform of the
Curia in the consistory of January 18, 1524, and a commission of
cardinals was appointed to that end. On September 9, in view of
the coming jubilee of 1525, the pope suggested that a visitation of
the Roman clergy should take place; that all Roman secular clerics
should undergo an examination, and that those who failed in it
should be forbidden to say Mass; that good confessors should be
PREPARING FOR TRENT 63
sought for the holy year. In fact, the visitation was carried out, and
though many worldly prelates grumbled, they had to submit to it.
It is significant that Sadolet, together with Giberti, the reforming
bishop of Verona, should have supported with all their might the
efforts of Clement VII.
The pope also issued directions against simony and in some cases
declared against pluralities. A number of papal decrees of 1524 pro-
vided for reformation, not merely in the Italian dioceses of Florence,
Parma, Naples, Venice, and Milan, but also in those of Burgos and
Mayence, and in the Carmelite Order at large, the same being done
in 1525 for the Humiliati. Unfortunately the conflict between the
Emperor and the Holy See in 1526 and 1527 interrupted all activities
of the kind for the space of several years. They were resumed in
1529 and 1530, and many ordinances were issued. Some purposed
the reformation of the secular clergy in various towns (Padua,
Trevisa, Parma) but most of them referred to religious orders in
Italy and out of Italy, even as far away as Poland. The same policy
was continued until the end of Clement VIFs pontificate, particular
decrees dealing with individual cases. For the year 1532, no fewer
than twenty-three such decrees, mostly bearing on the reform of
regulars, especially of the orders of friars, are extant in the papal
registers. This was a heartening symptom: unfortunately it was not
enough to cope with the situation. The pope was but nibbling at the
abuses: these had spread so far that little could be done without
general legislation of a more drastic character.
While Rome still shirked the mam issue, and was slow in taking
the lead, individual reforming movements were springing up
everywhere; thus heaping up fuel which the spark of the Council
of Trent was to set afire in one mighty blaze. Much of that work
was done in the field of the regular life, either -through the reforma-
tion of orders already extant, or through the foundation of new ones.
Older forms of monastic discipline were re-enforced with greater
severity, or new institutions and a new spirit were resorted to in
order to cope with the difficulties of the hour. This side of the early
Catholic Reformation will be dealt with at large in one of the
following chapters; but something must be said here of the work
done in the secular field, and especially of that accomplished by
Gian Matteo Giberti, bishop of Verona (1495-1543).
Giberti the fact is worthy of note had spent his youth at the
64 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
court of Leo X and been a prominent figure among the Roman
humanists. Vida was his faithful friend, and wrote a fine ode on his
ordination. Clement VII made him his datary, that is, in fact, his
chief secretary, and in 1524 appointed him to the bishopric of
Verona. He was then a member of the "Oratory of Divine Love"
and consorted much with the Theatines, whose founder, Caraffa, was
on terms of great intimacy with him. The Sack had the same effect
upon him as upon many others, and in 1528 he sought permission
to reside in his diocese, the condition of which might well give
reason for concern. Many priests were living out of their parishes
and were replaced by unworthy deputies. Some of them were so
ignorant that Giberti had to get the Latin rubrics of the Missal
translated into Italian for them. In many places, preaching had been
given up, confessions were slack, and the churches looked like
cattle-sheds.
Giberti began reformation at home, and the amiable and temperate
humanist he had been turned to a pattern of austerity and asceticism.
He resigned most of his benefices and resolved to undertake m his
own person the correction of abuses. In January, 1529, he began the
visitation of his whole diocese, no easy task apparently, since once he
was nearly drowned in a swollen torrent. He went from parish to
parish, found out about the life of the clergy and the state of the
churches, got into talk with the lowliest, and composed differences
among them. He compelled the priests to reside in their parishes
and to lead spotless lives; while in addition he prevailed upon Rome
to withdraw the benefices with cure of souls which had been
granted to non-residents. He used compulsion whenever necessary,
and had recourse to excommunication and public penance. As
early as November, 1528, "the dungeons were full of concubmary
priests." It is particularly striking that he should have striven to
restore the vitality of parish life, the dignity and beauty o^ worship,
to have discouraged attendance at Mass in chapels and private ora-
tories, and freed the parish clergy from the encroachments of reg-
ulars. He gave great attention to the moral worth of confessors, and
is said to have established confessionals in their present form.
Preaching was of paramount importance as a weapon against
Lutheranism, which Giberti had severely condemned in 1530. He
insisted that the people should be addressed "with charity and sim-
plicity of heart," without unnecessary quotations from the poets or
PREPARING FOR TRENT 65
theological subtleties. Licence to preach was to be granted by the
bishop. Catechism classes were founded for the children. Giberti
obtained full powers from Clement VII for the reformation of reli-
gious orders within his diocese, and went about it with a strong
hand. He firmly repressed the abuse of indulgences and collections.
As might be expected, he ran up against violent opposition on the
part of wealthy families, whose influence was supreme in some
monasteries of women, and on the part of his cathedral chapter,
who pleaded exemption and held their own for several years. His
social activity was great. He founded orphanages and Sunday-
schools, houses of refuge for poor innocent girls or for those who
had lapsed, popular banks to rescue the people from usurers, and an
association (the Societas pauperum) for the relief of the poor a
prefiguration of the later Society of St. Vincent de Paul. Lastly, it
should not be forgotten that in his palace at Verona, Giberti wel-
comed many of those humanists whom the Sack had scattered
through Italy. He induced them to apply their gifts to the work of
reformation, to the writing of religious poetry, to the translation of
the Greek Fathers. He had a private press with Greek type. In a
word, all that was later to be essential in the work of the Council
of Trent was already extant in his diocese, before the death of
Clement VII; and, in fact, many of his enactments were embodied
word for word m the Trentine decrees. Many bishops followed his
example, and St. Charles Borromeo did his best to imitate it. The
seed was sown, and was soon to fructify.
Whatever Clement VII's failings, he did the Church exceptional
service by recommending a man of strong character and serious
intent, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, as his successor. The Sacred
College followed his advice; they were by now firmly convinced
that only an out-and-out reformer could deal with the situation;
and Paul III (1468-1549) was elected within the space of a few
hours. He provided in his own person an instance, both of the cul-
ture and moral laxity of the Renaissance period, and of the remorse
for the Renaissance brought about by Christian humanism. He had
been educated at Rome, where he was in touch with the neo-pagan
philosopher, Pomponius Laetus; at Florence, in the house of Lor-
enzo di Medici; and at the University of Pisa. Under Alexander VI
66 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
he was promoted to many benefices and dignities and was made a
cardinal-deacon in 1493. For some years, his life was most irregular;
he had four children (though it should be mentioned that he was
not yet in priest's orders) the eldest being the famous Pier Luigi
Farnese.
He was soon, however, to turn to more serious thoughts; and it is
significant that this should have taken place at the height of Chris-
tian humanism, shortly before the Lateran Council, in which he took
a prominent part. In order to enforce the decrees there issued, he
undertook a visitation of his diocese of Parma in the year of 1516,
and gathered a diocesan synod in 1519. Nonetheless he took part in
the brilliant life of the court of Leo X, and gave ample proof of his
administrative abilities. His election was greeted by universal ap-
plause. The hopes placed in him as a reformer were shown at a
procession of the Roman corporations and nobility, which took place
on November 29, 1534. Triumphal arches had been raised, but now
beside the figure of Rome there appeared on them those of the
Church and of Faith. Sadolet saluted the new pope with a long
letter of praise, in which he thanked God for entrusting the helm of
Christendom to such a wise and excellent pilot. All those who
wished for the council hailed the advent of a pontiff who was
known to have declared in its favour.
All the ability and energy of Paul III were indeed needed to cope
with the dangers which threatened the Church on every hand. We
know from the words of a contemporary Catholic reformer what
feelings the situation of Christendom gave rise to in 1534: "I could
see in my mind," Giovan Battista Caccia writes, "the supreme em-
peror of Asia (the sultan) the enemy of Christ, lifted above the
heads of the Christian people; I beheld the German secession; I
recalled to memory that my holy mother the Church, before the
black and Tartarean fog of Mahomet had blinded Asia and Africa,
had embraced within her most holy bosom the whole of humankind,
and that now she was forced back within that narrow space of
Europe, torn about by various opinions, and so disfigured by the
cutting off and breaking of her joints, that she seems to be rushing
to her utter ruin."
In fact, while the pontificate of Paul III offers in certain respects
a peaceful and even reassuring appearance, the dangers which beset
Christendom on every hand were greater than they had ever been
PREPARING FOR TRENT 67
previously. Despite the capture of Tunis by the Emperor in 1535, the
Turks were constantly making headway in the Archipelago and on
the shores of the Adriatic, and threatening Italy and Rome herself.
In July, 1536, they landed in the Peninsula, near Otranto, and began
raiding the country and carrying away many inhabitants as slaves.
A European league against them was formed, including Venice;
but the Emperor and the king of France were so jealous of each
other that the operations were delayed. When at last, in September,
1538, Andrea Dona with a fleet attempted the relief of Corfu, he
was shamefully routed at Prevesa. On August 26, 1541, the sultan
took Ofen (Buda), the capital of Hungary, and extended his do-
minions right up to the Danube. When finally an imperial mixed
force of Catholics and Protestants came to the rescue in September,
1524, it was so lacking in unity and discipline that it had to
retreat without having done its work.
In fact, the period was bound to be one of disorder until a clear
perception of intellectual issues had enabled men to take sides in the
religious conflict. However sad the loss of unity, this loss must now
be preferred to the confusion of ideas which had hitherto prevailed,
and which was all to the advantage of the disruptive forces. As long
as the council had not spoken with authority, people groped their
way along, or swarmed about in ill-defined groups, according to
vague tendencies. They scarcely realized that the assumption of ab-
solute jurisdiction over the Church by national sovereigns was tan-
tamount to schism, and that owing to the Protestant agitation, such
schism was a short cut to heresy. The whole of Europe was allowed
to drift into secession, and even well-meant attempts at reunion
between a weakly defended orthodoxy and an aggressive hetero-
doxy tended to blur the distinction between true and false. Hence the
period of the greatest Turkish peril was also that of the greatest
Protestant advance.
It is not certain that the town of Perugia, which revolted against
the pope rather than pay heavy taxes, sought Lutheran support; yet,
what happened there in the year i^o provides a striking instance
of the confused influences which tended to bring about the breaking
up of the Church. The rebellion soon assumed the same character
as that of Florence under Savonarola. The chancellor publicly asked
for the help of the Saviour, to whom he offered the keys of the
city; coins were minted with the inscription: "Perugia, the city of
68 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
Christ." The treasures of churches were seized; and order was only
restored after a regular siege.
One sees how evangelical phraseology was then naturally resorted
to. Protestantism was a rallying-pomt for all revolutionary agitators.
In Venice, its swift progress was due to another reason : the city had
long been jealous of its ecclesiastical independence. An event which
took place in 1542 was even more painful for the Catholic-minded
than the sporadic spread of Lutheramsm in Italy. Bernardino
Ochmo, the most famous preacher of his time, renowned for his
spiritual gifts, had been elected vicar-general of the Capuchins in
1536, and was very nearly made a cardinal in 1538. But at the same
time he was imbibing Protestant doctrine, and soon sought refuge
with Calvin at Geneva, together with the Augustiman monk, Pietro
Martyr Vermigh. For some years he had been hovering between
orthodoxy and heresy. The need for a clear statement of the Cath-
olic position was becoming more pressing than ever.
Both for the purposes of definition and reformation, therefore,
the council was urgently needed. But its gathering could not be
immediate. The action of the papacy was needed, both to call it up,
and to solve the numerous problems that were involved in its prep-
aration. The pope alone could provide the necessary driving force,
and first of all in the field of international politics, in which, from
1536 to 1545, he had to struggle against the divergent efforts of the
various sovereigns. The selfish and short-sighted view which they
took of their national interests was in every case responsible for the
delay of the council, and no one among them can be exculpated from
guilt in this respect.
Henry VIII, needless to say, would hear nothing of a Church as-
sembly in which his matrimonial conduct and his assumption of ec-
clesiastical supremacy might be condemned. But as he was a valuable
ally for either of the two chief continental powers, he was able to
make his help to either of them conditional upon their rejection of
the council. As a matter of fact, up to about 1540, Francis I was in
league with him, as well as with the Turks and the German Protes-
tants, to whom the very name of a papal council was hateful. A
Galhcan schism might be feared, and Charles V denounced the dis-
loyalty of the "most Christian king" towards the Holy See. But the
situation was soon to be reversed. Despite his professed champion-
ship of the papacy, Charles V did not scruple to enter into close
PREPARING FOR TRENT 69
confederacy with Henry VIII. As a matter of fact, he largely shared
the latter's notions of the part to be played by a king in religious
matters. He did not, indeed, make himself "supreme head of the
German Church," but he did attempt to establish a common rule
of faith for all his dominions, and kept nudging the pope out of
assemblies gathered to that effect. Things went so far that, in 1544,
soon before the Council of Trent assembled, he recalled his ambas-
sadors from Rome, and the pope had to issue a severe warning to
him. Ecclesiastical and political questions were inextricably mixed
up. The tangle of conflicting interests confused the religious issues.
In 1539, the Catholic princes of Germany, both lay and ecclesiastical,
in fact sought an agi cement with their Protestant neighbours,
rather than side with their natural ally, the Emperor, whose power
they feared might become overwhelming.
As long as the powers were at variance, the holding of the council
appeared well-nigh impossible. How were the "fathers" to be
gathered, if each sovereign was to refuse permission to his bishops
to attend, unless the pope backed his temporal claims' 5 Peace, it
seemed, or at least a truce, must first of all be established; and to
that purpose Paul Ill's efforts vainly tended for several years. Grad-
ually, however, he found that his attempts were futile, that the
princes could not be brought to form a common Christian front
against heresy and the Turk, and that if they were allowed to have
their own way, the issue would be perpetually shirked. Then he
began to assert his own will more and more firmly, until at last he
decided to call up the council on his own authority, without waiting
for anyone else's consent. This change ot attitude, however, was
only completed in little under ten years. As early as May 29, 1536, a
bill of convocation had been approved in consistory, and the council
convened to Mantua, for May 23, 1537. However, local and inter-
national difficulties soon made it necessary to prorogue the assembly
twice in succession, and the place of meeting had to be shifted to
Vicenza in the territory of Venice. On May 12, 1538, the legates
appointed for the council made their solemn entry into the town,
but the "fathers," bishops, and others, who were to make up the
gathering, failed to appear; and two further prorogations ensued,
the latter, on May 21, 1539, being sine die.
In fact, the policy of colloquia between Protestants and Catholics
had then been inaugurated by the emperor; and Paul III for some
70 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
time flattered himself with the hope that papal representatives might
do useful work in such purely German conferences. He soon found
out, however, that the Lutherans were obdurate, that attempts at
conciliation only sharpened their aggressive spirit and enabled them
to extend their influence. We need not enlarge here on the Diet at
Spires and the religious debate at Ratisbon the nearest approach
to an understanding between Christian sovereigns for the extension
of the English plan of Church organization to the whole of Europe.
Paul III had by now wholly made up his mind to act independ-
ently. On July 6, 1541, the question of the council was again raised
in consistory; and on June 6, 1542, the assembly was called up at
Trent for All Saints' Day in the same year. In the bull of convoca-
tion, the pope recalled the efforts which he had made up till then,
and declared that he had resolved to wait no further for the consent
of any prince, but to consider only the will of Almighty God and
the weal of Christendom. This manly decision was however frus-
trated for some time still. On October 28, the legates specially ap-
pointed left for Trent; but once more no "fathers" were forthcoming,
owing to the opposition of the princes; and Paul III was com-
pelled to suspend the council again. War was raging anew between
Francis I and the Empire, and the problem of Milan was still un-
solved. Peace, indeed, was made at Crepy-en-Valois on September 17,
1544; but Charles V was more unwilling than ever to relinquish his
religious policy; and Paul III once again took things into his own
hands and called up the council for March 15, 1545. He was deter-
mined that it should now be held under any circumstances; and in
fact his energy had won the day.
* * *
But a general council could not be extemporized; and in fact it
could not have been held at all if the long years of waiting had not
been years of preparation as well. Many problems had to be solved.
There were no set rules to determine what members were to com-
pose the assembly, who was to preside over it, what matters it was
to discuss, or how its decisions should be arrived at. The Councils
of Basle and Constance, of which the memory was not yet lost, had
attempted to alter the government of the Church according to
democratic and nationalist principles. Among their "fathers" were
members of the lower clergy, of the universities, and even laymen,
whose votes were of equal value with those of the bishops and
PREPARING FOR TRENT 71
abbots, and actually outnumbered them; while the debates were car-
ried on and concluded within each national group, the final decision
being taken by a majority, not of individuals, but of "nations." No
real reform could be effected under such circumstances; and the
assembly, for lack of an arbiter and head, could only register the
clash of conflicting interests. Paul III realized that, if the new council
was to perform its task, it must be presided over and directed by
himself. In the "congregations" that were preparing its work, it was
decided that the bishops only should be definitores, that is, entitled
to settle the points at issue, other ecclesiastics, theologians, and can-
onists being reduced to the part of consultores or advisers. The coun-
cil was indeed to be free in its decisions, but its debates were to be
prepared by the pope and committees of cardinals and curial officials.
Learned specialists would sit together and draft articles to be ap-
proved by the pope, and sent to the assembly for discussion. In fact,
while it lasted, Rome was enabled, if not to direct its proceedings,
at any rate to guide them, and make her voice heard whenever nec-
essary, both through the papal legates and through an almost daily
correspondence. Hence there was, between the "teaching Church"
and the Holy See, a close co-operation which the princes did not
interfere with, for they were out of humour with the whole under-
taking and kept sulking. The authority of the pope was left undis-
puted, and was able to sanction decrees which otherwise might have
lacked force, since the gathering of the bishops at Trent was to be
far from universal.
Not merely rules of procedure, but also the very substance of the
debates had to be prepared beforehand. This could be performed in
two different ways: either by beginning reformation at Rome, and
thus setting an example which could not but be followed, or by
finding out through committee work how such reformation could be
extended to the whole of Christendom. Such tasks, however, could
only be entrusted to right-minded men. Therefore Paul Ill's first
move was to introduce members of the reforming party into the
Sacred College and the curial offices. In his first batch of cardinals,
in May, 1535, was included the Venetian statesman Gasparo Contar-
ini. He was a virtuous layman, a Christian humanist, and had
studied philosophy as well as theology at the university of Padua.
He had formed around himself a circle of men of the same school.
Among his friends were the poetess, Vittoria Colonna; Pietro Bern-
72 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
bo, a convert from the pagan Renaissance;, the English refugee, Reg-
inald Pole; and some of the erstwhile members of the Oratory of
Divine Love. As soon as he was created a cardinal, he took orders,
and engaged upon the work of reform in the Roman Church. A
commission for that purpose had been appointed in the previous
year, and strengthened by the bull Sublimis Deus on August 27,
1535-
Contarini now proceeded to lend them his support, and thanks to
his influence, a series of decrees was published on February n, 1536.
The obligation to wear clerical dress was recalled; the use of the
breviary was enforced anew; all holders of benefices were compelled
to sue for confirmation within the space of four months, so that
unqualified persons might be got rid of. Canons and prebendaries
were now to take a personal part in solemn public worship; priests,
to attend to the cure of souls, to say Mass at least once a month, and
go to Communion on all feasts of obligation; clerics in minor orders
were to receive Communion at least four times a year; all eccle-
siastics were forbidden to enter public-houses, gambling-dens, and
theatres. Preachers now had to seek guidance from certain superiors
before refuting heretical doctrine. Mendicant friars were prevented
from straggling about and collecting excessive alms. The very fact
that these decrees were so moderate in their provisions shows how
much a restoration of discipline was needed.
The reformation of Rome and that of Christendom in general
could scarcely be separated. Paul III soon tried to form a kind of
"pre-council," which might set up an enquiry into Church condi-
tions at large, and make suggestions for their improvement. In the
latter half of July, 1536. the most notable among the members of the
reforming party were, for that purpose, called up to Rome: Caraflfa,
Giberti, Pole, and other Christian humanists, such as Sadolet and
Federigo Fregoso. They were formed into a committee of nine,
under the chairmanship of Contarini. Three of its members, Caraffa,
Sadolet, and Pole, together with a batch of similarly minded men,
were soon after raised to the cardinalate, and the resistance of the
die-hards was consequently weakened. About mid-February, 1537,
the committee handed in their report. It was entitled Consilium
delectorum cardinalium et aliorum praelatorum de emendanda ec-
clesia (Advice of the cardinals and other prelates chosen [by the
pope] towards the reformation of the Church). This document,
PREPARING FOR TRENT 73
which is extremely severe in tone, begins with a few lines of thanks-
giving for the goodwill of Paul III, who wishes to "restore the
Church of Christ, which was crumbling down, nay had almost
fallen in headlong ruin."
The evils, which the Consilium denounces, all spring from one
common source: the transformation of a spiritual society into a
venal administration. The popes have, like all rulers, given a ready
ear to flatterers. They have found councillors prepared to declare
that "they might do what they pleased," especially in the matter of
benefices, which, according to those doctors, they might freely dis-
pose of in every case. Now, ownership implies a right to sell; hence
the pope could take money for benefices without incurring the blame
of simony. This, the report says, is the root of all abuses, the main
cause of the Protestant revolt. It is needless to question the primacy
of the pope; but he must not make use of it for gain. "Christ's order
is: freely ye have received, freely give." The spiritual needs of the
faithful must alone be considered, not the pecuniary interests of the
Curia or of private persons. Now, it is at present common practice
to select unqualified candidates, and to put them in wrong places;
to allow them for their personal convenience or profit to draw pen-
sions out of benefices where none should be granted except for
charitable purposes; to exchange benefices; to bequeath them, no-
tably to their children; to take advantage of expectation, reserva-
tions, and pluralities.
What is worse, the Consilium continues, the cardinals themselves
thirst for gold. They forfeit their independence through making
suit to princes for bishoprics. They ought to give these up and re-
ceive regular and uniform emoluments. Non-residence is general:
"almost all pastors have left their flocks; these are entrusted to
mercenaries." Many cardinals live away from the papal court, and
fail to perform their proper duties as advisers. They ought to dwell
near the pope, while their sees should be occupied by resident
bishops. The most important passage deals with exemptions. It
should be quoted in full:
"There is another abuse, which ought not to be in the least
tolerated, and by which the whole Christian people is scandalized:
it consists in the obstacles which hinder bishops in the government
of their flocks, especially in the chastising and correcting of crimi-
nals. For, to begin with, wicked men, especially clerics, find many
74 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
ways to exempt themselves from the jurisdiction of their ordinaries.
And again, if they are not exempt, they forthwith fly to the Peni-
tentiary, or to the Datary, where they immediately find a way to
impunity, and what is worse, in return for cash. This scandal, O
most blessed Father, disturbs the Christian people so much that
words are not enough to explain it. Let these blots, we beseech your
Holiness, by Christ's blood, through which He redeemed His
Church and washed her clean, let these blots be removed; the which,
if they were at all allowed in any Christian commonwealth or
kingdom, it would forthwith or soon after fall down headlong,
and by no means be able to stand any longer; and yet we think
it lawful to introduce such monstrosities into the Christian
republic."
The Consilium is drastic on the question of the regulars. The
monastic orders, it runs, are a cause of scandal, and ought to be
allowed to die out, while the novices should be sent home. As to
the friars, they should not be permitted to preach or hear con-
fessions unless fully qualified, and then with the consent of the
bishop of the diocese. Papal legates and nuncios should take no
gratuities; their disinterestedness would edify the people wonder-
fully. In the monasteries of women in charge of conventual (or
unreformed) friars, scandals are rife; these monasteries should be
handed over to the ordinaries or to other directors. The spirit of
the pagan Renaissance is at work in the schools, in which impiety
is taught, while irreverence prevails in public debates held on re-
ligious subjects. Such disputations ought to be private, while pro-
fanity should be banished from the schools. The printing of books
should be watched over.
Monks should not be granted permission to cast off their regular
dress on payment of a certain sum of money. Those who go about
hawking indulgences in the name of the Holy Ghost, of St.
Anthony, "thus deceiving the simple people of the country," should
be prevented from doing so. No dispensation should be granted for
the marriage of persons "in sacred orders"; none for the marriage
of lay people related in the second degree, who should only be fined
if the marriage has been solemnized in defiance of the rules. Steps
should be taken against another crying abuse: "the absolution of
simoniacs. Woe! To what extent this pestilent vice prevails in the
Church of Christ! So much so, that some are not afraid to commit
PREPARING FOR TRENT 75
simony, and then forthwith to apply for absolution from the penalty
incurred. Nay, they buy such absolution, and thus retain the bene-
fice which they have bought." The pope ought on no account to
remit the punishment for simony, for no crime "is more pernicious,
or more scandalous."
Confessionals and portable altars are granted too freely, sacred
things being thus cheapened. Only one indulgence a year ought to
be proclaimed in each important town. No commutation of vows
ought to be allowed, "except for an equivalent good." The wills of
testators should be adhered to, while at present pious bequests are
often transferred to private heirs who plead poverty. Turning to the
condition of things in Rome itself, the Consilium points to the fact
that even in St. Peter's Church are seen disreputable priests, "filthily
clad and ignorant," who would disgrace the poorest churches; and
that courtesans parade about on mules in the streets, "followed in
full daylight by noblemen, members of the household of cardinals,
and clerics. In no other town, the report adds, have we seen such
corruption." Reference is also made to the necessity of composing
private feuds, and of creating charitable institutions to be put in
the charge of cardinals. To finish with, Paul III is besought to be-
have like another St. Paul.
The picture of the Church offered by the Consilium is a sad one
indeed: it is no wonder that Protestant propaganda should have
turned it to good account. That it should have been written at all,
however, "without respect of the pope's, or anyone else's advantage";
and that the work it outlined should have been performed within
the space of a few years, is proof that the spiritual resources of what
was now to be known as Catholicism were far from being ex-
hausted. They were only smothered by the weight of administrative
corruption.
The most urgent task was to improve the government of the
Church; and while some of the suggestions of the report as for
instance those bearing on the residence of cardinals or on religious
orders were disregarded, the others were to move the Holy See
to immediate action, and to the resumption of reform in Rome
itself. In the consistory of April 20, 1537, a congregation of four
cardinals, Contarini, Caraffa, Simonetta, and Ghinucci, was en-
trusted with the correction of abuses in the curial offices, and
to begin with, in the Datary. The latter was so-called from
76 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
the fact that it dated and authenticated all the documents re-
ferring to spiritual graces granted by the pope, while charging
fees for the same. Unfortunately payment was exacted before the
favours could take effect, and the sums charged were much in
excess of the actual expense entailed. To the chancery duties, which
were paid into the papal treasury, the curials added, as a salary for
their own pains, "compositions" or "taxations." These ought to have
been settled according to a fixed scale, but the rise in the cost of
living consequent upon the Sack of Rome was a pretext for in-
creasing them out of all rule or measure, and demanding additional
sums to be paid as extras or personal gratuities. As a remedy for
this abuse, the reforming congregation suggested that compositions
should be done away with, and that the pope should grant regular
salaries to his officials, or, at any rate, that the fees charged should
correspond to the actual outlay.
But the curials were to put up a hard fight. They had telling
arguments to use: if the compositions were suppressed or reduced,
they said, the Holy See would lose most of its revenues, and would
also forfeit its prestige. They were greatly helped by the dangers
which threatened the papacy on every hand, and made it necessary
to postpone the work of reform. It was making headway slowly,
however. In 1539, Paul HI, leaving the Datary aside for a time,
appointed commissaries to deal with the Penitentiary, the Roman
tribunals, the Chancery, the Rota. On December 19, a new group
of reformers were raised to the cardmalate, including Fedengo
Fregoso, a survivor of the court of Leo X and of the Oratory of
Divine Love, a humanist too. For five or six years past, he had been
at work transforming his diocese of Gubbio, and was known there
as "the father of the poor." Even the older cardinals were touched
by the new enthusiasm. On April 21, 1540, the pope declared that
he was going to remodel all the curial offices at once. On August 8,
Cardinal Pucci, the head of the Penitentiary, finally gave way and
allowed a free hand to the papal commissaries. A bull of May 12,
1542, was to simplify procedure m the Roman court and fix duties
at a reasonable level; but as early as 1541 the congregation of reform
had extended their action much further, and obtained considerable
results.
"They have done away with expectations," a contemporary wrote,
"with the ordaining of unqualified persons against payment, with
PREPARING FOR TRENT 77
dispensations from the clausura or the wearing of the religious
habit, and the plurality of benefices with cure of souls, even in the
case of cardinals; dispensations in general have been notably re-
duced, for marriage especially, also the confirmation of titles ac-
quired through simony, and resignations entailing pensions or
reservations; such dispensations as have been retained now merely
contribute to the support of pious undertakings."
Thanks to the will and perseverance of Paul III, Rome was no
longer a disgrace, but, in the words of Contarini, a model for
Christendom; the ground was now cleared for the Council of Trent.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The mam source for this chapter is again Pastor, History of the Popes,
Vols. IX, X, XI, and XII. In addition to the works quoted in the bib-
liography to Chapter III (Vida, Pallavicmi, Janelle) see, on the reform
of the Curia, the article "Cour Romaine" in the Dictionnaire de thcologie
catholique of Vacant et Mangenot. On the religious assembly at Ratisbon
in 1541, full information is found in Martin Bucer, Acta colloquh in
comitus Imperil Ratisponae habiti (Argentorati, 1542), also published in
an English translation by Myles Coverdale, as The actes of the disputa-
tion in the cowncell of the Empyre holden at Regenspurg (s. 1., 1542);
also Albertus Pighius, C ontr over star um praecipuarum in comitus Ratis-
ponensibus tractatarum . . . cxplicatio (Pansiis, 1549), which judges
things from the Catholic standpoint. The Consilium delectorum cardina-
lium is reproduced by Labbe, Sanctorum concihorum collectlo nova, torn.
XXXV (Parisns, 1644), and in the recast edition of Labbe by Mansi,
Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amphssima collectio (Florence, 1759-
1798) (also see the photographic facsimile edition begun in 1900). It has
often been reprinted, for instance by Felix Kyngston (London, 1609). On
Pole and Contarini see Epistolae Regmaldi Poll, 5 vols. (Bnxiae 1744-
1757), and the exhaustive and interesting work by R. Biron and J.
Barennes, Un prince anglais, cardinal-legal au XVIeme siecle; Reginald
Pole (Pans, 1922).
CHAPTER V
The Council of Trent
THE Council of Trent, when seen from afar, and judged by its
results, looks like one of the noble, stately edifices of the
Catholic Reformation period; it impresses one by its huge
mass, its duration, its weightmess, by the harmony between the var-
ious parts of its work. It seems, indeed, hard to realize that it was in
fact not always engaged in grave and sedate discussion; that it was
a struggle, and a long and dramatic one, between the papacy, which
made for the permanency of the united Church, and short-sighted
local interests; that its members were mere men, with all their weak-
nesses, pettinesses, rivalries, their lack of foresight, their insistence
on private claims; that only the compelling force of utter necessity,
and the contagious enthusiasm of a superior ideal, carried them
away almost in spite of themselves; while their assembly, which
might have ended in a hopeless muddle, was safely directed to the
completion of its task by the guidance and leadership of wise and
far-sighted popes.
In fact, the essential point in the history of the Council of Trent
is the, part which was played in it by the Holy See. This was made
necessary by the very circumstances in which it had met. Unlike
previous councils, it could lay no claim to universality. Efforts were
niade, indeed, to gather representatives from all parts of Christen-
dom. A deputy was sent in 1551 by the patriarch of Constantinople,
and later, in 1561, Pope Pius IV applied to the Greek and Russian
Churches, to the Balkan princes, and even to the emperor of
Ethiopia; Jbutjiljjn _vam. It had been hoped that at least the Protes-
tants, who had been so long clamouring for a council, would take
part in the debates. Safe -conducts were offered to them; and in fact
Sleidan, the Strasbourg theologian, and ambassadors from Wurtem-
78
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 79
berg put in a belated appearance under Julius III. But they peremp-
torily rejected the authority of the Holy See, and of the council in
its previous sittings, and refused to accept any basis for discussion
apart from "pure Scripture"; which made an understanding impos-
sible from the outset; nor did they appear at later stages. Even when
most numerous, the assembly represented only a fraction of Chris-
tendom. To lend force to its decrees, confirmation was needed from
some higher spiritual authority. This was felt by the Fathers, who
kept referring all doubtful points to Rome and finally submitted the
whole of their work to Pius IV for his approval.
But the authority of the papacy was even more needed to induce
the Fathers to forget their own national claims for the sake of the
Church as a whole. The weal of the latter required a stringent con-
demnation of Protestantism; for reformation implied a declaration
jofjibuses, especially of those which arose when Christian dogma
was mi^igterprfited, as in the case of indulgences. It was necessary to
affirm that dogma anew, to make a statement of orthodoxy. Now
the asseruoiTof "clearly defined truths was opposed, or seemed to be
opposed, to local interests. For it touched and angered the Lutherans
and Huguenots, who were not merely heretics in the eyes of the
Catholic Church, but also subjects of the Emperor and of the king
of France, and rebellious subjects at that. If dealt with harshly, they
might prove troublesome. The sovereigns, therefore, set about pro-
tecting the anti-papal sections of their peoples, while, strarigely^
enough, insisting on national privileges which they held from the
authority of the Holy See. Their bishops followed in their steps,
kept exerting pressure upon the council j:o retard its work and put
off all drastic reforming action which might either Irntate^the
heretics r_JKroach upon the rights of the piirices. Even those of
Spain, where Protestantism was scarcely to be feared, made up an
independent group which steadily opposed the influence and author-
ity of the papacy; and the latter needed all its perseverance and
energy, all its diplomatic skill also, to bring the council at last to its
epoch-making conclusion.
Nor were the material difficulties to be overcome less trying than
the ill-will of the princes. It was no easy task to gather an assembly
of bishops, many of them elderly men, in an age when travelling
was slow and devoid of comfort. Many of them were unwilling to
leave their dioceses, where they were loath to interrupt the struggle
8o THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
against Protestantism, even to go and conduct it on a larger scale
at the council. Besides, people as a whole had become rather
skeptical about the latter, which had given rise to so much talk and
yet been put off so repeatedly. It took fifteen years from 1546 to
1561 to force general belief and acceptance upon the reluctant
prelates.
The local conditions were not as favourable as might have been.
Trent had been selected on account of its proximity to Germany,
where the religious difficulties had sprung up, where reformation
was mostly needed, where the Lutherans were to be found, whom
the council might reconcile to the Catholic Church. Also, the town
lay within the dominions of the Emperor, whose support was sought
above all others. But it was also deep in the Alps, and its severe
winter was especially painful for the Italian majority of the as-
sembly; while its sultry summer made work almost impossible, the
more so as no sufficient accommodation was available, either for
official purposes, or for the private requirements of the Fathers, their
theologians, secretaries, domestics, of the ambassadors and their
train a motley and picturesque crowd which must have numbered
thousands of people, many of them of high rank and accustomed to
luxury. The curial bishops had much rather stay in Rome than risk
discomfort and disease in crammed and insanitary quarters.
It was an arduous task for three successive popes, first to get the
Fathers on the move, and then when they had at last reached
Trent, to keep them there. Circumstances were far more adverse
what with the wars of religion and the dangers lurking on every
road than they had been at the time of the Lateran Council, or
even of Basle and Constance; and they would have ruined the whole
undertaking, had it not been for the persistent and powerful action
of the papacy.
This action and the gradual progress due to it are revealed by the
facts and dates in the history of the council. The latter falls into
three periods, separated by long intervals. The assembly first sat
continuously for two years in the pontificate of Paul III. A few of
its members met at Trent in March, 1545, their numbers slowly in-
creasing to seventy-two in the winter of 1547. Then an epidemic
broke out in the town and a fear arose that it might be quarantined
and famished; many Fathers took to flight and the legates pro-
nounced the transfer of the council to Bologna. But the imperial
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 81
bishops, mostly Spaniards, declared against this move; their sov-
ereign's interests, they thought, would not be sufficiently safe-
guarded outside his dominions; and they remained in Trent, while
forty-five Fathers only moved to Bologna, where the assembly
dragged on its languid life until October, 1549, shortly before the
death of Paul III. It was suspended for the space of eighteen months
and called up again in Trent by Pope Julius III, who, as Cardinal
del Monte, had presided over it during the first period. It met on
May 'ty 1551, and lasted for one full year; but the times were
troubled, with war in northern Italy and a Lutheran advance in
southern Germany, which eventually compelled the Fathers to
scatter in May, 1552. This accounts for their small number, barely
fifty-nine of them, including six deputies of German bishops, being
present at the most favoured sitting.
Then followed a long interval of eleven years. The troublous state
of Italy lasted on until the death of Julius III in 1554, and precluded
the resumption of the council. Nor was the imperious Paul IV, who
succeeded to the papal throne after the brief pontificate of Marcellus
II, inclined to gather it anew. He viewed it as a ready instrument
for the machinations of princes, and preferred to continue its work
by his own means. For a general assembly sitting far from Rome,
and comparatively independent, he substituted committees sitting
in Rome, and appointed by himself. The correction of abuses Tjras
undertaken unflinchingly, as well as the suppression of doctrinal
novelties; with such severity, indeed as when the Inquisition
was made to try Pole and Morone for heresy that Paul IV de-
feated his own purpose, and that his enterprise roused discontent and
ended in failure. After his death, it was felt that the council, which
allowed of the airing of grievances, was a necessity. Besides, cir-
cumstances were growing more favourable for its recall.
Formidable obstacles in the way of the pope's reforming work
were removed in 1559, when both Charles V and the French king,
Henry II, disappeared from the stage carrying their imperialist pre-
tensions with them into the grave. Accordingly Pope Pius IV, who
was endowed with all the qualities of a statesman, opened negotia-
tions, soon after his election (Christmas, 1559), with the various
European sovereigns, in view of a new gathering of the council;
and despite many difficulties, the assembly was called up for Easter
Sunday, April 16, 1561, on which date the legates arrived in Trent.
82 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
The third period of the council lasted for two years and eight
months, the closing session taking place on December n, 1563. Its
course, if not uneventful, was at any rate peaceful. The attendance
now became far more numerous than it had been previously. On
July 15, 1563, it rose to two hundred and thirty-five, including six
cardinals, seven generals of orders, and six procurators of bishops.
We have a full list of the Fathers on that day, the diocese, abbey, or
order of each being mentioned; yet it is no easy task to determine
the national groups into which the assembly had naturally fallen,
and to weigh the influence of the pope and of the various European
sovereigns. Many of the bishops resided at the Curia, and can hardly
be considered as belonging to the countries in which their episcopal
sees were situated. The difficulty of long journeys accounts for the
fact that the assembly was mostly made up of those Fathers who
were near at hand: Italian names are in a majority. This, however,
is not, as one might think, equivalent to papal preponderance; for,
as far as reckoning is possible, out of one hundred and thirty-five
Italians, forty-six only depended upon the pope directly, as having
their sees in the States of the Church. Among the rest, forty be-
longed to the kingdom of Naples, ten to the duchy of Milan, fifteen
to the territory of Venice; they were the subjects of three sovereigns
the king of Spain, the Emperor, the Venetian republic who had
not been noted lately for oversubmissiveness towards the Holy See.
In fact, the Emperor and Spain together could more or less com-
mand ninety-five votes (the Spanish group alone numbering seventy-
nine Fathers, if Naples is counted in), while the king of France had
sent twenty bishops, many of them strong Gallicans. The Germans
whether they were lukewarm towards the council, or kept at
home by the religious troubles were practically absent; but there
were a good few representatives from the Venetian colonies of
Crete, Cyprus, Dalmatia, and the Greek Archipelago; together with
a sprinkling from Portugal, Hungary, Croatia, Poland, Scotland,
Ireland, Switzerland. Altogether, it would be a huge mistake to
think that the pope had the assembly at his beck and call. It was
frequently restive, and submitted to the authority of the Holy See
only because the latter had taken the lead in regard to reformation,
and gained considerable moral prestige.
* * *
Indeed, despite occasional outbursts of ill-humour, the opposition
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 83
was divided, and could not but submit most of the time to the
steady, persevering guidance of the papacy, which alone was in a
position to "run" the council. The actual "running" was done by
the cardinal-legates and presidents, and mostly by the one among
them who was entrusted with superior authority Cervini in the
first period, Crescenzi in the second one, and Morone at the end.
They enjoyed constant advice and support from Rome, where a
special congregation of the council was sitting. Frequent letters
passed to and fro. In the third period Pius IV's nephew, Cardinal
Charles Borromeo, who had been made secretary of state, was the
daily correspondent of the legates. The latter settled the agenda, as
well as the method, of the debates.
Despite the interruptions of the council, continuity in its manage-
ment was ensured : the archives were kept during the intervals, and
duly handed to the presidents at the next gathering. He who knew
them best, the chief secretary, Massarelli, retained his functions
throughout. It meant much for the influence of the Holy See that its
officials should be the only permanent elements at Trent. The real
work was done most of the time in committees. At one time the
assembly was divided into three sections, at other times, a selection
was made of the most eminent or representative members of each
group. The Fathers only archbishops, bishops, abbots, heads of
orders, and a few procurators were entitled to vote in the full
sessions, in which final decisions were reached, and were therefore
known as diffinitores (defmers of dogma) ; but in the committees,
advisers or consultores were admitted as well. Each cardinal or
bishop had brought his theologians along with him, and the total
number of such helpers was considerable. Some of them attained to
great eminence, such as the two Spanish Jesuits, Salmeron and Lay-
nez, the latter the general of his order, who appeared on behalf of
the pope.
Had the Fathers and theologians been left to themselves, the de-
bates would probably have proceeded much faster, despite the
strength of national feeling; but according to ancient custom, the
various ambassadors were allowed, if not to vote, at any rate to sit
in the council, and to state before it the grievances and objections
of their sovereigns. They used to stand on ceremony a good deal,
and the assembly was pestered with endless conflicts of precedence
between Portugal and Hungary, between France and Spain, be-
84 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
tween Bavaria, Switzerland, Venice, and Florence. This entailed
considerable loss of time; but the activity of the ambassadors was
even more troublesome behind the scenes. They were constantly,
though not always successfully, egging on their national bishops to
put forward the claims of their princes. In fact, they found their
minds ready prepared; for the old conciliar spirit was still alive in
the assembly, and stood in strong opposition to the centralizing in-
fluence of Rome. Many among the Fathers insisted on local inde-
pendence in the Church, while the Holy See emphasized the neces-
sity of subordination. Nor is it really possible to blame either side,
for both were actuated by creditable motives. It is but too true that
the past corruption of the Curia justified distrust on the part of the
hierarchy, and many sincerely believed that no reformation was
possible, unless the bonds were somewhat loosened between the local
churches and the papacy. At the same time, it so happened that
their attitude favoured to no small extent the unanimous efforts of
princes to make themselves, to all intents and purposes, the heads of
their national churches, and to use such overlordship for other than
religious purposes. Therefore, it cannot be doubted that their policy
ran counter to that very reformation of the Church, which they
were no less anxious to bring about than their adversaries; and that
Rome alone, once purified, could undertake the cleansing work
which was highly unpalatable to most sovereigns in Europe.
From the very first the conciliar party began to raise difficulties,
and there followed bickerings which kept recurring from time to
time, right up to the very end. The articles which ruled the proceed-
ings made use of the words proponentibus legatis, thus denoting
that the legates alone could submit proposals to the vote of the
assembly. This was considered as curtailing the initiative of indi-
vidual members, and was attacked again and again. On the other
hand, several fathers insisted upon the insertion of the phrase uni-
versalem ecclesiam repraesentans, as qualifying the council, in the
heading of its decisions; which in their minds implied that the coun-
cil was superior to the pope. On neither point, however, could the
opposition conquer. On several occasions they tried to induce the as-
sembly to revert to the practice of Basle, and vote by nations; but
here again they failed. The most serious differences, however, arose
in connection with the national policy of each of the various
sovereigns.
THE COUNCIL OF T*ENT 85
During the first period, the Emperor Charles V had no wish to
let a council headed by the pope deal with the religious dissensions
in Germany. He decidedly objected to any debates bearing upon
dogma, because he thought that the Lutherans might be antagonized
thereby. From the very first he demanded "that the Fathers should
begin with Reformation and disciplinary questions . . . and abstain
from definitions which would interfere with, or altogether preclude,
any agreement with Luther." When the sittings of the council had
already begun, he made a further and desperate attempt to con-
ciliate the Protestant League of Smalkalden, and called a "colloquy"
at Ratisbon in the winter of 1546, Its failure was not enough to
change his mind. He kept exerting pressure at Trent in order to
avert any solemn condemnation of Lutheranism. Being unable to
put of? the debate on justification any further, he followed the same
method as Henry VIII on a different occasion, and insisted that the
universities of Cologne, Louvain, and Paris should first of all be
consulted. When at last he realized that conciliation was impossible,
he took up arms against the Lutherans, and completely vanquished
them.
He did not therefore relinquish into the hands of the assembled
Fathers what he considered to be his own spiritual prerogative. He
deemed it his right to call up the council in whatever town he chose,
and solemnly protested against the moving of the assembly to
Bologna. He got his protestations printed and scattered about pro-
fusely, which was tantamount to a declaration of war upon the
papacy. He set to work at the Diet of Augsburg (January, 1548)
with the help of his own theologians, to prepare a confession of
faith which would serve for all his German subjects, Catholic and
Protestant alike, pending the decisions of the council. This confes-
sion, known as the "Interim," was too vague to satisfy the Catholics,
and was finally considered as binding the Protestants only. In draft-
ing it, nevertheless, the Emperor has assumed quasi-papal powers
and had gone almost as far as Henry VIII himself.
Nor were pretensions to spiritual supremacy within a certain ter-
ritory confined to Charles V alone. No sooner had he disappeared
from the stage than Henry II of France began to make trouble in
his turn. He was imbued with the Gallican spirit. In his eyes the
council enjoyed no real freedom, and was dependent on the emperor.
Besides, at the very moment when Julius III was gathering the
86 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
Fathers anew, he sent troops into Italy (February, 1551) to support
the claim of Ottavio Farnese to Parma and Piacenza, the fate of
which the pope wished to settle in negotiation with the emperor.
Hence the usual blustering threats on the part of the French king,
who declared he would call up a national council, stopped the send-
ing of moneys to Rome, hinted at Gallican independence, and the
creation of a patriarch of Gaul. After 1560, French policy became an
almost exact counterpart of imperial policy as it had been under
Charles V. The strength of the Huguenots had increased so much
that they were in a position to demand a national assembly in
France for the settlement of religion. This was granted to them in
the summer of 1561, when a "colloquy" met at Poissy, to no great
purpose it is true. The king of France was the ally of the German
Protestants; the Imperialist party in Germany was paralleled by the
Gallican party in France, who were inclined towards toleration and
a kind of "Interim." They refused to recognize the validity of the
sessions of the council held under Paul III and Julius III, which
they considered as not "general" enough. Later on, when at last a
delegation of French bishops had appeared at Trent, they supported
the representatives of the Empire and Spain in their opposition to
papal overlordship. While praising the work done at Poissy, and
advocating conciliation, they defended the privileges of the French
crown, and the "liberties of the Gallican Church" in other words
the maintenance of the authority of their sovereign over his clergy,
and his right to appoint to benefices, episcopal sees, and other eccle-
siastical offices; which meant, though they might deny it, the con-
tinuation of manifold abuses.
The question which exercised the council most, and repeatedly
endangered its harmony, was that of the rights and powers of the
episcopate. The curial party believed that the bishops held delegated
powers from the pope. Their opponents whom we may for the
sake of convenience call the Episcopalians deemed on the con-
trary that the bishops held their powers directly from God, and were
accountable to Him only. The practical importance of this difference
appeared in the long-protracted debates on residence, and on the
privileges of exempt bodies. If the bishops were instituted by God
directly, they were bound to reside in their sees, and to refuse em-
ployment at the Curia, rather than be compelled to govern their
dioceses through deputies. If, on the other hand, they were instituted
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 87
by the pope, the latter might dispense them from residence accord-
ing to the requirements of the Church at large. Again, in the former
case, episcopal jurisdiction could not be curtailed by an intervention
of the Holy See, such as exemptions implied; in the latter case
exempt bodies, cathedral colleges, religious orders and houses might
appeal to Rome for the maintenance of their privileges. Both parties
invoked the superior interest of the Church. The Episcopalians re-
called the numberless abuses to which the practice of exemptions
had given rise, and asserted that only an independent and powerful
hierarchy could restore discipline; while the Curials pointed out that
the independence of the hierarchy really meant its subjection to the
will of princes, who derived much profit from the abuses and had
no real desire of reformation; also that the Church needed a central
administration, and required for headquarters the services of her
most valuable helpers, even if they belonged to the episcopal body.
The contending opinions were not always, however, so clear-cut
as might appear from the above summary. It is true that part of the
assembly mostly the Spaniards, afterwards supported by the
French Fathers kept up almost throughout the council an agita-
tion in favour of the divine right of episcopacy: that they refused
to allow of any absence of a bishop from his see, even for legitimate
reasons, and would not even permit the practice of pastoral letters
as a substitute for personal preaching; that they proposed heavy
penalties against non-resident prelates and even cardinals; and that
while asserting that the bishops were in one sense the equals of the
pope, they implied that the council was superior to the Holy See.
But much of that heckling of the papal legates might really be de-
scribed as "letting off steam." When the council came to practical
problems, the various parties felt that there was more to unite than
there was to divide them. Even the Spanish and French bishops
needed the help of the Holy See against kings who made free with
the rights and property of the Church, and against the inferior
clergy who asserted their own privileges. Even the papacy- knew
that the enforcement of residence was a necessary item of the pro-
gramme of reformation: "No one," as the legate Cervini replied in
1547 to the bishop of Huesca, "questions the obvious necessity of
residence; the whole point is to know how it should be observed."
Though long years of work were needed to make an end of con-
tention, agreement did come at last, on most of the points submitted
88 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
to the council. Not, indeed, that it fulfilled its whole purpose. It
was able to take steps towards the reformation of the Church at
large, but not to enforce its decisions outside the papal states. Many
of the Fathers more than one hundred patriarchs, archbishops,
and bishops declared on September n, 1563, that they refused to
take any further part in the proceedings, if the Reformation was not
extended to the princes as well. The latter, they said, ought no longer
to take advantage of flagrant abuses, and should therefore be de-
prived of their rights of patronage and forbidden to appropriate
Church property to their own uses. The Church was to be inde-
pendent of the civil power. This was, however, more than the
council could effect, and it had to be content to leave its task un-
finished, and to trust to the Holy See to enforce its decrees as far as
could be done. The work completed was nevertheless considerable;
and so, though in the midst of bickering and strife, a great body of
legislation had gradually shaped itself, which was to be the charter
of the Catholic Reformation and direct its later progress.
On the termination of the council, one of the bishops present, the
Venetian, Hierommo Ragazzom, gave expression to the general joy
in a long oration which, though most classically polished and ele-
gant, was nevertheless exultant in tone.
"Earlier councils," he said, "have done their best to correct our
faith and correct our manners; but I doubt whether they performed
their task as diligently, or as brilliantly, as we have done. Everyone's
sores have been laid open, everyone's life brought to light: nothing
has been dissembled. The arguments and reasonings of our adver-
saries have been handled as if in the interests of their cause, not of
ours. Some points have been discussed thrice, or even four times;
and often the highest pitch of contention has been reached; but in
such wise that, as gold is tried by fire, the strength and sinews of
truth were, so to say, tried by wrestling. For indeed what real dis-
cord could there exist between men who were inspired by the same
convictions, and who had the same end in view?"
In fact, it seems, humanly speaking, hardly believable that an
assembly, torn about by conflicting tendencies, should have shown
itself so unanimous and so clear about its own mind, in its Canoncs
ct Decreta. This work, despite the lapse of eighteen years between
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 89
its inception and termination, is a forcible and coherent body of
doctrine. It is fairly equally divided into two parts, the dogmatic
and the disciplinary decrees, between which there is, of course, no
absolutely clear-cut distinction. The former refute the new heresies,
and strongly, uncompromisingly assert the orthodox faith. They are
a mere naked, austere exposition of the Catholic Church's teaching;
but there is something bracing about their very severity, a driving
force which was bound to carry wavering opinion along with it.
Amidst the weltering confusion of thought which prevailed in the*
mid-sixteenth century, a definite statement of the Church's position
was a rallying-point for many bewildered souls. As for the disci-
plinary decrees, they deal with moral abuses as being the outcome of
faulty administrative practice; they bring the necessary correctives
to the anarchical state of the Church; they make her government,
hierarchy, and system of jurisdiction into a harmonious whole.
Such strength of thought and steadiness of purpose would be
wholly unaccountable had the council been merely a scrimmage
between contending parties. But in truth all its members shared the
same high ideal and had a noble conception of their own duty and
of the function of the Church. Of course they did not express their
feelings and enthusiasm through oratorical speeches or gushing sen-
timentahsm. But their warm piety breathes forth from many a pas-
sage of sober and restrained beauty. The following lines are both
lofty in feeling and harmonious in the original Latin; they are a
warning to prelates to lead virtuous lives:
"It is to be desired that those who accept the episcopal charge,
should acknowledge their duty in it; and understand that they have
been elevated, not for their own advantage, nor to acquire riches or
luxury, but to labour and bear trouble, for the glory of God. Nor is
it to be doubted that the rest of the faithful will be more easily fired
with zeal for piety and innocence, if they see their chiefs pondering,
not the things of this world, but the salvation of souls, and their
heavenly home. The holy council, considering that these are prin-
cipal things towards restoring ecclesiastical discipline, warns all
bishops that, by often meditating on them privately, they show them-
selves worthy of their charge, through their very deeds, and the
business of their lives, which are a kind of perpetual preaching; and
first of all that they thus dispose their manners, that others may
seek from them examples of frugality, temperance, continence, and
90 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
of that holy humility, which wins us such favour in the eyes of.
God."
The same lofty tone is maintained throughout the Ctmones et
Dccreta. There is in them a mingling of quiet and stately dignity,
of burning charity, of fervent piety. The council, after advising
bishops not to be overbearing with their flocks, warns them against
fawning upon princes, their ministers, and their barons; and asks
them "to bethink themselves of their order and degree, both in
their churches and abroad, and remember that they are fathers and
pastors." The charitable zeal for the welfare of the -Church is re-
vealed in the safe conduct granted to the Protestants in 1551 : "The
Holy Council," it runs, "though it has, with much longing, vainly
expected their arrival for many months past; yet, like a devoted
mother, who groans in her throes, and whose pangs are mingled
with hope, wishing, that among those, who are counted Christians,
there should be no schism, but that, as they all confess the same
God and Redeemer, they should declare the same, believe the same,
acknowledge the same . . ." grants to the Protestants a safe access to
Trent and a safe return home. As for the warm, sincere piety, it is
evident in the passage which recommends frequent Communion:
"The council warns, exhorts, beseeches, entreats all and sundry . . .
to believe and venerate those holy mysteries of the body and
blood of Christ, with such constancy and firmness of faith, such
devotion of the heart, such piety and honour, that they may often
receive that supra-substantial bread, and that it may truly be to them,
the life of the soul, and the perpetual health of the mind."
Such a height of spiritual fervour was bound to be reflected in the
ethical field; nor should what has been said above of administrative
reform be taken to mean that the council was indifferent to moral
evils as such. Its legislation against laxity of manners is quite as
rigorous as that of the most severe Protestants. Like the Presby-
terians, the council condemned organ-music in churches, and "prick-
song," in which it was undoubtedly ill-advised; like the Presby-
terians again, it advised public penance for public sinners, so that
"he who had through his example drawn others to evil manners,
should recall them to an upright life through the witness of his
correction." Some exaggerations may indeed be accounted for by
the reaction against Renaissance lasciviousness; but the action of the
council was of the happiest when it forbade duelling, and ordered
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 91
that those who countenanced it, be they emperors or kings, should
be excommunicated; when it took stringent measures against con-
cubinary priests, "of whatever degree, dignity, or condition"; when
it prescribed a decent behaviour in the house of God.
The moral ideal of the Council of Trent strongly recalls that of
the Christian humanists of the early sixteenth century, many of
whom had, as a matter of fact, lived long enough to take part in the
debates. It is an ideal of earnest soberness, of decent temperateness.
The following rules are laid down for all clerics:
"It altogether behooves all those who are called to act in the name
of God, so to compose their lives and manner, that in their outward
bearing, their deportment, their gait, and their speech, they show
nothing but what is grave, moderate, and full of piety." In preach-
ing as well as in conduct, the Christian humanists advised a decent
plainness; they recommended sermons in the vernacular, simple and
homely, without any unnecessary refinements of eloquence and logic.
The same spirit appears in the Trentine canons bearing on the
subject. Lest, m the words of Jeremiah, "the little ones ask bread,
and no man break it unto them," all archbishops, bishops, arch-
priests, and priests are requested to address their flocks in person,
no exemption of any kind being allowed; but they should do so "in
words brief and easy." When explaining the 'force and use" of the
sacraments, as they ought to do before dispensing them, let them do
so "in the vernacular, if need be," and "in words suitable for the
understanding of those who are to receive, . . . piously and wisely."
On Sundays and feast days, they should comment, "also in the
vulgar tongue," on "the holy discourses, and their intimations of
salvation"; but here again, they should, "when striving to plant
them into the hearts of all, and make the people learned in the law
of the Lord, . . . leave aside any useless disquisitions," Purgatory
should be taught, but, "with the ruder sort of people, the more
difficult and subtle questions, which do not tend to edification, and
through which most of the time piety is not augmented, should be
left out of the sermons."
Generally speaking, the council, like the Christian humanists,
believes in plain, honest common sense. The carrying of the Sacra-
ment to the sick, one of the decrees runs, is an ancient use, and
should be retained: "Besides, it is consonant with the highest equity
and reason." Whenever a point of dogma or canon law is demon-
92 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
strated, there is the same appeal to plain, balanced thinking. Only
long quotations could illustrate the constant effort of the council to
be reasonable and coherent. Some idea of it may be gamed from the
following lines on confession. They first recall that Christ gave to
his priests and vicars the power of the keys, and then proceed thus:
"It is obvious that priests cannot pronounce judgment without
knowing the cause, and that in fact they cannot preserve equity in
the imposing of penalties, if the faithful declare their sins only in
general, and not in detail, and one by one. It follows that the peni-
tents must needs review in confession all their mortal sins, of which
they have become conscious after diligently examining themselves."
The very style of the Canoncs et Decreta is in agreement with the
thought. It is terse, forcible, seldom allows itself any artifices of
rhetoric, but often rises to great dignity. Its latmity is pure, elegant,
and sometimes slightly affected, as when orationes is preferred to
preces, or servator to salvator. The literary ideal of the Fathers finds
expression in their rules on forbidden books. "Such as deal with
lascivious or lewd subjects . . . should be altogether prohibited.
But if they are ancient works written by Gentiles, they are per-
mitted, on account of the elegance and propriety of their speech;
though they must on no account be read to children." And yet their
appreciation of classical models has a higher purpose; they should
lead to a better understanding of the sacred texts. In cathedral
churches, when a reader in Scripture cannot be afforded, there
should at least be "a master, appointed by the bishop, ... to teach
'grammar 5 gratis to the clergy, and also to poor scholars; so that
they may with the grace of God, pass on to the study of Holy
Writ." "Grammar," which should be taken in a broad sense, is also
part of the syllabus of the new seminaries which are to be created
in each diocese: as well, it is true, as singing and reckoning.
Altogether, the council's wish to maintain classical culture cannot be
doubted (the learned Giulio Poggiani was specially entrusted with
the task of "polishing up" the Canones et Decreta), possibly out of
respect for the spirit of the age, but more probably to fulfil the pur-
pose of the Christian humanists, and turn the Renaissance to a reli-
gious use.
* * #
There ^as obviously no reason why the Fathers should have added
to the Canones et Decreta considerations of a sentimental kind, ex-
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 93
pressing the moral ideal which animated them; the latter chiefly
appears in the rules which they laid down for the welfare of the
Church. Nor was their work of a random or haphazard nature.
They went on a very definite plan, which is never declared as such,
but which unmistakably emerges from the Canoncs et Decreta taken
as a whole: that of strengthening the authority of 1 the hierarchy,
both secular and regular, in conjunction with that of the papacy.
The two might, on first glance, seem to be antagonistic; and no
doubt many of the Fathers, still imbued with the prejudices of the
conciliar party, tended to look askance at papal overlordship; while
many curialists might consider episcopal independence as an undue
limitation of the papal prerogative. That both were, however, mis-
taken was soon made clear. Neither the bishops without the support
of the Holy See, nor the pope unaided by the bishops, could deal
satisfactorily with the abuses. Mutual correction and mutual help
were wanted; and such were, in fact, the lines on which the council
went, establishing a firm interdependence between a purified papacy
and a purified episcopacy.
Taking the decrees as a whole, they bring about a general clarify-
ing and disentangling of the various jurisdictions. There are to be
two of these only, saving the superior rights of the Holy See: that
of the bishop within his diocese, and that of the head of an order
within the same. The bishop is to be untrammelled by the number-
less individual privileges which up till then had set his authority at
naught. No one is to preach without his license, be he secular or
regular. In regard to visitation and the correction of manners, his
rights are absolute; nor can his action be stopped by any exemption
or appeal, even to Rome; he is expected to visit his whole diocese
every two years, including his own cathedral chapter, all hospitals,
colleges, and brotherhoods; also such religious houses as are not
visited by the head of an order, and all benefices, secular and reg-
ular, with or without cure of souls, even those held in commendam
or exempt; nor can the canons, archdeacons, and deans under him
exercise similar powers without his permission. His jurisdiction does
not merely extend to all seculars, but also in a number of cases to
religious persons as well, especially those who live outside their
monasteries. The provision according to which he alone can allow
other than parish priests to hear confessions is obviously meant
chiefly for regulars; and his authority over women's convents is
94 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
shown by his right to send to them confessors extraordinary.
The Trentine legislation makes the bishop supreme in the matter
of ordination or the conferring of benefices. He is warned, in a
decree of great literary and spiritual beauty, "to rebut the vicfcs of
all his subjects, and mainly to take care, lest there should exist
scandalous clerics, especially if appointed to the cure of souls."
Therefore, he has a right to select candidates to minor orders, to
send those who aspire to the priesthood to universities or seminaries,
and to examine them before ordaining them, which ordination he
must confer himself. On the other hand, should he interdict a
priest, his decision is final; and if a priest has been ordained with-
out his consent, he has a right to suspend him. He alone is en-
titled to confer orders within his diocese. Bishops in partibus are
debarred from trespassing upon this privilege; and abbots and other
exempt prelates, colleges, or chapters are forbidden to confer the
tonsure, or allow anyone, through letters dimissory, to receive holy
orders. As for candidates to benefices, whoever may have presented
them, be it even a papal nuncio, they are not to be admitted, "even
on accotint of any privilege, or custom, even immemorial," if they
have not been examined and found worthy by the ordinary of the
place. Besides, the same has a right to check all titles to patronage
acquired within the last forty years, even through the authority of
the Holy See, and, if he do not find them lawful, to revoke them.
Thus the bishops are allowed to take action, even in cases in which
they may seem to infringe the privileges of the Holy Sec; nor would
they enjoy the necessary authority, if they did not have superior
powers delegated by the pope. That they are deemed to have them
is clear, since they are repeatedly mentioned as acting "tanquam
a Sede Apostolica delegati," as the delegates of the Apostolic See. As
for the papacy itself, it relinquishes the use of its right to interfere
with the lower degrees of jurisdiction, and is content to be the head
of the hierarchy, and the supreme court of appeal. Thus limited, its
rights are maintained in the frequently used phrase, "salva Sanctae
Sedis auctaritate" saving the authority of the Holy See. The pope
retains his powers as the chief authority in the Church. He alone is
to weigh the merits of those proposed by provincial councils for the
episcopate, and to appoint bishops, though the council gravely ad-
monishes him "to put at the head of the several churches good and
capable pastors; and this the more so as our Lord will call him to
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 95
account for the blood of Christ's sheep, that will perish through the
evil government of pastors remiss and forgetful of their duty." But
in regard to that gigantic system of administration and taxation
through the Curia, which the Avignon popes had perfected, which
superseded the authority of the hierarchy and drew everything up
to Rome, the council fells it to the ground at one blow. "The Holy
Council decides that provisions and expectative graces will not be
granted henceforth to any one . . . even by the name of indults, or
for a fixed sum, or for any other reason whatsoever." The rejection of
papal exemptions is even more severe: "Since it is known that the
privileges and exemptions, which are granted to many on various
accounts, give rise to perturbations in the jurisdiction of the Church,
and afford to exempt clerics an occasion of loose living," all those
who have been granted honorary titles by the Holy See, if they are
not actually resident in the Curia, are to remain subject to the
authority of the ordinary.
In fact, no part of the Church whether secular or regular, is now
to claim dependence upon the papacy as a means of withdrawing
itself from the normal system of jurisdiction. All those monasteries
which used to be governed "under the immediate protection and
direction of the Apostolic See" must now be formed into diocesan
or provincial orders, with their general chapters, and their own
visitors; or if they fail to do so, they are again to fall under the
authority of the ordinary. The same tightening and concentration
of discipline which the council has brought about in the secular
field is also to take place among the regulars. The latter are forbid-
den to attach themselves, without license from their superiors, to
any prelate, prince, university, or community. If they leave their
houses without permission, they are to be punished by the ordinary.
The transfer of monks from order to order, which allows of
"wandering about and apostatizing," i.e., returning to secular life,
is not to be allowed. The heads of orders are enjoined to visit the
monasteries and priories placed under them; nor can local superiors
refuse their visitation. Secular and regular functions are not hence-
forth to be confused: poor prebends in a cathedral chapter may be,
if necessity compel, united with benefices in the diocese, but on no
account are these to be regular. A canon henceforth is not allowed
to be at the same time an abbot or a prior.
The independence of cathedral chapters and their assumption of
96 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
episcopal powers had been the cause of long-standing differences,
even inside the council itself. The decrees, duly weighing the claims
of both parties, make the bishop supreme: "He is to be shown
honour consonant with his dignity, to occupy in the choir, chapter
or processions, and other public acts, the place which he has chosen,
and to have the chief authority there as to what is to be done." Yet
he is to take the advice of the canons, especially in the matter of
trials, in which they form a sort of judicial court. At the same time,
cathedral chapters, which had been a hotbed of abuses, must now
agree to be cleansed. "The dignities in churches, and especially
cathedrals," one of the decrees runs, "have been instituted towards
the maintenance and augmentation of ecclesiastical discipline, so
that those who obtain them may excel in their piety, be examples
to others, and help the bishops with their services." They must ac-
cordingly be fit for such a task; they ought to be at least twenty-five
years of age, and commendable through their learning and virtue.
All bartering of canonries, all promises made by candidates to pay
for their prebends out of the revenues, are declared simoniacal and
forbidden. Canons are not allowed to absent themselves from their
churches for more than three months each year; they are requested
to take part in the divine service in person, not through deputies,
and to sing in the choir. Similar rules apply to the prebendaries in
collegiate or parish churches.
As for cathedral chapters, so for all beneficiaries. The restoration
of episcopal jurisdiction necessarily carried along with it the
restoration of discipline. To begin with, pluralities share the fate of
exemptions: "Many," says the council, "thereto driven by insatiable
covetousness, and deceiving themselves, though not God, have
through various tricks eluded wise rules, and blush not to own
several benefices together." This is now to be strictly forbidden, even
to cardinals, at least in cases where residence is necessary. Then,
again, benefices are not to be conferred except "upon worthy and
capable persons, who are able to reside, and perform their duties
by themselves." They may be granted to young men who have re-
ceived the tonsure or minor orders, the minimum age being fixed
at fourteen; but in such cases, they are to be considered as a means
to support the incumbent, while he is preparing for the priesthood
after being first examined by the bishop at a university or
elsewhere; nor can he be otherwise entitled to the privileges of the
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 97
clerical state. In no case is a benefice to be considered as an heirloom,
to be bequeathed by the holder; even the coadjutor of a bishop or
abbot is not to count upon his succession. If a parish is to be pro-
vided with a priest, the bishop alone, in spite of all privileges, even
granted by Rome, is to find candidates, and to bring them before a
board of examiners of unimpeachable honesty, appointed by himself.
One of the main cares of the Council of Trent was the recruiting
of a thoroughly qualified clergy, and the keeping out of undesirable
persons. Hence the fulness of the canons bearing upon ordination.
At the time, many priests were unprovided with decent means of
sustenance, and wandered about in search of employment. "It is not
fitting," the council declares, "that those who are called up to the
divine ministry should, to the dishonour of their order, go begging,
or earn their livelihood through some vile trade"; and therefore all
candidates for the priesthood, unless they can depend upon their
personal income, should be provided with a benefice; and all those
who are promoted to holy orders, whether subdeacons, deacons, or
priests, should be appointed to a definite function. Minor orders are
only to be granted to those who appear worthy to rise higher, and
who know Latin; a subdeacon must be at least twenty-two years
of age, a deacon twenty-three, a priest twenty-five; this also applying
to regulars, who must be examined by the bishop. One year's diaco-
nate is necessary before priestly ordination; nor should anyone be
chosen for the latter unless he knows all that is needed for preach-
ing and the administration of sacraments, and "is thus noted for his
piety and chaste conversation, that an excellent pattern of good
works, and an exemplary life, may be expected from him."
Lastly, the upbringing of future priests is not henceforth to be left
to chance; and here we come to the most original and probably the
most important creation of the council, that of the seminaries. These
are to be veritable "nurseries" for the clergy, in which likely boys
will be trained from the age of twelve in the practice of virtue and
piety. The regulations and the syllabus are outlined by the council;
but the details of the organization are left entirely in the hands of
the bishop. The sons of poor families are to be admitted in prefer-
ence to rich boys. The pupils are to be divided into classes, and to
study the liberal arts grammar, reckoning, singing, etc. as well
as Scripture, the Fathers, and liturgy; to attend Mass every day, and
to go to confession and Communion at least once every month. The
98 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
professors must be doctors, masters, or licenciates in Holy Writ or
canon law, or at least fully qualified. There is to be one seminary
or more in each diocese, and considerable attention is granted to the
financing of the whole system. Revenues already devoted to the
education of the clergy are to be turned over to the new institutions.
In addition to this, there is to take place a general levy on all bene-
fices without exception, whatever their nature, degree, privileges, or
exemptions. Such bishops as fail to comply with these provisions
may be deprived of their revenues.
It was not enough, however, to take steps for the education of the
priests of the future. There were crying abuses in the life of the
clergy, clamouring for immediate correction. The council deals with
them with a firm hand. All persons in orders, all the holders of
ecclesiastical benefices or dignities are requested to wear clerical
dress, failing which they will be punished with suspension, or in
case of relapse, with deprivation. Drastic action is taken against
concubinary priests; the council hits them in the right place by de-
priving them, first of part, and then if they do not amend their
lives, of the whole, of their ecclesiastical incomes, and of the right
to occupy any charge or benefice; eventually they may be cast into
prison. The right of punishing concubinary bishops is reserved for
the pope. Especial attention is granted by the council to the vice of
covetousness. "Since the ecclesiastical order must be free from any
suspicion of avarice," no money is to be taken by bishops for the
conferring of orders, or any of the ceremonies therewith connected;
even spontaneous gifts are to be refused. The same applies to visita-
tions, to the appointment of canons, and to the examination of
future parish priests. The letting of Church property is severely
forbidden.
And thus we are brought round again to those abuses born of
greed, which led to the encouragement of superstition by unscru-
pulous dealers in holy things, and were at least the immediate cause
of the Lutheran revolt. The council shows no leniency towards those
who had well-nigh brought about the downfall of the Church. One
of the very first decrees passed in its early sessions is directed against
the quaestorcs eleemosynarii, commonly known as quaestuarii, who
went about begging for alms in the name of saints whose interces-
sion they promised to the donors, and hawking indulgences; they
are henceforth absolutely forbidden to preach. A further decree does
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 99
away with them altogether. The burning question of indulgences is
dealt with in the same spirit. The right of the Church to proclaim
them is maintained, within the limits "of moderation, and custom";
but "the wicked gains obtained from those who acquired them, from
which has sprung among the Christian people the source of mani-
fold abuses, are altogether to be suppressed." As for other corrup-
tions, "due to superstition, ignorance, irreverence, or other causes,"
they are to be firmly corrected by the bishops and provincial coun-
cils. The decree on the abuse of images is worthy of especial atten-
tion. The people are to be taught that statues and pictures have no
divine character in themselves. "All superstition in the invocation
of saints, in the veneration of relics, in the use of holy images, must
be done away with; all shameful gain must be removed; all lasciv-
iousness must be avoided; so that no images of a wanton beauty be
painted or represented; and that in the celebration of saints' days,
or in the visit of relics, people fall not into the abuse of orgy and
drunkenness." Just as the worship of saints ought not to be an
occasion for greed, pious foundations should not be turned into a
commercial enterprise. The will of testators, "in regard to prayers,
alms and works of piety," ought to be executed, not perfunctorily,
but with earnestness and devotion.
The above is enough to give some idea of the vast scope of the
task accomplished at Trent; and yet many points have been left in
the dark. The corrective, the properly reforming side of the council's
work has perforce been insisted on. Its constructive side can barely
be mentioned here. Much was done for the redistribution of par-
ishes, and the relief of poor prebends and benefices. Regulations
were laid down for tithes and mortuaries, for marriage dispensations,*
and for the registration of weddings and christenings. Bishops and
priests were emphatically reminded of the duty of preaching, and
of preaching sound doctrine; this being the link between the disci-
plinary and the theological labours of the council. For it should not
be forgotten that much time was devoted to the defining of dogma,
and the refuting of heresy; as in the matters of original sin, justifica-
tion, the sacraments, and purgatory. This, however, mostly consisted
in reasserting tenets already affirmed by previous councils. It helped
considerably in the work of Catholic reformation, by providing a
firm intellectual basis. But it was not its most original element, and
we need not enlarge upon it at length.
ioo THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
Taking things all in all, there appears, in the Trentine Canones
ct Decreta, a striking combination of spiritual ardour and earnest-
ness, and of temperate, sober reasonableness; as, for instance, in the
regulations referring to public worship. There should be in churches,
we read, "nothing disorderly, nothing arranged preposterously or
hurriedly, nothing profane, nothing indecent; for holiness is fitting
in the House of God." And the spirit of the council's work, which is
also the spirit of Christian humanism, is expressed fully in the
decree concerning Mass. In its celebration, three things should be
avoided at all costs: greed or all that savors of simony; irreverence
the ministration of unworthy priests, lascivious music, profane or
vain talking, walking about in church, loud noises or crying; super-
stition unwarranted rites, the use of a fixed number of Masses or
candles which has its origin in superstitious worship rather than in
true religion. Holiness and decency: how truly Christian, and yet
how different from the rough-and-tumble of the Middle Ages, from
their easy familiarity with holy things, from their lack of self-
restraint, from their truculent crudity. Indeed, the temperate wis-
dom of classical antiquity had left its mark upon the Catholic
Reformation; it had brought to it a colour and a temper of its own.
* * *
Though the council had covered considerable ground, it could
not, by its own means, complete the task it had begun. For one
thing, there was no reason why the work of reformation undertaken
by the Holy See as early as the days of Adrian VI should fall into
abeyance while the assembly sat; and in fact the popes kept up their
battle against abuses, with varying fortunes, throughout the dura-
tion of the sittings at Trent; nor did they wish to let the Fathers
interfere with the reform of the Curia, which they repeatedly re-
served for themselves. Then, again, the council was not an execu-
tive body: it could lay down principles, but not apply them. The
enforcement and interpretation of the decrees necessarily rested with
the papacy. Lastly, on a good many points, though the way had been
pointed out at Trent, no definite steps had been taken. It was left
to the popes to fill in the general framework. We shall not here de-
scribe at large their protracted fight against the many-headed hydra
of Roman corruptions. The essential is that it was conducted on lines
strikingly parallel with the action of the council. Among some fifty
reforming briefs issued by Pope Julius III, in the course of the years
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 101
1550 to 1554, more than half are concerned with monastic discipline;
a number deal with exempt bodies; others enforce the wearing of
clerical dress, set limits to the use of interdict, recast the Dominican
liturgy, take steps against vagrant monks and nuns, forbid the
cession of benefices, and otherwise emulate the Trentine legislation.
There is something admirable, and occasionally pathetic, in the
ups-and-downs of the papal struggle against abuses, especially dur-
ing the long interval between the second and the third periods of
the council, under the pontificate of Paul IV. This pope was a
worthy successor of Adrian VI, and undertook a root-and-branch
reformation of the Curia and of the Church in the papal states. He
was not content with issuing regulations, he actually enforced them,
irrespective of all personal considerations or interests. The police were
let loose against the vagrant monks in Rome; one hundred of them
were arrested, part of these again being imprisoned or condemned
to the galleys. It was found that one hundred and thirteen bishops
were present in the Curia; a dozen of them only, who had duties
there, were allowed to remain; the others had to rejoin their dioceses
under pain of deposition. The pope's own nephews, who occupied
high posts in his court, had shown themselves unworthy of his trust
and perpetuated the scandalous abuses of previous times; they were
deprived of all their dignities, turned out of Rome, and reduced to
misery. Paul IV's main purpose was the total suppression of simony
in every shape and form. He resolutely overrode the usual objection
to reform, namely that the impoverishment of the Holy See which
was sure to follow would no longer allow it to make its weight felt
m international politics. He compelled the Datary to deliver graces
gratis, and to make up for the loss, reduced his expenses and those of
the cardinals. He was prepared to fulfil his reforming designs, he
said, "even at the peril of his own life." He prevented by all possible
means the traffic in benefices. He was an austere and rigid moralist,
and succeeded in purifying the life of Rome by his legislation against
lewd women, usurers, comedians, and buffoons. He even went so
far as to forbid hunting and dancing an unwise and unfortunate
reaction, though one which can be understood, against the laxity, of
the Renaissance. Even when enfeebled by disease and urged by rela-
tives and friends to compromise with the times, he stood firm; and
there is no doubt that his action achieved notable results, and greatly
strengthened that of the council.
iO2 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
Paul IV's successor, Pope Pius IV, was of a less thoroughgoing
temperament, and more inclined to further the fortunes of his rela-
tives. However, the most striking instance of nepotism which he
gave led to the most beneficial results, and ensured the permanency
of the Catholic Reformation. Soon after his accession he was well-
advised enough to appoint his nephew, Charles Borromeo (1538-
1584), to the Secretaryship of State (1559). The young man, then
only twenty-one, belonged to a noble family of Milan, and though
devout and serious-minded, showed a partiality for pomp and sump-
tuousness at the outset. He was sobered, however, by the death of his
brother, Federigo (November 19, 1562), in whom rested the hopes
of secular aggrandizement of the Borromei. He refused to step into
his brother's place as head of the family, and resolved to strike a
more religious course. After going through the Spiritual Exercises
of St. Ignatius, he took priest's orders and reduced his life to asce-
tical simplicity, much to the disappointment of the party of abuses,
who were already beginning to hold up their heads anew. The part
he took in directing the debates of the council from Rome has been
pointed out above. No sooner had they been concluded, and the
decrees issued, than he began to apply them wherever his authority
extended, that is to say, mostly in the papal states, thus setting up
an example to the whole of Christendom. His work of reformation
in the Eternal City proceeded much on the same lines as under
Paul IV, and it would be tedious to rehearse once more the various
steps taken for the uprooting of simony, the visitation of churches,
the cleansing of the Curia. The change in the atmosphere of Rome
was noted by visitors. Fortune-seekers no longer flocked there; the
cardinals led a more austere life; various societies were founded for
the relief of the poor and for the education and protection of young
girls; regulations were issued against excessive luxury, the pope
himself, in August, 1564, dismissing over four hundred superfluous
courtiers. The reform of religious orders was undertaken anew, and
what was most important of all, seminaries were founded, largely
under the guidance of the Jesuits.
Borromeo, who had been created archbishop of Milan, had long
besought the pope to let him return to his see, according to the duty
of residence; but Pius IV was not to be moved. His successor Pius
V, however (elected on January 8, 1566), gave the necessary permis-
sion. Charles had already undertaken, from distant Rome, to rejuve-
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 103
nate his diocese in strict accordance with the Trentine decrees. He
now complied with the regulations on provincial and diocesan
synods, and held seven of the former at regular intervals, and eleven
of the latter. He set up three seminaries at Milan, and three more, for
younger boys, inside the diocese. He had first of all asked the Jesuits
to provide the staff; but as they were reluctant to continue, he
founded a new order of his own, on the model of the Society, but
limited to his archdiocese, that of the Oblates of St. Ambrose. They
were a company of secular priests, who took vows to devote them-
selves wholly to the archbishop's service and to afford him help
wheresoever he should need it. Charles Borfomeo also established a
Society of the Schools of the Christian Doctrine, which in its turn
created seven hundred and forty schools. His helper in his work of
reform was a simple priest, Niccolo Ormaneto, who had been
trained under Giberti, and had accompanied Pole to England;
being thus a link between the older generation of Christian human-
ists, and that of the Council of Trent.
The task of the papacy and its helpers would have been much
simpler if the decrees had been complete in themselves and all ready
for enforcement. Such was not the case. In order that the reforming
legislation might be made available for the whole of the Church, it
had first of all to be confirmed by the Holy See, according to the
express request of the council. This gave rise to more difficulties than
might at first sight be expected. The officials of the Curia, whose
incomes were threatened by a decrease of the appeals to Rome, tried
to brake down the impulse, or at any rate to obtain mitigations.
Pius IV wholly disregarded their opposition, and in a bull dated
January 26, 1564, but really issued on June 30, confirmed the decrees
in the most unlimited fashion. At the same time he forbade the
publishing of all commentaries and annotations upon them without
the consent of the Holy See, and reserved their interpretation for
the latter. This provision ensured uniformity in the application of
the decrees, and disposed of the Gallican claim, according to which
the pope was inferior to the council, and subject to its enactments.
In order to deal with the numerous practical questions which were
sure to arise, Pius IV created a commission of cardinals, later to be
known as the important congregation of the council, whose powers,
however, did not extend to the dogmatic field.
The work of the Trentine assembly was continued in many direc-
104 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
tions under the pontificates of Pius IV and of his successor Pius V.
The first Index of prohibited books had been compiled under Paul
IV. It was unduly severe, and had given rise to many protests. In the
council it was pointed out that many of the condemned writings
were indispensable for literary or scholarly studies. Accordingly a
commission specially appointed for the purpose undertook the cor-
rection of the Index. Whereas the works of Erasmus had previously
been rejected en bloc, a distinction was now made between them,
and Boccacio was only forbidden pending emendation. After the
close of the council the Trentine Index was again examined ,m
Rome, and published by a papal brief of March 24, 1564.
The Fathers at Trent had also been anxious, as early as 1546, to
draft a catechism, or rather two catechisms, one in Latin for the
learned, and one in the vernacular for the unlettered and the young.
They only addressed themselves to the former task. In the years
that followed, a model was supplied by the catechism of Peter Can-
isius, composed at the request of the Emperor Ferdinand. When
the assembly broke up, however, the new manual of doctrine had
not been completed. A commission of theologians was appointed at
Rome to put it into final shape, while the humanist, Gmlio Pog-
giani, was to polish its Latin. Eventually, the Roman catechism was
published, but only under Pius V. Soon after, it was translated into
Italian, German, French, Polish, and Spanish.
While the council had simplified and harmonized the whole sys-
tem of Church jurisdiction, it brought the same spirit to bear on the
reform of the liturgy in the Missal and the Breviary. The latter
especially had become unduly lengthy, entangled, and overloaded
with lives of saints, many of them apocryphal or fantastic and
couched in wretched Latin. Little room was left for readings from
the Scriptures, and there was no clear system of directions for the
ordering of prayers. All these things were obnoxious to the Fathers
at Trent, who, true to the traditions of Christian humanism, made
the meditation on the Gospel the centre of their devotion, and be-
lieved in the applying of textual and historical criticism even to
sacred documents. Accordingly, after rejecting the Breviary of the
Spanish cardinal, Quinones (1535), in which correction had overshot
its mark, they chose as a model that which the Theatine, Gian-
Pietro Carafa the future Pope Paul IV had compiled for the use
of his order. Here again they were to leave their task unfinished, and
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 105
it was to wait for completion until the days of Pius V. The revised
Breviary was published at last by a bull of July 9, 1568, and the
revised Missal by another bull of July 14, 1570. In the former many
incredible episodes, and even certain feasts, were sacrificed as un-
authentic, while Giulio Poggiani ensured the stylistic quality of the
Latin. The Council of Trent had prescribed a similar work of puri-
fication on the text of the Vulgate, and in 1561 the printer, Paulus
Manutius, was called up to Rome to prepare correct editions of the
Bible and the Fathers of the Church. However, the Vork dragged
on all through the pontificates of Pius IV and Pius V, and the
Vatican edition of the Vulgate was not published by Pope Clement
VIII, until November 9, 1612.
Such were the lines along which the work of the council devel-
oped and fructified. Unfortunately, out of the papal states, one
major obstacle stood in its way, in the shape of the rights of patron-
age which were in the hands of temporal sovereigns, and had been
frequently condoned by the Holy See itself. Princes were wont to
reward their servants, high and low, with the benefices they had in
their gift, irrespective of the requirements of Church discipline; and
thus they were responsible for exemptions, pluralities, and other
abuses, no less than Rome herself. If they did not submit to the
Trentine decrees, these would lose most of their efficiency. In fact,
in its last sessions, the council had attempted the reform of princes,
which it felt to be necessary. There was, however, such opposition
on the part of the various sovereigns, some of them threatening
schism, that it had to desist and be content with exhorting them.
Now that the sittings were over, the only thing to do was to per-
suade the civil power in each country to ratify the legislation passed
at Trent. This was by no means an easy task, and in many cases the
churches had to make shift to apply the decrees without any help at
all from the temporal rulers.
Things went smoothly enough in Italy. The various states of the
Peninsula readily promulgated the Trentine decrees, foremost among
them being Venice. But in other countries the same obstacles which
had so long prevented the meeting of the council, now retarded its
enforcement. Ferdinand's successor, the Emperor Maximilian II,
persisted in Charles V's illusion that he would effect a religious
io6 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
pacification within his dominions by granting doctrinal and discipli-
nary concessions to the Protestants; besides he wanted their help
against the Turks. The Trentine legislation \yas too square-cut for
him, and he therefore refused to let the decrees be confirmed at the
Diet of Augsburg in 1566. Together with him a number of men in
Germany and even in Rome formed what has been called the
"irenical" party, and were prepared to meet the Protestants half-
way; not realizing that in periods of moral and mental confusion,
a determined and clearly defined policy acts as a rallying-point and
as a heartening influence, whereas compromise is viewed by hostile
extremists as the equivalent of weakness. The peacemakers were
nevertheless inspired by the most praiseworthy motives. They
thought that if the German laity were granted Communion under
both kinds, Protestantism would lose most of its hold upon the
people; while the marriage of priests would enable the German
Church to tide over the dearth of qualified clergy. Pius V let him-
self be persuaded to grant the cup to laymen within the Empire.
No very definite results followed, and the concession was gradually
allowed to drop and was finally cancelled in 1621. Meanwhile, how-
ever, the Trentine decrees had not been ratified; nor was the Em-
pire as a whole ever to endorse them afterwards. Happily, as early
as 1566, the legate, Commendone, had induced the German Cath-
olic princes, especially the duke of Bavaria, Cardinal Truchsess,
bishop of Augsburg, Cardinal Mark Sittich von Hohenems, and the
three ecclesiastical electors, besides others, to publish the legislation
of the council within their states, and to undertake the work of
reformation, which was soon to bear fruit in plenty.
In France, objections were raised from the outset by the king and
his supporters. The council was considered as having failed in its
main purpose, since it had not brought about the reconciliation be-
tween Protestants and Catholics which it had been counted upon to
effect. The decrees could not be accepted, for they would incense
the Calvinists, whom they had severely anathematized; besides, they
forbade the holding of benefices in commendam, and made it im-
possible for the sovereign to reward influential men whose help he
needed. Lastly, national pride had been hurt by the precedence
granted to the imperial ambassador. But the chief obstacles to the
promulgation were twofold: on the one hand, while the whole of
the French Church was agreed as to the necessity of the dogmatic
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 107
decrees, there was no such unanimity on the question of the disci-
plinary decrees; the cathedral chapters feared for their jurisdiction
and privileges, and the poorer clergy viewed with alarm a condi-
tion of things in which they would no longer be able to make up
for the poverty of small benefices by holding several of them. There-
fore in the States General, in the Church assemblies, the acceptance
of the decrees was at first proposed with reservations. On the other
hand the high court of judicature known in France as the Parlia-
ment was imbued with the old Gallican and conciliar ideas, and
though convinced of the necessity of the reformation, wished to
effect it, not in the pope's name, but in that of the king; and their
opposition to the Holy See became even more settled at the time of
the controversy between King James I of England and Cardinal
Bellarmine on the power of princes and the temporal claims of the
papacy. Despite the pertinacious efforts of the papal legates during
the forty years which followed the break-up of the council, it was
never officially confirmed by the French sovereigns.
The question had been mooted at the Church assembly at Melun
in 1579, when it was, however, impossible to induce Henry III to
grant the publication of the decrees in exchange for a subsidy. The
States General of 1595, called up by the Catholic League, did pro-
claim them, but in the absence of a lawful king. Meanwhile, the
idea of reformation had been slowly gathering momentum, and the
French clergy were more and more feeling that it behooved them,
and not the temporal prince, to take a decision on purely spiritual
matters. Therefore, at the Church assembly of 1615, they decided
to act on their own responsibility, and subscribed a solemn declara-
tion which "received" the Trentine decrees and promised compliance
with them. This was in France the official beginning of the Cath-
olic Reformation, which in fact had already been in progress for
some time past, and which produced magnificent results in the
spiritual, intellectual, and literary fields. And yet it was crippled by
the king's refusal to join in. The abuses connected with benefices
were perpetuated all through the seventeenth and eighteenth cen-
turies. The entanglement of jurisdictions remained what it had
been before Trent, and gave rise to scandalous quarrels, such as that
which took place at Simorre in Gascony between 1713 and 1728,
when the Benedictine monks of the local abbey forged several docu-
ments in order to get possession of the priory of Sarrancolin, the gift
io8 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
of which was disputed between them and the Chapter of the Dau-
rade in Toulouse; and again when monastic offices, considered as
private property, were bitterly contended for by two opposing parties
among the monks. It is hardly a paradox to repeat, in the words of
the late Fr. Wernz, S.J., that the reform of the system of benefices
according to the Trentine decrees was the meritorious work of the
French Revolution. The method then used may appear somewhat
too drastic; but undoubtedly the uprooting of time-honoured abuses
proved a tonic for the Church in France.
While the king of Portugal, writing to the pope on October 2,
1564, promised "to observe the Decrees ... so as to ensure their
undisputed and inviolate integrity," and forthwith signified as much
to all his servants, things did not run so smoothly in Spain. King
Philip II was in a paradoxical position: he considered himself as the
most Catholic sovereign in Europe, and yet, rather than relinquish
what he considered as his rights over the Church, he was willing to
put off the enforcement of the Trentine legislation in his wide
dominions of Spain, Naples, Milan, and America. After some shilly-
shallying, he published the decrees on July 19, 1564, but with the
proviso that this was "without prejudice to his royal rights." What
he meant thereby clearly appeared in the long struggle which he
waged against Pius IV and Pius V for the maintenance of ecclesias-
tical powers scarcely inferior to those which Henry VIII of England
had claimed a few decades before. Pius IV complained that Philip
II had assumed the right of interpreting the Council of Trent, and
that "he meant to be pope as well as king." In fact, the Spanish
sovereign deemed himself entitled to withhold all papal bulls or
briefs, even on purely spiritual matters, which he happened to dis-
approve of, and allowed his clergy to appeal to the crown when
threatened by any decision of the Holy See. This could not but per-
petuate the abuses; in fact, in the kingdom of Naples, bishops were
prevented from proceeding against laymen guilty of usury or con-
cubinage, and no clerics were allowed to take possession of their
benefices without royal permission. At Milan the chapter of Santa
Maria della Scala, who badly needed reformation, tried, with the
help of the governor and the senate of the town, to evade visitation;
they slammed their door in the face of Archbishop Charles Bor-
romeo, excommunicated his judicial officials, proclaimed solemnly
that he had made himself liable to ecclesiastical penalties, and posted
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT 109
up their claims. These quarrels dragged on for many years, and had
not yet ceased at the death of Pius V.
In Poland it was touch-and-go whether the country would turn
Protestant altogether; however, the able Nuncio Commendone suc-
ceeded in persuading King Sigismund Augustus to accept the
decrees personally on August 7, 1564, and was happy enough to wit-
ness in 1565 a renewal of piety among the people. As to the Protes-
tant countries proper, England especially, we shall later see how the
Trentine spirit managed to permeate them, despite the anti-Catholic
legislation. Altogether, the importance of the Council of Trent can
scarcely be overestimated. It far transcends that of any other Church
assembly, however notable. It was, in a way, the heir to the Renais-
sance, for it borrowed from it all that was best in it, the classical
ideal of order, reasonableness, temperate wisdom, fittingness, and
decency, and applied it to its task of rejuvenating the huge, cum-
brous, and entangled organization of the mediaeval Church. Its
decrees are a model of clear, forceful thinking, and a model of liter-
ary composition. They brought about a wonderful religious revival,
both in Europe and out of Europe. Had they been applied every-
where, the whole system of abuses in regard to benefices would have
been done away with, and the French Revolution, which was largely
a reaction against clerical opulence, might never have happened at
all. It would be a mistake, however, to narrow down the Catholic
Reformation to the enforcement of a set of rules. The Trentine
legislation itself was but the outcome of a spiritual movement which
had begun early in the century, and of which the most striking
instance was the renewal of devotion and sacrifice among the older
religious orders, and the foundation of new orders adapted to the
needs of the times.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The most complete, up-to-date, and reliable account of the Council of
Trent is found in the continuation by Dom H. Leclercq of Cardinal
Hergenroether's work, entitled in the French translation Histoirc dcs
Conciles, Vols. IX, i, and IX, ii (Paris, 1930 and 1931), by P. Richard,
covering the whole of the preparation and history of the council, and the
completion of its work by Popes Pius IV and Pius V. Vol. X, now out
(April, 1938), by A. Michel, deals with the dogmatic decrees. Among
older works, P. Sfortia Pallavicino, Istoria del Concilia di Trento, 3 vols.
(Roma, 1664), is extremely informative as to the religious and political
debates in the council. The Lettres et mtmoires de Francois de Vargas
no THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
touchant le concile de Trente (Amsterdam, 1700), give the imperial
point of view.
The Latin text of the decrees should be consulted, Sacrosancti & oecu-
menici concilii Tridcntini Canones et Dccreta (numerous ed.; there are
several English translations, notably by J. Waterworth [London, 1848]
and by T. A. Buckley [London, 1851]); it provides a good deal of his-
torical information as well. For the whole of the council and for the
attitude of the various powers, refer to the excellent volumes of Ludwig
von Pastor, History of the Popes, translated by Ralph Francis Kerr,
Vols. XIII to XVII. For the enforcement of the decrees in Germany, and
the struggle between the "irenical" and the intransigent parties, see G.
Constant's bulky and intelligent work, Concession b I'Allemagne de la
communion sous les deux especes, etude sur les debuts de la Rtforme
catholique en Allemagne, (1548-1621), (Paris, 1923), and its supplement
of documents. La legation du cardinal Morone pres I'Empereur et le con-
cde de Trente (Paris, 1922). For the publication of the council in
France, and the battle between the Gallican Parliament and the Church,
see Victor Martin, Le Gallicanisme et la Rtjorme catholique (Paris,
1919), and the documents published in the same author's Les Negocta-
tions du nonce Silingardi (1599-1601) (Paris, 1919). For the period
generally, sec Fernand Mourret, Histoire generate de I'Eglise, Vol. V,
La Renaissance et la RSforme (Paris, 1929), which however should not
be trusted in every detail.
The incidents at Simorre are related in two unpublished articles by
G. de Carsalade du Pont, Notice biographique sur Dom Louis Clement
Brugellcs, and UAbbaye de Simorre au XVIII* siecle, which we have
been privileged to read in the manuscript, thanks to the courtesy of the
author.
CHAPTER VI
The Religious Revival Among the Regulars
IT SHOULD again be emphasized here: the Council of Trent
was indeed a dividing-line and a starting-point, but it was not a
sudden revolution. The men who drafted the decrees were most
of them elderly; their ecclesiastical careers had generally begun early
in the century; they had been engaged in reforming work for ten,
twenty, or thirty years. Girolamo Vida, the exemplary bishop of
Alba, for instance, was the same man who had gained the favour
of Leo X by his literary accomplishments.
At the very time when the Church is supposed to have been most
corrupt, Rome itself was fermenting with devotion and charity.
There is no better proof of this than the revival of spiritual life
among the regulars, who through the influence they exerted both
upon the secular clergy and upon the laity, created the necessary
atmosphere and provided the necessary driving force for the Cath-
olic Reformation. This was performed to some extent by the older
orders, some of which did their best to get rid of the abuses which
disgraced them. In their case, however, the initiative frequently
rested with the papacy. Not so with the new orders, those of the
Theatines, the Oratorians, and above all, the Jesuits; for whatever
favour they may have later enjoyed from the Holy See, the merit of
their creation must rest with their founders. These were far-sighted
men, who had specially in view the needs of the times. They really
took the lead in the reforming movement, and played a decisive part.
Yet in regard to the origin of both the older and newer orders,
the beginnings were the same. Reference has already been made to
those pious brotherhoods which were founded in several parts of
Italy, as early as the last years of the fifteenth century. A more im-
portant foundation of the same type appeared at Rome some time
H2 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
before 1517, in connection with the renewal of religious fervour
which was brought about by the Lateran Council. It was called
Compagnia ovvero Oratorio del Divino Amore the Oratory of
Divine Love. It was not a numerous body, nor did it seek to increase
its numbers much. There was an intimate quality about it. The at-
tention of its members was turned inward. Their idea was that the
best way to spread reformation abroad was to begin it in themselves,
through pious exercises, through prayer and exhortation, through
frequent confession and Communion, and through the performance
of works of charity. Humble and modest, they merely wished to set
a good example. Their retiring temper, contemplative rather than
militant, was that of the Christian humanists, several of whom, like
Sadolet, belonged to the Oratory. They were extremely fond of
classical antiquity, the only known monument that recalls their
memory being a font in the shape of an ancient sacrificial altar.
Altogether, morally, socially, and intellectually, their body, which
rose to the number of fifty or sixty, was distinguished and aristo-
cratic. It was soon joined by two men of widely differing character,
who were both of them to exert a deep influence on the future of
the Church, Gaetano di Thiene and Gian-Pietro Caraffa.
The former's upbringing and temper were quite in keeping with
the spirit of the Oratory. He was the son of a noble family of
Vicenza, where he was born about 1480. He was brought up, his
chief biographer says, hberahter et ingenue, as befits a man of rank.
He studied at Padua and became a scholar, a doctor m civil and
canon law, and then turned to philosophy and theology. He had
been early noted for his charitableness and for his piety, which was
of a mystical kind. He "chose secret places to meditate on divine
things." He had visions, notably one in which he was allowed to
carry the infant Christ in his arms. The Oratory of Divine Love
suited him admirably. That it should also have attracted Gian-Pietro
Caraffa casts light on the devotional possibilities even of strong,
active characters. Caraffa, who had been born in 1476 and belonged
to a noble family of Naples, had early proved his combative zeal by
escaping from the parental home at the age of fourteen to join the
Dominicans. He was prevented from achieving his purpose, and
became an official in the Curia. .He lived chastely and purely
throughout the scandalous pontificate of Alexander VI. He was en-
trusted by Julius II with several diplomatic missions, and in Eng-
ST. Ir.NATii's LOYOLA --- Founder o| the
Jesuits, the "duel instrument ol the
Catholic Reformation."
ST. FKINCIS DI. SALTS His dominant
leature the quality ot case, ol
natural nes.,, ol lihertv.
I'HOMAS MOJO (Jieatest ol
Christian humanists.
ST. CHAKI.LS BORROMLO Persuaded his
Hock "that all must henceforth
embrace a new life."
Pop* Li-o X (by Raphael) Within limits
Ins policy seems wise and full ot foresight.
Hut "policy" was not enough.
POIM GRK-ORY Xlll (lifted with practical
sense, and a born organi/er, he earned lor-
ward the reforms of Trent.
POPI-. PAUL IV Attempted to correct
abuses without the Council of Trent.
He failed through over-severity.
POPJ ST. Pius V Ilis election was due
solely to his virtues. He loved the
truth, and hated dissemblers.
RELIGIOUS REVIVAL AMONG THE REGULARS 113
land made the acquaintance of Erasmus, whom he encouraged to
publish the works of St. Jerome, and who in return praised his
classical scholarship. Meanwhile he had been made bishop of Chieti
in the Abruzzi, and set about the reformation of his diocese with
a firm hand. He joined the Oratory in 1520 during a stay in Rome.
These two men and their friends were to initiate the religious
revival among the regulars. Both before and after they had struck
a line of their own, they fostered the new spirit among the older
orders. The latter were being leavened by small groups of the more
eagerly devout among their members. As early as the reign of Leo
X there was a movement afoot among the Camaldolese to seek
peace and perfection in retirement. Paolo Giustiniani had created at
Pascelupo, in the Apennines, and then at Massaccio, in the Marches,
hermitages of a peculiar type: the monks lived there isolated in
separate houses; the rule was very strict, and stress was laid on abso-
lute solitude. The reform was continued and completed under
Adrian VI, who for that purpose called to Rome Gian-Pietro
Caraffa, a kindred spirit to his. The hermitages gradually developed
into a new body, the centre of which was established at Monte
Corona, in the higher valley of the Tiber, by Giustiniani da
Bergamo.
Various orders were similarly reformed, on the lines of the old
rules and according to the primitive spirit of each, between the
pontificate of Leo X and the Council of Trent. Caraffa's sister, with
her brother's help, improved conditions among the Dominican nuns
at Naples in 1530. The Dominican Order itself was only purged of
Lutheran preachers and gyrovagi by two visitations, under Paul
III, in 1543 and 1547. Early in the century Giles of Viterbo (Egidio
Canisio), the outspoken orator of the Lateran Council and general
of the Augustinian hermits, was at work among his own brethren.
His efforts were bravely continued, two decades later, in accordance
with the definite orders of Paul III, by his successor, the outstand-
ing classical scholar Girolamo Seripando. He began in 1539 a gen-
eral visitation of all the houses of his order, throughout Italy, France,
Spain, and Portugal; but it took years to get rid of heretical ele-
ments. As to the Franciscans, it was a case of a reform within a
reform; the revival took place among the Observants, who them-
selves had, in the course of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,
seceded from the representatives of the original community, or Con-
H4 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
ventuals; and it eventually gave birth to a new order, that of the
Capuchins, which however remained true to the Franciscan
tradition.
Under Leo X, the general of the Observants, Francesco Lichetto,
had founded houses of recollection for those among the religious
who wished to lead a stricter life; and as the movement spread, the
members of the new communities had gained some independence
and become known as Riformati. The real reformer of the Francis-^
cans, however, only appeared a little later; his name was Matteo da
Bascio (1495-1552), a native of Umbna, where the memories of St.
Francis of Assisi were liveliest. He first attracted public attention by
his heroic behaviour during the plague at Camermo (1523 or 1524),
and soon became the protege of Caterina Cibo, duchess of Camerino,
the niece of Leo X and Clement VII, and of Vittona Colonna, two
women of the Renaissance who joined fervent piety with elaborate
classical scholarship and literary ability. Having returned to his
convent of Montefalcone, Matteo, meditating among the solitary
woods, felt a stronger and stronger impulse wholly to model his own
life on that of St. Francis; this longing taking concrete shape in his
resolve to wear a pointed hood or cappuccio similar to that which he
believed to have been worn by the saint. He was soon joined by
Lodovico and Raffaele da Fossombrone. The movement spread
rapidly, but its career was a chequered one. The Observants con-
sidered the secession as treachery, and succeeded in obtaining fiom
several popes decisions in their favour, which hampered tlie recruit-
ing or reduced the independence of the new order. Their complaints
gained a readier hearing from the fact that Lodovico da Fossom-
brone, now vicar-general of the Capuchins, had taken a defiant atti-
tude towards the Chapter of 1535, and had had to be expelled; while
his successor, Bernardino Ochino, went over to Calvinism in 1542,
in the company of a number of his brethren.
At the same time, as early as 1526, Carafa had taken the founders
under his protection and secured for them some measure of freedom.
Besides, the Capuchins soon gained popular favour by their em-
inent virtues. They walked barefoot, slept on a plank, and fasted
rigorously; their churches were utterly simple and unadorned, in
contrast to those of the Theatines this being an illustration of the
variety of religious tempers, and therefore of the spiritual richness of
the Catholic Reformation. They were fearlessly devoted to the sick
RELIGIOUS REVIVAL AMONG THE REGULARS 115
during epidemics, and attracted crowds by their sermons. Mattco
da Bascio, who held up a crucifix above the heads of the people
while preaching, used to cry out: "To Hell with usurers, to Hell
with concubinaries, and the same for the other vices'; such was his
freedom when in the pulpit, that he spared no one, and was for
that reason often despised by people of little sense," The Capuchins
"preached Holy Writ, chiefly the holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus
Christ." One recognizes here all the main features of Franciscan
oratory, which was popular both in its violence and theatrical effects
and in its genuine simplicity and homeliness.
The Capuchins were the most vigorous offshoot of the older
orders in the age of the Renaissance. Their merits were great, and
their apostolic labours among the people were rewarded with un-
doubted success. And yet, while they had been on the whole well
adapted to the spiritual needs of the unsophisticated Middle Ages,
they were not wholly fitted to cope with those of the sixteenth cen-
tury. Something more was needed in a highly refined society, which
had developed new intellectual and artistic cravings; where, besides,
the influence of the aristocracy was such that the heads must be
gained before any enduring work could be done. A new formula
was required in the field of religious life. Many pious men were
groping for it between 1520 and 1540. Their successive attempts
were, on the whole, directed the same way, until they culminated in
the most striking and lasting creation of the times, that of the Society
of Jesus. Before the latter came into existence, however, some of its
essential principles had already been applied in the various orders
of clerks regular.
In the case of the Theatines, the Somaschi, and the Barnabites, the
idea at the back of the foundation is the same. The times, with their
changed social and cultural conditions, called for something other
than the old cloistered monasticism; they required active spreaders
of the faith, who would indeed form organized and disciplined
bodies, but who would mix with the world and deal with the world.
Hence the double nature of the three orders of clerks regular here
mentioned. Their members were true religious, who took the three
vows of chastity, obedience, and poverty; their forsaking of worldly
goods was even more absolute than that of the Franciscans, as a
n6 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
reaction against covetousncss, the mother of all evils in the Church;
they were even forbidden to beg for alms and were to look for
sustenance to God's Providence alone. They lived in common, and
austerely too; they fasted and abstained from meat and mortified
themselves. But they all wore the black cassock of secular priests;
they all engaged in the same kind of outside work, and their apos-
tolate, while first attending to the material needs of the sick, the
poor, and the illiterate, found a way to their souls and raised them
up towards God. Finally, they realized that the papacy alone could
effect a thorough reformation, and therefore made themselves the
direct helpers of the Holy See, upon which they immediately
depended.
Nevertheless, each of the three orders had its own history, which
accounts for its definite personality. The Theatines were the con-
tinuation of the Oratory of Divine Love, and retained the same
character. Gaetano di Thiene, after seeking his true path from 1519
to 1523 and after being compelled to leave Rome, had attempted to
develop the action of the Oratory in provincial towns. He recon-
structed and united two brotherhoods at Vicenza and Verona, and
reorganized a hospital in Venice. He felt, however, that this was
but nibbling at the great problem of reformation; that "the corrup-
tion of manners and of souls, which had spread far and wide among
the Christian people, was a greater evil than could be cured by the
means or efforts of a mere brotherhood of secular priests, which
besides could not last for ever." Hence his plan for a new order
that would set up a model for the imitation of the secular clergy.
The idea was imparted at first to Bonifazio da Colle, then to
Gian-Pietro Carafa. The latter understood perfectly that all attempts
at reformation would be futile unless the secular clergy were pro-
vided with leaders that would carry them along; he enthusiastically
declared his wish to join hands with Gaetano. His position as a
bishop, however, stood in the way, and Gaetano was unwilling to
accept him. And here follows a moving scene, in which both char-
acters stand out strikingly: after many words had passed on both
sides, Carafa, "suddenly falling down upon his knees, with a some-
what angry and almost threatening countenance, affirmed that on
Doomsday he would, in the presence of Christ his judge, ask
Gaetano to render account of his soul, if he refused to admit him
forthwith, from the turmoil of worldly cares, to the quiet of reli-
RELIGIOUS REVIVAL AMONG THE REGULARS 117
gious life. Then Gaetano . . . himself fell on his knees, and clasping
him lovingly, said to him: 'My Lord, I shall never forsake you.'"
In 1524, Clement VII allowed Carafa to give up his two bishoprics
and issued a brief authorizing the new community of clerks regular.
The latter were soon called Theatines, from Theate, the Latin name
of Carafa's bishopric of Chieti. Although they were to do the work
of secular priests, even to the length of taking charge of parishes,
they retained the exclusiveness and aristocratic character of the Ora-
tory of Divine Love. Two houses were founded besides that of
Rome, at Naples and Venice, but the effectives of the order never
rose very high.
In 1533, there were twenty-one Theatines all told. However,
Gaetano's purpose was not that they should swarm and spread, but
that their communities should be fed by choice vocations, and
become a nursery for leaders. In the words of Carafa's biographer,
Caracciolo, they were not "seminaries for priests," but "seminaries
for bishops" and in fact many of their members later belonged
to the prelacy. The success of such a reduced phalanx is an instance
of the driving power of small resolute bodies. Its influence was out
of all proportion to its numbers. It represented the new spirit to
such an extent in the eyes of the public that any strict moralist, any
man with a reforming bent, came to be known as a Theatine. The
new order enjoyed the friendship and support of many eminent men
who longed for the purification of the Church. In Venice, it num-
bered among its helpers Reginald Pole, Gasparmo Contarini, and
Gregorio Cortese, the reformer of the Benedictines. In Rome, Giberti
used to see Carafa daily. Tommaso Campeggio, who held the bish-
opric of Feltre, but had not yet been consecrated, was moved by the
latter's example to take a conscientious view of his duties, and to
seek consecration at his hands.
The origin and purpose of the Somaschi were somewhat different.
They were founded about 1528 by a noble Venetian, Girolamo Miani
(Hieronymus Aemilianus). He had first been an officer a brilliant
and dissolute one too in the army of Venice. Two wonderful
escapes which he had, the one from captivity and the other from a
dangerous illness, turned his mind to spiritual things. Henceforth
his life was wholly devoted to the care of the sick, the creation of
orphanages, and the rescuing of fallen girls in various towns of
northern Italy, including Milan. To help him in his work, he
n8 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
gathered a body of pious laymen, and established his headquarters
near Bergamo, in the village of Somasca, which gave its name to
the new community. Yet right up to Miani's death, which occurred
in 1537, the Somaschi failed to turn into a religious order properly
so called. They became one only in 1568, when Miani's successor
Angelo Marco Cambarana obtained a brief of December 6 which
settled their constitutions. Their particular name was that of "Clerks
Regular of San Maiolo," which recalled the church which had been
granted to them in Milan by Charles Borromeo. Their work was
more particularly the relief of the poor. During the famine of 1528
they reaped for themselves universal admiration.
The third order of Clerks Regular if one goes by dates is
that of the Barnabites, thus called from the church of San Barnaba
in Milan, which they occupied from 1545 onwards, though their real
name was that of Clerks Regular of Saint Paul. It was founded in
1530 by Antonio Maria Zaccaria (1502-1539), a gentleman of Ver-
ona, who had given up the study of medicine for theology and the
priesthood; but his first two companions, Bartolomeo Ferrari and
Jacopo Antonio Morizia, were, it should be noted, members of an
earlier brotherhood, the Confraternity of Eternal Wisdom, which
had been established in Milan by the French in 1500. In regard to
place, the Barnabites belonged to the same circle of devotional feel-
ing as the Somaschi; and as in the case of the latter, the leading
thought of their founder was to repair the material and moral rums
left by the disasters of the years 1528 and 1529. Their institute was
approved by Paul III in 1535. They were most unlike the Theatines
in their conquering spirit and their desire to expand. They devoted
themselves especially to missions. Their sermons were popular and
recalled those of the Franciscans. They used to hold up a crucifix
to the people while addressing them; or to carry a heavy cross in
church while beseeching God; or to wear a rope round their necks,
and, thus attired, seek the most despised forms of employment.
Their centre was Milan at first; Charles Borromeo esteemed them
highly, joined their retreats, and chose his confessor among them.
Afterwards they spread rapidly. They founded houses, which went
by the name of colleges, establishing them in most parts of Italy,
in France, in Germany, and Bohemia, and very largely brought
the province of Beam back to the fold in the early seventeenth
century. They also developed in a different way. They needed
RELIGIOUS REVIVAL AMONG THE REGULARS 119
female auxiliaries for the conversion and instruction of women
in the course of their missions; therefore an association of pious
ladies, known as the Congregation of the Holy Angels, or Angeliche,
was founded in 1535 by Luigia Torelli to help them; but it re-
mained confined to northern Italy.
There is a striking contrast between the above-mentioned com-
munities and two movements which appeared soon after, and which
are by far the most original creations of the sixteenth century,
those of the Oratorians and of the Jesuits. The Christian ideaj of
all was of course the same, and individual varieties implied no
mutual disapproval; yet, in their common wish of reformation
they laid the stress on different things. According to the Theatines,
Somaschi, and Barnabites, external action held but a subordinate
position; though they might be in charge of hospitals, colleges, or
missions, their essential purpose was to sanctify themselves by
chastising the flesh and curbing the spirit; they thought that per-
sonal mortification and prayer were the most powerful means to
help the Church. Nor would the Oratorians and Jesuits deny the
truth of such a view. Only they were more practical-minded, and,
however little they might otherwise have in common, they both
agreed that the most important task was the apostolate; that all
the rest should lead up to it; that those who were to undertake it
should be, like a skirmishing party, unencumbered by the heavy
burden of properly monastic obligations; that they should be alert
and alive, and have their full bodily and intellectual strength at
their disposal. Of the two, the Jesuits are somewhat earlier in date;
yet the Oratorians, however effective their work, do not hold such
a prominent place in the history of the Catholic Reformation, and
we shall therefore consider them first.
The Oratory was not, in its inception, a religious order at all.
It developed out of the spiritual action and sacerdotal practice of
an attractive, exceptional, and even extraordinary personality, St.
Philip Neri. Philip was born at Florence in July, 1515, the son of
an ancient family whose fortunes had decayed. His youth was
spent in his native town, in an atmosphere in which the gaiety and
pastimes of a cultured aristocracy were strangely mingled with the
spiritual earnestness of the people, who still remembered the fiery
120 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
preaching and the mystical republicanism of Savonarola. After
leaving his home at the age of eighteen, he experienced a "con-
version," which turned his thoughts wholly towards some sort of
religious life; and he then left for Rome, where he arrived in
1534. There he was for some time tutor to the children of a Floren-
tine customs official, and also attended lectures in philosophy and
theology; but he soon became impatient of such a plodding course,
and his mystical leanings, as well as his thirst for spiritual action,
led him about 1537 to take up the life of a "hermit" somewhat
in the style of the Capuchins. Let there be, however, no mistake.
He did not retire from the world, but on the contrary began to
gather around him, being himself only twenty-three as yet, a
group of young men, mostly custom-house clerks and Florentines,
to whom he provided religious guidance. He would join in their
games, chatter away with them in their hours of idleness, chaff
them and be chaffed, ending up with some devotional advice de-
livered with gay heartiness. His surprising personal influence, as
well as his "method" of sanctification through cheerfulness, are
already present here.
Nevertheless, something more than the sporadic efforts of hermits
was needed for the reform of the Church. Philip saw that it was
necessary to join an existing movement or to create one of his
own. He did not feel attracted by the soldierlike discipline of the
Society of Jesus, which was making headway in Rome at that time.
He preferred to follow the lead given by his confessor, Persiano
Rosa, a cheerful soul of his own type. Together they founded a
confraternity known as the Trinita de' Pelligrmi, which soon con-
sisted of twelve laymen. Every Sunday and feast day they went to
Communion, and assembled for religious exercises; for pious talks
also, in which each one spoke in his turn simply and freely. These
talks developed into something more definite when Philip took
priest's orders and in 1552 was made one of the chaplains of a
devout and charitable association, the Confraternita della Canta,
which had taken over in 1524 the church and convent of San
Girolamo, until then in the hands of the Observants.
He now started upon his fruitful career as a confessor, and began
to direct the exercises which were soon called the "Oratory." These
were afternoon meetings, at first in his own room. Their spirit
as well as their devotional character are suggested by the choice of
RELIGIOUS REVIVAL AMONG THE REGULARS 121
the books which were selected for free discussion: the Vita del
beato Giovanni Colombini da Siena, the founder of the Jesuates,
by Feo Belcari; the Laudi of Jacopone de Todi; works of Gerson,
of St. Catherine of Siena; and other mystical treatises. The first of
these clearly suggests the spirit which animated those pious debates:
"If you wish Christ to give himself to you, you will always be
ready to speak, sing or read of Christ." After the ragionamento had
ended, the associates strolled out for a walk, still talking and sing-
ing, often going on a pilgrimage to one of the Roman basilicas.
On Sundays, after Vespers, they would take outings to some ancient
site or religious house on the outskirts of Rome; and there, while
they sat on the grass, a new "oratory" would take place, of a more
solemn, literary, and artistic kind. The musicians present would
perform a motet, and one of the company, possibly a child, recite
a sermon which now was not plain and homely, but in agreement
with the contemporary standards of stylistic elegance. Or else, the
whole party might adjourn to a hospital in order to comfort the
sick.
Thus the Oratory, in its beginnings, was first and foremost the
immediate field of action of Philip Neri. A change came when
several of his companions such men as Baronius for instance
became priests and began to form a small community at San
Girolamo, with a branch at the Florentine church of San Giovanni.
At the oratory meetings, debates were no longer held between the
laymen present, who were now far more numerous, but before
them; their share in the exercises was reduced to listening and
singing. The exercises lasted for three hours, and everyone in the
audience was free to come and go as he listed. The "brothers"
would first read the selected book, and discuss it extempore in a
dialogue; then one of them would preach a set sermon, and others
speak on the history of the Church and the lives of the saints;
last of all, canticles were sung, this being the origin of the musical
"oratorio," which however appeared in its full-blown form only in
1619.
The community at San Girolamo was becoming more and more
of a regular "congregation"; and it was in fact established as such
by Pope Gregory XIII in 1575, when he granted to Philip and his
companions the church of Santa Maria in Vallicella. It was now
necessary for the community to choose its own form of government.
122 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
On March 15, 1577, Philip was elected provost, while five fathers,
known as deputies, were chosen to act as a permanent administra-
tive committee. The drawing up of actual constitutions began in
1583, the model selected being the rule of the Oblates of St. Ambrose
at Milan the order founded by Charles Borromeo. However, the
work had to be taken up anew in 1588 and 1595, and the final
version was not approved by the pope until 1612. Such delay is
accounted for largely by a conflict between two opposing tendencies.
Philip believed in the paramount efficiency of almost playful free-
dom in action. He shrank from rules and set discipline, and he
had no desire to see his community of secular priests develop into
a centralized organization with branches outside Rome. He agreed,
it is true, to the foundation of the Naples house, but this ran against
his grain. He far preferred to see new oratories, modelled on his
own but unrelated to it, spring up at will.
These views were opposed by one of his companions, Antonio
Talpa, a man of an altogether different type, not fanciful, but rigid
and violent, who wished the Oratory to become a real religious
order and to expand like the Clerks Regular. He insisted that
vows should be taken, at least a vow of stability and a vow of
poverty, the latter implying the giving up of all personal property;
and that the office should be recited in choir. When entrusted with
the government of the Naples house, Talpa adopted a kind of
regular habit, decreed that the fathers should not go out alone, and
separated the novices from them.
The views of Talpa, however, did not prevail and the Oratory
retained its character as a "congregation of secular priests and
clerics," in other words, a free association of priests, who wished to
enjoy the advantages of common life while remaining unfettered
by any permanent obligation; who lived out of their own income,
and who only bound themselves to the observance of a few simple
rules. According to the constitutions of 1583, they were to refuse
any benefices or prelacies; to have no servants of their own; and
to live on a footing of perfect equality. Frequent confession and
mental prayer were early practices. They might engage in various
forms of work, including visits to the hospitals; but their essential
task was to take their part in the oratory meetings, of which the
Church of the Vallicella was the centre, and which now
assumed their final form. Improvisation, dialogue, sermons delivered
RELIGIOUS REVIVAL AMONG THE REGULARS 123
by laymen, familiar talks with the audience had given place to
set preaching; yet the latter was not dramatic like that of the
Capuchins, but remained free from all rhetoric, simple and familiar,
this being the most original innovation of the Oratory, which was
later imitated in France by St. Francis de Sales and St. Vincent de
Paul. The evening walks and Sunday outdoor meetings were
retained. There were special exercises for young people, of whom
Philip was exceedingly fond, and over whom his influence was
great. Thus his foundation continued to bear his stamp, and his
share in the Catholic Reformation remained essentially personal,
even after he had died at the age of eighty-two, on May 26, 1595.
His success, in fact, is almost paradoxical, and can only be ac-
counted for by uncommon attractiveness and virtues of the most
eminent kind. In an age in which everyone looked to a strength-
ening of authority for an improvement of Church conditions, he
was almost alone in standing for individual liberty. As a director
of conscience he was strikingly different from Ignatius Loyola;
he prescribed no set rules, no fixed exercises; he left his penitents
to find out for themselves what suited them best, under the guid-
ance of the Holy Ghost. In fact, he largely believed in inspiration;
he even distrusted reason when unaccompanied by motions of the
heart, and more than anything else, he detested intellectual pride.
The main features of his spiritual ideal were humbleness, loving-
ness, cheerfulness. Some of his characteristic oddities are accounted
for by his wish to strengthen the virtue of humility both in himself
and in his disciples. He would dress with his clothes inside out,
or introduce barbarisms and solecisms into the liturgy of the Mass.
He would send Baronius to a tavern with a twelve-gallon pitcher,
command him to have it washed and taken down to the cellar, then
to buy a pint of wine and pay for it with a gold coin; whereupon
the tavern-keeper would of course be moved to abuse and blows.
He was, however, of uncommon affability, and always ready,
whether in good or in bad health, and even after he had gone to
bed, to receive visitors, and listen to them patiently to the end,
giving them all possible satisfaction. "Wherefore," his biographer
adds, "it was incredible how he would bind to himself the minds
of all men."
But what is most striking about his devotional life is the Chris-
tian cheerfulness, ease, and liveliness which appeared at all times
124 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
in his actions. He hated to seem sanctimonious, or even to be taken
too seriously. He was once found fault with for not having, by his
attitude, sufficiently edified a Roman nobleman. "Would you have
me," he replied to the disciple who was bringing the complaint,
"talk with raised eyebrows, so that people may say: 'Look at the
famous Father Philip, who in harmonious speech pours out memor-
able words and sayings?'"
He impressed people less by his natural talents than by his
almost preternatural spiritual powers: he knew how to read the
hearts of men and was famed for his gifts of prophecy and healing;
and though he tried to restrain his mystical life, he had visions
and ecstasies. It was his magnetic personality which gained him
the trust and love of his disciples, npt his intellectual originality;
for in this respect there is nothing novel about his writings or
even his moral advice. He was not even a good public speaker,
would merely listen to the sermons at the Oratory, and confine him-
self to familiar talk with members of the audience; but he knew
how to clothe old truths m a new garb. His virtues were, in many
ways, exceptional, yet his meekness, simplicity, and modesty were
those very qualities which had distinguished the Christian human-
ists, and had been bequeathed by them to the Catholic reformers;
while on the other hand his quamtness and fancifulness, his
Italian mobility and familiarity, seem strangely unclassical in the
age of neo-classicism. That he should have had such a share in
the improvement of Roman society and of the Church at large
only illustrates the extreme variety of temperament among the
Catholic reformers.
# # #
What St. Philip Nen succeeded in achieving in a limited circle
and by merely personal means, the Society of Jesus performed
throughout the whole world, thanks to its discipline and organiza-
tion. It was so well adapted to the needs of the times, it spread so
rapidly, it grew to be so important, that all contemporary movements
dwindle when compared with it. It was the mam prop and the
chief instrument of the Catholic Reformation. Its founder, Ignatius
Loyola, was the very reverse of Philip Neri. Far from trusting to
fancy and individual inspiration, he was a believer in discipline,
organization, and hierarchy; and before these were established in
the field of outward action, strict inward order was to be established
RELIGIOUS REVIVAL AMONG THE REGULARS 125
in the soul of every member of the Society. The method, which
Ignatius conceived for himself first, and which afterwards ruled
the spiritual life of his disciples, accounts for everything, from the
Constitutions of the Jesuits, to their scheme of education, to their
spirit and policy, and to their heroic work in missionary countries.
The Spiritual Exercises are at the root of all the surprising results
obtained by the Society of Jesus.
It is needless to enter here into a detailed study of this book.
Although short and seemingly of simple structure, it is in fact
too intricate to lend itself to ready analysis. Its practical working
cannot be easily understood without the help of that tradition,
thanks to which the Jesuits of to-day still apply St. Ignatius' plan
for the spiritual improvement of his disciples, be they clerics or
laymen. Suffice it to say that the Exercises proceed on two parallel
lines of advance. On the one hand, they provide a course of reg-
ulated meditations, divided into four "weeks," and arranged on
the whole in a regular progress from remorse to heavenly joy,
from the sorrowful to the joyful mysteries. On the other hand,
the active faculties of the soul are trained to move in a similar
progress from resolve to resolve, beginning with the purely negative
detestation of sin, and continuing, in the second week, with the
momentous decision of wholly casting in one's lot with God and
his servants; while in the third and fourth weeks this decision is
put to the proof and confirmed.
In other words, meditation, or the exercise of the intellect and
imagination, is made to take effect at once in the exercise of the
will. In fact, the whole trend of St. Ignatius' teaching is directed
towards a strengthening of the will. This is, of course, largely ac-
counted for by the needs of the times; nor should we forget that
the founder of the Jesuits had begun as a soldier, and consequently
as a man of action. It is possible, in his view, for man wholly to
master his spiritual faculties and to steer them towards the sole
desired purpose. He turns meditation itself into an act of the
will, and this is why he directs it in such a precise and methodical
way. The mind should not be left to wander at random, but
should be compelled to apply itself to certain persons, objects, or
ideas. When some scene of the life of Christ, the Virgin Mary,
or the saints has been selected for contemplation, a voluntary act
of the imagination conjures it up in every detail of its physical
126 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
circumstances. This is what is known as the comfositio loci; while
the apphcatio sensuum suggests mental images referring to each
of the five senses in succession. For instance, in the exercise devoted
to the Nativity, one ought to "consider the cave where it takes
place, and how large, how small, how low, how high it was; how
it was furnished." The picture thus evoked is so real that one seems
not merely to be beholding it, but to be acting in it as well: "The
first point is to see the persons, Our Lady, Joseph, the servant-maid,
and the infant Jesus after he is born. I shall make myself a little
beggar, or a little unworthy slave, considering them and watching
them, and serving them in their needs, as if I were present."
What is more, the same method is adapted to the consideration of
purely spiritual beings or truths; and, in that case, recourse is often
had to images, as in the famous meditation of the two standards,
m which Christ and Lucifer are represented, the One as leader
of the army of the righteous; the other as despatching the demons
on their tasks. And spiritual preparation is not confined to sug-
gestions for the imagination; the will also appears in declaring
beforehand what is the effect which it seeks, and to which it
must apply its efforts; for instance, when meditating on the
Resurrection, it is essential "to ask for what one has the will to
obtain, which will mean here asking for the grace to exult and
rejoice intensely over the glory and joy, which are so great, of
Christ our Lord."
The will is indeed triumphant in St. Ignatius' scheme. Nothing
is to be left to the obscure, subconscious forces of the soul; every-
thing must be clear, fully realized, and planned out, not in medita-
tion only, but in the daily practice of ascetical life. He, for instance,
who is for the time being in a state of "consolation," should look
ahead to the time of "desolation," and lay up a store of courage
for the oncoming trial. The amendment of one's faults cannot
be achieved in a haphazard way; a strict method is necessary, which
goes the length of recording one's own lapses by means of graphs,
thus checking one's own improvement from day to day. Indeed,
St. Ignatius' constant wish to guide the soul in its every step may
seem to lead at times to some exaggeration. It would be too much
to say that each of the divisions and distinctions in the contempla-
tions and accompanying remarks is the result of an unavoidable
inner logic. The point is not, however, for the author of the
RELIGIOUS REVIVAL AMONG THE REGULARS 127
Exercises to provide an intellectual analysis of the matters con-
sidered, but to enable the soul to gain full control of itself, and
to become, as he says, "its own master."
Perfect control of self means freedom from excess; and, in fact,
St. Ignatius repeatedly states his preference for the "golden mean."
Let there be no mistake here: this preference does not apply to
the really spiritual side of one's life, and no moderation is recom-
mended in one's self-abasement or love of Christ. But in one's
everyday actions, or even in religious practice, exaggeration is to be
avoided. In the fourth week, when the joyful mysteries are con-
templated, "instead of giving myself up to penitence, I shall aim
at preserving temperance and keeping a middle course in all
things." Similarly, in alternate temptations of over-confidence and
timorousness, "the soul ought to establish itself firmly and wisely
in a middle position." This closely tallies with St. Ignatius' belief
in the value of reason. Not, indeed, that his work in the least
assumes the nature of an apologetic demonstration. He takes the
essential truths for granted, and sets out firmly with bold asser-
tions. Nevertheless, practical reason plays a considerable part in
the working of his spiritual scheme. "I shall consider," his disciple
is supposed to say, "that every man who uses his judgment and
reason cannot hesitate to offer up his whole person to the labours
and trials" which God requires of him. In the meditation on the
"election," or choice of a manner of life, we are told, one should
"examine the question in its various aspects, and consider which
way reason inclines most." Reason, here, really means common
sense; and it is this same common sense which induces St. Ignatius
to refrain from fruitless discussions on predestination or justifica-
tion by faith alone.
The practical wisdom of the author of the Exercises is again
manifested in a feature which is typically his own, which was to
inspire the whole of the activities of the Society of Jesus, and the
new school of spirituality which it founded. This feature can best
be defined by the word "adaptation." The sole thing which really
matters is the end in view, "to honour and serve God, and save
one's soul." The means used should be subordinate to this end.
Each man should be placed in the best possible conditions to
fulfil his divine purpose on earth. He should not waste his strength
uselessly. Bodily mortification is good, up to a point; it should,
io8 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
however, be exactly proportioned to one's resistance, and in no case
endanger one's health or impair one's powers. Mental mortification,
which in that respect is harmless, and even profitable, should be
preferred. "Adaptation" is also extended to the practice of medita-
tion: the number of the daily exercises, their themes, their petitions,
are to be accurately suited to each person's needs.
Let each one, further, find out by experience what has been
hurtful to him as in the case of excessive discouragement or
scruples and avoid it; what has been helpful, and dwell upon
it. Here is the corrective to what may appear excessive in St.
Ignatius' spiritual drill: the seeming rigidity of the theory is
happily corrected by a keen sense of the useful and feasible.
That the reality of the material world, in and outside ourselves,
has to be taken into account, is again evidenced elsewhere in St.
Ignatius' directions. He who meditates, he says, should provide
for himself a physical environment suited to his thoughts and
feelings "adaptation" once again. There is nothing compulsory
about one's posture when praying: let one kneel, stand or sit,
lie down face upwards, or even pace up and down, according as
it is spiritually most helpful. In the first week, which is devoted
to remorse and a consideration of the hateful ness of sin, he who
meditates will remain in the dark, with doors and windows closed;
light and darkness will alternate in the second week, as they
did in Christ's preaching life; in the fourth week, the thought
of Jesus' resurrection and glory will incline one to seek "the light
of the day or the pleasantness of the season, the cool in summer,
and in winter the warmth of the sun or of a fire." In a word, St.
Ignatius marvellously realizes that, in the words of Pascal, "man
is neither an angel nor a brute beast," and that both sides of his
nature should be taken into account, and made to co-operate.
Method, directed meditation, "adapted" discipline, outward helps,
all these are made to concur in the same purpose, which is, we
repeat, the fortifying of the will. This, however, is not an ideal
in itself, and should not be understood in the stoic sense; for
the absolute end which St. Ignatius has in view is not the glorify-
ing of one's personality, but on the contrary the utmost humbleness
and self-renunciation. "I shall consider who I am," one of the
exercises runs, "endeavoring through various comparisons to appear
smaller and smaller in my own eyes." Jesus, as St. Ignatius pictures
RELIGIOUS REVIVAL AMONG THE REGULARS 129
Him, addresses all His servants. "He advises them to help all men,
by attracting them first of all to an entire spiritual poverty, and
to real poverty as well, if the divine Majesty is thus served, and
wishes to call them to such a state: secondly, to the desire of
obloquy and contempt, for of these two things is born humility."
Spiritual poverty includes detachment, which is to be achieved at
all costs, beginning with minor matters, such as that of food,
and going on to meditation and prayer, in which "desolation"
guards the soul from any overweening pride.
No commonplace motive would justify such a total forgetfulness
of self: it is only possible if it is called forth by love. And here St.
Ignatius, true to the tradition of the Franciscan mystics and of
the Imitation (which he expressly recommends) insists on the fact
that love is the chief element in the relations between the soul
and God. "God is love," he repeats after the Apostle John; and
love can only be paid back with love. One should consider, in
meditation, "how our Lord Jesus Christ assumes the part of a
consoler with his own disciples, and compare him to a friend
comforting his friends." Such divine love inspires the bold ideal
which the author of the Exercises proposes to him who will "re-
ceive" them: "He must enter into them with great bravery and
great generosity toward his Creator aad Lord, offering up to
him his whole will and his whole freedom," for "love should consist
in works far more than in words."
From this brief resume it is clear that the whole spiritual dis-
cipline, the whole action and policy, and the very educational
methods, of the Society of Jesus are clearly outlined in the Exercises.
Total renunciation of self; total abandonment to the will of God,
as personified by one's superiors; a practical bent, the belief that
"God will help those who help themselves"; the striving with all
one's efforts towards the attaining of actual results; a proportioning
of the means to the end, a sense of the real and possible; all these
were present from the first in St. Ignatius' mind, even before his
order was founded. It is no less clear that many features of his
spiritual ideal made it easy for him to make use of classical
antiquity in his pedagogy, and thus follow in the tracks of the
Christian humanists: the strengthening of the will, the aurea
rnediocritas, mi^ht readily be supported by the study of Cicero
or of Seneca. Even what came to be known as Jesuit art largely
130 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
rests on the principle expressed in the Exercises, namely that prayer
and meditation are dependent on outward environment; also, on
St. Ignatius' support of all the traditional rites and customs of the
Catholic faith, in his directions on Submission to the Church, as
against the dryness of Protestantism. Nor should we forget, finally,
that in the ascetical field, the Exercises were to lead the way for
many generations to follow. A simple, slight, unassuming book;
but one which was to make its weight felt to the ends of the world.
St. Ignatius had conceived the plan of the Exercises during his
retreat at Manresa in 1523, shortly after Luther had come out ot
his own retirement at the Wartburg, and while the unfortunate
Adrian VI was vainly attempting a root-and-branch reformation
of the Church. He still had no thought of founding a new religious
order. The next ten years were years of preparation, with a
pilgrimage to Jerusalem, spiritual work in Spain (where he had
trouble with the Inquisition), and studies, philosophical and
theological, at Paris University. The Society of Jesus began, poten-
tially at least, on August 15, 1534, when Ignatius, together with
his first six companions, took his first vows in the chapel at
Montmartre. This was m^re than ten years before the first sessions
of the Council of Trent. When the great assembly of the Church
finally gathered, the founder of the new order had just begun
work on its Constitutions in 1544. Three years were to elapse before
they were finally completed in 1547; six, before they were approved
by a congregation of the professed fathers in 1550.
Ignatius was already over fifty years of age when he undertook
to provide the Jesuits with a rule; and the time he spent in drafting
this comparatively short work of less than three hundred octavo
pages bears witness to the unusual care, patience, and attention
which he gave to it. Besides the general principles already present
in the Exercises, the Constitutions embody the experience of his
whole life, while testifying to the astounding powers of his intellect
and his knowledge of the human heart. From the first, he foresaw
the future development of the Society as a world-wide institution,
and he legislated for it as such. His organizing ability was equal
to his foresight. He sees to every detail, and yet avoids excessive
minuteness and rigidity. The firmness and clearness of his thought
RELIGIOUS REVIVAL AMONG THE REGULARS 131
are enough to make the Constitutions a work of great literary
value; they are bare and unadorned in style, but they go straight
to the point; and they have a severe, soldierlike beauty of their
own. Altogether, they appear as the work of a master-mind; and
when ranking their author among men of genius, one can hardly
be taxed with exaggeration.
The Constitutions, indeed, are a work of striking originality,
at least in regard to the means proposed. The end in view is com-
mon to all Christians to procure "the honour of God and the
universal weal of men"; but the way in which it is constantly
reasserted, and the manner in which it is interpreted, make it
almost into a new precept. The stress is laid on its altruistic
implications, "to procure the salvation and perfection of one's
neighbours" corrupt Churchmen or misguided heretics; also
on the fact that action is no less necessary than prayer, and that
Providence "asks for the co-operation of God's creatures." Now,
action will be fruitless if directed at random against particular
abuses, which are sure to crop up again; it should spring from the
source of all authority and influence, that is to say, in the Church,
trom the papacy itself. Hence the fourth and special vow which
all Jesuit professed fathers have to take, putting themselves un-
reservedly at the disposal of the Holy Father, to be sent whitherso-
ever he may choose. The spiritual principles of the Society, as
expressed in the other three vows, also tend to facilitate efficient
action; poverty will leave the Jesuits free from the shackles of
worldly cares; obedience and humbleness will ensure perfect co-
operation and the easy working of a central command; while the
supreme purpose remains the training of the will, which enables
each one to accept his appointed task readily, and to perform it
steadfastly.
Ignatius clearly realized that no little moral corruption within
the Church derived from the system of benefices, which allowed
of self-seeking, ambition, and greed. Therefore the members of
the new Institute were warned that, "once incorporated into the
Society, they were not to hold any benefices whatsoever, but to
return them to their patrons, or give them away for pious works";
also that they might pretend to no ecclesiastical dignities, and that
they were to get rid of any property they might own; not, however,
by making a present of it to their kin, from whom they should
132 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
be wholly detached. The rules on poverty, indeed, seemed to
Ignatius of such importance, and he was so much afraid lest they
might be cancelled, as they had been among the Franciscans, that
he took special steps to ensure their permanency. Each father, on
being admitted to profession, was to take a vow that he would
never agree to have them relaxed. The author of the Constitutions
also understood that the fees charged for spiritual services had
led to many abuses, and had been one mam cause of the Protestant
outbreak; hence the Society was to accept "neither alms nor
stipends ... for masses or preaching, or reading or administration
of the sacraments, or any other pious office," and its houses and
churches were to have no revenues of their own. The only excep-
tion made was in favour of the colleges and houses of probation,
which could hardly live without some permanent income.
As in the Exercises, poverty is still more important m its spiritual
than in its material shape. Humility is an essential virtue of the
Jesuit. He must be prepared "patiently to bear injuries, revilmgs
and obloquy"; and if selected for the least flattering kind of work,
that of a temporal coadjutor, "to spend in it all the years of his
life." Indeed, the Constitutions repeatedly forbid any member of
the Society to express any discontent with his present post, or any
wish to be promoted. Even at the election of the general there
must be no candidates, no canvassing. Each one must be a ready
instrument in the place to which he is appointed; an obedient
instrument too on no point is greater emphasis laid. And
obedience does not merely mean compliance with orders: the
inferior must tram his will to become identical with that of his
superior. "He must let himself be carried and ruled by his superior,
as if he were a dead body these famous words, perinde ac cadaver
are borrowed from the rule of St. Francis that lets itself be
carried anywhere and handled anyhow, or like an old man's
staff, which he who holds it in his hand, may use to help himself
wheresoever and howsoever he may wish." Such a relinquishing
of one's own personality can be accepted only if both the inferior
and the superior are animated by the same overpowering ideal.
Both must "tend in all things to serve and please the divine
goodness for its own sake, and for the sake of its love and bless-
ings . . . more than for fear of punishment or hope of rewards."
As in the Exercises, the prime motive is love.
RELIGIOUS REVIVAL AMONG THE REGULARS 133
The absolute identification of the will of the inferior with that
of the superior is not to be left, however, to the chance working of
mere feelings, however powerful. It is ensured by a strict, and, to
outsiders, formidable spiritual discipline means both internal and
external being used to guard the Jesuit from any faltering. He must
first of all use the ordinary helps recommended in the Exercises,
examine his conscience daily, go to confession and Communion
every week, keeping as far as possible to the same confessor. But
in addition to this the superior must have "full knowledge of the
inclinations and motions of those in his charge, and of the faults
and sins to which they are more liable and inclined; so as to be
able to direct them the better accordingly." He is further to propor-
tion the use made of them to their abilities. Whenever a probationer
is about to become a scholastic, or when a scholastic is about to
take his vows as a professed father, or generally when a Jesuit
is going to be promoted to another post, or again on request, at
stated intervals or otherwise, he must "manifest his conscience to
his superior, without concealing anything which might offend
the Lord of all men; and give an entire account of his past hie."
In the houses of probation, the master of the novices must be
loved and confided in, and everyone must discover his temptations
to him. Finally, since no reliance can be put on one's unaided
strength, the Jesuit, whatever his rank, must agree to be, not
merely advised, but even forcibly kept in the straight path. His
correspondence, his relations with others, and his very conversations
are liable to supervision by his superior. His equals may observe
his behavior, remonstrate with him, and even report him; a system
of discipline which might give rise to outbursts of facile indignation,
but of which the force lies in the fact that it is willingly accepted,
in a spirit of utter humility and love.
No second-rate personality could possibly agree to such abnega-
tion, coupled with such burning zeal and such untiring energy.
The founder of the Society realized that he ought to admit none
but finely tempered souls; the morally, intellectually, physically,
or even socially, unfit had no room in his Institute: able workers
only could cope with the gigantic task before them. Consequently,
the conditions for admission are incredibly strict. At every step
in the course of the preliminary postulancy and of the novitiate,
the applicant is fully informed as to what awaits him, and re-
134 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
peatedly, almost tiresomely asked whether he is willing to face the
full consequences of his vows. He is subjected to a series of trials,
as for instance to go on a pilgrimage with an empty purse, or to
perform the meanest offices in the house and obey the orders of
the cook, or before his last vows to go begging from door to door
for three successive days. What is more, his spirit also is tried.
He is warned that he will have to forget his former associates
and relations, who will henceforth be mentioned only in the past
tense; that he must forsake his own judgement wholly, and be
prepared to spend his whole life in the humblest of occupations.
Nor is this all. The postulant must be qualified for his future
task, and his task must be strictly "adapted" to his possibilities.
Hence, he may be shunted on to the office of a coadjutor temporal,
with none but bodily work to do, or to that of a scholastic, with
studies to pursue; and the scholastic himself, in accordance with
the degree of his learning and virtue, will become one of the
professed fathers -the marrow and soul of the Society or a
coadjutor spiritual, entrusted with apostolic or teaching work.
This adaptation of the means to the end is an essential element
of the Jesuit spirit. No useless words, Ignatius substantially says,
no empty gestures: let every action be justified by its result.
"Idleness," we read in the Constitutions, "which is the origin of
all evils, has no place whatsoever in a Jesuit house." Not merely
idleness, but attention to irrelevant matters must be avoided; and
so that no man may waste his time and strength, strict division
of labour is to be established. The general must not be kept from
the important business of central government by trifling administra-
tive details; he must have a secretary to serve him as an aid to
his memory, and specialized advisers to discuss important decisions.
The Jesuits as a whole must not be kept from their proper
activities even by pious exercises or subsidiary tasks. There is no
choir duty for them a strikingly new departure from the prac-
tice of all earlier orders almost a revolution, which gave rise
to no little opposition in the Curia. Nor can they be burdened
with the pastorate of souls in parishes or the care of women's
convents. Devotional practice must be suited to the requirements
of each individual case; and St. Ignatius' breadth of view is ex-
emplified in his use of "adaptation."
The Society must not be merely a sort of foraging party, free
RELIGIOUS REVIVAL AMONG THE REGULARS 135
from all impedimenta; its efforts must be used to the best possible
effect, thanks to a wise economy of strength. The maximum
leverage must be sought in every undertaking. "Since good, the
more universal it is, the more it is divine," Ignatius says, "one
ought to prefer such persons and places as, after gaining spiritual
improvement, cause the profit to spread to others that obey their
authority or follow their directions." Therefore, one should give
attention first and foremost to influential people, "such as princes
and lords or magistrates and judges, or to churchmen such as
prelates. . . . eminent for their learning Qr authority." No doubt
Ignatius thought of such men when he advised his disciples to
try to exert an influence "through pious conversations, advising
and exhorting them to do good." Nor is working from above the
only condition of efficiency. As in the Exercises, Ignatius stresses
the necessity of husbanding one's strength by being sui compos,
free from all excess, and accordingly of submitting to the wise
discipline of the golden mean. "Indiscreet devotions" are an
obstacle to admission in the Society; and again, the Jesuits are
advised to abstain from excessive mortification, "which is harmful
and prevents a greater good."
Finally, efficiency in a body of men united for the same purpose,
in a real army such as the Society, requires co-ordination and the
hierarchy which alone can enforce it. Here Ignatius was faced
with a formidable problem. He had to draft a constitution in the
political sense of the word, and to guard against the well-known
evils of representative government, no less than against those of
tyranny, both having been recently exemplified in the Church. He
obviously did not believe in parliamentary institutions, and under-
stood that in his Society as well as in the Christian body at large,
some kind of monarchy was necessary. "In all well-ordered States
or communities," he says, "it is needful that there should be one
or even several persons to attend to the universal good, this being
their proper end; and also in this Society . . . which thus will
the less be fatigued and distracted from its purpose by universal
'conventions.' " At the same time, he could not but realize that
the central power must not be allowed the free exercise of its
bon plaisir, and that it must be accountable to someone. Hence
the remarkable system which his imagination conceived, and which
bears the stamp of his genius. He retains, indeed, in the Society,
136 THE CATHOWC REFORMATION
a gathering of representatives sent up by the provinces, the "general
congregation"; but this assembly is never allowed to indulge in
the parliamentary game of cross-talk, questioning, and idle oratory.
It is to be called up by the general, but "seldom, except in case
of necessity," or by the vicar after the death of the general, for
the election of his successor. In the latter case, it is to resemble
an extremely strict conclave, for the Fathers are locked in and
bound to keep silence. If there is no clear majority, the decision
is left to an elected committee of three or five, all squabbles
being thus prevented. When general topics are discussed, the
members of the assembly are free to move about, but "all that
there is to be handled, must be concluded as quickly as possible."
To this purpose, each one of the Fathers must give his opinion
in writing on the points at issue; and after the dumb debate is
completed, if there is no unanimity or quasi-unanimity on one
side, four definitors are elected, to settle the matter finally with
the general.
The latter, therefore, is not in the position of a constitutional
premier, who has to play the parliamentary game, and whose posi-
tion is always insecure. His authority may even, at first sight, appear
unlimited. It is stressed at every page of the Constitutions, to this
extent that, although the necessity of a system of rules, "full, clear
and brief," be forcibly asserted, there is practically no single regula-
tion from which the general may not dispense if he see fit to do so;
the same absolute powers being vested in each superior, within the
range of his own government. There is, however, a check upon
abuses and this is where the originality of Ignatius' political
thought appears. The general, as we have said, has four assistants,
whose election by the Congregation of the Fathers takes place at the
same time as his. The function of these assistants is not merely to
help him in his work, but also to see to it that he keeps in the
straight path of wisdom and virtue. He must obey them in the
matter of dress, food, and personal expenses; of his health, "so that
he may fall into no excess of work or mortification"; of his spiritual
welfare, "so that he may be admonished as to what tends to the
greater service and glory of God." Lastly, if he has committed any
crimes, the four assistants may call up the Congregation general, and
have him deposed and replaced. The same principle is applied to
RELIGIOUS REVIVAL AMONG THE REGULARS 137
each one of the lesser superiors, who may, if necessary, be provided
with a collateral, both to advise and to guide him. It is almost un-
thinkable, in such conditions, that authority might fall into any
abuse; while the fact that in the long run, it is not a cut-and-dried
printed rule which governs the Society, but a man who can take
circumstances into account, makes for "adaptation" and permanency.
In fact, Ignatius' main thought was to ensure the duration of his
Society, and the last part of the Constitutions is entitled: "How this
whole body will be conserved and augmented in its well-being." The
various means to this end are here rehearsed, beginning with the
spiritual help of prayer and the Exercises, going on to poverty, to
strictness in the choice of postulants ("It is good not to keep the door
wide open"), to the necessity of authority, and, last but not least, to
the importance of union and unity. These are grounded on charity
and moderation in discipline. The Society, besides, must be inde-
pendent. Thus, the honours granted to the founder of a college do
not imply any rights of patronage on his part. In short, there again
appears, in Ignatius' conclusion, this mingling of inspired enthu-
siasm and practical common sense, of burning charity and staid self-
restraint, of passion and reason, of abnegation and efficiency, which
isthe main feature of his genius and the cause of the greatness of
his order. Even within his own lifetime the Society was to spread
to the whole of Italy, to Spain, Portugal, France, Flanders, and Ger-
many, and even to Africa, South America, and the Far East. The
Jesuits Le Fevre, Laynez, and Salmeron took part in the Council of
Trent as theologians. Jesuit missions were founded in Morocco and
in the Congo m 1548, in Brazil in 1549, while St. Francis Xavier,
the apostle of the Indies, had planted Christianity in Japan during
the same year. Jesuit houses began to spring up everywhere. The
Roman college was founded in February, 1551, the German college
in 1552, the college at Billom in 1555. This rapid expansion, to
which we shall revert in greater detail, bears witness to the extraor-
dinary driving-force of the Jesuit movement. It was largely due to
the original and progressive system of education which the Society
adopted, and which was to be one of the chief instruments of the
Catholic Reformation.
138 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
For the general history of the reform of the older orders and the
foundation of new orders, including the Jesuits, see Pastor, History of
the Popes, Vols. XIII and XIV. Detailed information on Matteo da
Bascio and the Capuchins is found in the documents printed in Acta
Sanctorum Bollandiana (Maij), torn, IV, De origine Capucinorum;
while the life of St. Gaetano da Thiene by Caracciolo is found in the
same work (Augusti), torn. II, together with other documents on the
Theatines. Also refer to R. de Maulde de la Claviere, Saint Gaetan
(Paris, 1905). On St. Philip Neri and the Oratory, use has been made of
the excellent and exhaustive work by the Abbes Ponnelle and Bordet,
St. Philip Neri and the Roman Society of His Time, translated from
the French by Father Francis Kerr (London, 1932). On St. Ignatius and
the Society of Jesus an immense literature is extant, of which no idea
can be given here. Use has been made of Hefele-Richard, Histoire des
Conciles, Vol. IX, 11, and of the remarkable biography by Paul Dudon,
S.J., Saint Ignace de Loyola (Paris, 1934). St - Ignatius Loyola, by Fr.
Cyril Martindale, S.J. (London, 1921), may also profitably be consulted.
The Acta Sanctorum (Juln), torn. VII, provide an enormous mass of ma-
terial on the founder of the Society. On the discipline and spirit of the
Jesuits, see the searching work of Gaetan Bernoville, Les Jesuites (Pans,
1934). It is best, however, to refer to the sources themselves, notably the
Spanish text of the Exercises, printed in facsimile as Ejercicios espm-
tuales (Roma, 1908), and the Spanish text of the Constitutions. For
reference to various points in the latter, commodious use may be made
of the Compendium Instituti S.J., by Fr. Julius Besson, SJ. (Tolosae,
1896), and of the Commentarius in decem partes Constitutionum by
Father Augustinus Oswald, S.J. (Bruges: Desclee et Brouwer, 1895),
in which the matter is arranged under various heads.
CHAPTER VII
Education and Scholarship
THE Catholic Reformation penetrated into every sphere of
human activity. It was both a spiritual revival and a movement
for the moral and material improvement of society; and in
either of these aspects, was bound to take an interest in the up-
bringing of youth. Besides, the Council of Trent had brought edu-
cational questions to the fore by prescribing the creation of semi-
naries for the training of priests. The facilities thus provided for
the clergy only were soon to be extended to the laity as well, in
response to the universal demand for Christian schools. In this field
as in others, however, the work of the Catholic reformers was not
an absolute novelty. It had been begun, if not fully developed,
before Luther arose, and had already assumed its proper shape and
character. From this early period, there is evident that same blend-
ing of Christian doctrine and devotion with the almost exclusive
study of classical "grammar" and literature, which was later to be the
distinguishing feature of the Jesuit and Oratorian colleges, and the
chief reason of their success. We have already mentioned the
pedagogic theories of the German scholar Trithemius. They were
taken up and completed in the early sixteenth century by Erasmus,
who in his treatise De pueris statim ac liberaliter instituendis ("Early
and liberal Education for Children," 1529) appears as a forerunner
of the Jesuits in regard to most of their methods.
The Dutch scholar advocates the creation of humanistic schools
(ludi liter arii) > which should be open to all, irrespective of social
class. "If there be a school at all, let it be public." The studies arc to
begin with "language," i.e., Latin and Greek grammar, then go on
to "poetry," this including eloquence. Use should be made of com-
monplace books, lists of proverbs, etc. The pupils should remain
139
140 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
under the same praeceptor as long as possible, and the latter should
be chosen among the best, not among the worst. The matters taught
should be fully digested. "The best means of remembering consists
first in understanding thoroughly; then, once things are understood,
in setting them in order; and lastly, in repeating them in succes-
sion." But harshness and tediousness should be avoided. There are
things "which one learns through play rather than labour." Physical
exercise is neglected: "The harm done to the body seems to be
amply made up for by the gain of the mind." In regard to discipline,
Erasmus is as progressive as the Jesuits were later to be. The teacher,
he says, should be a father to the boys. Whipping or threats should
be done away with, and replaced by sweetness. Emulation will be
ensured by blame and praise. The idea that literary knowledge and
moral improvement walk hand in hand and pari passu is repeatedly
insisted on: "Let the pupils first learn to love and admire honesty
and letters, to loathe infamy and ignorance. . . . Man is born for
philosophy and righteous behaviour." The child brought up to letters
"will be kept away from those vices likely to corrupt him at his age
of life."
Such Christian humanistic notions had inspired, at the end of the
fifteenth century, the plan of studies and the discipline in the schools
of the Brothers of the Common Life. The latter were a real religious
order, established in the Low Countries, whose main task was edu-
cation. We have fairly full particulars of their school at Liege,
founded in 1496. We know more, however, about the teaching
proper than about the discipline, though there is no doubt that
"sweetness" prevailed. Throughout the whole succession of forms
(classes), numbered from one to eight, the chief subject was Latin.
The declensions and conjugations had to be learned in the first; the
second, third, and fourth were devoted to grammar, the explana-
tion of authors, and stylistic exercises; Greek was begun in the
fourth. The fifth was reserved for rhetoric, while in the upper forms,
the students stepped into the realm of dialectics and theology.
The general progression here, from letters to philosophy, prefig-
ured the later organization of the Jesuit colleges; but the likeness
appears more striking still when one comes to detail. The exercises
were composition (the writing of essays), declamation, and disputa-
tions. For scholastic and disciplinary purposes, self-governing groups
of ten were formed among the pupils, and headed each by one of
EDUCATION AND SCHOLARSHIP 141
their number, who went by the name of decurion. No one could be
promoted to a higher form without undergoing an examination;
and at the solemn "promotion" cerernony, those who had been re-
jected were allowed to put questions to those who had been passed.
There were yearly prizes for the most proficient, and also prizes in
term time for those who had the best marks. Plays, ancient and
modern, were performed. Finally, the rector was subject to the au-
thority of the superior of the local house of the Brothers to which
the school was attached.
The schools of the Brothers of the Common Life may not have
directly inspired the Catholic Reformation; but they certainly did do
so through an offshoot of theirs, the community of Montaigu. The
latter was a religious body created by one of their number, the
Fleming, John Standonck, for the upbringing of the clergy. It owed
its name to a residential college of Paris University, founded in
1402 for poor scholars, later opened to students of means as well,
and reformed by Standonck in 1499-1502, so as to become the head-
house of his new order. The college, with which* Ignatius Loyola
was thoroughly acquainted, combined many interesting features. It
included both secondary classes devoted to letters, and university
classes devoted to philosophy and theology.
Indeed the notion, later adopted by the Jesuits, that literature
must be made to subserve religion, is stressed with great force in
the reformed statutes of the college. These inveigh against the
"desolation" of the Church, against the pagan Renaissance, which
induces men "diligently to acquire letters and sciences ... for vanity
merely." They announce their purpose "to raise a new generation,
who will be taught to embrace mortification and virtue together
with knowledge, whose letters will be proved by their lives."
What is more, the main purpose of the Montaigu community
which later founded houses in Flanders, Cambrai, Valenciennes,
Malmes, and Louvain foreshadows that of the Society of Jesus;
and though this may be somewhat apart from the field of education
proper, we must not fail to notice in passing that Ignatius certainly
derives many features of Jesuit life and discipline from the practice
of Montaigu. He did away, it is true, with some of the rules imposed
by Standonck upon his poor scholars, such as the saying of litur-
gical hours in chapel at night, and excessive mortification; but he
retained most of the rest. The reformer of Montaigu had insisted, as
142 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
Ignatius was himself to do repeatedly, that the members of his com-
munity were not merely "to work out their own salvation, but that
of others as well," through controversy and preaching. He insisted
on the necessity of material and spiritual poverty, and of obedience.
The students and masters at Montaigu were in duty bound "to
accept smilingly and to perform faithfully" any work allotted to
them by their superiors. The effective direction of the college was
in the hands of a committee of three that might overrule even the
decisions of a general assembly, as in the case of the election of the
rector. The practice of daily and solitary meditation on spiritual
things was prescribed, as well as that of examination of conscience
in the evening. Idle talk was forbidden, and the scholars were
strictly enjoined to report each other's failings.
As regards tuition proper, Montaigu forestalls St. Ignatius' col-
leges, insofar as there might be question of the literary and theolog-
ical formation of future Jesuits. Each student, before being ad-
mitted, must reside for some time in the house, "so as to become
acquainted with it, and to make himself known" to his superiors.
Then he must undergo a severe examination bearing on his physical
health, his doctrine, his knowledge of grammar, and his inner dis-
positions. He is asked the likeness with a Jesuit college being
here striking whether, in the event of his being found "indiffer-
ently gifted for letters," he is willing to serve the community in
some humbler form of employment. After taking an oath of abso-
lute obedience, he is switched on to the branch of study for which
he is best suited, and his future prospects are determined. General
discipline is ensured, as in the schools of the Brothers of the Com-
mon Life, by some of the students themselves, specially selected for
the purpose. In the present case, they are called not decuriones, but
decani or notati, and they must render account to the rector or
"father of the poor" of the behaviour of ten or twelve of their
fellow-scholars.
Classes are held in the morning and afternoon, while on Fridays
and Saturdays recitations and "construction" take place, in French
for the lower forms, in Latin for the higher. After Vespers, dispu-
tations are held on points of "grammar" (a word which covers what
we call "literature") under the chairmanship of the teachers or
"regents"; they also take place in a more solemn way on Sundays,
in the presence of all the artistae, after being prepared for on half-
EDUCATION AND SCHOLARSHIP 143
holidays or vigils. There is even a kind of Jesuit "academy" among
the theologians, who assemble at night to discuss the lessons of the
day. Religious instruction is given each Sunday by way of a sermon,
also on vigils before confession.
In the literature classes the syllabus included the study of Latin
grammar and literature, both poetry and prose, but not of Greek.
"Lascivious poets" were to be excluded, "whatever the beauty of
their style." The use of Latin was compulsory among the pupils,
who passed through seven classical forms, and could on no account
be promoted from a lower to a higher one without being examined.
They were listed according to merit by the regents, who, it seems,
stayed with them in their upward progress. On the whole, Montaigu
supplies the best possible proof that an educational movement for
the purification of the Renaissance was afoot before the Lutheran
outbreak; a movement which, if we judge by the devotional prac-
tice of the college, in no way anticipated the innovations of Protes-
tant theology. 1
And yet, we are faced with a definite fact: when the Protestants,
three decades later, began to develop their system of education, they
did so on lines which strikingly recalled the Brothers of the Com-
mon Life, while their adversaries were slower in moving in the
same direction. The school system of the Catholic Reformation has
therefore often been said to lack originality, and has even been
taxed with plagiarism. The charge cannot be ignored, and we must
now review the facts.
1 Fr. Paul Dudon, m his St. Ignacc de Loyola (p. 185), comes to the conclusion
that Montaigu was mediaeval, conservative, and averse to humanism. While the
presence of Erasmus there in 1496, he says, proves that "humanism was not then
frowned upon," yet the fact that Noel Beda was Standonck's successor from 1503
to 1513, that he was later to write, against both Lcfevre d'Etaples and Erasmus, his
Adversus clandestine* Lutheranos, and that he was to bring about the condemna-
tion of Erasmus' Colloquia by the Sorbonne in 1528, shows that at this date "human-
ism must have been held in suspicion at Montaigu," and that similar disfavour must
have been shown to Lorenzo Valla, Aldus Manutius, Jossc Bade, and even the
grammarian, Dcspauterc. But in 1528 it was fifteen years since Beda had left
Montaigu; and, besides, one should not infer from his condemnation of what he
considered as Lutheran tendencies in humanistic authors, that classical humanities
were proscribed at Montaigu. We know that even under Beda's rectorship the teach-
ing in the college was greatly renowned, and that famous professors were on the
staff (cf. Marcel Godet, La congregation de Montaigu, p. 61).
144 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
Protestant education began with the Rhinelander, John Sturm
(1507-1589), who was educated at Liege in the school of the Brothers
of the Common Life, then moved to Louvain, where he was en-
gaged in humanistic teaching and printing for some time. He came
to Paris in 1529, and from 1530 to 1536 was a professor there in the
College de France, where he lectured on Cicero. He is said to have
felt unsafe in the French capital because of his leanings towards the
new doctrines. Be this as it may, he accepted an invitation of the
magistrates of Strasbourg to come and reorganize education in their
city. The latter had then adhered, under Martin Bucer, to a modified
form of Lutheranism verging on Zwinghanism. Sturm founded the
Strasbourg Gymnasium in 1537, and in his book De hterarum luchs
recte aperiendis ("How Properly to Open Literary Schools," 1538),
explained how closely he had followed the model of his Liege
masters. His example soon bore fruit, and was imitated in many
towns of Lutheran Germany, where colleges were created or re-
organized, from 1541 onwards. Calvin himself became acquainted
with Sturm's work during his stay in the Alsatian capital, and repro-
duced its mam features in the Academy at Geneva, which dates back
to 1559. Last of all, the French Protestant towns followed in Calvin's
steps, and established academies or colleges on the same pattern,
from 1561 to 1630.
On the Catholic side, m regard to the education of boys at least,
nothing was done before the Council of Trent. It is true that in
1542 the Jesuits began to accept lay pupils in one of their houses;
but it was only in 1552 that they opened a school definitely meant
for non-clerical students, at Billom in Auvergne. Their colleges soon
swarmed over the whole of Europe, and achieved signal success;
and their likeness with Sturm's own scheme was such that the
Strasbourg headmaster himself was moved to notice it: "I have
seen," he wrote, "what writers they explain, and what method they
follow m their teaching; they keep so close to us in their precepts
and rules, that it looks as if they had derived them from our own
spring."
Sturm, however, did not state that it was a case of actual imitation.
Nor is such an explanation necessary. There was a common source
in both cases. Ignatius Loyola had been subjected to precisely the
same combination of Flemish and French influences as Sturm him-
self, and very much at the same time. He came to Pans in Feb-
Si. KOHIKI BMI YKMIM "A character ol
exli aoi dmai \ richness and *. ompleteness,"
he ^a\c tin hnal impulse to the
'llKunistk rt:\ i\ al.
1 ; H. RohlHl P\KS()\S, S.J. "Wild
captured by the aiilcnt spiritual
ideal of St. Ignatius."
otiAjo '1 ASSO ( ia\e expression to the
literary ideals ,i the ( lathe. Ik
Retoniiation.
1 )i SIDI KITS I''.R\SMI:S Christian humanist.
MADONNA Raphael
EDUCATION AND SCHOLARSHIP 145
ruary, 1528, expressly to improve his knowledge of classical letters,
which he deemed essential for his apostolate; and he remained there
until March, 1535. He first of all attended the classes of the College
de Montaigu, then of the neighbouring College Sainte-Barbe. As he
was most impecunious, he used to take trips to Flanders during the
holidays to solicit grants from Spanish merchants established there.
As likely as not, he may have touched at the branch houses of the
Montaigu community. We know for certain, in any case, that he
came into touch with Flemish humanism. The Spanish scholar,
Luis Vives, a friend of Erasmus, and like him, a theorist of the new
education, had settled down at Bruges; and there he entertained
Ignatius and made much of him.
It is clear that the spirit of the Brothers of the Common Life and
also of Paris University, which had inspired Sturm, was also brought
home to Loyola, and that he derived from it much of his devotional
ideal, his school discipline, and his plan of studies. The Catholic
Reformation, as represented by the Jesuits, did not imitate the
Protestants: it followed, like them, the trend of contemporary edu-
cational thought. But even actual imitation of a suitable model
would be anything but damning. It would at any rate imply wis-
dom. Besides, whatever may be owing to the influence of earlier
movements, the educational work of the Catholic reformers has
merits of its own; its very importance, its very success, prove that
it had some original elements. And it is a fact that it spread out of
all proportion to its Protestant counterpart. In France alone the num-
ber of Protestant academies and colleges never rose above twenty-
five, whereas the schools of the Jesuits and Oratorians reached a total
of about one hundred and five; and the schools of the other orders
ought to be added as well. This expansion cannot be explained
merely by a vague and general acceptance of prevailing standards
on the part of the teaching staff. There must be a constructive sys-
tem of pedagogy to give the necessary impulse; and it was the merit
of the Jesuits, first among the Catholic reformers, to build up such
a coherent system a system of remarkable psychological insight
and keen intelligence in their Ratio studiorum. Lastly we should
not forget that literary education was, for the Catholic reformers as
well as for the Protestants, not an end in itself, but a means of edifi-
cation; and here again, the former were remarkably successful, and
managed to regain a considerable amount of lost ground.
146 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
There is yet another remark which suggests itself. It is true that
both Catholics and Protestants followed in the wake of the Christian
humanists, and that there is, for instance, a striking likeness between
the "laws" of the Protestant Academies of Nimes (1582) or of Mont-
pellier (1608) and the Jesuit Ratio studiorum; and it cannot be
denied that on either side, the schools turned out scholars famous
for their knowledge and elegant use of both Latin and Greek. But
was the neo-classical plan of education as congenial to the holders of
the new tenets, as it was to the representatives of the "old religion ? "
Did it tally as well with the spirit of Protestantism as with that of
Catholicism? There is some reason to doubt it. For one thing, Sturm
cannot be considered as having been typically Lutheran or Bucerian.
He belonged to a period of intellectual confusion, in which no clear-
cut line had been drawn between contending parties, in which ever-
reviving hopes of reconciliation might allow a man of an irenical
disposition, like him, to remain m the employment of Protestants
without altogether breaking with Catholicism. In fact, Sturm had
been recommended to the magistrates of Strasbourg by the Catholic
bishop, Erasmus of Limburg. He was found fault with by the
Lutheran Marbach for "having praised the Jesuit schools and
pedagogy"; he accepted Catholic pupils in his Gymnasium, even
from France and Italy; he contemplated a redistribution of the staff,
in which half the teachers would be Catholics; he advised Catholic
towns to devote prebends to the creation of grammar-schools. He
was knighted by the Catholic-minded Emperor Charles V. His atti-
tude was that of a classical scholar, not that of a religious controver-
sialist: "What is there that is of mere advantage in this life," he
wrote, "than a pure mind and pure speech? What pleasanter, than
an elegant life and elegant language?" This is the spirit of Erasmus,
not that of Luther. In a word, Sturm's work was that of a Christian
humanist: it can scarcely be called that of a Protestant.
Lastly, there is some reason to think that, from the very first,
Sturm's scheme of education was regarded by the founders of Prot-
estant schools as being too purely classical. Nor is this surprising,
when one remembers that, while Christian humanism had under-
taken the explanation of the original text of Scripture through
"grammar," that is, philological science, Lutheranism had insisted on
its being turned into the vernacular, and interpreted even by the
unlearned. Add to this that Latin, as the language of the Catholic
EDUCATION AND SCHOLARSHIP 147
Church, was obnoxious to Protestants. The authors o the Jesuit
Ratio studiorum of 1586 realized this perfectly, when they wrote
that Latin was necessary in transalpine colleges, "to make relations
easier between different nations, and to keep as far away as possible
from some heretics, that do their best to abolish the Latin tongue,
so as to prevent all intercourse with Catholics."
These reasons account for the importance given to the vernacular
in some of the Protestant schools. The statutes of the Academy of
Geneva already stress the importance of French, and do away with
Latin verse. At the Academy of Nimes, the pupils were to learn
reading in French, not in Latin, and French was the first subject
taught in the first three school-years. These facts should not be over-
stressed; yet they help to understand how it is that the educational
ideal of the Christian humanists found its fullest development with
the Catholic Reformation.
From the first, the fulfillment of the prescriptions of the Council
of Trent, in regard to education, was mostly entrusted to the Society
of Jesus. Of course, it was not alone in the field. There were schools
founded by the Barnabites and the Capuchins, in Italy and France,
about which printed literature is regrettably silent, and concerning
which one wishes one knew more. In the seventeenth century, the
numerous colleges of the French Oratory were to gain a great and
deserved renown. Nor should one forget the diocesan work done
by St. Charles Borromeo in Milan, or the later institution of Sulpi-
cian seminaries in France. Yet, at the time of the Trentine assembly,
the Jesuits were the only organized body of sufficient bulk, energy,
and scholarship to undertake educational work on a large scale. One
of them, Fr. Le Jay, had been the first to suggest at Trent, as the
representative of the bishop of Augsburg, Otto Truchsess, that
special schools should be founded for the training of the clergy; and
when these were in fact created, they were largely entrusted to the
Society, which alone could staff them. The council decided that the
Jesuit colleges already extant should be considered as complying
with its decrees on the training of priests, and dispensed from con-
tributing to the upkeep of diocesan seminaries.
St. Ignatius' first thought had been to found houses of education
for members of the Society only; in fact the first colleges were mere
148 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
hostels for Jesuit students who went out to attend classes at the local
universities. But soon, a double change took place. On the one hand,
non-Jesuit pupils were admitted into those purely residential institu-
tions; on the other, "colleges" in the wider sense of the word, i.e.,
real schools and universities, were offered to the Society by their
founders or benefactors. This induced St. Ignatius to reconsider his
position; he resolved to adapt himself to circumstances, and to let
the Society take charge of educational work properly so-called, first
of all for the clergy at large. The first move in this direction was the
foundation of the Roman college, which was meant as a model for
the whole Jesuit Order. It was a non-residential university, where
students attended classes only, while they boarded at various houses,
also termed "colleges," but different in nature, such as the Germani-
cum, founded by the Society in 1552, or non-Jesuit houses, such as
the Roman seminary or the English college.
As yet, however, nothing had been done for the laity. It was in
France that the first attempt to teach laymen was made. Guillaume
du Prat, the reforming bishop of Clermont-en-Auvergne, had been
anxious for some years past to plant the Jesuits in Paris, where he
had given them his town house or Hotel de Clermont. But as early
as 1546, at the Council of Trent, he had offered to Fr. Le Jay to
take over the then decayed university at Billom. The proposal was
accepted in 1553, and the "college" at Billom soon became one of
the most flourishing educational centres in Europe. The College de
Clermont in Paris, despite a good deal of opposition, also rose to
great prosperity and fame. Gradually the range of studies was ex-
tended downwards, and made to include what we now call second-
ary or even elementary forms; while a certain proportion of the
pupils, instead of boarding, according to mediaeval practice, in the
houses of "pedagogues" outside the colleges, were admitted to reside
there as convictores. Thus the typical Jesuit college was gradually
evolved: a combination of a residential university for clerics who
read in theology or philosophy, and a secondary boarding-and-day
school for lay pupils, who studied grammar, humanities, and
rhetoric.
Once this formula was settled upon, it met with extraordinary
success. Jesuit colleges swarmed over the whole of Central and
Western Europe, and even as far as India; and there were new
foundations throughout the sixteenth, seventeenth, and even eight-
EDUCATION AND SCHOLARSHIP 149
eenth centuries, right up to the suppression of the Society. This is
especially striking in the countries which were threatened by the
spread of Protestantism. Owing to the variations in the political
divisions of Europe, it is no easy matter to make an exact statement
of the national distribution of colleges. We know, however, that in
Poland three had been created by 1565, at Braunsberg, Wilna, and
Pultusk. In the somewhat uncertain boundaries of the Holy German
Empire, as it stood about the beginning of the seventeenth century,
we find between 1551 and 1650, about 155 foundations, the majority
being in Germany proper (76), and Flanders (31); while there were
12 m Austria, 6 in Hungary, 5 in Switzerland, 4 in Holland, and 10
in various outlying districts. In France, counting in neither Flanders
nor Alsace, but including Lorraine, Savoy, and Franche-Comte, the
foundations, from 1551 to 1643, rose to the number of 68. The word
"foundations" should not, however, be taken in too literal a sense.
In the majority of cases, the Jesuits and for that matter, the Ora-
tonans as well were called in by city authorities, not to establish
new schools, but to restore old ones; many of these being colleges
created in the enthusiasm born of the humanistic movement, but
which had been mismanaged, and had fallen into decay. Out of 68
Jesuit colleges in France, no fewer than 39 succeeded to previous
educational institutions. Such was the case at Auch (founded in
1543, taken over by the Society in 1588); at Sens (1537 and 1623)
at Nimes (1539 and 1634); and in other places. The fact is one of
great importance. Local bodies, when asking for the help of the
Jesuits, knew that they were bringing into their schools the spirit
of the Catholic Reformation: order, hierarchy, and methodical or-
ganization, as well as a severe type of moral discipline, resting on
ardent piety.
The plan outlined by Erasmus and already embodied in the sta-
tutes of Montaigu, was to reach its full development in the stately
monument of Jesuit pedagogy. The latter was already in all its essen-
tials present in the mind of St. Ignatius when he wrote the section
of the Constitutions devoted to colleges and universities; but it
was gradually brought to perfection as a result of experience gained
in the first colleges of the Society. The conclusions finally reached
were expounded in great detail in the famous document known as
the Ratio studiorum, which in a slightly modified shape still governs
Jesuit education at the present day. The first draft of this work was
150 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
a report prepared in 1585 by an international committee composed
of six Fathers one Spaniard, one Portuguese, one Frenchman, one
Austrian, one high German, one Roman. It then really appeared in
the nature of a discussion of the topics proposed, and was printed
in 1586 as a list of suggestions, to be examined by the various prov-
inces. The final set of rules for Jesuit schools was printed, under the
same title, only in 1599. Whatever its debt to previous systems of
education, it goes beyond anything that had appeared before.
The essential purpose of the Exercises and of the Constitutions
had been among the Jesuits the fortifying of the will. That of the
Ratio studiorum is the building up of a strong moral personality
among their pupils. Therefore all that would tend to enforce passive
and servile obedience is discarded; everything is to be done to ensure
willing acceptance of the rules, and active co-operation on the part of
the boys. Discipline and government are as much as possible placed
in their own hands; they are made to acquire a sense of responsibil-
ity. Similarly, in the intellectual field, the pupils should not be
merely receptive; they should be made to think anew by themselves,
to knead and knead again, so to say, the substance of what has been
taught to them. Such a conception of education implies psychological
insight, wide experience, and an intelligence in advance of the times;
in fact it is strikingly modern, and forestalls, in regard to the build-
ing of character, the methods of Thomas Arnold and the Rugby
School, and in regard to the building of the mind, the teaching prac-
tice of the French Lycees.
Pedagogy as such, however, is only an instrument in the Jesuit
scheme, the main purpose being always the same, i.e., to build up in
each student a strong religious personality. Hence originated the
plan adopted for the organization of each college of the Society.
Beginning with knowledge accessible to all and with students of all
descriptions, it ended up with the study of theology carried on by a
select few. The college was divided into two parts. The lower one
was open to all pupils, whatever their prospects. It included five
forms: rhetoric, humanities, higher, middle, and lower grammar;
but each of the latter three comprised two halves, which the less
gifted could go through at the rate of one a twelvemonth; so that
this cycle of studies extended to a maximum period of eight years
(the total course, exclusive of university classes, was of similar length
at the Liege school of the Brothers of the Common Life). The
EDUCATION AND SCHOLARSHIP 151
higher part of the college was reserved for clerics, especially those
who were already scholastics in the Society. In it the students went
through one year of philosophy, two of theology, and were allowed
to stay on for another two years for private study of the latter
science. We are now accustomed to consider a secondary school and
a university as things apart. St. Ignatius combined them into one,
true to the tradition and practice of mediaeval Paris: the wholly
secular "philosophy" class of the French Lycees at the present day
being a legacy of the Jesuit colleges.
The staff of a school, thus constituted, includes a rector, who is
supreme; a prefect of studies, who actually supervises the whole of
the teaching, inspects each class at least once a fortnight, "guides
and cheers" the teachers, and sees to it that they enjoy due esteem
and authority; sometimes also a prefect of the inferior studies,
specially in charge of the lower part of the school. Great attention
is devoted to the recruiting and training of capable masters. Certain
colleges prepare students for the functions of praeceptores in the
purely literary forms. These students, towards the end of their course,
are bound to gather three times a week to practice the duties of their
future calling, "lecturing, dictating, composing, correcting," etc.;
this under the guidance of one "most skilled in teaching." When
they are put in charge of a class, the latter must be no higher than
their present abilities; afterwards they rise from form to form with
their pupils, gaining knowledge at the same time as they dispense
it. They are advised to follow the tradition and habits of their
predecessors, so as to avoid any break in the continuity of school-
life. The rector himself should have had some teaching experience,
so that, the Ratio studiorum of 1586 adds, with a touch of humour,
"he may, from what he himself has suffered, learn to pity others."
This is also necessary to ensure his authority over the other masters,
who otherwise would grumble at being ordered about by one ignor-
ant of their trade. The professors of theology themselves must be
sent to teach grammar for some time. In fact there should be no
difference in point of honour between the teaching of letters and
that of the "higher faculties." St. Ignatius was especially insistent
that both should be put on the same level. If any masters, "through
fatigue or weariness," should flag in their zeal, let them be granted
one year's leave; if they fail to recover the necessary energy, let
them be employed in other than school duties.
152 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
One recognizes here one of the fundamental ideas of the Society,
to wit, that no man's work should overtax his powers, that there
should be an exact adaptation of the former to the latter. The same
principle is applied to the life of the pupils. The vacations are indeed
brief: one week in summer in the lower and middle grammar forms,
a fortnight in higher grammar, three weeks in humanities, one
month in rhetoric and above; the other holidays only aggregating
some twenty-three days. But then there are a number of religious
feasts; and, besides, each week one day must be given to rest, "or at
any rate one afternoon." Nor are the pupils allowed to overstrain
themselves: "No one should apply himself to his work, reading or
writing, for more than two hours running, without a break of some
little time." All must be taught by the masters how "to distribute
their time to the best advantage for private study," during which
they should enjoy perfect peace, as the Constitutions themselves
insist.
Nothing could be farther from that stupid and brutal cramming
of children which Montaigne denounced among the pedagogues he
had known in his early years; nor could the Jesuits be said "to fill
up memory only, leaving the understanding and conscience empty."
On the contrary, the Ratio studiorum insists that the pupils should
first of all be made thoroughly to grasp the texts on which they have
to work. The basis of the teaching is the praelcctio, which still sur-
vives as explication dc texte in modern French educational practice,
of which it is the main asset. The master, we hear, should first of
all read the passage to be elucidated; then he should "expound its
subject, and connect it up with what comes before"; then, "let him
read each period, and, if he should be interpreting it in Latin, let
him explain the more difficult passages, join them together, and
make the meaning clear, not by means of some insufficient equiv-
alent, as by substituting a Latin word for another Latin word, but
by really expounding the sense through clearer expressions. If he is
using the vulgar tongue, let him retain, as far as possible, the order
of the words; for thus the ear becomes accustomed to rhythm." A
lively explanation is to be preferred to dictation: "While the master
dictates, the pupils are rather intent on writing, than understanding;
besides, before they have come to the end of a sentence, they have
forgotten the beginning. . . ." The praeceptor, after he has dictated,
"thinks that he has performed his part; he gulps down his commen-
EDUCATION AND SCHOLARSHIP 153
tary, as if it gave him too much trouble . . . and it will all vanish
into nothing."
None but confirmed educationists could have spoken so much to
the point. The same experienced wisdom appears in the way in
which the matters taught are made to sink into the mind of the
boys. After class, the master stays on for a quarter of an hour, and
all are free to question him. But a better plan is recommended. A
proficient pupil repeats the lesson for the benefit of his comrades;
some of the latter put questions, to which others reply, or the master
himself. Similar "repetitions" take place in the boarding-house, the
praeses questioning at least three of his comrades in the space of
fifteen minutes.
There is yet another means to make the students understand and
remember: it is the disputation, bearing on theological or literary
subjects, and already in honour in Paris University in the Middle
Ages. As at Montaigu, such debates took place on Saturdays and
Sundays. The Ratio studiorum has no pity for bookworms, who are
incapable of expressing themselves in public. "One disputation is of
more avail than many lessons" the Society's purpose, to defend
religion through controversy, being always kept in mind. The rector
or the prefect was, however, to be present and discreetly guide the
discussion, keep it in its proper channel and to a proper length,
dispense praise, and sum up the argument, "neither keeping silent
for long, nor talking all the time."
# # *
If not wholly original on the subject of discipline and emulation,
the Jesuit scheme at any rate elaborates the principles already as-
serted by Erasmus in every one of their implications. The Constitu-
tions forbid any chastizing of the students by the masters themselves;
the latter must "exhort" delinquents "lovingly," with "mildness and
chanty"; "observance of the rules is to be obtained," the Ratio stu-
dwrum adds, "more through the hope of honour and distinction and
through the fear of disgrace, than by blows." The master should
"refrain from insulting the boys by word or deed; and never address
them otherwise than by their name or surname." If bodily punish-
ment cannot be dispensed with, it should be meted out by a special
official, the "corrector," who is not a member of the teaching staff.
Emulation is encouraged by every possible means. The pupils of
each form are divided up, for the sake of competition, into two
154 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
groups, in cither of which the most brilliant pupils, after a class
examination, are appointed magistrates, and take the names of Latin
or Greek civil or military dignitaries. Each pupil in one half of the
class has his corresponding number in the other half, whom he is
supposed to keep an eye upon, and correct whenever necessary. The
seats are assigned according to merit, and the "most ignoble" part
of the classroom is reserved for the "form of sloth" (ncgligentiae
scamnum) to which "the laziest boys are sent away" only to be
"frequently shamed, blamed, and scolded." There is a further divi-
sion into decuriae, also graded according to proficiency, each pupil
being allowed to challenge another one in a superior decuria, and
change places with him if he conquers. The decuriones are respon-
sible for the behaviour of their comrades, and may indicate them
for some slight punishment. They are also expected to supervise the
work of those under them. Badges or small rewards are attributed
to distinguished students, and a number of means are used to bring
their work before the public eye. Their Latin or Greek poems are
posted up or solemnly read. And of course there is the yearly distri-
bution of prizes.
This fostering of emulation is consonant with the main intention
of the Jesuit scheme: that of picking out the most gifted boys and
developing to the best their capabilities, so as to bring them to
influential positions either in or outside the Society. Unpromising
pupils are only a hindrance, and should be gently, but firmly, elim-
inated; hence the process of continuous sifting, which begins with
the admission of a pupil, and lasts to the very end of his studies.
To start with, the selection of candidates should be made on as
broad a basis as possible, since merit is not limited to any social class :
"No one is to be excluded, because he is of low birth, or poor." But
the would-be pupil is to be examined, and accepted only if his intel-
lectual and moral aptitude is deemed sufficient. Afterwards he
undergoes a new testing, as a rule at the beginning of each school-
year, before being promoted to a higher form. Great wisdom and
experience are again evidenced in these examinations. The regula-
tions are to be read to each class two or three days beforehand. The
subject for the written part should be worded briefly. The examiners
should be three in number, including the prefect, but no masters; the
majority carry the decision in each case. The school-marks of the
candidates are to be taken into account. When three of them have
EDUCATION AND SCHOLARSHIP 155
been subjected to oral interrogation, their fate must be settled forth-
with, "while the judgments of the questioners are still fresh." In
doubtful instances, the whole examination may be gone through
again, the age, aptness, and diligence of the boy being considered. All
preliminary discussions should be kept secret; and no external in-
fluence should be allowed to interfere.
The intelligent teaching, the humane discipline, the helps to
emulation, the gradual process of elimination, everything in a college
of the Society concurs in the obtaining of practical results. The
Jesuits were so much bent on efficiency, so averse to any useless ex-
penditure of strength, that they made the very leisure hours of the
pupils to contribute to their main purpose. This was done by means
of voluntary associations inside each school, which being an elite
within an elite, still further reinforced emulation, both in the devo-
tional, moral, and intellectual field. Pious students enrolled in the
Congregation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the members of which
alone could be admitted to the literary or philosophical debating
society known as the Academy. The latter was placed under the
supervision of a special prefect, and had a branch in each class, in
which magistrates were appointed. In the course of the meetings,
the pupils again went through "the repetition or applying of those
matters, which had been expounded in class," their exercises being
made as pleasant as possible, so as "to excite their minds to study."
Here again we find public debates and recitations, prizes, and the
posting up of poems. It was not in vain that the Constitutions had
stated that studies "in a certain way require the whole of man."
They ought not, however, to absorb him for their own sake; they
should be, according to the Society's purpose, a means of sanctifica-
tion. Masters are warned "thus to bring up thek pupils, that they
may, together with letters, imbibe manners worthy of Christians."
Whether during or after class, they are "to prepare the tender minds
of the young men to obey God and love him, as well as promote
the virtues, through which they ought to please him." Great atten-
tion is therefore paid to the devotional life of the students, both in
the higher and lower forms; though the Constitutions wisely pre-
scribe that no compulsion shall be used. The scholastics of the
Society, in the philosophy and theology classes, ought to go to Com-
munion every week, neither more nor less frequently; but the pupils
in the "inferior classes" should only confess every month, and receive
156 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
Communion "on solemn feasts," being exhorted to this on vigils, as
at Montaigu. At the beginning of each lecture prayer is said on
bended knees, and the teacher crosses himself before speaking.
Catechism is taught on Fridays and Saturdays; but there are also
daily exhortations, even in private colloquies, in which, however,
no attempt should be made to induce pupils to join the Society. If
they feel attracted towards it, their confessor alone is to advise them.
Spiritual readings are to be recommended; while great care should
be taken not to leave immoral books in the hands of the boys.
Altogether, they should be constantly incited to virtue and piety,
but without undue rigidity; devotional practice being here "adapted"
almost as much as in the case of the Jesuits themselves.
Nothing has been said up to the present of the syllabus of studies.
It is, in fact, as regards the inferior classes, very similar to that of
the Christian humanists, some of whom the Ratio studiorum men-
tions by name as examples to be followed, in their love both of the
Latin and of the Greek tongue: "Sigomus, Muretus, Petrus Victo-
rms, Manutius."
It is the same, we might say, but with some improvements, how-
ever, and with one exception, that of lewd authors. Johann Sturm
had taken no exception to the plays of Terence; there was no
danger, he said, in performing them m school, if they were properly
explained; the spectacle of vice side by side with virtue was a moral
lesson for the audience. The enthusiasm of the Jesuits for classical
literature was subordinate to their religious purpose, and they
showed no such leniency. "Poets and others, who may endanger
good manners," are not to be read in their colleges, unless expur-
gated; "if they cannot be purged at all, like Terence," better leave
them aside. Otherwise, the Jesuit syllabus is even more classical than
that, for instance, of Trithemius. Teaching in the Society, in respect
of language, is directed towards a single aim: to enable the pupils, in
the interests of religion, to speak and write pure, elegant Latin and
Greek in a smooth and easy way. No decadent model should there-
fore be selected. In regard to Latin, Cicero, the master of perfect
speech, takes up most of the space, leaving some room, however, for
Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Catullus, and Tibullus, but none whatsoever
for patristic literature, the latinity of which is unsafe. On the Greek
side, the Fathers are not open to the same objection, since their
grammar is faultless, and their style often admirable; therefore,
EDUCATION AND SCHOLARSHIP 157
together with Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, Thucydides, Plato, Demos-
thenes, and Isocrates, we find St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Basil, and
St. John Chrysostom. On either hand the exercises prescribed are
of the same kind, and are meant to loosen the tongue and to sharpen
the pen of the students. The latter must first of all acquire a stock
of words and phrases, which they gather in their commonplace
books. Then they make use of it, not merely for the writing of prose
essays, but also for the inditing of poems, or even of fanciful trifles
such as epigrams, conundrums, enigmas all of which make for
nimbleness of speech.
Fault has often been found with a system of studies in which
science was reduced to a few lessons in mathematics and cosmog-
raphy, in which modern history was a secondary subject, and in
which the knowledge acquired was of words, not of things. To this
one might reply that the essential purpose of education is not to
stock the mind with miscellaneous information, but to enable it to
reason clearly and straight, so as later to take advantage of any
branch of study, whether literary or technical. Now the exercises
prescribed by the Jesuits were meant like the oral correction of
tasks, for instance to make the pupils use their reflective faculties.
And there can be no doubt that the colleges of the Society turned
out generation after generation of strongly built minds, able to write
and to speak well because they thought well. The intellectual results
thus obtained were all to the advantage of the Catholic Reformation
movement; and the Jesuits must be praised for the way in which
they brought mere theories or aspirations into the realm of fact, and
understood that the only way to attain practical results was to give a
firm and direct lead by means of a fixed set of rules, and by a com-
plete and coherent system of pedagogy.
In fact, the methods and practice of the Jesuits spread their influ-
ence far beyond the Society proper. Advantage was taken of them in
the reformation of Paris University, begun in 1595 after the wars of
religion, by Henry IV. They were praised and recommended in
1600, in regard to the teaching of Latin, by the Sorbonne professor,
Edmond Richer, in his treatise on education entitled Obstetrix ani-
morum. Most important of all, they were closely imitated by the
Oratorians.
158 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
The French Oratory, founded in 1611 by Pierre dc Bcrullc, had
grown rapidly, and after showing some unwillingness, like the
Society, to take over the charge of colleges, had finally decided to
engage on teaching work. Between 1616 and 1649, it founded or
restored 26 colleges, these being framed exactly on the same plan as
those of the Jesuits, in other words, beginning with a secondary
school to end up with a seminary or university. The Oratorians,
who never refused to acknowledge their debt to the Society, adopted
most of its school organization: the examination before admission,
the class entrance examinations, the dccuriac and decurions, the
division of class-periods into half-hours, the academies, various devo-
tional practices such as monthly confession, meditation, the examina-
tion and account of conscience. The masters, in turn, were to rise
from form to form, to use Latin in their correspondence, and to
refrain from inflicting bodily punishment. Except in cases of utter
necessity, no fees were charged for tuition; variety and interest were
introduced into school-life by means of public declamations and
college plays; emulation was fostered by the distribution of prizes.
The very purpose of education was the same: "Public studies should
be for us," Fr. de Condren wrote, "but a means of exercising charity,
and the outward service rendered to the people, an occasion to serve
them through the instruction of souls."
Fr. de Berulle had been exceedingly anxious not to hamper the
work of the Jesuits, whom he greatly esteemed; in fact, the apostolic
zeal, the spirit of devotion and humility, were equal on both sides.
At the period now under consideration, that is, up to 1650, there had
not yet broken out between the two orders those lamentable quarrels
connected with the Jansenistic movement, which were to last on
right up to the French Revolution. At the same time there was a
divergence, due possibly to the original difference between the
Society and the Roman Oratory, whose lead Pierre de Berulle had
been following, but mostly to the national reaction against the inter-
national character of the Society of Jesus. It is true that the French
Oratory felt no partiality for the military spirit and discipline of the
Jesuits, and that, with typical Gallic individualism, it believed far
more in the value of independent effort than in the power of organ-
ization. It was, like its Roman predecessor, an association of free
priests, in which, to use the words of Omer Talon, "everyone obeyed
though no one commanded." And yet, uniformity was enforced
EDUCATION AND SCHOLARSHIP 159
upon the Oratorian colleges by means of visitations, and a Ratio
studiorum was made compulsory in 1645.
The main point of opposition lay elsewhere. Exception had been
taken to the number of foreign masters in the Jesuit schools, for
instance in the College de Clermont in Paris; the Oratorians, on
the contrary, were recruited in France and their staff was con-
sequently French, the point being expressly insisted upon at
Marseilles in an agreement with the Corporation, when the local
college was handed over to them. As a matter of fact, the Oratorians
did not claim the same distinctive originality as the Jesuits: they
merged more easily in organized public life; they were anxious
to comply with the wishes of municipal bodies, to whom they
granted extensive rights of inspection and supervision. In regard
to the use of Latin in school there was some hesitancy; yet French
was preferred for catechism and for the "explanation" of classical
texts, even in the higher forms; and translation, as an exercise,
gradually ousted prose and composition. In 1640 there appeared
a Latin grammar in French by Fr. de Condren. History was
specially taught, but it was the history of France, which also
supplied themes for school tragedies. The contrast between the
attitude of the Oratorians and that of the Jesuits was not due, in
the case of the former, to motives of policy or national interest.
The Catholic Reformation had had its inception in France, with
the Christian humanists; it was bearing wonderful fruit in France
also in the early seventeenth century. The French contribution to
the welfare of the Church was of value precisely because its spiritual
quality was national and peculiar. The Oratorians were conscious
of this, and their patriotism, far from being directed against the
universal Church, tended to its enrichment.
Whatever opposition in temper at the outset, and whatever
differences later, might separate the Oratorians from the Jesuits,
there was absolute agreement between them when the future of
the Church was at stake, in the heroic times of the Catholic
Reformation. This cordial union appeared when an order of nuns,
specially created for the education of girls, that of the Ursulines,
was introduced into France. It had taken birth in Italy, thanks
to the charitable efforts of St. Angela Merici. The latter was born
in Lombardy in 1470, and her activities had started as early as
1516, when she had begun to establish Christian schools in Brescia.
160 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
She gathered a body of helpers around her, and in 1535 all took
a solemn resolve to devote themselves wholly to their duties as
teachers. They were as yet uncloistercd, and lived in the homes
of their parents or relatives. In 1572, however, St. Charles Borromeo,
who had employed them a good deal, bound them to common
life and the three vows. Late in the sixteenth century an Ursuline
convent, modelled on those of Italy, was created in the papal enclave
in France, near Avignon. Soon after, in 1610, another one was
established in Paris by Madame de Sainte-Beuve. This noble lady
was much attached to the Jesuits, one of whom was her confessor,
and who had been allowed to come back to France by King
Henry IV, thanks to her personal intervention; she also belonged
to the pious circle which gathered in the house of Madame Acarie,
around M. de Berulle, the founder of the French Oratory; and
advice and help were sought on either hand. The Ursuline move-
ment spread with great rapidity throughout the kingdom, the
number of houses, shortly before 1650, rising to 255 in eight in-
dependent "congregations."
The spirit of the Catholic Reformation is beautifully illustrated
in the Ursuline schools which, mutatis mutandis, have much in
common with the Jesuit colleges. Yet there is an essential difference,
which lies in the nature of the teaching. It had been a fashion
of the Renaissance to bring up female scholars who could discourse
in Latin or Greek; but the Ursulines had no wish to turn their
pupils into femmes sav antes, and deemed that a sound knowledge
of reading, writing and reckoning, needlework and housekeeping
was all that even society women needed to acquire, "since it was
pleasanter to our Lord, and more useful to them, to be virtuous
than to be learned." But every care was devoted to the building
up of their moral personality, according to principles which bring
home to us the religious atmosphere of the period: "I advise you,"
St. Angela had said to her spiritual daughters in her will, "to lead
your pupils with a soft and gentle hand, and not imperiously or
harshly; but in all things to try and humor them, like true mothers."
This suavity, akin to that of St. Francis of Sales, by no means
excluded firmness and energy: "The true and proper devotion of
the Ursulines," Madame de Pommereu wrote, "is not a devotion
of tenderness, ravishings and ecstasies; it is a strong and solid
devotion . . . which rouses the pupils to generous and warlike
EDUCATION AND SCHOLARSHIP 161
virtues; thus they reach those practical ecstasies which are indeed
the best of all"
The use of the word "practical" is worthy of notice: it points
to a conception of education related to that of the Society, which
in fact many features recalled: girls of all social classes, however
poor, were admitted; there was to be no excess in devotional
practice though the point at which excess began was set much
higher than nowadays, and the lives of the pupils were steeped
in piety; no choir duty at any rate, no properly monastic exercises;
undue asceticism was carefully avoided. The rules, according to
St. Angela's own advice, were not cut-and-dried, but the product
of gradual experience and adaptation. Idleness was to be shunned.
The aim of the Ursuline schools was to turn out that fine social
type which is still found in the French bourgeoisie of to-day, a
thrifty and pleasant-mannered housewife, able to "run" a middle
or even higher class home, to make a little go very far, and to
fulfil both her domestic and social obligations, while at the same
time preserving her virtue unsullied and her piety sincere and
fervent. The little girls are "to become converted to God through
love ... to mould their manners after the common modesty and
uprightness of the wisest and most virtuous Christians that live
in the world."
The practical organization used to obtain such a result was apt
and efficient. The "general mistress of the boarders" was to examine
candidates for admission; to keep in touch with the superior and
the girls' parents; to inspect the classes, dormitories, and refectories;
to read the rules to the school twice a year solemnly. Discipline
was to be ensured through rewards rather than through punish-
ments; bodily chastisement, when necessary, was to be dispensed
"with a serene and tranquil mind"; but as a rule other means were
to be used, in accordance with the character of the pupils, since
"some are led to amend themselves through fear, others through
gentleness, others through silence, others through a mere look or
attitude." Great attention was granted to the health of the girls,
and those who showed a tendency to curvature of the spine were
to be kept from writing much. The form mistresses were to keep
company with the boarders throughout the whole day as in
present-day Salesian practice to take part in their meals, recrea-
tions, and even games. They were in charge of catechism and of
162 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
the pious exercises, which culminated in the yearly First Com-
munion, a ceremony which was first imagined by the Ursulines,
and which has remained a central feature of the devotional life
of the French youth. In a word, the Ursuline schools produced
that fine combination, a saintly woman of the world; a combination
typical of that pluckily heroic age, when elegance was deemed
a necessary accompaniment of bravery.
The Jesuit and Oratorian colleges were not merely "classical"
schools. Their higher forms were more like universities, in the
mediaeval sense of the word, or seminaries, in which the chief
matters taught were philosophy and theology. We need not here
consider the doctrine of the Oratory, which developed an originality
only after 1650, when it embraced Cartesiamsm. But, from the first,
the Jesuits had their own views on the teaching of divinity, and
here again followed in the footsteps of the Christian humanists.
They expressed their disapproval of decadent scholasticism, with
its elaborate quaestiones, restored the authority of Thomas Aquinas,
and made Scripture, as interpreted by scholars, the basis of all
theology. The Ratio studiorum of 1586 expresses itself on the point
in an uncompromising way:
"We must strive with might and main, so that the study of
Holy Writ, which is languishing among ourselves, may be aroused
and flourish. We are exhorted to this by the examples of the holy
Fathers, who always thought that it was more useful and honour-
able to apply oneself to the Scriptures than to so many questions;
and to hear God speaking through his prophets and apostles, than
to fall into dotage over our own cogitations and speculations. Those
who [nowadays] give themselves up wholly to theology seem to
follow commentaries, leave aside the text . . . and take little account
of the solidity of Scripture. Such an upbringing produces, as it
were, mutilated and crippled theologians."
Erasmus had scarcely expressed himself more bitingly. And the
Ratio studiorum appends a catalogue of quaestiones, some over-
subtle, some definitely ludicrous, which are not to be handled, as
for instance, "whether the hairs of the head and body be alive,"
or "whether angels may move instantaneously."
Scripture is to be explained clearly, intelligently, and without
EDUCATION AND SCHOLARSHIP 163
undue lengthincss, "according to its true and literal sense" a
reaction against the allegories and anagogies of late mediaeval
theology in a way that much recalls the praelectio on classical
authors. The essential point is to drive home the moral or spiritual
lesson to be learnt. One need not indulge in linguistic disquisitions
for the love of "grammar." As to scholastic theology, the Jesuit
attitude was inspired by the wish to establish in the order un mismo
sentir y querer, one only thought and will, as well as to revert to
the sources of firm, direct reasoning: "Let all our members follow
the doctrine of St. Thomas and consider him as their own
teacher. . . ." When difficulties arise, it is enough to reply: "St.
Thomas says yes, or St. Thomas says no." In regard to philosophy,
the same unity is to prevail. "In logic, the Constitutions run, in
natural and moral philosophy, and in metaphysics, the doctrine of
Aristotle is to be followed." Here again, a thorough understanding
of the text itself is to be preferred to silly or abstruse quaestiones.
"Let the professor of philosophy make every effort to interpret the
text of Aristotle suitably. . . . Let him persuade his hearers that
their philosophy will be lame and crippled, unless they take this
study to heart."
Unity, straight thinking, a concentration upon essentials, both
morally and intellectually, such are, in theology no less than in
classical letters, the main features of Jesuit teaching. Such an
intellectual discipline was bound to bear fruit, and did bear fruit
of exceptional value in a whole series of theologians, some of whom
already appeared at the Council of Trent; while in the following
generation, the most prominent figure among them was undoubtedly
St. Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621). The latter was a character of
extraordinary richness and completeness. He was famous as a
controversialist, but he could also write elegant Latin verse, such
as the hymn of St. Mary Magdalen's day, Pater superni luminis.
He shone in the diplomatic field, and also distinguished himself
as a Jesuit provincial and as the archbishop of Capua. He should
not be given the whole credit for the Thomist revival, which had
begun before him in the University of Salamanca; but he confirmed
it, and gave it its final impulse, when insisting that St. Thomas
should hold a central position in the Ratio studiorum. His work
ranged from the emendation of the Vulgate (from which he
removed errors brought in by Pope Sixtus V) to the reform of
164 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
the Breviary, from the writing of a catechism, the Doctrtna chns-
tiana, to disputations with James I of England on the power of
kings. He appears as one of the most universal men of his own
time, joining wide scholarship with deep piety; and one can hardly
blame Clement VIII for having prevailed upon him to swerve
from the rule of his order, and accept the cardinalate in March 3,
1599.
The Pope had, in this matter, taken the advice of another and
scarcely less illustrious member of the sacred college, the Oratonan
scholar and historian, Caesar Baronius. The latter is one of the
most lovable and admirable figures of the Catholic Reformation
movement. Though less fanciful than St. Philip Neri, whom he
was to succeed as the superior of the Roman Oratory, he was of a
km with him through his genial and honest simplicity. He was
born in the kingdom of Naples in 1538, and when a student in
Rome, became a disciple of St. Philip and joined his congregation.
His spiritual father discerned his peculiar abilities, and directed
him to the study of ecclesiastical history. "He, who was then our
father," Baronius himself wrote in his good-natured preface, "in-
duced me to undertake this work, though I was unwilling to
perform it, for it loaded me with a heavier burden than my weak-
ness could bear; and so I have sweated in it for some thirty years
to the best of my ability, God's grace favouring me; for I was
almost beardless when I began, and now I am all hoary as I write
this."
The outcome of Baronius' efforts was the monumental compila-
tion known as Annales ecclesiastici to some extent a refutation of
the Protestant Centuriae, written at Magdeburg in 1552. The
Annales were published from 1588 to 1607 and reached down to
1198. Though marred by errors, especially in the Greek part, they
are a work of painstaking and conscientious erudition, provided
with a very full system of references. Baronius was a man of
transparent intellectual probity, and was acknowledged as such
even by his venomous adversary, Fra. Paolo Sarpi. He loved his
task: "Nothing could be sweeter," he wrote, "for the enjoyment of
my own mind. . . . The contemplation of the Church ... is like a
wide door opening out on a vast plain, through which my speech
may career and joyfully bound." Such alacrity was not exclusive
of patience; and in fact the Annales provide an instance of critical
EDUCATION AND SCHOLARSHIP 165
treatment not unworthy of Baronius' humanistic predecessors: "I
have treated everything," he says, "in such a way as not to speak
anything lightly or inconsiderately, anything idly, anything that
is not propped up by the most approved witness, demonstrated by
reason and . . . confirmed by a perspicuous and solid truth." In
fact, we may best conclude the present chapter with the very words
with which Baronius invoked the blessing of the Holy Ghost upon
his work, so that he might "through his words, writings, and most
of all through his manners profess, attest and preach the truth."
The enthusiasm of the Catholic reformers was not merely ex-
pressed by "the virtues of their souls," but as we shall now see, by
"their tongue and their pen" as well.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The literature on Catholic education in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries is extremely rich and no attempt can be made here to survey
it in a comprehensive way. On Sturm and the Jesuits, the work ot
Charles Schmidt, La vie et les travaux de Jean Sturm (Strasbourg,
1855), written from a definitely Protestant standpoint, provides useful
information; see also Festschrift zur Feter des 350 fahngen Bestehens
des protestantischen Gymnasiums zu Strassburg (Strasbourg, 1888), with
a long study by Dr. Hemnch Veil on the pedagogy of Sturm and the
Brothers of the Common Life; Mitteilungen der Gesellschajt jur deutsche
Erziehungs- und Schulgeschichte, Jahrgang XI (Berlin, 1901), with an
essay of Dr. Hans Kaiser on the projected foundation of a Jesuit college
at Molsheim; Ernest Laas, Die Paedagogi\ des Johannes Sturm (Berlin,
1872), which is enlightening as to the Christian humanistic character of
the schools of the Brothers of the Common Life. On the French Protes-
tant colleges, see Daniel Bourchenm, Etude sur les academies protestantes
en France aux XVI e et XVII siecle (Paris, 1882), which supplies ample
information on Protestant education, and has a strongly anti-Jesuit bias,
though the author brings no evidence to support his charge of plagiarism
against the Society. The only work in which the question of Protestant
versus Jesuit pedagogy is discussed at length and in a most illuminating
way is the book of Prof. Paul Porteau, Montaigne et la vie pedagogique
de son temps (Pans, 1935), in which it is shown that Jesuit education
tallied with Montaigne's ideals.
On the sources of Jesuit pedagogy, see first and foremost the statutes
of Montaigu College, and various documents referring to it, in Marcel
Godet, La congregation de Montaigu (Paris, 1912) (Bibhotheque de
1'Ecole des Hautes etudes) where passages of the statutes are compared.
with the Constitution* and Rule? of the Societv; and also, in a less crit-
ical shape, in Michel Felibien, Histoire de la ville de Paris (Paris, 1725),
torn. IV; Charles Thurot, De I' organisation de I'enseignement dans
i66 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
I'universite de Pans au Moycn-Age (Paris-Besanc/>n, 1850), which is still
valuable. Details on John Standonck are found in the latter work, also in
M. Crevier, Htstoire de I'universite de Paris (Paris, 1761), and Car.
Jourdain, Index chronologicus chartarum pertinentium ad historian*
universitatis parisiensis (Parisiis, 1862). On St. Ignatius' life at Mon-
taigu see Ada sanctorum bollandiana (Julii), torn. VII, and Godet,
op. cit.
The main lines of Jesuit pedagogy, both in regard to letters and
theology, are already supplied in the Constitution's (see the Spanish
text) and are fully worked out in the Ratio studiorum. The three ver-
sions of the latter, together with a huge mass of information on the
same subject, are reprinted in Karl Kehrbach, op. cit., Bande V, IX, XI,
and XVI, which are the four tomes of G. M. Pachtler, Ratio studiorum
et Institutiones scholasticae Societatis Jesu per Germaniam olim vigentes
(Berlin, 1887, 1888, 1890, 1894). Particulars on the revival of theology
in the early sixteenth century and its teaching at the Roman college
are supplied by Tacchi-Venturi, Storia della Compagnia di Gesu in
Italia, Vol. Primo (Roma 1930-1938). The history and life of a Jesuit
college are described in minute detail in Gustave Dupont-Ferner, La vie
quotidienne d'un college parisien pendant plus de trois cent cinquante
ans. Du college de Clermont au Lycee Lout s-le-Gr and, 1563-1921 (Paris,
1921-1925). The question of Jesuit pedagogy is dealt with as a whole
in Fr. J. B. Herman, S.J., La pedagogic des Jesuites au XVleme siecle;
ses sources, ses caractenstiques (Bruxelles 1914); also in three remarkable
recent works. The former two are theses by Fr. Francois de Damville,
S.J., Les ]e suites et ^education de la societe fran^aise, I. La geographic
des humanistes. 11. La naissance de I'humanisme moderne (Paris:
Beauchesne, 1940). These are elaborate historical works, which provide
a great wealth of information, whereas the book of Fr. Charmot, S.J.,
La pedagogic des ]e suites, ses principcs, son actualite (Paris, Editions
Spes, 1943), is rather in the nature of an admirable synthesis.
On the Oratorian colleges and pedagogy, see Paul Lallemand, Essai
sur I'histoire de I'education dans I'ancien Oratoire de France (Paris,
1887), which is informative, but unfortunately unscholarly. On the
Ursulines, see, among other works, H. de Leymont, Madame de Sainte-
Beuve et les Ursulines de Paris, 7562-7630 (Lyon, 1890), which is the
common source of several later works on the subject; Anne Berthout,
Les Ursulines de Paris sous I'ancien regime (Paris, 1935), a scholarly
work based on original documents; Canon L. Cristiani, La merveilleuse
histoire des premieres Ursulines jranqaises (Lyons, 1935). The rule
issued as Reglemens des religieuses Ursulines de la congregation de Paris,
though published at Paris as late as 1705, embodies the spirit of an
earlier period, and should be consulted.
On Bellarmine, see the excellent and important article sub nom. t
in Vacant et Mangenot, op. cit.; on Baronius, refer to the preface and
first part of the Annales Ecclesiastici (Romae, 1607).
CHAPTER VIII
The Catholic Reformation and Literature
WHEN leaving the field of precise legislation whether
bearing on the Church at large or on religious orders
to enter upon that of literature and art, one must use
new methods of approach. The former subject lends itself to exact
and comprehensive study; the latter's boundaries are not easily
defined, and it might be pursued to an almost unlimited extent.
No attempt will therefore be made in the following pages to give
an exhaustive and systematic account of the influence of the Catholic
Reformation upon letters, painting, architecture, and music. All
that can be done is to state the principles which the Catholic
reformers laid down as a starting-point, and to trace out certain
general lines of development. First of all, it need hardly be pointed
out that the need of reformation concerned no less the literary
life of Christendom than the latter's ecclesiastical discipline.
The Renaissance of the quattrocento had forgotten the inner
and deeper sense of religion. This is strikingly revealed by the
biography and works of the greatest Italian humanist and Latin
poet of the period, Jovianus Pontanus (1426-1503), the founder of
the Naples Academy. He held a position of extraordinary repute
among his contemporaries; kings and princes bowed to him,
showered favours upon him, raised him to the highest state ap-
pointments, on account of his classical scholarship. And yet he
had imbibed the spirit of antiquity so thoroughly as to become
almost a neo-pagan. Many of his poems are full of the luscious
sensuousness of the ancients. It will be enough to quote two titles:
Puellas alloquitur admonens, quid servarc in balneis debeant (The
poet addresses young girls, and tells them how to behave in the
baths) and Ad Hermionem, ut papillas contegat (To Hermione,
167
168 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
that she may cover up her breasts). It is true that Jovianus Pontanus
also wrote sacred poetry; but the very fact that his religious lyrics
should be printed side by side with his licentious compositions,
shows how far the period was from Christian earnestness.
The distance covered in the space of the next hundred years
appears when one considers the attitude of a namesake of the
Naples humanist, the Jesuit poet, Jacobus Pontanus (1542-1626).
He inveighed against those who wrote "things far removed from
virtue, some of them filling up whole books with amatory lewd-
ness." Poetry, he said, is "an art, which depicts the actions of men,
and unfolds them in verse, in order to teach them how to live."
These words give expression to the dominant thought of the
literary theorists of the Catholic Reformation. They reject that
ideal of "art for art's sake," which, though the phrase had not
as yet been coined, was m fact that of the pagan Renaissance.
In their eyes, poetry is not an end in itself. It is meant "to teach
while it delights, but to teach more than it delights." Men, however,
are weak; they are apt to be repelled by bare precepts of virtue,
and "easily spurn salutary doctrine, unless it be sprinkled with
allurements and pleasantness." They must be enticed to righteous-
ness by literary beauty, by the literary beauty which their present-day
tastes lead them to prefer. Their partiality for Renaissance standards
should therefore be gratified. Antiquity will remain the model to
be imitated par excellence; but to be imitated in its outward form
only, not in its inward spirit of sensuousness. All the unsavoury
tales of gods and goddesses will be done away with, and replaced
by Christian elements. Thus a classical garb will be made to
clothe religious truth, and what was poison will now become an
aid to spiritual health.
There was, indeed, nothing new about such a plan. As in the
case of monastic life and education, a reaction had set in, owing
to the influence of the Christian humanists. This was true in the
field of literature as well, m the latter part of the fifteenth century.
It is proved, in fact, beyond the shadow of a doubt by such pieces
of literary theory as the two prefaces written in 1499 by Macarms
Mutius of Camerino, as an introduction to, and apology for, his
sacred poem, the Triumph of Christ: "I have often wondered," he
says, "and bewailed more than once, that some who are lacking
neither in wit, nor in scholarship, nor in eloquence, should be
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AND LITERATURE 169
at idle pains to tell ridiculous stories, and relate shameful inventions,
yea mostly fables; when they might, for the advantage of posterity
and for their own renown, write, to their no small praise, those
things which would incite men to virtuous manners, to the seeking
of righteousness, and the acquiring of a good name." He rejects
the distinction which is made by some, between the poet's life
and his works; the former cannot be clean if the latter are impure;
and they are bound to be of doubtful purity, so long as they
recount the tales of ancient mythology. However, uncleanness is
not inherent in poetry; she can vindicate herself by leaving out
all that is unchaste, so as to "dig gold out of rubbish, and cautiously
to pluck roses out of a thickset bush of thorns." Has not an example
been set by the Bible itself? "What is there (in secular literature),
that is more beautiful than Deuteronomy and the songs of Isaiah?
What, more weighty than Solomon? What, more perfect than Job?"
The first centuries of the Church had their sacred poets as well,
Juvencus, Sedulius, Arator, Prudentius, Fortunatus. The present
generation cannot produce anyone to compare with them, and
ought to be ashamed of itself. And yet, what is there about
Christian subjects that should make them unsuitable for poetical
treatment ?
"I know," Mutius adds, "that this statement will be received by
some with laughter and contempt; but after all, the themes of
ancient mythology, which these men accept, are not so very dif-
ferent from ours. The descent of Christ into Hell is no more
surprising than that of Ulysses or Aeneas, of Hercules or Orpheus
to Tartarus. Why be shy of mentioning the Trinity in Latin verse?
Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto were a triple godhead. The con-
secrated bread in the Eucharist is divine food: so were nectar and
ambrosia. The birth of Christ was miraculous. What about that
of Venus? The name of Christ, you say, is not harmonious. Is
Chnstus less so than the Latin word crista? Besides, we have a
rich store of classical periphrases at our disposal. Let us call our
Lord, like Jupiter, 'the thundering one/ or 'the worker of all
things,' or 'the omnipotent father.' "
In a word, Macarius Mutius lays the foundation of what we may
call Christian neo-classicism; he ushers in the literature of the
Catholic Reformation.
One is naturally tempted to trace back the birth of the latter
170 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
to the Council of Trent. It is a fact that the great Church assembly
was steeped in an atmosphere of classicism one finds the legate,
Cervini, quoting Horace and that it was careful to ensure for
its enactments the benefit of humanistic editing. Its respect for
classical form is revealed in its treatment of lewd books: they are
to be "prohibited altogether; and yet, such works, if ancient and
written by pagans, are allowed on account of the elegance and
propriety of their style; though they are not to be read to children
on any account." In other words, the Council, while rejecting pagan
immorality, sanctions the literary ideal of the Renaissance.
No wonder, therefore, that the Jesuit critics of the late sixteenth
century should have done the same, and attempted to clothe
Christian truth in a classical garb. The most famous one among
them, Antonius Possevmus, took over the literary theories of
Macarius Mutius, whom he quoted in support of his views. He
provided a general review of Christian poetry in his treatise,
published in 1593, DC poesi et picture* ethnica, humana et jabulosa,
collata cum vera et sacra (Pagan, human and fabulous poetry and
painting, compared with true and sacred poetry). Like his Christian
humanistic predecessor, he viewed it as a real and formidable
danger that his contemporaries should be exposed to the influence
of pagan morals and thought. Like him also, he was anxious to
find justification in the past for the alliance of Christian doctrine
and classical form; therefore he drew up a catena of writers, who
might prove its ancient origin and its continuity through the ages.
He begins this list long before Christ, for there are pagan
authors such as Ennius, Horace, and Persius who, while they have
not written of sacred things, have left their compositions, "at any
rate, free from obscenity." But in the works of some others among
the "Gentiles," the first intimations of religious truth may be dis-
cerned. Has not Sophocles proclaimed "the only true God, who
created Heaven and earth," and inveighed against "the images of
deities made of stone or wood, gold or ivory?" Has he not, like
Philemon, foretold Judgement Day? Has not Virgil composed the
whole of his fourth eclogue to declare, in a scarcely veiled way,
the mysteries of the Incarnation and Redemption? In Possevinus'
opinion, "whatever the Gentiles babbled of their gods, they wrote
it either from fear of the magistrates, or because their sins blinded
the sharp eye of their minds." In fact, they frequently "derided
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AND LITERATURE 171
their own false gods." There was, despite appearances, a pre-
ordained harmony between classicism and the Christian religion.
This harmony was not fully revealed before Christ. It appeared
clearly in the early centuries of the history of the Church. The
Fathers, St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Damascene, St. Ambrose, and
the Venerable Bede, wrote devotional or theological works in
classical Greek and Latin; and much stress is laid on the Christian
poets of the late Empire, such as Arator, Prudentius, Ausonius.
The Jesuit critic naturally enough leaves out the Middle Ages,
the barbarous latinity of which was probably below his standards,
and thus misses much that is of value, in hymnology especially; but
he takes up the thread with such of the Renaissance humanists
as had turned to Christian themes: Antonius Geraldinus, Vida,
Sannazar, Sadolet, Arias Montanus; and he finally ends up with
the Jesuit poets of his own age: Andreas Frusius, Antonius
Quaerengius, Franciscus Bencius, Jacobus Pontanus.
This attempt to connect classical form with Christian beliefs so
closely that they could not be separated was unanimously supported
by the literary theorists of the Catholic Reformation. The languages
and style of the ancients assumed some of the hallowed character
of religion itself. They became almost sacred. They were set up
as models which could scarcely be improved upon. Hence, we
have the principles which governed the literary production of the
post-Trentine age, and especially its Latin verse for the space of
two centuries, and of which some remote effects may occasionally
be felt even now.
These principles are best expounded by Jacobus Pontanus in
his Institutiones poeticae, published in 1594. He grants, it is true,
at the outset, that poetry may consist in the direct "imitation" of
nature, its purpose being "to represent the actions of men," ac-
cording to the classical ideal which Pope later expressed in his
famous line, "The proper study of mankind is man." But very
soon the Jesuit critic alters the sense of the word "imitation," which
he now refers to the reproduction of a model. "Let us propose to
ourselves," he says, "some illustrious examples and apply to them
our whole mind, our whole study and reflection, and having
grasped their images with our inward sense, transfer them to
our own writings. ... We should however," he adds slily, "expend
our whole labour so that those things should seem not theirs, but
172 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
ours; although learned men cannot be taken in by our borrowings."
What is more, the pleasure reaped from reading poetry is not due
to its originality, but on the contrary to its likeness with known
types.
It is obvious that such a theory, if strictly adhered to, would
have done away with inspiration altogether. Now there were, in
the literary life of the Catholic Reformation, two conflicting
tendencies. On the one hand, the Catholic reformers were so averse
to the licentious freedom of the Renaissance, its unrestricted enjoy-
ment of nature and the senses, its sporting frolicsomeness and
brutal lusts, its worship of glory and exaltation of human pride,
that they advised restraint in every form of human activity, in-
cluding literature. They distrusted passion; they preferred poetical
forms in which the mind alone displayed its ingenuity, to those in
which the heart unburdened itself of its burning feelings. They
favoured the ideal of the golden mean, the composed and balanced
attitude of the classical writer. They were often partial to preciosity,
to concetti and mannerisms, as against spontaneity and lyricism
They treated poetry, not as the free outpouring of men's emotions,
but as a technical exercise, in which success was to be ensured by
sedulous study and strict discipline.
But, on the other hand, they belonged to a militant movement
animated by soldierlike alacrity. Whatever they did, even in the
field of poetry and eloquence, was done with fiery enthusiasm.
They felt an ardent love of Christ, an ardent desire of His glory,
an ardent craving for martyrdom. Passion, which had been re-
jected in its purely human shape, reappeared in the expression of
religious feeling. Hence a twofold aspect in the literature of the
Catholic Reformation. Much of it brings into play mere skill and
ingenuity: such is the case, though not uniformly so, for the
lighter forms of lyrical poetry. But in regard to epic poetry and
the drama, where men and women are made to feel and to live
before us, where the theme is generally provided by heroic actions,
performed in obedience to the call of God, no such frigidity
prevails, and the highest pitch of emotion is often reached. We
shall turn first of all to the former class of productions, which,
whatever its merits, is in every way the less remarkable of the two.
The main element, in the composition of such pieces, is, accord-
ing to Pontanus, the following of carefully chosen models. Now,
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AND LITERATURE 173
it is easy to protest indignantly against such a literary ideal, and to
denounce it as artificial and scarcely honest. But after all, is not
every poet, however spontaneous his art, formed to a large extent
by imitation? How else is the technique of the literary craftsman
to be acquired? And, in fact, it cannot be denied that the Latin
poets of the Catholic Reformation were remarkably successful
in reproducing and adapting to Christian subjects the composed
harmony of Virgil, the sweet plaintiveness of Ovid, or the terse
wit of Martial. It must be confessed, however, that they were also
at a disadvantage. Their means of expression was not plastic
enough; their very adherence to "pure" latinity tied them down
to a fixed literary language which was necessarily stilted and
precluded homeliness. Nor was variety or innovation allowed
in metrical forms either. Hence it is that the humanistic hymns
of the sixteenth century, though in better Latin than those of fhe
Middle Ages, scarcely equal their pathetic intensity. Add that the
Catholic reformers' distrust of passion led to a conception of poetry
in which beauty did not gush up from inside, but was added on
from outside in the shape of "ornaments"; in which it was the
product, not of genuine emotion, but of sedate, quiet, and me-
thodical reflection. "The poet," Possevinus writes, "is not only an
imitator, but a man of surpassing ingenuity, and carried away by
his mind; who does not use trite and colloquial words, but words . . .
sought from afar; who represents great things, things admirable,
abstruse things, out-of-the-way things."
The lighter poetry of the Catholic Reformation was therefore
most successful where skilfulness and wit came into play, and its
chief beauties were found in conceits and preciosity.
The Latin poets of the Catholic Reformation tried their hand
at every one of the classical genres, at epics, odes, epigrams, elegies
each of these being extended to a surprising variety of themes. Thus
there is an epigram, by Franciscus Raimundus, On a certain young
man, who rushed away from the paternal home, and fled to Rome,
to seef( admission in a religious order; and among the odes, we
find one by Franciscus Torsellinus, also a Jesuit, entitled: Cradle-
Song of the Virgin Mary to the Infant Christ, which is touching
and sweetly motherly, with its refrain, "Now sleep, my life, my
light, o sleep." But however varied in inspiration and mood, most
of this literary production is scriptural, and unceasingly reverts
174 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
to the various parts of the Gospel story, unless it occasionally
wander to the lives of the saints. A list of sacred subjects is
supplied by Father Jacobus Pontanus, and more or less coincides
with the liturgical cycle. It was, of course, easier to establish unity
of purpose and matter among the writers mostly ecclesiastical
who wrote in Latin, than among those who used their mother-
tongue, and who were distracted by worldly interests. Nevertheless,
these also followed suit to a large extent, and we may say that the
Latin compositions of the Catholic reformers really set the tune
for the vernacular devotional poetry of the period.
Italy would, of course, be the first to come under the influence
of the new spirit; and, in fact, no sooner had the Council of Trent
come to a close than the leading writer of the time, Torquato
Tasso (1544-1595), gave expression to the literary ideals of the
Catholic Reformation, in his Discorsi. He quotes Horace on
prodesse and delectare, and like the Jesuit critics, emphatically
declares for the former purpose. "Poetry," he says, quoting
Eratosthenes, "is the first philosophy, which from our tender years,
instructs us as to good manners and right living. . . ." "A good
poet," he adds with Strabo, "must needs be a righteous man."
What is true of verse in general is even truer in the case of that
genre which was most in keeping with the conquering ardour of
the Trentine generation, the poema eroico. "Epic poetry," he says,
as contrasted with the drama, "requires the highest degree of all
virtues; for the characters are heroic like virtue itself." Tasso feels
less scruple than the Jesuits in regard to love, which he willingly
introduces into his compositions on account of its "great beauty";
but if it be not directed towards Christ himself, or towards a
brother-warrior, if its object be woman, let it at any rate be
"knightly love. . . , not merely passion and sensual desire, but,
according to the words of St. Thomas, a most noble haviour of
the will." Generally speaking, for the heroic poem should be
chosen "an action of the utmost nobleness."
While writing his Discorsi, Tasso was labouring to apply his
own principles. His purpose was to write a Christian Iliad, and
in fact he closely followed the model given by Homer in his
Gierusalemme liberata (Jerusalem Delivered} which was completed
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AND LITERATURE 175
in 1575. He chose for his subject the first Crusade, which he dealt
with in a highly fanciful way, introducing classical "episodes,"
defiances, and single fights, Goffredo and Solimanno replacing
Achilles and Hector. Nor is the stage machinery of antiquity
absent. Supernatural powers intervene in the fight for Jerusalem.
Pagan deities had of course to be eliminated from the divine hosts,
and thus the crusaders are assisted by God, St. Michael, guardian
angels, and holy hermits. But there was no harm in enlisting
the false gods of pagan mythology among the infernal army, and
thus we find Alecto side by side with Beelzebub, and the en-
chantress, Armida, who bears the closest likeness to Circe. The
Christian character of the poem is, however, very strongly as-
serted: before facing the prodigies of the enchanted forest, Rinaldo
confesses his sins to Peter the hermit, and goes to Mount Olivet
to pray at dawn. The spirit of the old mediaeval romance of
chivalry here rejoins the heroic mood of the Catholic Reformation.
But even more than in heroic poetry, the direct influence of
the Catholic Reformation is manifested in what we might call
the "cycle of remorse," which had its birth in Italy and spread
to the whole of Western Europe. The tearful expression of con-
trition was of course no new thing in Christian literature. The
twelfth-century Archithrenius or arch-weeper of Jean de Hantville
had been shown as roaming all through the world, lamenting the
sins and vices of man. Nevertheless repentance was not prominent
even among the religious compositions of the Renaissance poets,
who were pleased with life as it was, and did not consider this
earth as a vale of tears. But it reappeared in full force after the
Council of Trent, when the Church had made its children rueful
for their past lasciviousness. The two main themes of the "cycle,"
which provided poets with endless variations, were the remorse
of St. Peter after he had denied Christ, and the remorse of St.
Mary Magdalen after her conversion; and the works which re-
spectively headed the two long files of poems on each of the two
subjects were Luigi Tansillo's Lagrime di San Pietro (St. Peter's
Tears) and Erasmo de Valvasone's Lagrime della Maddalena (The
Tears of St. Mary Magdalen).
Luigi Tansillo (1510-1565) supplies in his own person an instance
of a conversion from Renaissance paganism to Trentine Catholicism.
The most famous one among his early poems, // Vendemmiatore
176 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
(The Grapegatherer), was licentious; so that the author, whom
one of his editors calls "the gatherer of sour grapes," was placed
upon the index by the Church, and "had to drink for some time
the wine of his Mother's wrath." He made amends, however,
by inditing the Lagrime, the beginning of which was published
in 1560. The amatory vein of his first compositions still inspired
parts of his devotional poem, and the latter was expurgated and
recast by a Roman commission of Jesuit Fathers. Tansillo had
compared the glance which Christ cast to Peter, thus silently
rebuking him, to lovers' looks, which speak without words: the
whole stanza was done away with. Owing to this and similar
corrections, the Lagrime bear almost an official stamp; they may
be considered as a model proposed by Rome to Catholic poets.
Of course, Tansillo's personality is not wholly obliterated; it appears
to us as quite Italian. He is garrulous, as in Peter's endless
soliloquies; his descriptions that of the sculptures in the temple
of Jerusalem for instance are pictorial and brilliant. He loves
tawdry ornaments, and takes pleasure in displaying to us the
riches of Isaiah's apparel when he meets Peter:
To him he comes in garb of richer kind
Than lord's or royal king's, of wealth untold;
Afire with purple his gown, with purple lined,
Studded with costly gems, and hemmed with gold.
Obviously Tansillo views poetical expression as something more
external than intimate, and feels a partiality for exuberant mimicry
and lively colour. So much for the negative side. But on the
positive side, his talent and facility as a versifier cannot be denied,
and his poem contains more than that "tinsel" which, according
to Boileau, was the sole beauty of Tasso's Gterusalemme. Tansillo
is admirable as a painter of nature, whether he describe a summer
night, or a spring storm in an Alpine wood. But the value of his
poem should be assessed in connection with its purpose, which is
essentially religious, as he himself declares, when about to recount
the sufferings of Christian martyrs: "That ancient piety be re-
newed . . . and men aroused to follow blessed tracks."
In fact, the Lagrime are not only a Christian epic, they are the
epitome, the condensed sum total of all possible Christian epics.
This long poem of nine hundred and ten stanzas in ottava rima,
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AND LITERATURE 177
or 7280 lines, is not a continuous whole, but a succession 6f episodes,
in which is reviewed the whole history o the Church, from the
Creation down to the author's own time. St. Peter is represented
as wandering disconsolately during the whole of the three days
between his denial of Christ and the Resurrection. He meets with
a number of adventures, which provide the occasion for so many
digressions. He first repairs to the Garden of Olives, then to the
house of the Last Supper, then gets a glimpse of the procession of
the Cross. Afterwards he visits the temple, which is adorned
with stone carvings which represent the chief events of the Old
Testament, and, symbolically, the history of Christendom. Even-
tually he retires to a cave outside the town, and during the night
he has visions and dreams which are a succession of pictures from
the New Testament. After the shepherds who worshipped the
infant Jesus have been made the occasion for a pastoral passage
in the jortunatos vein, in compliance with contemporary tastes,
Tansillo brings Isaiah upon the stage. The latter shows Peter
visions of the martyrs, and describes to him Christ's descent into
hell and the joy of heaven on welcoming the souls rescued there-
from; and here, as a tale within a tale within a tale, Solomon sings
the Creation and Fall of man. Lastly, Peter meets St. John, who
narrates to him the story of the Passion, bringing it down to St.
Mary Magdalen's visit at the tomb. The poem, which is unfinished,
breaks off here: one wonders what further developments its
author may have contemplated.
The faults of such a composition its lack of unity, its incoher-
ency, its artificiality are too obvious to need stressing. Real
beauties, however, are not lacking, especially in the Pianto primo
the first lament or book which was published separately at first,
and is far simpler and more direct in its emotion than the rest of
the work. But the chief interest of the poem lies in the fact that
it is a model and a starting-point. It met with extraordinary favour.
Together with Erasmo de Valvasone's Lagrime dclla Maddalena,
it was printed in its final, though incomplete, shape, in 1585, then
again in 1587, 1592, 1598, and 1599. The fragment which had first
appeared in Italy in 1560 was freely translated into Spanish by
Luys Calves de Montalvo, under the title of El llanto de Sant Pedro
1598) ; in French by Robert Estienne (Les larmes de Sainct Pierre,
editions of 1595 and 1606) and by the illustrious Malherbe (Les
178 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
larmes de S. Pierre imitees du Tansille, editions in 1587, 1596, and
1598); in English by the Jesuit father, Robert Southwell, who
afterwards kept the Lagrime in mind when indicting his own
St. Peters Complaint (editions in 1595 [twice], 1597, 1599, 1600,
1602 [twice], 1615, 1616, 1620, 1634 [twice], 1636). There were
numerous imitations, which traded on the success of Southwell's
work, such as Saint Peters Ten Teares (1597, 1602), St. Peters Path
to the Joys of Heaven (1598), Samuel Rowlands' Betraying of
Christ (1598), and others.
A similar swarming of translations, adaptations, and imitations
followed upon the appearance of Valvasone's poem on Mary
Magdalen. And yet the favour that it met with on every hand gives
rise to some wonder. Though the purpose of the writer is un-
doubtedly a devout one, he sacrifices so much to the decadent
tastes of the period that he turns to little advantage the possibilities
here open for pious lyricism.
In length his poem is not such a considerable piece of work as
Tansillo's. It includes only seventy-six stanzas in ottava rima, or
six hundred and eight lines; and yet its author finds ample room
in it for hollow amplification. He first of all represents Mary
Magdalen in the cold and dreary solitude to which she is pictured
as having retired after the Ascension; and then resumes the story
of her life from the beginning, taking the opportunity offered
here to describe, with true Italian sensuousness and relish, the
beauty which was the occasion of her fall. Then follow the various
incidents borrowed from the Gospel narrative: Mary Magdalen
hears of the coming of a "great hero" (for thus is Christ referred
to); she dons her finest garments and jewels (another opening is
found here for gaudy description) and sallies forth to meet him.
At his sight a sudden change takes place in her; the horrid monster
that caused her to sin comes out of her mouth in the shape of a
seven-tongued flame surrounded with smoke. She feels "her lover's"
glance pierce through her like lightning; throws her chains and
bracelets at his feet; and then behaves towards the "divine hero,
who enamours her," like a little dog who caresses his master,
because he wants to be fed by him. With her golden hair she wipes
away the tears with which she has watered "the holy feet." For,
from now on, she begins weeping and will continue in tears until
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AND LITERATURE 179
the end of the poem. Hearing that "her lover" is in prison and
ill-treated, she rushes towards him like a Maenad, with torn
clothes and dishevelled locks, and finds him on the cross, near
which she wakens the echoes with her waitings. Then Valvasone
recounts the famous scene at the tomb. After the Resurrection
Mary Magdalen, like a dove seeking her spouse whom thunder has
driven away, follows the footsteps of her "beloved chief," still
weeping; and when he has returned to the right hand of his
Father, she wanders away to mountains, crags, and caverns, where
she can more easily think of heaven. There, clothed only with her
flowing hair, she makes the rocks and oaks fall in love with her!
Hereupon follows an apostrophe to the "sweet pains" and "fortunate
horrors" that surround her, until at last her soul is carried up to
the holy place where she is again to meet with "her lover."
Valvasone's work is an extreme example of the peculiar and not
altogether pleasant colouring that the Italian temperament gave
to the poetry of the Catholic Reformation. There is little in it that
tells of the inward life of the soul; the expression of feeling is
outward, not intimate. One is forcibly reminded of one of those
pictures of the same period, in which there are vehement gestures,
distorted features, and eyes dramatically upturned to heaven; also
of Tasso's piece, included in a typical Collection of tears (Raccolta
di Lagrime) of 1593, in which, according to its preface, he describes
a painting of our Lady "in the act of devout contemplation; and
shows in such a lively way her holy eyes full of tears, and her
holy cheeks watered with drops so true and plentiful, that they
deceive the sight of the onlookers and invite every pious hand to
dry them."
We have here the trick of deception, so much in favour with
Italian painters. More generally, in the Lagrime, the external aspect
of things is the only one insisted on. Hence the really successful
descriptions of nature or of plastic beauty, the glittering passages
on dress and jewellery. There is about the poetry of Valvasone a
remnant of Renaissance paganism; and he is strangely shy of the
names of Christ or Jesus, which he does not once utter. Add to
this the easy, good-humoured, irreverent familiarity with which he
handles the theme of Mary Magdalen's conversion at Jesus' feet;
and the equally untimely display of punning wit. All this shows
180 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
how much leeway had to be taken up by the Catholic Reformation,
before bringing Christian poetry to the chastened simplicity and
intimacy which were to make it worthy of its object.
Valvasone's sensuousness, however, was not a permanent feature;
and it disappeared from the works of his numerous imitators in
France, Spain, and England. But the mingled tearfulness and
preciosity lasted on for many decades. It reappears in a sweetly
pretty series of sonnets published in 1597 at Paris under the title
of La Magddeine repentie (Repentant Magdalen) in which the
saint's retired life is referred to by herself in the following words:
For there, I hear no sound but chatty chirping
Which feathered songsters utter in the woods,
Their warble wedding to my woeful weeping;
For if in my retreat I sing the rhymes
Of God's great harper, herald, prophet king,
They sing with me, with me their chorus chimes.
Such delicate daintiness is not always present, however, in the
numberless Tears published at the end of the sixteenth and the
beginning of the seventeenth centuries. The fashion was set in
England by Robert Southwell, S.J., whose Mary Magdalen's Tears
were printed in 1594. This was a prose work though of a highly
poetical turn and harked back, beyond Trent, to the Franciscan
mysticism of the fourteenth century. But the choice of the theme
betrays the influence of the Roman environment in which the
author had spent many years, and it cannot be doubted that the
success of his composition induced many rhymers to follow in
his footsteps with Tears of various descriptions, many of them
inferior.
While all the authors of these poems were not professedly
Catholics, they all came under the influence of the Trentme move-
ment. Gervase Markham's Tears of the Beloved (1600) is devoted
to the "moanings" of St. John the Apostle; but the same poet
published in 1604 his Mary Magdalens lamentations for the loss
of her maister Jesus. A similar theme is again reverted to in Nicholas
Breton's Blessed Weeper (1601) and in an anonymous poem on
Mary Magdalen's Conversion (1603). The latter gives no proof
of high poetical gifts, but we still find in it the "pleasant horrors"
of the saint's retreat in the woods:
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AND LITERATURE 181
Shall we betake us to a Hercmitage,
In some wilde desert unto men unknowne,
And there weare out the remnant of our age,
Filling the wide woodes with our ceaseless moane,
Lette me take part of this thy heavy cheare,
And for ech sigh of thine lie spend a teare?
The tradition is continued by two anonymous poems, Mary
Magdalen's Lamentations (1604) and Saint Mary Magdalens Pil-
grimage to Paradise (1617) and by Thomas Robinson's Life and
Death of Mary Magdalen (1636), until we come to the most
famous one of the compositions of this cycle, Richard Crashaw's
Weeper. This appeared in 1646 in London, as the first item of the
author's Steps to the Temple. The superiority of the piece over all
previous ones need hardly be stressed. It is enough to quote the
best-known stanza:
Not in the evening's eyes
When they red with weeping are,
For the sun that dyes,
Sits sorrow with a face so faire.
Nowhere but heere did ever meet
Sweetnesse so sad, sadnes so sweet.
Yet this very example brings confirmation of what we have said
above in regard to the literary ideal of the Catholic Reformation.
Even here, though there be emotion of a kind, the main feature
is wit. Right up to the end, the Trentine movement in letters
favoured preciosity. Should it be taken to task on that account,
as having approved of artificiality and affectation? That it did
so cannot be doubted: it had its reasons for preferring a rightly
poised mind to an often misguided heart, and thus for showing
partiality for an intellectual form of poetry. Yet this is not the
essential point about its action. It achieved one main result, that
of turning the tide of literary tastes towards pious themes treated
in a devout spirit. Whatever its faults, besides, the new literary
school was not incapable of giving expression to genuine and
natural feeling. In England, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth,
Catholic poetry was not merely witty. The persecuted Recusants,
cheered by missionaries who brought with them from the Con-
tinent the influence of Trent, sang their sufferings, comforts, and
hopes in verse that often reaches to the highest pitch of plucky
182 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
resolution; not to speak of the pathetic melancholy, moral earnest-
ness, or sweet tenderness of some of their compositions. What can
be more touching and more devoutly true than Richard Verstegan's
poem entitled Our Lady's Lullaby, in which the Virgin Mary thus
speaks to the Infant Jesus:
And when I kiss his loving lips
Then his sweet smelling breath
Doth yield a savor to my soule,
That feedes love, hope and faith.
Sing lullaby my little boy,
Sing lullaby my lives joy.
It was not lyrical poetry, however, which was destined to give
an adequate expression to the militant and heroic ideal of the
Catholic Reformation. This task was reserved for the drama, to
which we shall now turn.
How the drama flourished under the direct influence of the
Catholic Reformation, is at present rarely suspected. No wonder,
since it mostly consisted in college plays in elaborate Latin, which
proficient classical scholars alone could understand. It is a pity
that they should now be out of reach of the general public, for
the oblivion into which they have fallen is wholly undeserved,
and their influence upon the development of secular drama has
been an important one.
College drama, whether reminiscent of mediaeval morality plays
or of a more humanistic cast, was, in the mid-sixteenth century,
far more important than the ordinary public stage; but it partook
more of the rowdiness and wild spirits of the students than of the
seriousness and gravity of academic pursuits. In 1553, a tragedy,
Captive Cleopatra, and a comedy, Eugene or the Encounter, both
by Jodelle, were acted at Boncourt College in Pans. How unsuit-
able the latter was for the purpose of education, is shown by its
subject: the chief character is an abbot who gets his mistress, a
naughty hussy, to marry a bumpkin, so that he may freely enjoy
his amour with her. The same may be said of two comedies by
Grevin, The Treasurer's Wife and The Gapers, acted in 1558
and 1560 at Beauvais College in Paris. It is not surprising, in view
of such excesses, that the early regulations drafted for Jesuit teachers
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AND LITERATURE 183
should have evidenced distrust towards college drama. The rules
of the Society express themselves as follows regarding the duties
of the Father provincial: "Let him but very seldom allow comedies
or tragedies to be performed, and these only if in Latin and
decent; and let him first of all examine them, or hand them to
others to be examined; and forbid that these plays or suchlike
should be acted in church."
At the outset, theatrical performances in the Jesuit colleges were
hedged in with strict precautions. An ordinance of Fr. Oliverius
Manareus, visitor of the Rhine province, dated 1583, forbids the
use of sacred vestments or vessels as stage properties, or the re-
production on the stage of holy ceremonies, such as benedictions
or excommunications or funerals, and the singing of psalms or
liturgical pieces*. No priests or religious persons are allowed to
act a part. Public performances should be authorized by the
provincial, except in the case of an urgent order from the prince.
All plays are to be examined in advance by the rector or the prefect
of studies, so as to avoid let the words be carefully noted
"anything silly, or unpolished, or lacking in gravity or seemliness."
Yet the enthusiasm of the Jesuits for letters in general, and for
their embodiment of classical scholarship in the drama, prevailed
m the long run; and some of the more stringent prescriptions
were discarded. Female characters had been wholly barred at first.
In 1603, the province of Upper Germany explained to the Father
general that it was impossible not to introduce them, "whether in
profane or in sacred comedies." The reply was that permission was
given to do so with due moderation and decency. Later on it
became a rule in German colleges that solemn performances should
take place yearly or at any rate every three years.
In fact college drama, though this is not generally realized
nowadays, was to flourish in an astounding way in the Jesuit
houses, frorri the late sixteenth century to the suppression of the
Society in the late eighteenth, and to play a first-rate part in the
public and literary life of such towns as Paris. The plays drew
numerous audiences, extending far beyond the immediate circle
of acquaintance of the pupils, and including many noblemen and
burghers. In the twenty-one colleges of the Society's province of
the Lower Rhine, between 1597 and 1761, no fewer than five
hundred and two plays were performed. At the College de Clermont
184 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
in Paris, it is difficult to ascertain the exact number of tragedies
and comedies acted before 1635. There were undoubtedly a good
many. But for the period extending from 1635 to I 7^ I > we reac h
the surprising figure of two hundred and thirteen, including ballets.
Plays were performed in every Jesuit college throughout Europe,
from Diisseldorf in Germany to Coimbra in Portugal, and even
in far-away Asia. The Life of St. Francis Xavier was put upon the
stage, at the beginning of 1624, on the square before the church at
Goa; and one hears of a Tamil version of The Triumph of David
over Goliath, and even of a play called Josaphat, written in Tamil
by the native author, Aroulanda, both of these being acted in
Pondicherry.
Such outstanding success is not due to any strikingly new
departure in the dramatic technique of the Jesuits. Their part,
in this respect, was exactly the same as in the case of other literary
forms. They invented nothing, but they adapted to a religious
purpose the genres that were already extant. They brought back
to moral purity and classical good taste the stage which in the
early sixteenth century had been revelling in the full exuberance
of Renaissance paganism. Their purpose is clearly outlined in a
document of the province of the Upper Rhine, dated 1619:
"Let all plays be suited to the end intended by the Society, to
wit, to move men's souls to detest lewd manners and perverted
habits, to flee from the occasion of sin, to apply themselves to
virtue, to imitate the saints. If the lives of these are represented
upon the stage, let not those things, which they did worthily and
holily, and which can serve as a model, be treated meagrely and
casually, while ridiculous fancies, which are not in point, and
childish trifles, are dealt with at full length."
The whole of the moral and literary ideal of classicism is found
in the above words, as it was to appear in the plays of Corneille:
heroic devotion to duty as expressed in the themes of the plays,
soberness and tastefulness in the handling of the subject. There were
subsidiary motives also to induce Jesuit educators to foster the
practice of college theatricals. Their pupils, they thought, would
learn on the stage how to deport themselves in public and private
life, at once boldly and modestly; they would be helped in their
study of rhetoric, train their memory, improve their delivery,
develop their intelligence and taste; not to mention that they would
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AND LITERATURE 185
be prone to imitate the noble characters whom they impersonated.
Thus did the drama gradually assume a prominent part in the
life of the Jesuit and also of the Oratorian colleges. It was, how-
ever, no new departure, and here again, the Jesuits merely expanded
the work which had been begun by the Christian humanists.
Early in the century, the latter had begun a reaction against the
licentiousness of the stage. In 1537, Nicholas Bartholeaeus, a prior
of Notre-Dame de Bonne Nouvelle at Orleans, got his scholars to
perform his devout play, Christus Xylonicus (Christ on the Cross).
The Protestants also turned the drama to religious purposes; they
were early in the field with Theodore de Beze's Sacrifice of Abra-
ham, a tragedy with a chorus, performed by students at Lausanne
and Geneva in 1552, and with the Holy Tragedies of Desmazures
(David, 1556). In 1544, Montaigne, who was a pupil at the College
de Guyenne m Bordeaux, had acted a part there, at the age of
eleven, in a pious tragedy of George Buchanan, entitled Jephthes.
It is only in 1558 that we meet with the performance of a play in
a Jesuit house at Billom; in 1570, Fr. Luis da Cruz's Sedectas was
performed in Coimbra; while in 1579, on commencement day at
the College de Clermont in faris, a tragedy called Herod was
acted "to the edification of all and the admiration of most people."
Such "admiration" the Jesuits did their best to obtain, once
they had become convinced of the usefulness of college plays; and
they had recourse to every resource which the stage put at their
disposal, to please the eye and move the heart of the spectators.
This was not done^owever, in a uniform way, and one meets
in Jesuit drama with the most varied kinds of inspiration and
technique, ranging from blood-and-thunder Elizabethanism to the
soberest French classicism. The chief models were, of course, sought
in antiquity, Seneca for tragedy, for comedy Terence and Plautus
preferably % Plautus, who was said to be more "moral." But there
was considerable freedom in the imitation of the ancients. Verse
was generally used verse of a kind at any rate, which scarcely
lends itself to scansion. Yet prose also occasionally appears, and
there is an actio oratoria by Fr. Nicholas Caussin, Hermenegildus,
in which the author, in his dedication to Cardinal Henry de Gondi,
justifies his use of the soluta oratio on account of its greater freedom
and naturalness. Various means were used to relieve the attention
of the spectators: comedy was mixed with tragedy; interludes were
i86 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
introduced, in which the moral sense of the play was made clear;
there were sometimes pantomimes, and, in the French province
especially, extensive use was made of the ballet. The chorus played
an important part in most plays. On one point only was there
uniformity though even here exceptions might be found: love
between man and woman was not to be represented on the stage.
The themes were no less varied than the dramatic technique.
Many, especially at the outset, were borrowed from the Old Testa-
ment, such as Luis da Cruz's Sedecias or Jerusalem falling to
Nabuchodonosor; Nicholas Caussin's Solyma, on the same subject;
the same author's Nabuchodonosor, with the story 'of Daniel; Denis
Petau's Sisaras, with the story of Deborah. Other subjects were
taken out of Church history, from the earliest times down to the
sixteenth century. To this class belong the "martyrdom" plays,
which culminated in Corneille's Polyeucte: Caussin's Felicitas, the
story of St. Felicity and her seven sons; the same writer's
Hermenegildus, a tale of the Goths and the Arian heresy, in which
two martyrs, having rejected the latter, lay down their lives;
Bernardinus Stephonius's Flavia, which recounts the persecution
under Domitian. But there was no objection to lay subjects as
long as they were treated in the proper spirit, and excursions were
often made into the realm of secular history, mediaeval or con-
temporary. We find in Germany two plays bearing on the Anglo-
Saxon period, Edvinus, f(ing in England, and Humphredus, and
one on the reign of Edward VI, John Dudley's Baleful Ambition;
also plays on Conrad of Bavaria and Frederic^ of Austria, Hunyades
and Ladislaus, and The Abdication of the Emperor Charles V.
Others had a purely abstract and allegorical character, such as
The Angel of Peace, On the Lord's Supper, Peace and Religion
the Foundation of States.
When one attempts to sort out those numberless Jesuit plays
they seem to fall into classes fairly easily, according to the countries
in which they were indited. There is such a thing as Italian Jesuit
drama, German Jesuit drama, French Jesuit drama. If we are to
judge from the plays performed at the Roman College, the stress
was laid there upon the external side of the show more than on its
psychological or even its properly devotional value. Take for
instance a tragedy in five acts, there performed five times before
1629, and "always favourably received," the Suevia (Souabe) of
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AND LITERATURE 187
Alexander Donatus. The subject is grounded on historical data,
but these have been largely modified to satisfy the tastes ot an
Italian audience. It is a dark and sinister story, in which the part
of the villain is played by a famous mediaeval character, Manfred,
the natural son of the Emperor Frederick II. His machinations
end in the beheading of his half-brother, Jordanus, and in the
poisoning of the emperor himself. The devotional element is
practically absent, except in the lines sung by the chorus at the
end of Act II, when it warns men not to seek perishable kingdoms,
but eternal ones instead. The action is intricate and slow, and
recourse is had, to awaken and keep up the interest of the spectators,
to all kinds of outward means. The supernatural element is in-
troduced. At the beginning of Act I, St. Peter Morone, the hermit,
is wending his way along the stage, when Celestial Justice is seen
to descend from heaven with her companions; St. Peter is rapt into
ecstasy, while angels sing around him. Later, he is favoured with
a vision of the papal tiara and of the imperial crown, still in the
midst of singing. Pageantry is largely resorted to. The Emperor
and his son are seen to enter the city of Naples on a chariot,
amidst the full pomp of triumph, surrounded by generals, soldiers,
the prefect of the town, and senators. Later on, triumphal games are
exhibited, including a bout of fencing with spears.
The same partiality for the externals of the drama is met with
in another five-act tragedy, several times performed at the Roman
College in 1621, the Flavia of Bernardmus Stephonius. The villain
now is the philosopher and magician, Apollonius Tyaneus, who
induces the Emperor Domitian to put to death his cousin, Clemens,
and the latter 's two sons, because they refuse to abjure the Christian
faith. The action is a simple one, but it is made to lend itself to
scenic display in a succession of tableaux surrounded with elaborate
scenery. In Act I, Apollonius conjures up sixteen infernal assistants;
then the scene is shifted so as to represent a "horrid solitude;
here takes place an earthquake, and darkness falls; the barking of
dogs is heard; flames are seen to rise from slits in the floor. Then,
through the mouth of a cavern, various monsters come forward:
Cerberi, hydrae, centaurs, dragons, harpies, etc." After they
have left the stage, "sixteen young lads come in Aethiopian dress,
for a display of games." Later on, the prefect of Rome musters
his troops and the Emperor reviews them. It should be said, how-
i88 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
ever, that, side by side with all this pageantry there is real pathos
in the scenes in which Apollonius vainly tries to persuade his
victims to renounce Christ.
As for the plays performed in the German province, their
authors seem to have been occasionally partial to grotesqueness,
quaintness, and buffoonery. In the directions provided for them
by their Jesuit superiors, there are repeated warnings against
scurrility, against the introduction of "demons, beggars, drunkards,
blasphemers, fools, etc." That these cautions were not always
attended to is proved by the three-act comedy of Mopsus. The hero,
who goes by that name, is a drunken peasant. While he is dozing
off his liquor in the gutter, he is picked up by the courtiers of
the duke of Holland. They persuade him, on the next morning,
that he is the duke, and he spends one day amidst the splendours
of the court. He again drinks himself to sleep, and is taken back
to the filth of the street, where he awakes to reality. In the first
act he is seen at his potations, together with other tipplers; and
in the third act, he is tipsy again. The moral lesson to be derived
from the play is nevertheless clear : it shows how empty are worldly
honours and pleasures. Nor should we think that Mopsus is the
type of all German plays, many of which fall into the "martyrdom"
class.
As to the French Jesuit theatre, it did not from the very first
produce full-blown classical plays of the type which has been made
familiar to us by the works of Corneille and Racine. Fr. Caussin's
Theodoricus (published in 1620), for instance, is in many respects
reminiscent of Shakespeare though we cannot say whether this
is a case of direct influence. The plot is borrowed from Procopius
and St. Gregory, and bears on the history of Gothic rule in Rome:
it is the story of the philosopher, Boetius, and his son, Symmachus,
falsely charged with high treason by two courtiers of King
Theodoric, and unjustly put to death by the latter. The subject is
not in itself a Christian one, yet it is made so from the fact that
Theodoric, contrary to truth, is represented as a pagan; and there-
fore the play offers every characteristic of the "martyrdom" class,
especially in the scenes which take place in Boetius' prison, in
which Theodoric threatens the philosopher, and his wife, Elpidia,
expostulates with him. The action is limited to the second, third,
and fourth acts, and ends in a Shakespearian way, with the madness
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AND LITERATURE 189
of Theodoric. The king takes a turbot's head, which is served to
him on a dish, for the head of Symmachus; he is laid on his bed,
where the ghosts of his two victims, accompanied by a good. genius,
surround him, until he dies. At the same time, more classical
elements appear. The execution of Boetius and Symmachus is
not performed upon the stage, but related by a messenger. Allegory
occupies an important place. The first act takes place in heaven,
where Nemesis beseeches divine justice to wreak vengeance on
Theodoric for having brought about the death of Pope John in
a dungeon; and the fifth act is laid in heaven as well, and displays
the judgement of the king, in the presence of his victims.
The chief beauty of the play, however, does not reside in scenic
effects, but in the real pathos of the prison scenes. In the dialogue
between Theodoric, Boetius, and Symmachus, we find that brisk
word-fencing, that thrust and parry of brief questions and retorts,
which was later to be used so effectively in Corneille's Cid.
Theodoric threatens the philosopher, who, it must be remembered,
was a state dignitary, and his son, with imminent death:
BOETIUS: Words! Words!
THEODORIC: Yet they will take effect!
BOETIUS: As fits a tyrant, methinks, thou wilt act;
Whatever fits a senator, I shall suffer.
THEODORIC: A noble speech indeed!
BOETIUS: I'll stand true to it.
THEODORIC: Wilt thou then try?
BOETIUS: I'm ready when thou wilt.
Thou canst do much, but I can suffer more.
The same kind of word-play is found in the same author's
Nabuchodonosor, when the Babylonian king threatens the four
young Hebrews with torture if they refuse to worship his statue:
MISAEL: Reason, and our laws too, forbid such deeds.
NABU.: But 7 command them, who am above your laws.
AZARIAS: It is thy part
To order what thou wilt, but it is ours
To obey God.
ANANIAS: A thousand times rather die
Than stoop to foul unholy sacrifices.
NABU.: Generous words indeed; but racks and fires
Will damp your contumacious spirits soon.
MISAEL: Wilt thou then try what heart lies here concealed?
Tear up my body!
190 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
In Corneille's Cid, Rodrigue was to say :
To high-born souls,
Valour docs not await the lapse of years.
One is struck when finding, sixteen years before, in Nabuchadon-
osor, words which are practically to the same effect, when Misael
encourages his brother, Ananias, to die with him:
ANANIAS: O worthy soul, thou oughtest thus to speak,
Thy words surprise me not, but I felt pity
For thy young age.
MISAEL: Far older than my years
Is God, who breathed his strength into my breast.
The lyrical parts of the Jesuit plays are often moving, despite
their preciosity. Ananias, in his prison, welcomes death in the
following beautiful words:
O Death, thou sole fulfilment of my wishes . . .
O happy Death, thou sweet path towards Heaven,
Thou breakest prison doors, and royal threats,
Thou lettest not the pious feel thy dint.
T is sweet and beautiful to die for God.
O Sion's youth, thy fathers' courage learn,
Learn how to seek thy trophy in the flames;
T is sweet and beautiful to die for God.
The reminiscence of Horace's Duke et decorum is used here to
good effect as a preparative for martyrdom. There is enthusiasm
also in other words of Ananias, which must have found a ready
echo, at a time when so many young men were laying down their
lives for their faith, in England and in the East:
They threaten me with blows and awful fires;
My enemies think they threaten, yet they please.
Shalt thou then die? But 'tis the law of God!
Shalt give thy life? Thou'lt give it back to God!
In thy first flower? The gardener plucks the buds!
Before thy time? Who dies thus is of age
Mature enough! To a burning pyre shalt rush?
'T is hard, I know, but yet a happy evil . . .
Indeed, one cannot insist too much on the ardent spirit of self-
devotion which is breathed by the drama of the Catholic Reforma-
tion. Further examples may be found in Felicitas, another tragedy
of Fr. Caussin though they might also be sought in the works
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AND LITERATURE 191
of other French Jesuit dramatists, such as Fr. Cellot and Fr. Petau.
Felicity, being tied to the stake, sings in the lyrical mode her
exhortations to her seven sons to share her fate:
Run forth in strength, run forth in joy,
O noble youths, your mother's sons;
Run forth to Christ, ye holy youths;
His hand will bless your happy strife.
His wealth will crown with golden laurel
Your temples, rich with fame and honour.
Run forth in strength, run forth in joy,
My sons, of wedlock chaste offspring.
Then when one of the seven brothers, Crispus, is removed out
of his prison and fears that he will not be granted the palm of
martyrdom, he addresses his brother, Sylvanus, in the following
touching words:
CRISPUS: Alas, I leave my happy prison door,
And my unwilling steps are loth to move.
I shall go back.
SYLVANUS: My Crispus, what ails thee?
CRISPUS: Alas, thou lea vest me, while thou reapest
The happy laurels. Hast forgotten me?
I share the verdant spring of thy young age,
I was the confident of all thy labours,
Of all thy sweet pastimes; and long the cares
Of tender youth, which we revolved together
Have warmed our hearts, with mutual friendship laden.
Thou leavest me, nor doest thou deem me worthy
To triumph with thee.
SYLVANUS: What sayest thou, dearest Crispus?
thou the first in love of all my fellows,
1 share thy wish with equal mind and heart,
Ready with thee to live, with thee to die.
* * *
If one now turn to Corneille's masterpiece, Polyeucte (1643),
one is immediately struck, despite some differences, by its unmis-
takable likeness with the Jesuit tragedies, both in regard to form
and to matter. Nor is this surprising, if we consider the circum-
stances of Corneille's upbringing. Pierre Corneille, who was born
at Rouen in Normandy in 1606, spent seven years (1615-1622) at
the Jesuit college of that city. He was awarded two prizes for
Latin verse in the third form and in the "Rhetoric." Now, the
prize-winners were generally selected to act parts in the perform-
192 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
anccs of the Latin plays; and though we lack precise information
on the point, there is every reason to believe that young Corneille
was asked to do so. It is besides quite likely that his professor of
rhetoric, Fr. Delidel, was the author of a play, Arsaces, performed
at the College de Clermont in Paris in 1630. Corneille himself,
in his commendatory lines prefixed to Fr. Delidel's Treatise on the
Theology of the Saints, wrote as follows:
What I write, that pleases, if it please, is wholly thine.
What is more, another Jesuit master of Rouen college, Fr. de
la Rue, indited in 1669 a Latin epistle to "the most illustrious
Corneille, the prince of tragic poets," in which he clearly assumes
that the latter's purpose in writing his tragedies was the same as
that of the Jesuit dramatists. "You have known," he says, "how
to give back the bloom of youth to the withered features of tragedy,
and how to infuse a new life into her limbs. . . . You have bedecked
her with flowers and taught her modesty and seemliness. Thanks
to you, the licentiousness of the stage no longer exists; it is re-
placed by good taste, and the theatre offers an innocent pleasure,
worthy of the nicest ears. Thus is tragedy emboldened to cross
the threshold of kings and to become food for the high souls of
heroes." Corneille may thus justifiably be considered as the greatest
tragic poet of the Jesuit school, and his Polyeucte as the direct
consequence of the Catholic Reformation, and the highest point
reached by it in the field of literature.
The subject of the play is a well-known one. Pauline is the
daughter of Felix, the Roman governor of Armenia. She has been
in love with a young Roman officer and courtier, Severe; but as the
latter is thought to have died in battle, she has married an Armenian
nobleman of high rank, Polyeucte. The latter is won over to
Christianity by his friend Nearque. Severe has meanwhile re-
appeared, in the character of a general and a favourite of the
emperor, hoping to marry Pauline. He is, of course, greatly dis-
appointed to find her the wife of another man. Polyeucte, burning
with his new zeal, induces the reluctant Nearque to come and
join him in smashing up the heathen idols at a public sacrifice.
Felix immediately orders Nearque to be put to death, but strives
to persuade Polyeucte to recant in order to save his life. However,
Polyeucte is absolutely proof against threats, flattery, and the
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AND LITERATURE 193
entreaties of his wife; he desires Felix to have him executed, and
invites Pauline and Severe to join in wedlock and live happily after
his own disappearance. He reaps the crown of martyrdom, but
his constancy and magnanimity have not been useless: Felix and
Pauline become Christians, and Severe himself agrees to use his
influence in order to obtain from the emperor a relaxing of the
persecution.
Despite the introduction of the theme of human love, such a
play is strikingly akin to the Jesuit tragedies. We find in it the
same heroic tone. Pauline confesses to her confidante, Stratonice,
at once her past love for Severe and her determination to fight
it down:
'T is but in such attacks that virtue shines,
And hearts that have not fought should not be trusted.
The outward form is also very much alike, with the same type of
oratory rhetorical tirades alternating with brisk dialogues, such
as the beautiful passage in the fourth act, where Polyeucte is deaf
to the entreaties of Pauline :
PAULINE: Renounce your fancy, dear, and love me.
POLYEUCTE: I love you,
Far less than God, but than myself far more.
PAULINE: For sweet love's sake, I pray, forsake me not.
POLYEUCTE: For sweet love's sake, I pray, follow my steps.
PAULINE: 'T is not enough to leave me, you'll seduce me ?
POLYEUCTE: 'T is not enough to go to Heaven, if alone.
PAULINE: Mere dreams and fancies'
POLYEUCTE: No, celestial truths!
PAULINE: A blindness strange indeed'
POLYEUCTE: Eternal lights!
PAULINE: Prefer you death to Pauline's ardent love ?
POLYEUCTE: Prefer you then the world to God above?
PAULINE: You cruel, go and die: you never loved me.
POLYEUCTE: Live happy in the world, and leave me peace.
The same dramatic motives appear in Polyeucte as in the Jesuit
plays. Felix's menacing and cajoling, Pauline's beseeching, remind
us of the prison scenes in Hermenegtldus or Flavia. Polyeucte's
famous lyrical stanzas are not unlike Boetius' song in his dungeon.
The theme of love itself is handled in a way which suggests St.
Ignatius' "voluntarist" conception of man's moral life. Pauline
refuses to give way to her natural instinct, which yearns for union
194 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
with Severe. She will love her husband, and she is successful in
her efforts, since she cherishes him enough to wish to die with
him, and flatly rejects the temptation to accept his proposal and
take advantage of his death to marry Severe. In Polyeucte's reply
to her entreaties, one senses the influence of St. Ignatius' Exercises.
The following lines are almost a verse paraphrase of the passages
referring to "election."
Ambition's mine, but nobler, higher far.
Earth's greatness dies, I want eternal greatness,
Assured happiness, unmeasured, endless,
Secure above begrudging, above Fate.
Is, then, a sorry life too much to pay,
Which of a sudden, soon, may slip from me,
Which but one fleeting moment I enjoy,
Ne'er sure that other moments are to follow.
More might be said on the same subject. Corneille's ideas on
the co-operation between God and man in the work of grace, his
insistency on divine love, his practical-mindedness in the face of
temptation, all betray the influence of the Ignatian school. One
might go further, and see in the utter chivalrousness of the great
poet's characters a reflection of the knightly spirit of St. Ignatius
himself. In any case, the heroic mood of Corneille in his tragedies
suited the public of his own time; it testifies to the general temper
of the period, which, as will be seen in other ways, manifests
the conquering ardour of the Catholic Reformation. Thus did
the latter, though hampered by the artificial side of neo-classicism,
introduce an original element into literature, and produce some of
the greatest works of all time.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
It is no more possible to supply a full bibliography of the subject
here considered, than it was to do it justice in the above chapter. The
literature of the Catholic Reformation has not been dealt with as such
in any special work, nor is it referred to at all sufficiently in current
literary histories. One must needs fall back upon the original sources.
For the poetry of the quattrocento, see Jovianus Pontanus, Opera, Aldus
(Venice, 1533). In regard to the literary theories of the Catholic
Reformation, the most comprehensive work is Antonius Possevinus'
Eibliotheca selecta qua agitur de ratione studiorum (Romae, 1593;
Lugdum, 1594; Venetiis, 1603), Vol. II, lib. XVII, De poesi et pictura,
which contains a veritable encyclopaedia of pre- and post-Trentine poetry
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AND LITERATURE 195
and criticism, with many extensive excerpts from contemporary or
earlier works, including the Libellus de recta poescos rationc of Macanus
Mutms. Also refer to Fr. Jacobus Pontanus, S.J., Poeticarum institu-
tionum libri tres (Ingolstadii, 1594, 1597); Fr. Franciscus Bencius, S.J.,
Orationes et Carmina (Ingolstadii, 1592, 1595). There are numerous
collections of Jesuit poetry, such as the Parnassus Societatis Jesu
(Francofurti, 1654), which includes works from all the European
provinces. Also see the collected poems of Fr. Gilbertus loninus (1637),
Fr. Jakob Balde (1650), Fr. Leonardus Frizon (1650), etc.
For the literary theories of Tasso, see Le prose diverse di Torquato
Tasso, ed. by Cesare Guasti, Vol. I (Firenze, 1875), which contains
Discorsi dell 'arte poetica (Venice, 1587) and Dtscorsi del poema eroico
(Naples, 1594). One need hardly refer to the many editions of
Gierusalemme hberata. For the "cycle of remorse," see Luigi Tansillo,
Le lagnme di San Piero, falsely ascribed in this first edition to Cardinal
de Pucci (Venetia, 1560) (the pianto primo only); then full editions,
in Vico Equense, 1585, and, together with Erasmo Valvasone's Lagnme
della Maddalena (Genova, 1587; Venetia 1592, 1598), besides modern
editions. For translations and imitations in other countries, refer to
the particulars given above in the course of the chapter.
Many works bearing on Jesuit drama have been published in Germany
(mostly monographs) and in France (general studies). The most
important of the latter are Ernest Boysse, Le theatre des Jesuites (Pans,
1880), which deals specially with the College de Clermont, and supplies
a list of plays and ballets performed there; and L. V. Gofflot, Le
theatre au College (Pans, 1908), which contains lists of plays acted in
the Jesuit and Oratonan colleges, and brings down the history of college
drama to present-day performances at Harvard University. The work
of Dr. P. Bahlmann, Jesuiten-Dramen der Niederrheinischen Ordens-
provtnz (Leipzig, 1896), is extremely exhaustive and conscientious,
and gives the analysis of numerous plays, besides extracts. See also
Karl Kaulfuss-Diesch, Untersuchungen uber das Drama der Jesuiten
im 77. Jahrhundert, Herngs Archiv, Vol. XXXI of the new series
(Braunschweig and Berlin, 1913), with a good bibliography; Th.
Zachanae, Auffuhrung von Jesuitendramen in Indien, in the same series,
Vol. XXX (1913); and many other German monographs.
There are a number of collections of Jesuit plays, beginning with
Fr. Luys da Cruz (Ludovicus Crucius), S.J., Tragicae comicaeque
actiones . . . datae Commbncae (Lugduni, 1605); then Fr. Denys
Petau (Dyomsius Petavius), Opera poetica (Parisiis, 1620) (includes
his tragedies); Fr. Nicholas Caussm (Nicolaus Caussinus), Tragoediae
sacrae (Parisiis, 1620); Fr. Louis Cellot, Opera Poetica (Parisiis, 1630)
(includes his tragedies); Selectae PP. Soc. lesu tragoediae (Antverpiae,
1634) (includes four tragedies by different Jesuit authors). For informa-
tion on Corneille refer to Emile Picot, Bibliographic cornehenne (Paris,
1876); Louis Rivaille, Les debuts de Corneille (Paris, 1936); and Gofflot,
op. cit.
CHAPTER IX
The Catholic Reformation and Art
IS ONE at all justified in speaking of the art of the Catholic
Reformation? Doubts have been expressed on that score, and
to some extent rightly so: for in regard to technique, no orig-
inal development appears as a consequence of the Trentme move-
ment. The latter has often, it is true, been identified with neo-
classicalism; but the "J esi rir." style of architecture, for instance, was
no more a creation of the Society of Jesus than the Ciceronian style
in letters. In either case current modes of artistic expression were
adopted and adapted to serve an essentially religious purpose. But
this very purpose is the reason why, in another respect, Trentme art
may be said to be truly original; for while its outward aspect really
belongs to the period as a whole, its inward and spiritual substance,
its inspiration and subject-matter are wholly new. Nor could this be
otherwise, since the work done at Trent consisted in breaking with
the traditions of the Renaissance.
Indeed the reaction of the Council against the prevalent paganism
of the period was so strong that one may well wonder that art
should have found any favour in its eyes. The Fathers looked
askance even at that most spiritual of all forms of expression, Church
music. The spirit of Paul IV, the spirit of the Theatmes, was really
rigid. As it was, the Council was wise enough to refrain from any
sweeping condemnation. But the art which followed in its wake
bore the mark of its temper. One of its most characteristic features
in painting, sculpture, architecture, as well as music, is its austere-
ness, its severity, its simplicity and concentration, its truly classical
restraint. Another feature is the extraordinary intensity of its reli-
gious feeling, its spiritual depth and power, which really hark back
to the Middle Ages. It is true that the Trentine movement, how-
196
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AND ART 197
ever fervent its inspiration, never attained to the sublime elevation
ot mediaeval art; that it developed in a period of conventions and
theatricality, which were averse to spontaneity and sincerity. Never-
theless, it produced works of great beauty, the value of which is due,
less to the style of the moment than to the devotional feelings which
they express.
Trentme art coincides in its duration with the Catholic Reforma-
tion properly so called, that is to say the period of remorsefulness
for Renaissance paganism, of sadness over the woes of the Church.
This period ended in Italy when peace and prosperity were restored
in the early seventeenth century, and austerity and simplicity made
way for the lusciousness and overdecoration of Bernini's art. In this
respect as in others, the fashion spread with some delay, and in
France it is only about 1650 that the soberness of the Louis XIII
style was superseded by the sumptuous luxunousness of Louis XIV's
reign. A clear distinction should be made between Trentine art,
which is sober and controlled, and the later exuberance of the
"baroque." The former was the outcome of the work of moral
reformation and theological consolidation performed b> the popes;
its fountamhead was in Rome, and it is from Rome that its study
must start. First of all, however, it will be necessary to examine the
general principles which served as guides. Though the underlying
base be the same, those principles vary according as they are applied
to the various forms of art, and we shall have to consider in succes-
sion painting and sculpture, architecture, and music.
The Council of Tient was not concerned with painting and sculp-
ture as such, yet it had to establish dogma in regard to the worship
and the images of saints, and consequently to decide whether and
how the latter should be made the object of artistic representation.
The question of images had been the object of a standing debate
between Catholics and Protestants. The more extreme among the
latter requested their total suppression, thus aiming a death-blow at
religious art. The first point, therefore, was for the Council to assert
that images might legitimately be used. Its decree runs as follows:
"Let the bishops diligently teach that the story of the mysteries
of our Redemption, expressed by paintings or other representations,
instructs and confirms the people in remembering and assiduously
198 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
rehearsing the articles of the faith; that sacred images are the source
of great spiritual profit, not only because the people are thus re-
minded of the blessings and help which Christ has granted them,
but also because the marvels and wholesome examples of God are
through his saints placed before the eyes of the faithful, so that they
may thank God for them, and rule their life and manners after
those of the saints, and may be incited to worship and love God,
and cultivate piety."
The passage is important. It assigns a religious purpose to the
arts of painting and sculpture, and settles the direction they were
to take after the Council of Trent. The latter did not go into par-
ticulars as to the means of reaching its aim. It was content to issue a
general warning against the superstitions and abuses to which the
worship of images might give rise. But its thought was interpreted
by a number of theologians; and a developed theory of the art of
religious painting and sculpture was expounded by Possevinus, in
the work which we have already referred to, his De Poesi et Pictura.
The object of painting, Possevinus says, is like that of poetry,
twofold, namely, utility and pleasure. Now, in order to be useful,
painting must be true. "If it is," as St. Gregory says, " 'the book of the
unlearned', what light can it provide if it be false?" The Protestants
had frequently derided the legends mixed up with the Catholic
worship of the saints. Such criticism would fall to the ground if his-
torical truth was strictly adhered to. Possevinus complains of the
painters who represent holy personages in a fanciful way and not
according to sound tradition and reason. He provides several in-
stances of what he qualifies as errors: the thieves crucified with Jesus
are shown as tied with ropes, instead of being nailed to their crosses;
St. Joseph standing near the crib and St. Peter standing near the
cross appear as old men, whereas they ought to be young; the three
Marys are painted as young girls; Mary Magdalen, at the Cruci-
fixion, is bedecked with gems and precious clothes; St. Francis is
well-combed, neat, elegant; St. Jerome wears a cardinal's red hat, a
palpable anachronism; Christ on the cross seems neither sad nor
afflicted.
Indeed, the painters reply, but when we show a serene, handsome,
and elegant Christ, we attend to art primarily. And yet, Possevinus
rejoins, the ancient Laocoon expresses pain. "I assert," he adds, "that
the highest pitch of art consists in imitating reality, the martyrdoms
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AND ART 199
of martyrs, the tears of those who weep, the pain of those who
suffer, the glory and joy of those who come to life again."
Apocryphal Scriptures are not to be followed. When selecting
their themes, painters should consult first with theologians and his-
torians. Nor should they be heedful of truth merely; they ought to
respect the necessary rules of propriety in handling sacred subjects.
Christ should not be shown in the conversion of St. Paul, "as so to
say falling headlong from Heaven, and appearing to Paul without
that gravity, and decency, without that majesty, which befit the son
of God, the king of Heaven and Earth." In the Annunciation, the
angel should not appear "head downwards like a dove flying and
rushing down to earth, as if he were shaken out of a bag." In the
Passion of Christ, one wishes "that the Angels were exerting them-
selves less, were not labouring with such efforts and gestures, to
support the Cross, the pillar and other mystical objects so painfully.
. . . More should be granted to the reverence which is due to an
angel, than to art. . . ."
The third principle laid down by Possevinus is of no slight im-
portance, and makes one understand why "expression" could be
genuine in the plastic arts of the Catholic Reformation. It is nec-
essary for the painter, he says, to feel the religious emotions which
he represents. "In order that the most fatal death of Christ our
Redeemer . . . should breed admiration and a sharp grief in others,
it is needful that something in the soul of the painter should rouse
the greatness of admiration and draw forth the rush of grief." The
artist should therefore meditate on the pains and constancy of Christ.
"I should advise him," Possevinus continues, "to drink up with his
inmost senses the meditations on the life and Passion of our Lord
by Luis of Granada, Francis Coster, Vincent Bruno, and, before he
undertakes to express so great a mystery, let him purify his soul by
means of the Sacraments."
Last of all, Possevinus forbids the painting or carving of lascivious
and pagan images, the two being for him one and the same thing.
The first petition of the Lord's prayer, he says, is not satisfied when
"shameful images" are represented. The saints are displeased to see
"Jupiters, Venuses, and other unclean beings recalled from the in-
fernal regions," when they have shed their blood to destroy them.
And here follows an illuminating description of the state of
things prevalent in sixteenth-century Italy, which the Trentine
200 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION '
movement had set out to amend. The demons, we are told, furious
at being ousted from the Indies where pagodas and idols are being
abolished, have tried two engines in Europe: unchaste books and
lewd philosophy on the one hand, and on the other, "outrageous
images of nude women, of Fauns and Satyrs, infamous statues, and
even fragments of idols dug out of the bowels of the earth; the
which being placed on the front of houses, on towers, in the man-
sions of noblemen, in the innermost part of their dwellings, renew
the memory of those who are confined to the eternal fires, restoring
whatever was most pagan. Meanwhile the images of saints and holy
mysteries of our Lord were being painted either without dignity, or
for the sake of fancy rather than piety, or were placed among the
images of false gods, so that religion itself was gradually removed
from the souls of many."
Possevinus obviously considers the pagan sensuousness of the
Renaissance as a very real danger. The setting up of heathen images,
he says, is contrary to the will of the early Christians and of the
holy popes. Pius V had such images removed from the Vatican;
Sixtus V ordered them to be flung down from the tower of the
Capitol. Besides, nudes are unchaste. No man, if he be at all vir-
tuous, will dare to look at them. They breed sensuousness in the
heart of the painter himself. They ought to be done away with at
all costs. There is little to be added to Possevinus' disquisition in
regard to the principles underlying the art of the Catholic Reforma-
tion. Painting and sculpture should first of all be inspired, be the
outcome of the artist's own devotional upbringing and preparation;
they should be moral, decent, and restrained, free from any pagan
lasciviousness; they should be scrupulously true, to the extent of
falling into realism; last of all, they should be Christian in regard
to their themes and spirit. How these principles were applied, is now
left to be seen.
There is no doubt as to the fact that the artists of the Catholic
Reformation, contrary to those of the Renaissance, were deeply im-
bued with Christian devoutness. Indeed, several among them shared
in the common remorsefulness of Catholic Christendom. The Italian
painter, Agostino Carracci (1557-1602), whose past life had not been
blameless, spent his last days with the Capuchins of Bologna, medi-
tating, praying, and painting a picture of St. Peter lamenting his
sins. Others spent their whole lifetime in piety. II Domenechino
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AND ART 201
(1581-1641) never began the picture of a saint without first praying
to him. The French painter, Callot (1592-1635), would preface his
working day with attendance at Mass.
But it was in Spain, in the country and at the time of the great
mystics, that the artists most definitely drank in their inspiration at
religious springs. Murillo (1617-1682) scarcely knew anything of the
world but convents and churches. He belonged to that austere
brotherhood of charity at Sevilla, the members of which bound
themselves to gather in the bodies of drowned men, to bury those
who had been murdered, and assist those who were sentenced to
death at their last moments. In his will he requested four hundred
Masses for the rest of his soul, and his tombstone bore the inscrip-
tion: "Live in the thought of death." In the same country, many
among the artists were monks who undertook the full decoration
of their own convents. There were painters among the religious in
Italy and France also, though fewer of them.
The devotional mood of the artists accounts for the reappearance
of certain elements of inspiration which dated back to the Middle
Ages and had wholly disappeared from Italy during the Renaissance.
The fifteenth century had been deeply absorbed in the thought of
death; many of its danses macabre s are still extant at the present
time. Now the thoughts of the Catholic reformers had been turned
by the evils of the times into grave and severe channels; and one
need not wonder at their partiality for the meditation of the "four
last things," which as a matter of fact had been recommended by
St. Ignatius in his Exercises, and which they handled with an exalted
and stormy sensibility strongly reminiscent of the late mediaeval
period. This appears especially in the decoration of tombstones. The
Renaissance had not expressed man's anguish in the presence of
death, but a restfulness and serenity suggestive of ancient philosophy.
In the former cloister of the Augustinian monks in Rome is the
tomb of Cardinal Sclafenati, who died in 1451. It bears the follow-
ing Greek inscription: "Why fear death, which brings us rest?"
while another tomb in the same place, that of a bishop, Ottaviano
Fornari, is inscribed with these words: "For thee the strife is now
overpast, and the plentiful sweating of the fight." Christian prelates
of the Renaissance viewed death like the wise men of ancient
Greece, as a sweet repose after life's struggle.
A change, took place as early as the time of the Lateran Council,
2O2 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
and death's heads began to appear on the graves. But after the
Council of Trent, such representations no longer are exceptions, but
the rule. They tally with the spirit of the devotional works of the
period. The epitaphs on gravestones now express serious thoughts,
such as "Here lies dust, and nothing more" (tomb of Cardinal
Barberini in the church of the Capuchins at Rome), or "My turn
yesterday, thine today." Many saints are now represented as holding
a death's head in their hands and meditating over it. In the paint-
ings of El Greco, of Zurbaran, of Caravaggio, St. Francis of Assisi
no longer appears as the cheerful saint, the enraptured worshipper
of God in his natural creatures, but as a lean, swarthy ascete,
deeply absorbed in the contemplation of man's latter end. Kindred
transformations take place for St. Catherine of Siena and St. Mary
Magdalen.
In the seventeenth century, whole skeletons appear in the stead
of mere skulls on gravestones. Death is also represented in engrav-
ings and pictures, which become a major help to pious reflection.
Thus did the spirit of the Catholic Reformation link up with that of
the late Middle Ages, which as a matter of fact, in Northern
Europe, had never wholly died out.
In regard, not to death, but to the images of living saints, the same
contrast appears between the Renaissance and the Catholic Reforma-
tion. The artists of the former painted Holy Families, for instance,
as very near to common mankind, in an atmosphere of peaceful,
serene, harmonious love, in the clear, sunny light of southern skies.
The painting and sculpture of the Catholic Reformation no longer
express contentedness and repose, but the upward, unsatisfied
cravings of the soul, its dolorous striving to lose itself in God; the
skies are now stormy and overcast, with dramatic effects of light
and shadow. Art, in this respect, is but the reflection of the religious
spirit of the period.
Never had there been such a profusion of mystics favoured with
visions and ecstasies. "The saints of the Middle Ages," Mr. Male
says, "used to work miracles; those of the Catholic Reformation
were themselves miracles." St. Ignatius Loyola, St. Philip Neri, St.
Teresa, St. John of the Cross had mystical experiences of the highest
order. Their lives and spiritual yearnings were represented by
painters in a dramatic and concentrated fashion. In the fourteenth
century, saintly women had been charmingly shown as. engaged in
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AND ART 203
homely occupations, drawing water at the well, bringing a cake to a
sick woman, greeting a traveller at the monastery gates. Now they
appear as wholly detached from this world, and as ecstatically be-
holding Christ, the Virgin, or the saints. Giotto had shown St.
Francis of Assisi in the main scenes of his history, giving back his
clothes to his father in the square of his town, announcing the
Gospel before the soldan of Egypt, preaching to the little birds. Now,
on the contrary, his life is limited to two or three scenes of ecstasy,
as when he is represented as receiving into his arms the infant
Christ from the Virgin Mary, in the picture by Orazio Borgiani
(municipal palace at Sezze). The intentness of his gaze, the upward
straining of his whole body, the supernatural light and the deep
shadows, make this picture a typical work of the Catholic
Reformation.
# # *
The second principle laid down by Possevinus is that Christian
art should be, not merely chaste, but decent and dignified. We have
already referred to the steps taken by the popes to counteract the
moral vagaries of the Renaissance. As early as 1559, within the life-
time of Michaelangelo, Paul IV had some of the figures of the Last
Judgment clothed in the Sistine Chapel. This work was continued
by Pius V in 1566, and Clement VIII was only prevented from
covering up the whole fresco by a supplication of the Academy of
St. Luke. In Flanders the bishop of Ghent, James Boonen, had all
indecent pictures burned and all indecent statues destroyed. The re-
morsefulness of the Church at large was shared by individual artists.
The sculptor, Bartolomeo Ammanati, who died in 1589, towards the
end of his life, wrote a letter expressive of this feeling to the
Academy of Florence. He renounced the errors of his youth, and
invited his fellow-artists to give up the carving of nudes. However,
one should be thankful that the action of the popes was not un-
reasonably drastic.
But it was not enough to decide that religious subjects should be
handled in a chaste mood. Needless fancifulness, the free roaming
of the imagination, homeliness and vulgarity interfered with the
singleness of purpose which is requisite in devotional paintings.
They were to be dispensed with. In 1573, Paolo Veronese, the Vene-
tian painter, had to answer before the Holy Office for having intro-
duced into one of his Lord's Suppers figures unworthy of the dig-
204 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
nity of his subject. "What is the point," he was asked, "of that
servant whose nose is bleeding; of those armed men, dressed in the
German fashion, and holding halberts in their hands?" Veronese
was unable to justify himself, and was sentenced to amend his pic-
ture within the space of three months. St. Ignatius had advised his
disciples to concentrate their minds on the object of their medita-
tion. "Similarly, in a religious picture, nothing is now to distract
attention from its main theme. This aversion from what might be
called garrulousness in painting is quite in keeping with the austere
moral ideal of the period and with the classical ideal in letters, that
of noble, composed dignity. Caravaggio's pictures were repeatedly
rejected by the Church, as being vulgar and "low." His St. Matthew
(Church of St. Louis des Franfais, Rome) was found fault with for
"coarsely showing his feet." It must be confessed, however, that on
this point the art critics of the Catholic Reformation lacked breadth
of outlook, and that the stress they laid on "decency" eventually
meant impoverishment for the art of painting.
In their eyes, a picture, like a poem, was meant primarily not to
please or amuse but to serve its edifying purpose. Therefore it ought
to be scrupulously true. There were reasons why exact truth should
be adhered to in the painting of martyrdoms. In Rome, in the late
sixteenth century, many among the clergy were daily called upon
to endanger their own lives. Missionaries were sent to England,
where the persecution was raging, or to the East and West Indies,
where dangers were also threatening. It was necessary that they
should be forewarned of the fate which awaited them, and trained
to long for it with their inmost souls. No wonder, therefore, that
artists should have taken Possevinus' advice, and exactly represented
the sufferings of early or contemporary martyrs, however horrible
or frightful they might be. In 1585, II Pomarancio painted, at the
German college in Rome, some thirty frescoes representing the his-
tory of the persecutions. The most hideous torments are offered to
the spectator's view. Christians, wrapped up in beasts' skins, are torn
up by dogs; others are cast alive into a furnace or into molten lead
or cut up into pieces or crushed up with huge stones; women have
their breasts cut away. The same graphic realism appears in a
famous book of engravings, published in 1587 through the agency
of the Jesuits, the Theatrum crudelitatum haereticorum (Theatre
of the Cruelties of the Heretics) which represents contemporary
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AND ART 205
martyrdoms in various countries of Europe. It was meant to be
broadcast and in fact attained wide popularity. It produces torments
which had been unknown to antiquity: a priest crucified by the
Huguenots on the altar cross; religious buried up to their necks, and
whose heads are used as targets m a game of bowls.
Painters and sculptors were guided in their presentation of mar-
tyrdoms by the discovery of the catacombs in Rome in 1578, which
provided them with accurate notions on the primitive Church; also
by the appearance of printed works on the subject, the chief one
among these being Baronius' Annales ecdesiastia, which were pub-
lished from 1588 onwards. They sought advice from competent his-
torians. Baronius, in his Martyrologmm Romanum, explains how St.
Sebastian was tied to a post underneath an inscription which de-
scribed him as a Christian. Now, II Domenechino painted the mar-
tyr in that very position, with a board above his head on which are
written the words "Sebastianus Christianus!' The same painter, in
his Flagellation of St. Andrew, gave to his soldiers and lictors the
appearance which they have on the column of Trajan. A sober
knowledge of antiquity now replaces the fancifulness of the early
sixteenth century in which martyr virgins and torturing praetors
wore the court dresses of the period.
It should not be thought, however, that the appearance of a new
historical sense among the artists did away with all the legendary
traditions which had been an element of naive charm in religious
painting and sculpture. Here again, the Catholic Reformation joined
up, beyond the Renaissance, with the Middle Ages. Baronius him-
self refrained from extreme criticism of the fifteenth-century Sanc-
tuarium of Mombntius, containing the Acts of the Roman martyrs.
He expressed his belief in the legend of SS. Nereus and Achilleus by
having it painted in a series of frescoes in the church which bears
their name in Rome, which he himself had restored. Other cardinals
showed the same respect for the Acts. In 1624 Cardinal Mellini gave
orders for the decoration of the church of the Four Crowned Saints,
which stands on the Monte Celio in Rome. The frescoes, painted by
Giovanni da San Giovanni, tell the fanciful story of four Roman
soldiers who had refused, in the Thermae of Trajan, to burn incense
before the statue of Aesculapius, and of five Pannonian sculptors
who had refused to work on the statue of the same god. In their
church of the Gesu, in Rome, the Jesuits had the martyrdom of St.
206 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
Catherine represented according to the Golden Legend: the wheel
on which the saint has been racked bursts out and kills her tor-
mentors. Thus were mediaeval traditions continued by the Catholic
Reformation.
There is, however, a striking difference in the representation of
martyrdoms between the Middle Ages and the late sixteenth cen-
tury. The former had shown the martyrs as triumphant, in the
majestic calm of victory. The latter shows them in their struggles,
their agonies, their torments, as in a series of engravings by Callot,
in which St. Agatha has her breasts torn away, St. Edward has his
throat cut, St. Fidelis is scourged, St. Dula stabbed, St. Dorothy
branded. The Catholic reformers believed in the value of suffering.
The Sacrum sanctuarium cruets et patientiae of Fr. Biverus, SJ.
(1634) gi ves a set f engravings of all saints who have been cruci-
fied, as a means of exhortation to the sick. The very violence of the
pictures of martyrdom was thus made to become a solace for the
Christians of the times.
However, for the Catholic reformers, the purpose of the images of
saints was not merely to edify but also to instruct. They were to
provide teaching for the faithful on points of dogma and religious
practice. The age was a controversial one, in which Catholic belief
had to be asserted against Protestant tenets; and there is a striking
correspondence between the themes assigned to Catholic artists
which are uniform throughout Europe and the decrees of the
Council of Trent. Not only were the artists imbued with the spirit
of the times; precise directions were issued for them. In Austria,
the Jesuits had prepared a detailed program for the painters who
were decorating their church at Briinn : a chapel was devoted to the
Cross, and to the symbols which announced it in the Old Testament:
Moses' rod, the staff on which the cluster of grapes was hanging, the
pole carrying the serpent of brass. The artists were thus made to
illustrate dogmatic assertions. The very reverence shown to images
of sacred subjects in itself was justified by pictures which represented
the terrible deaths of iconoclastic emperors, as in the two frescoes of
Baglione in the Pauline chapel of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.
The Council had defended the devotion to the Virgin Mary
against Protestant attacks. As a consequence of its action, there was
a flowering forth of Marian literature and Marian art. The Holy
Virgin is no longer represented with her mediaeval serenity, but as
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AND ART 207
taking part 4n the victorious struggle against heresy. In a fresco of
II Cavaliere d'Arpino, also in the Pauline chapel of Santa Maria
Maggiore, St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, the former disciple of Origen,
is shown to hesitate on the doctrine he is to teach, when the Virgin
appears to him, in order to reveal to him the true symbol of the
Catholic faith. The Jesuits and other religious orders promoted the
belief in the immaculate conception of Mary. This belief was simi-
larly asserted by the artists who worked for them. In St. Peter's, in
Rome, the Virgin is shown in one of the cupolas of the left-hand
aisle, as conceived by the divine mind before the beginning of time;
on the vault of San Carlo a Corso, a fresco of Giacinto Brandi
shows her praying to God during the strife between St. Michael
and Lucifer.
Protestant attacks had not been directed merely against the wor-
ship of the Holy Virgin and the saints. They were aimed at the
authority of the papacy as well. Catholic controversialists, such as
Bellarmme, defended it, and Catholic artists followed suit, with
pictures and statues which glorified the prince of the Apostles. In
the church which bears his name in Rome, the saint was shown as
walking on the waters in response to the call of Christ (Lanfranc's
mosaic) or, according to various legendary traditions, as vanquishing
Simon Magus (Vanm's mosaic), or healing sick people with his
shadow (Romanelli's picture), or meeting Christ at the gates of
Rome, in the famous Quo vadis story (Annibale Carracci's painting
in the National Gallery, London) ; all these episodes being meant to
illustrate his primacy. The history of the popes, which had been told
by Ciacomus in his Vitae ponttficum romanorum, was illustrated on
the tombs of St. Peter's, by many statues or bas-reliefs; in one of the
latter, the German Emperor is shown kneeling before Gregory VII
at Canossa.
As a consequence of their attack upon indulgences, the Protes-
tants had denied the dogma of purgatory. The artists of the Catholic
Reformation defended it in their works. The bishop of Tournai
ordered from Rubens a picture for his cathedral, representing Judas
Maccabeus praying for the dead. At the Gesu, in a fresco of Feder-
ico Zuccaro, angels are seen lifting from a furnace little figures
which represent souls, and which they offer to Christ and the
Virgin. Such paintings were multiplied by the confraternities which
prayed for the dead, such as that of the church of Santa Maria del
208 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
Suffragio in Rome, which was founded in 1592. The Catholic artists
also vindicated the practice of confession in pictures and statues
which represented illustrious penitents. Just as King David, St. Peter,
St. Mary Magdalen had been made the subjects of literary works
expressive of the remorsefulness of the period, they appeared, on the
suggestion of the clergy in numberless works of art. St. Peter's
remorse lent itself to the somewhat theatrical treatment which tallied
with contemporary tastes: the saint was shown, as in the painting
by Guido Reni, with clasped hands, a dolorous face, and eyes up-
turned to heaven. St. Peter and St. Mary Magdalen are no less
coupled in art than in literature. In Paris, at the Carmelite church,
twin statues represent them on either side of the transept altar.
The same apologetic part was played by the art of the Catholic
Reformation in regard to the Real Presence and Communion. Dur-
ing the Middle Ages, the Lord's Supper had been shown at the
moment when Christ utters the words: "One of you shall betray
me!" From the sixteenth century onwards, the moment selected for
representation is that of the institution of the Eucharist, when Christ
says: "This is my body," as in Barocio's Lord's Supper at Santa
Maria della Minerva in Rome. Good works are no less frequently
insisted on, as against the Protestant belief in justification by faith
alone. One of the heroes of Christian charity in the Trentme period,
St. Charles Borromeo, was made the subject of numerous pictures.
He appears in a painting by Daniele Crespi as sitting at table before
a glass of water, eating a piece of bread and reading a book; m a
picture by Borgiam, as tending those stricken with the plague. Nor
were traditional points of doctrine the only ones insisted on in the
works of the artists of the Catholic Reformation. Further themes
were provided by the devotions introduced or revived after Trent:
that of the angels, and especially that of the Guardian Angel (which
had appeared in 1526), of the Holy Family, of St. Joseph, of the
Child Jesus.
Lastly, one should not forget the influence which the monastic
renascence had upon art, each order decorating its churches with
pictures referring to the history of its patron saints, or to the devo-
tions which it particularly favoured, such as that of the scapular in
the case of the Carmelites. (See the paintings made for the Ghent
house of their order, now in the art gallery of the town, which show
IMM\( t i ATI CONCI PTIOV - Murillo.
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AND ART 209
the Virgin Mary giving the scapular to St. Simon Stock, and freeing
from purgatory the faithful souls of those who have worn it.)
Thus was art made to concur in the success of the Trentine
revival. The older schools, however, would have been unable to
achieve such a result. In Florence, the art of Giotto and Fra. Angel-
ico had been deeply modified in the fifteenth century, owing to the
prosperity and worldliness of the city : in its quest for beauty alone,
it had forgotten austerity and suffering, had become uniformly
sweet and smiling. Religious pictures were made to represent mod-
ern life; much attention was paid to those accessories which the
Catholic Reformation was to reject, and sacred figures were turned
into portraits, as in the fresco of Benozzo Gozzoli (in the chapel of
the Ricardi Palace) where the Medici appear in the character of the
Wise Men of the East. The Venetian artists, who were proud of the
greatness and glory of their city, followed in the footsteps of the
Florentine school; hence the previously mentioned trial of Paolo
Veronese. At Rome, on the other hand, the atmosphere of the early
sixteenth century had been one of battles and political struggles, and
the arts of painting and sculpture had been led to glorify force, as
in Michaelangelo's Moses. This tendency had gradually degenerated
into a mere worship of physical strength, and such a work as Vas-
ari's Last Judgment is chiefly noteworthy for its muscularity. Ana-
tomical science and academic frigidity had superseded the necessary
spirituality of religious painting.
No one of the extant movements was therefore qualified to ex-
press the intensely devout feelings of the Catholic Reformation.
This task was taken up by a new school of painting, which had its
origin in Bologna. This city was especially fitted for the part which
it was to play as the artistic centre of the Trentine revival. It was
within the States of the Church, and thus within the area of papal
influence; but it was far removed from the artistic atmosphere of
Florence and Rome, while, through its nearness to Parma and
Milan, it regained touch with the early Florentine tradition of
Giotto, which had been continued in northern Italy by Leonardo da
Vinci and Correggio. Besides, it was an intellectual centre of the
first magnitude. Its university vied in renown with that of Padua.
210 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
As the saying went, Bologna docet (Bologna teaches). The two
popes whom it gave to the Church, Gregory XIII (1572-1585) and
Gregory XV (1621-1623), were learned men, and the former founded
more than twenty colleges. Therefore Bologna was a suitable centre
for a school of painting in which the mind was to prevail over the
flesh, in which all forms were to concur in the expression of thought.
In fact, Bolognese painting was a typical instance of the adapta-
tion of extant artistic forms to a religious purpose. Therefore it was
distinguished by no outstanding technical originality. Its represen-
tatives were termed the "eclectics," and were said to have borrowed
the drawing of the Florentines, the colouring of the Venetians, the
modelling of Correggio. Their merit lay in choosing those themes
which we have described above clear, striking scenes of the Old
and New Testaments, preferably selected among the more tragic
ones, and those of martyrdoms. On the other hand, their main fault
lay in the very fact that their works were more intellectual than
plastic, and that they painted with their reason more than with their
hearts. However, they found great favour with the Church, for they
were less archaic than Giotto or Fra. Angelico, and more Christian
than the painters of the Renaissance.
The Bolognese school was founded and made famous by the three
Carracci brothers. Agostino Carracci illustrated the intellectual char-
acter of the movement. He was a learned man, and had studied in
the University of Bologna. He established an academy for painters,
that of the Desiderati, in which lectures were given on the most
various subjects, so as to provide a complete culture for its disciples.
He himself was not primarily a painter, though a picture of his, the
Communion of St. Jerome, became famous, and was imitated by II
Domenechino; but he was a distinguished engraver, who believed
in the value of his art as a means of dissemination of religious
knowledge. A second brother, Ludovico Carracci, was both a thinker
and a realist. The third brother, Annibale Carracci, was the genius
of the school. Their pupils, Guercino, Guido Reni, Lanfranc, L'Al-
bano, II Domenechino, came to the papal court, and were entrusted
with the decoration of new churches. Their influence spread
throughout Europe; they numbered among their disciples Poussin
and Claude Lorrain in France; Ribera, Velasquez, and Murillo in
Spain; and, in Flanders, Rubens and Van Dyck; while there Rem-
brandt, though freer from Italian influences, gave the most exalted
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AND ART 211
expression to the spiritual ideal of the Catholic Reformation in such
a picture as his Pilgrims of Emmaus.
In regard to sculpture, the Catholic reformers were, to begin with,
hostile to an art which had chiefly flourished in the representation
of nudes. This accounts for the disappearance of native sculptors
from Rome, while foreigners, who were less attached to academic
traditions, were called in. At the end of the sixteenth century, there
resided in the Eternal City a good many sculptors who came from
other Italian towns, or even from far-away countries, like the
Frenchman, Guillaume Bertelot, or the Fleming, Nicholas of Arras.
The same reversion to the Middle Ages occurred here as in painting;
and a few clothed statues were carved, some of them beautiful, such
as Stefano Maderno's Saint Cecilia. At the same time, the influence
of the Bolognese school of painters was manifested in the renais-
sance of the bas-relief, which reappeared to adorn the tombs of the
popes. There had been two figures of women, but no bas-reliefs, on
the tomb of Paul III; while they plentifully decorated those of Pius
V, Sixtus V, Clement VIII, and Paul V, on which they displayed
the acts and triumphs of the papacy. Thus did an age of intense
religious fervour, controlled by the strict use of reason, evolve, in
painting and sculpture, a form of art which was far removed from
the servile imitation of antiquity, but which was truly classical in
the sense that the seventeenth century gave to the word.
In the field of architecture, the same general features appear. The
monuments built during the period of the Catholic Reformation
proper bear a definite character of austerity and severity, of sadness
and power truly, the monuments of an age of remorse and painful
striving. They embody the artistic forms of antiquity, but while
during the Renaissance these had been but a veneer laid upon sur-
faces for a decorative purpose, they were now incorporated into an
organic whole. This whole was true to the intellectual needs of an
age of clear reason, of beauty intellectually conceived, with its
straight lines, its symmetry, its lack of mysteriousness: but it was
also to a large extent, especially in France and Flanders, true to the
traditions of the Middle Ages, the yearning of which for spiritual
heights was still expressed by the upward trend of nave and steeple.
Again, though there were local differences, the common source of
212 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
all the architecture of the Catholic Reformation was in Rome. The
religious needs of the Trentine revival turned the popes of the late
sixteenth century into great builders, whose example was followed
everywhere.
Indeed, as well here as in letters or painting, it was the practical
requirements of the period which commanded the lines along which
current modes of artistic expression should be adapted. Numerous
churches were needed, churches which should comply with the
decrees of Trent on dogma and worship, which should lend them-
selves easily to the task of gathering and catechizing the greatest
possible number of people. Those churches had to be built within a
short time, and with limited financial resources. Hence the plan had
to be simple and practical. The Gothic style, especially in the flam-
boyant stage it had reached by the fifteenth century, with its win-
dow tracery and lace-like vault-groining, was both too elaborate and
too expensive; it was also too fanciful, while Gothic churches, with
their groves of pillars, their rood-screens, and their naves darkened
by stained glass, neither allowed the congregation to take part in
liturgical worship nor to hear the preachers from every part of the
building.
Here, again, the lead was taken by the Jesuits, who provided
models which were universally followed. The common source for
all later building throughout Europe was their church of the Gesu,
built by Vignole at Rome in 1568, while in France the chapel at the
college at Le-Puy-en-Velay, begun in 1605, was imitated in many
towns. The Jesuit fathers knew that the people of the sixteenth
century cared little for mediaeval -symbolism. Therefore, they
dropped the custom of orienting their churches. They aimed at the
most economical and practical use of the surface at their disposal.
Hence they dropped the protruding transept of the Middle Ages,
and practically enclosed the building (with the exception of the apse
in some cases), within an oblong, which might be conveniently
placed at the angle of two streets, the front receding from the gen-
eral line of one of these, so as to leave an open space for coaches to
come up to the portal stairs and wheel round. The internal arrange-
ment of the building answered three several purposes: the church
being attached both to a Jesuit house and a college, and being open
to the public as well. According to the Constitutions of the Society,
the Fathers were exempt from choir duty; therefore the church had
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AND ART 213
no choir properly so-called, but only a shallow apse, and oratories
placed on either side of it, and screened from view, for private
prayer and meditation.
The Council of Trent had defended the Mass against the Protes-
tants, and stressed its importance in public worship. It insisted that
the faithful should understand and follow it. Therefore the Jesuits
built their churches so that the whole congregation should be able to
see every gesture of the officiant. The rood-screen was done away
with, and replaced by simple altar rails; and the inside of the build-
ing was planned in such a way that the sanctuary should be visible
from every part of it. In the Middle Ages, the faithful, for lack of
printed books, had been unable to join in liturgical worship, and
religious instruction was provided for them mostly by means of
stained glass. It had now become important that they should be able
to read in church. Painted windows were therefore replaced by
blank glass. However, teaching by means of pictures was not for
that reason given up; and a considerable space was reserved for
wall-paintings. The now windowless chancel was decorated with the
most important motives, that is, the life of the patron saint of the
church; the cupola, the now ungroined vaults of the nave and tran-
sept, the side chapels above the altars, were also covered with
frescoes, as at S. Andrea della Valle in Rome.
The Council had enforced the duty of preaching upon the bishops
and the whole clergy : the pulpit was now made to occupy a central
position in the nave, while attention was also paid to the acoustics
of the building. The latter became a real lecture-hall, without those
pillars and aisles in which the voice of the preacher reverberated and
lost itself. The council had insisted on the practice of confession.
The Jesuit architects had to provide room for numerous confes-
sionals: hence the appearance, in place of the aisles, of side chapels,
with an open passage between them in many cases, and surmounted
with tribunes which provided additional accommodation for the
faithful. Last of all, in agreement with the characteristic austerity
of the Catholic Reformation, the altar was low and plain. In such a
building as the Gesii church in Rome, the main altar, which dates
back to an early period, is simple, whereas the transept altars, which
were erected, in the later period of the baroque, are prodigiously
rich.
How closely the building of Jesuit churches followed the direc-
214 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
tions issued at Trent and re-enforced by the Society, is shown by a
couple of significant facts. First of all, the plans had to be sent up
to Rome, and accepted by the Father general; in the case of Anchin
College at Douai, the latter was asked for a copy of those of the
Gesu, and provided it accordingly. Secondly, the actual supervision
of the building work was but seldom entrusted to lay architects, but
to Fathers of the Society, with the technical help of temporal coad-
jutors, who had specialized in architecture. The most celebrated one
among the latter was Brother Martellange, a Frenchman, who was
born at Lyons in 1569. It is worthy of note that he had his profes-
sional upbringing in southern France and Italy, and probably went
to Rome. It is a fact that, when building the Jesuit novitiate in Paris,
he imitated the church of Santa Maria de Monti, begun in 1579
under Gregory XIII by Giacomo della Porta. He was received into
the Society in 1590 and was made a temporal coadjutor in 1603. He
became the regular architect for the provinces of Lyons, Toulouse,
and even Pans, and designed the plans of numerous colleges
together with their chapels, the first one in date being that of Le-
Puy-en-Velay, followed notably by those of Vienne, Moulins, La
Fleche, and the College of the Trinity in Lyons. He was still at
work in 1625 and died in 1641 in Paris. His main quality was an
austere simplicity; he avoided decorative exaggeration and man-
nered forms.
His chapels were built on the lines which have been described
above. As for the colleges themselves, his plans were no less im-
bued with the severe practicality of the Society. They were meant
for convenience, and were therefore simple. Besides, the city corpo-
rations which called in the Jesuits and made agreements with them
for the education of youth were generally poor. The standard ground
plan of a Jesuit college included two adjoining square yards, wholly
surrounded with buildings. The classrooms opened out directly on
one of these, one side of which was occupied by the chapel, along
which ran an open gallery which terminated in the main entrance.
The buildings around the second yard were taken up by the lodg-
ings of the Fathers, and later, when the colleges took in boarders,
provided accommodation for them. Especial attention was paid to
hygiene. This appears in the plan of Charity Hospital, at Lyons,
which was drafted by Martellange. It consisted of a central yard,
the buildings which surrounded this being prolonged so as to create
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AND ART 215
eight wings, partly enclosing eight other yards, which gave free
access to the open air on their other sides. On the whole, Martel-
lange's architectural conceptions were much in advance of his own
time, and were not improved upon by the profuse decoration of a
later period.
Thus did the practical requirements of the Trentine revival deter-
mine its style of building. It should not be thought, however, that
beauty as such was indifferent to the Catholic reformers, or that
while adapting to their purpose the classical style of the Renais-
sance, they did not print their own stamp upon it. The Renaissance
had attempted to revive the ideal of the ancients, which was one of
composed harmony, measured stability, of satisfaction with the
world as it was, in which there was no yearning for the heavens
above, in which horizontal lines predominated. As soon as the new
fervour of the Catholic Reformation began to manifest itself, the
mystical longings of the Middle Ages reappeared along with it, as
revealed by the upward trend of vertical lines or the upward soaring
of towers and cupolas. The alterations made in the plan of St.
Peter's in Rome are significant in this respect. As drafted by Bra-
mante, it was hardly Christian. It consisted of a comparatively low
cupola with four equal arms branching from it. A long nave, suit-
able for Catholic worship, was now added, while the cupola was
raised by Michaelangelo, in the spirit of Gothic art. However, the
drum alone had been completed at the time of his death. The work
was continued by Giacomo della Porta, who made the cupola even
higher and more pointed, and the lantern slenderer, so as to give to
the whole building the general proportions of a cathedral.
The Christian revival which followed Trent was manifested by
the erection of numerous churches in the Eternal City. Though St.
Peter's had been begun, no other religious edifice had been built
under Julius II, Leo X, and Clement VII; whereas extensive build-
ing started under Paul IV and was continued as late as Urban VIII.
It went hand-in-hand with the creation or rejuvenation of religious
orders (churches of the Jesuits, Dominicans, Oratorians, Carmelites,
Trinitarians, and many others), but was also due to the piety of
trade guilds and of the various nations represented in Rome. Here
again the spirit of the Middle Ages reappeared, and efforts were
made to embody it in the new architecture. In regard to church
fronts, this could not be achieved by lengthening out the pillars in-
216 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
definitely, but only by the superposition of orders, which had not
been used by the Greeks, but which had been tried by the Romans
in their amphitheatres. Vignole's original plan for the Gesii insisted
on horizontal lines; the lower story was broad, and divided up by
portals, niches, and columns. Giacomo della Porta, who continued
the work, tried to give the impression of height; he simplified the
lower story, retrenched the lateral parts, concentrated his attention
upon the centre, which was prolonged in the upper story.
In France, the reversion to mediaevalism was even more striking.
In the French churches of the Catholic Reformation, the front con-
sisted of as many as three or four orders above one another, as in
Saint-Gervais or Samt-Paul-Samt-Louis in Paris. However, to avoid
monotony the orders were varied, the intervals between the columns
were made unequal, the cornices were diversified by projections or
broken pediments. On the other hand, the decoration proper was
spare: the fluting of the pillars was given up, and the general im-
pression was one of sadness, true to the spirit of the period.
But opposition to purely classical forms was even greater in the
countries of the North, in Flanders and Germany. In the former
country the Jesuits showed reluctance towards adopting the architec-
ture of the Renaissance. They went on building churches in the
Gothic style, long after it had disappeared from Southern Europe.
This is still manifest in the Jesuit church at Luxembourg, built by
Brother Jean du Blocq, from 1613 to 1621; in that of St. Omers
(1615-1636) where the sanctuary has pointed windows; and else-
where too. Mediaeval survivals appear in the polygonal shape of the
apses, in the cruciform plan and groined vaults of the naves, in the
use of flying buttresses; in the tapering steeples. The Gothic tradi-
tion was also long preserved in the Rhmeland, where the same fea-
tures are found; whereas southern influences were predominant in
Bavaria. In Germany generally, music was used by the Jesuit Fathers
in their struggle against Lutheranism, which had laid such stress on
the chorale, and it was made an essential element of divine worship.
The churches were built on a theatre-like plan, with a stage-like
sanctuary, side oratories akin to boxes, and, facing the altar, a
double tier of galleries for the singers and the orchestra. The decora-
tion was generally richer and appealed to the senses even more than
in Flanders, both countries harking back to the profuse flowing
tracery of the fifteenth century.
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AND ART 217
This, however, was only a local development, and the dominant
note, throughout the period of the Catholic Reformation proper,
remains one of restraint and severity. In process of time, the same
change of mood took place in architecture as in literature. College
drama had, to begin with, been austerely and heroically devotional.
In the course of the seventeenth century, it assumed a worldlier
character. The Jesuits enlivened it in many ways, especially through
the use of the ballet. They deemed that man should be drawn to
God through admiration, that nothing could be too elaborately
beautiful to celebrate the glory of the Lord. Hence, in the field of
architecture, the partiality they were to show for the baroque style.
The overornamentation of the latter came to clothe the churches of
the Catholic Reformation, so that the true spirit of these is now
veiled and apt to be overlooked. No monument is more typical of
the change which overlaid the early simplicity of Trentme art than
the college chapel at Le-Puy-en-Velay in its present condition. The
front had first of all been severely plain, with six Tuscan pilasters
framing in the gate and two niches m the lower story, and four
pilasters supporting a pediment in the upper story. It was re-
modelled in 1683, when a protruding porch was added, with six
Doric columns, so as to create variety and relief. A similar change
is noticed in the altar, the present highly decorated gilt wood reredos
only dating back to 1668.
On the whole, however, the true character of the Trentme style
cannot be ignored: it was primarily Christian, as against the pagan
tendencies of the Renaissance. It rejected that Greek conception of
architecture, carried through by Palladio, and to which the rational-
izing eighteenth century was to revert. It took contemporary tastes
into account by adopting classical forms, but merely made them into
an outer garb for edifices which remained mediaeval in their struc-
ture and spirit, while being adapted to the practical needs of the
religious revival. It evolved no new style which might compare with
the Gothic; but it nevertheless did create a type of art which may
rightly claim originality.
In regard to music, the principles and spirit of the Catholic Refor-
mation were the same as in the case of literature and painting. First
of all, art for art's sake was proscribed, and music was made to play
218 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
its part in the work of evangelization. Again, severity and austerity
were substituted for the florid exuberance of the Renaissance; this
in its turn being concomitant with a reversion to the traditional
simplicity of the Gregorian chant. A reaction was in fact necessary
against the abuses which had gradually crept in and corrupted
Church music, both morally and artistically.
Unlike literature and painting, there was, in music, no standard
of good taste provided by ancient models. Add to this that the com-
posers residing in Rome in the early sixteenth century were mostly
foreigners, Flemings or Frenchmen Josquin des Pres, Andrew
Willaert, Eleazar Genet, James Arkadelt, Claude Goudimel who,
more than Italians, retained something of mediaeval fancifulness
and grotesqueness. They went farther than the already extant tend-
ency to substitute for the naked monody of the Gregorian chant
various systems of polyphony. The contrapuntal style, which had
been at first productive of great beauty, was pushed to extremes
which disfigured it. While as many as eight parts were sung
together, no account was taken of the liturgical words, which were
now drawn into length, now hastily slurred over, now drowned
under a profusion of flourishes. Worse still, the accompaniment to
the liturgical themes was often derived from popular tunes. Masses,
therefore, bore such names as "Farewell, My Love," "In the Shadow
of the Bush," "Kiss Me," or "The Naughty Jealous One"; and while
the bass sung the words of the liturgy, the tenor would troll out the
very words of folk-songs, those at least which could bear a religious
construction. In a Kyrie the tenor sang "I never saw the like of her";
in a Benedictus, "Madam, let me know." The accompanying instru-
ments themselves vied with the singers in capaciousness and vir-
tuosity, and shared in the prevailing disorder.
A reaction had already set in before the Council of Trent. Giberti,
bishop of Verona, had forbidden the singing of popular or lascivious
songs in church, and the seeking after theatrical effect. Morone, the
bishop of Modena, prohibited, in 1537, all "figured" music in his
diocese. The Fathers of Trent very nearly did the same to begin
with. They thought better of it, however, and later reverted to the
regulations issued in 1324 by the Avignon pope, John XXII. The
final canon, published on September 17, 1562, dealt with the matter
briefly in the following words: "Let all music, in which either
through the organ or through singing is mingled anything lascivious
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AND ART 219
or impure, be proscribed from churches ... so that the House of
God may truly seem and be called a house of prayer." On July 6,
1563, the council made the study of Church music compulsory for
all clerics. In regard to nuns, "figured" singing, which had been at
first rejected, was later permitted. The Council left it to the pope,
to the bishops and provincial synods, to enforce more detailed pre-
scriptions. On the whole, the Fathers had wisely refrained from
undue puritanism, and tolerated the use of prick-song.
Pope Pius V was not long in following their lead, and on August
2, 1563, appointed a committee of cardinals, two of whom, Vitelli and
Borromeo, were especially entrusted with musical and liturgical
reform. They immediately recommended a style of Church music in
which the words might be heard. This had been the wish expressed
seven years before by Pope Marcellus II, in the course of the Holy
Week offices. In the Sistme Chapel the liturgical texts had not been
sung with due feeling, and the cheerfulness of the tunes had been
incompatible with the sense of the words. The pope had called the
singers before him, including Palestrina, and had ordered them to
sing gravely and decently, and in such a way "that the words might
be both heard and understood." Following his lead, the committee
of cardinals decided to do away with all masses in which additions
were made to the strictly liturgical text; with masses and other
compositions on profane themes; with motets composed on words
not extracted from the Mass or Divine Office. Lastly, they ordered
that what was sung should in every case be clearly understood.
They made the daily teaching of Gregorian chant and polyphonic
music compulsory in the Roman and German colleges, to which in
fact such masters as Palestrina and Vittoria were respectively ap-
pointed as kapellmeisters. Composers hastened to conform to the
advice of the cardinals: Animuccia, in 1567; Palestrina in the same
year; Ruffo, in 1574, declared that they had endeavoured to obey
them, and, in the words of the latter, "to follow the reform of the
Council of Trent."
The part played by Palestrina in the rejuvenation of Church
music was a prominent one. Giovanni Pier Luigi, who owed the
name Palestrina to his birthplace, was born in 1525. He came to
Rome about 1540, and was the pupil of the Flemish composer,
Firmin le Bel. The style of his earlier works shows that he studied
the Flemish masters closely. His life was one of labour and poverty.
220 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
The volume of his compositions is amazing. He wrote no fewer
than 93 masses, 486 antiphons, motets, offertories, and psalms, be-
sides numerous other pieces. In 1551, while he was occupying an un-
important position in the cathedral of his native place, he was
called to Rome by Pope Julius III to be choir master at St. Peter's.
On January 13, 1555, he became one of the singers of the papal
choir, but he had to relinquish that office in the following July
since he was not a cleric, but a layman and married. He was later
appointed choir master at the Lateran, and then at St. Mary Major.
In 1571, he was again entrusted with the direction of the music at
St. Peter's, and retained this position until his death in 1594.
Like Tansillo, he experienced a veritable conversion. He had first
of all complied with the frivolous tendencies of his Italian environ-
ment and published two volumes of madrigals of an amorous
character. He later repented these vagaries, and became a deeply
religious man. He himself expressed his devotional purpose as a com-
poser in the following words: "I deemed that, following the ad-
vice of the gravest and most devout men, I ought to apply all my
zeal, all my pain and industry to the adorning, with a new kind of
music, the greatest and most divine thing of all in the Christian
religion, that is the holy sacrifice of the Mass." The "new kind of
music" was not, indeed, a novelty in the technical sense of the word;
it was still polyphonic and contrapuntal; but it was new in so far as
it followed the directions laid down by the Council of Trent and its
continuators; it borrowed its motives not from profane songs but
from the Gregorian chant and its words were perfectly audible. The
artistic performance of Palestrina was not inferior to the fervour of
his devotional purpose; and Richard Wagner himself said that the
composer's works "struck him with an indescribable emotion."
Palestrina's success as a composer had a moderating influence
upon those Catholic Puritans who were wholly opposed to "figured"
music; and he succeeded in rescuing the latter from utter suppres-
sion. Pope Pius IV himself was not unwilling to abolish prick-song,
and was on the point of proposing a decree to that effect to the
Council of Trent. However he heard Palestrina's masses, notably
the Mass of Pope Marcellus, and changed his mind. Later Cardinals
Vitelli and Borromeo examined Church music to see whether it was
in accordance with the Trentine prescriptions. They had several
masses, including, no doubt, those of Palestrina, and also those of
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AND ART 221
the more fanciful Roland de Lassus, performed in their house by the
choir of papal singers; and they passed judgement on them as satis-
factory. In the years that followed, other composers, such as Gio-
vanni Animuccia or Vmcenzo Ruffo, were commissioned by the
cardinals to write hymns, motets, psalms, and masses.
A new development in Church music took place towards the end
of the sixteenth century, in connection with the meetings at St.
Philip Neri's Oratory. These had been followed by singing from
the first. Animuccia was one of the earliest members of the company,
to which he brought some of his colleagues, who performed poly-
phonic motets, which he often composed himself. He published in
1563, 1565, and 1570 three collections for the use of the Oratory, in
which he deliberately aimed at religious simplicity. He was later
joined by Palestrina, who, towards the end of the century, came
from time to time to direct the choir. However, the character of the
meetings gradually altered; for the prayers, litanies, and short
stories were substituted long biblical narratives, while on the musical
side the polyphonic anthems, motets, and laudi were replaced by a
monodic recitative. An epic and dramatic element took the place of
lyrical prayer, and was further reinforced by the tradition of the
sacre rappresentaziom, performed on the steps of Roman churches
in the month of May. Such was the origin of the Oratorio, which,
however, only appeared in full-blown form in the Teatro armonico
spirituals of G. F. Aneno, published in 1619, and which was to
develop into the later Opera.
While religious prick-song thus prepared the way for the develop-
ment of modern music, a rejuvenation of plain chant was attempted
in connection with the liturgical revival brought about by the Coun-
cil of Trent. It was necessary indeed to defend Church singing
against some Protestant controversialists, who considered it as a form
of idolatry, and insisted that mental orison was the only form of
prayer permissible. The arguments produced against them by
Cardinal Bellarmine in his Controversies (composed from 1576 to
1587) are of great interest. Canticles, he says, inflame the souls of the
hearers; their charm makes the praise of God easier and more
pleasant; they make man's heart and body to unite in it; they dispel
impure thoughts, breed generosity and fortitude; they are a salve for
life's sorrows and a dew which makes grace fruitful. Bellarmine's
deep sense of the artistic and psychological value of music is here
222 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
apparent. He also recommends the use of the organ in church, so
long as it remains sober and grave. He himself, when he was made
archbishop of Capua, insisted on the performance of choir duty by
the cathedral chapter, and performed his own part in it scrupulously.
While owing to the impulse of the Council of Trent revised
editions of the Breviary, the Missal, and other liturgical books were
published under Pius V, Gregory XIII, Sixtus V, and Clement VIII,
a parallel effort was made to restore the plain chant, which had
fallen into decay in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries.
Gregory XIII commissioned Palestrina and his colleague, Annibal
Zoilo, a singer and composer of the papal chapel, to prepare a new
edition of the antiphonaries, graduates, and psalters, in order to clear
them of the "numerous barbarisms, obscurities, contradictions and
superfluities" with which they were filled, so that "the name of God
might be praised in them reverently, distinctly and devoutly." Un-
fortunately the two musicians went about their work too thoroughly,
and while altering the phrases of the Gregorian chant so as to trans-
form them into suitable themes for the composition of polyphonic
motets, they altered its true character and beauty beyond recognition.
On the request of a Spanish musician, Don Fernando de las Infantas,
and of King Philip II of Spain himself, Pope Gregory XIII inter-
rupted the publication. However, the error of Palestrina and Zoilo
was repeated in 1595, when a revised Pontificate was officially pub-
lished by the order of Clement VIII. In 1608 the pope appointed a
committee of cardinals to which Bellarmme belonged for some
length of time to reform Church singing. They chose in their turn
a number of well-known musicians to perform the task. These were
only to "correct the mistakes which might in course of time have
disfigured the melodies," but they repeated the errors of their fore-
runners, and the Medicean Graduate which they produced, though
published in 1614, never received official approval, either m Rome
or in the States of the Church.
Thus did the Church, at the time of the Catholic Reformation,
wisely refrain, in music as well as m painting, sculpture, and archi-
tecture, from sacrificing the heritage of the early and late Middle
Ages. In the artistic field, it conserved more than it created. And
yet, it did exert an influence of its own, which was both narrowing
and strengthening. Through compelling art to serve a definite reli-
gious purpose, through subjecting it to the laws of decency, restraint,
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AND ART 223
moderation, reason, it forced it into straitcr channels. The stream
which had till then meandered at will through the plains, was now
caught in a defile and made to flow with greater force. Nor was
this force due merely to the limitations it had to accept; it was also
due to what was, after all, the mainspring of the Catholic Reforma-
tion, that spiritual impulse which brought about the conversion of so
many men of letters, artists, and musicians, and which was so
clearly manifested in the field of mysticism.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The art of the Catholic Reformation as a whole painting, sculpture,
and architecture has been dealt with in a series of excellent articles by
Marcel Raymond in the Revue des Deux-Mondes, namely L'ecole bolo-
naise (January i, 1910); L'art de la Contre-Rtjorme. 7. L'halie (1911),
torn. II; 77. La France (1911), torn. IV. Charles Dejob's work, De
I'mftuence du Concile de Trente sur la litterature et les beaux-arts chez
les peuples catholiques (Paris, 1884), is shallow and disappointing. The
standard book on the painting and the sculpture of the period is the
magnificent and profusely illustrated work of Emile Male, L'art rehgieux
apres le Concile de Trente (Paris, 1932), which covers the whole of
Western Europe and provides a huge mass of information. In regard to
architecture refer first and foremost to the thesis of Paul Parent, L f archi-
tecture des Pays-Bas meridionaux (Belgique et Nord de la France) aux
XV I erne f XV II erne et XV III erne siecles (Paris and Brussels, 1925). This
beautiful work, with its numerous illustrations, covers a much wider field
than its title would suggest. In regard to France, see the work of Louis
Hautecoeur, Histoire de I' architecture classique en France, La formation
de l r ideal classique, torn. I, La Renaissance, torn. II, L architecture sous
Henri IV et Louis XIII, also beautifully illustrated. In regard to Martel-
lange, some information is provided by the rather unsatisfactory study
of E. L. G. Charvet, Biographies d'architectes, Etienne Martellange t
1569-1641 (Lyon, 1874). The music of the Catholic Reformation is
dealt with as a whole, impartially and even admiringly, in an intelligent
chapter of John Addington Symonds' Renaissance in Italy, Vol. VII,
The Catholic Reaction (London, 1900), which is, in its other parts, a
stringent condemnation of the Trentine movement and its artistic
achievements. This chapter is condensed from the work of the Abbe
Jos. Bami, Memorie storico-cntiche sopra la vita e le opere del G. P. da
Palestnna (Rome, 1828), and reproduces some of its errors. More criti-
cal, though not exhaustive, is the treatment in Pastor-Kerr, The His-
tory of the Popes, Vol. XVI, Chap. II. Some information on the Oratory
may be found in Ponnelle and Bordet, op. cit., while the work of Father
Alfred Bernier, S.J., Un cardinal humaniste, Saint Robert Bellarmin . . .
et la musique rehgieuse, though of great interest, has more about the
liturgy and less about music than its title might lead one to expect.
CHAPTER X
Piety and Mysticism
THOUGH anarchy was the chief evil which afflicted the
Church in the early sixteenth century, the Catholic Reforma-
tion should not be viewed as consisting essentially, or even
mostly in administrative reorganization. The spiritual forces at the
back of the movement ought not to be overlooked. They found
expression in the realm of piety and mysticism. We have already had
occasion to refer to them, when mentioning the development of the
school of devotion founded upon St. Ignatius' Exercises, and its in-
fluence in education. Now, this school was not alone of its kind;
there were others in various European countries, in the sixteenth
and early seventeenth centuries. Their appearance was not the out-
come of mere coincidence; nor did they merely follow in the wake
of the great mystics of the late Middle Ages. They had an original
stamp of their own, and were closely connected with the Catholic
Reformation. For one thing, they derived inspiration from the spirit
of Christian humanism and the principles laid down by the Council
of Trent. Again, they took an important part in the actual amend-
ment of abuses; and lastly, they provided new formulas for the
practice of devotional life, which tallied with the intellectual and
spiritual tendencies of the age.
Catholic Reformation piety was first and foremost optimistic, and
derived much of its colouring from the Christian humanists of the
Pre-Lutheran age, who proclaimed their trust in human nature and
the beauty of the human soul. What is more, this optimism was
confirmed and, so to say, made official by the decrees of the Council
of Trent. The latter took its stand against the Protestant doctrines
which stressed the unworthiness of man, and the impossibility of
his doing any real good; which denied his free will, his co-operation
224
PIETY AND MYSTICISM 225
with God, and his actual merit. In the fifth session of the Council,
the fifth canon on original sin, promulgated in June, 1546, contains
the following typical words:
"For God hates nothing in those who are born again. There is no
condemnation for those who are buried with Christ by baptism into
death (Rom. VI, 4), who walk not after the flesh (Rom. VIII, i)
but putting off the old man, and putting on the new man, who is
created after God (Eph. IV, 22; Col. Ill, 9) have become innocent,
immaculate, pure, sinless, and beloved of God, heirs of God, indeed,
but joint-heirs with Christ (Rom. VIII, 17)."
The stress is laid here, not on the decayed nature of man, but on
his bright prospects. Who could miss the eager hopefulness of those
few lines? And again, in the eleventh chapter of the decree on
justification:
"God, does not command impossible things, but while command-
ing He warns thee to do what thou canst, and to ask for what thou
canst not do thyself, and helps thee to do it; whose commandments
are not grievous (i John V, 3), whose yoke is sweet and whose
burden is light (Matth. XI, 30). For those who are the children of
God, love Christ; now those who love Him, as He Himself testifies,
are true to His teachings, which they can perform always with the
help of God." The same optimism pervades the whole of the decree
on justification:
"God," it says, "does not desert those whom He has justified
through His grace. . . . And to those who work good things unto the
end and hope from God, eternal life is to be proposed, both as a
grace mercifully promised to the sons of God through Jesus-Christ,
and as a reward faithfully granted according to God's promise to
their good works and merits."
Not only did the spiritual leaders of the Catholic Reformation
believe in the fruitfulness of man's action; but they also engaged in
action themselves towards the improvement of Church conditions.
This need hardly be stressed in the case of St. Ignatius Loyola and
St. Philip Neri, whose reforming work has been surveyed above;
but everywhere in Europe the renewal of mysticism was coupled
with a rejuvenation of Church discipline. The best-known work
of the Italian mystical school, the Spiritual Fight, was produced
in Theatine circles, probably by the Theatine, Lorenzo Scupoli.
Another mystic, St. Magdalen de' Pazzi, a reformer of the
226 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
Italian Carmelites, devoted her most fervent outpourings to
prayer for the amendment of the clergy. In Spain, the Bene-
dictine, Garcia Ximenes de Cisneros, drawing his inspiration
from St. Bonaventure and Gerson, reformed the Abbey of Mont-
serrat, from 1492 onwards, by compelling the monks to perform the
spiritual exercises of meditation and methodical orison included in
his Ejercitatorio. Later, St. Teresa's predecessor, St. Peter of Alcan-
tara, the Franciscan mystic (1499-1562), the author of a Treatise on
Prayer and Meditation, was also a provincial of the Discalced Minor-
ites, and the promoter of a severe reform of his order. In France, the
mystical revival was similarly paired with action. A Benedictine,
Louis de Blois (d. 1566), improved conditions at Liessies Abbey by
enforcing the practice of meditation and of exercises for the develop-
ment of the inward life. The later French mystics insisted on the
sanctification of the clergy; they stressed the excellence of the sacer-
dotal dignity, and the corresponding duties. St. Vincent of Paul
exhorted his brethren of the Mission in the following words, on the
eve of a retreat they were giving to future priests: "How beautiful
your task, to make the clergy better! Who will understand the
height of such an employment? it is the loftiest one on earth."
Lastly, as we have said, the Catholic Reformation mystics gave ex-
pression to the intellectual and spiritual needs of the period in which
they were living. They did not, however, do so in a uniform way.
In each one of the chief European countries, the devotional move-
ment borrowed a definite colouring from the national temperament.
There was no disagreement as to essentials, but various points were
stressed in various places. Hence the necessity of dividing the spir-
itual leaders of the age into several national groups, and to consider
in succession the mystics of Spain, Italy, and France.
* * *
The common background for the three schools is to be found in the
methodical discipline to which the later Middle Ages gradually sub-
jected the whole of spiritual life. This was the outcome of the re-
action of individuals against the anarchy which then prevailed in the
Church, and against the moral laxity of the early Renaissance.
Where the old religious standards were disregarded, the sole remedy
was personal sanctity. And, to attain this sanctity, methods were de-
vised in spiritual treatises, leading up no less to St. Ignatius' Exer-
cises than to the Way to Perfection of St. Teresa of Jesus.
PIETY AND MYSTICISM 227
The essential element in all these is the theory of the three ways
of spiritual life. It had first appeared in the early ages of the Church
in the works of the pseudo-Dyonisius Areopagiticus, where, how-
ever, the gradual ascent of the soul, through purification, illumina-
tion, and consummation, was purely intellectual. It was left for St.
Bonaventure, the great Italian mystic of the thirteenth century, to
interpret the Dyonisian scheme as showing the gradual march of the
soul towards union with God through charity. Thus, in the
purgative way man is converted and cleanses himself of his sins; in
the illuminative way he obtains enlightenment in regard to God,
Christ, and himself and tries to imitate the Saviour; in the unitive
way he binds himself to God and gives himself up to divine love. In
each of the three ways he is guided along by a graduated course of
special spiritual exercises. This method was expounded by numerous
mystical writers in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In Eng-
land, especially, there was a real flowering forth of devotional
treatises, which described the patient ascent of the soul towards its
spiritual goal, such as Alcock's Hill of Perfection (printed in 1497,
1499, 1501), the anonymous Pylgnmage of Perfection (printed in
1526, 1531), and, above all, Walter Hylton's Ladder of Perfection
(printed in 1494, 1507, 1525, 1533). The latter endeavoured to sum
up the whole process of sanctification by explaining "how in reason
and wyll vertue begynneth, and how in loue and lykings it is made
perfyte."
The stress was laid, in all these works, upon interior religion, as
opposed to the abuses of 'purely outward practice; and this tendency
was further strengthened by Christian humanism. The latter's atti-
tude was a reaction against the cult of pure reason as embodied in
Aristotle's philosophy, and a reversion to Platonic idealism, espe-
cially in the mystical form given to it by Plotmus. This is why the
Christian humanists looked askance at the mere formalities of wor-
ship, insisted upon the ethical and inward elements of religion and
recommended personal sanctification and the flight from the cor-
ruptions of the world; that is why they viewed Scripture, not as a
storehouse of debatable "questions," but as a source of moral and
spiritual inspiration; why, lastly, they adopted Plato's notion of the
beauty of man's soul, and refused to consider human nature as hope-
lessly decayed.
Whatever may be said about the disruptive effect of Erasmus*
228 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
criticism, his positive influence upon the piety of the Catholic Refor-
mation seems beyond doubt. Like St. Ignatius' Exercises, his En-
chiridion mditis christiam (Manual of the Christian Soldier) is a
war-like book, providing advice for man's struggle on earth. The
author proposes a set of rules, first of all to help man to acquire a
thorough knowledge of himself, then to strive against temptations.
The "Christian soldier" will be prepared to lose everything for
Christ, even his life. He will choose the narrow way. He will turn
from visible to invisible things. He will gain strength in his combat
from meditation on the sufferings of our Lord and the ugliness of
sin, on heaven and hell, on the necessity of a holy death. He must
show himself a true Christian, not by indulging in phansaical ob-
servances, but by leading a pure life, and through a lively and inti-
mate union of his soul with the Redeemer.
Thus did both the later mediaeval mystics and the Christian
humanists seek union with God through personal sanctification, and
pave the way for the spiritual leaders of the Catholic Reformation.
Besides, their methods for the gradual ascent of the soul were averse
to the spirit of Protestantism, against which, it should not be for-
gotten, the Catholic Reformation was also directed. Man, Luther
declared, is incapable of any good; his virtuous deeds themselves
are sins; he is justified by the merely external action of God; and
his justification is manifested by a sudden and purely gratuitous
illumination of the soul. There is no reason, therefore, why he
should rise patiently, step by step, on the ladder of the spiritual life;
no reason why he should find any good in himself, and seek in the
bottom of his own soul a refuge against the storm of worldly temp-
tations. Indeed, there have been Protestant mystics, but there is no
real similarity between the alternate certainty of salvation and terror
of damnation of John Bunyan for instance, and the vicissitudes of
spiritual consolation and desolation which are one main feature of
the piety of the Catholic Reformation. The latter was assisted in the
use of ascetical methods by directors of conscience, whereas the
Protestants originally wished to do away with all intermediaries
between God and the soul however much practical necessities may
have later compelled them, as in the case of Baxter, to revert to
Catholic practice.
PIETY AND MYSTICISM 229
There had been a flourishing mystical school in Northern Europe
in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, with masters such as Tauler
and Eckhardt in Germany, Gerard Groot and the Brothers of the
Common Life in the Low Countries, Hylton in England. With the
Catholic Reformation the scene shifts to the South, and primarily
to Spain. The latter country provided an especially favourable
ground for the blossoming of mysticism, and notably for the ap-
pearance of the greatest one among mystics, St. Teresa of Jesus.
Many of its inhabitants were of Arabian descent. The dnect in-
fluence of Mohammedanism upon the Christian devotion of the
Spaniards cannot indeed be proved. But many of the newly con-
verted Monscos, including monks and nuns, were acquainted with
the traditions of Moslem meditation, and cannot but have had a
natural bent for the spiritual life.
In the national temper of Spain were blended the two contrasting
features which Cervantes was soon after to characterize in the
two figures of Sancho Panza and Don Quixote. On the one hand,
the Spaniards were gifted with the most realistic common sense, a
quality of which St. Teresa herself gave ample proof as a religious
leader and a reformer. On the other hand, they were chivalrous,
adventurous, even foolhardy; they loved a fight, whether in the
American colonies, or in the war with France, or even, in the con-
troversial field, against Luther and his adherents. The general atmos-
phere was one of feverish determination, of aspiration to high deeds,
and accounts for St. Teresa's words, "One may die indeed, but be
vanquished never." To this national ardour other elements were
added, which fanned the flame of the saint's devotion. There were
frequent performances of mystery plays, known as autos sacramen-
tales, which were familiar to every class of the population, and fed
the mystical imagination. The Spanish society of the time was
humanistic enough to be praised on that account by Erasmus him-
self; it was therefore open to the doctrines of Plato as thought anew
by Plotinus and by the pseudo-Dyonisius Areopagiticus. Luis de
Granada himself expressed his admiring surprise that Plato, the
pagan, should have been able to describe the greatness of God by
means of his natural lights only. "The great philosopher showed
how the contemplation of the Eternal Beauty necessarily bred vir-
tue, and how on the other hand he who practised virtue was bound
to become 'the friend of the gods'; that love losing itself in 'divine
230 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
madness' led to 'the contemplation of Beauty's self/ " Here we come
very near indeed to Teresian mysticism.
There were, however, more direct sources. Before St. Teresa, sev-
eral Spanish devotional writers had sketched out methods of gradual
spiritual progress. In 1527, Francisco de Ossuna published his Tercio
abccedano e spiritual (Third Spiritual A .B.C.) in which the soul is
subjected to a strict spiritual discipline in order to attain the orison
of recollection. The latter is reached by successive degrees; in the
first, the powers of the soul are merely quietened; in the second, the
understanding is still at work; in the third, the soul encloses itself
as into a prison to enjoy God; in the fourth, it is rapt up into ecstasy.
The whole is clothed in the garb of beautiful imagery, which St.
Teresa was to borrow, as well as the general features of Ossuna's
psychology and methods. After Ossuna, two other Franciscans, Ber-
nardino de Laredo, in his Subida del Monte Sion (Ascent of Mount
Zion, 1535), and St. Peter of Alcantara, in his Treatise on Prayer
and Meditation, showed how, when the soul is mystically united to
Christ, meditation and intellectual reflexion must cease in the "sleep
of the powers" of the mind. A more elaborate spiritual method was
supplied some time later by Luis de Granada, a Dominican, whose
main purpose was to show how the spiritual life leads to the practice
of Christian virtues. In his Bool^ on Prayer and Meditation (1554)
his mam point, which was later to be taken up again by St. Francis
of Sales, is that true devotion is not "a tenderness of the heart that
is manifested through prayer," but "a readiness and promptitude to
do good, to perform God's commandments and attend to His ser-
vice." How this should be done is explained by Luis de Granada in
a further work of his, the Guia de Peccadores (The Guide of Sin-
ners, 1556), which attained to great fame, was recommended by St.
Francis of Sales, and became universally popular in seventeenth-
century France. The Dominican Order did not merely provide St.
Teresa with models; it also supplied her with three confessors and
directors, Pedro Ibafiez, Domenico Bafiez, and Garcia de Toledo.
Ibanez induced her to write the history of her life; Banez rescued
the convent of Carmelites at Avila, reformed by the saint, when it
was about to disappear: both he and Garcia de Toledo warned her
against the possible excesses of false mysticism.
St. Teresa of Jesus was born, on March 28, 1515, at Avila, in Old
Castile, an ancient fortified town of which the battlemented walls
PIETY AND MYSTICISM 231
later suggested the imagery of her Interior Castle. Her father was
descended from those bold men-at-arms who had long waged war
against the Moors. Her mother also belonged to the old Castihan
nobility. She was brought up amidst the traditions of Christian
knighthood, among her eleven brothers and sisters. While still a
child, she thought of seeking martyrdom among the Moors, then
later of becoming a hermit together with one of her brothers. But
soon after she took to reading romances of chivalry, which turned
her mind from her early aspirations, and led her to indulge in what
she considered as sinful frivolousness, though her trespasses do not
seem to have reached beyond some harmless coquetry. Her lapse
into worldliness, however, was enough in her own eyes to justify
the real conversion which soon followed.
In 1531, while Teresa was a boarder at the Augustinian monastery
at Avila, she felt again attracted towards the spiritual life. After
struggling with her vocation for three years, she left her father's
home on November 2, 1535, for the Carmelite convent of the Incar-
nation at Avila, where she was to take her vows as a nun. Then
followed a period of seventeen years during which she engaged in
no external action, but gradually came nearer to God through the
practice of prayer fostered by such readings as that of Ossuna's
Tercio abecedario espiritual. Her tenderly beloved father died in
1543, and about the same time she became acquainted with the
Confessions of St. Augustine, which had a lasting influence upon
her. Henceforth she moved forward speedily in the progress of her
soul; she felt a lively impression of the presence and love of God,
and wholly gave herself up into His hands. She was favoured with
ecstasies and visions, such as that of the Trans verberation, in 1560,
in which an angel pierced her heart with a fiery spear, leaving her
in the tender rapture of intimate union with God.
The very excess of such simultaneous pain and pleasure roused
her scruples. Fortunately she met at that time with wise confessors,
several Jesuits first, then the Franciscan Peter of Alcantara, who, in
1540, had erected the first reformed monastery of the Discalced
Minors at Pedroso, in the Estremadura. They taught her to use
mortification as a background for her devotions, and turned her
thoughts towards practical activities. Then she had a vision, in
which Christ ordered her to found a monastery dedicated to St.
Joseph. Accordingly, in 1562, she created the monastery of St.
232 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
Joseph at Avila, and drafted for it her Constitutions, which the
Father general of the Carmelites was to extend in 1607 to all the
other foundations of the Order. The rule prescribed by the saint was
a strict one indeed, but gave ample room for meditation, prayer, and
examination of conscience, the life of the religious being one of
solitude, poverty, and penitence, but steeped in a "holy and peaceful
joy." No sooner was this first monastery established than St. Teresa
was urged to create other houses of the same type; and thenceforth
her life was a perpetual pilgrimage along the highways of Spain,
despite stress of weather and the malice of men.
Her next foundation was at Medina del Campo. Then she thought
of establishing a monastery of men, and, while she was considering
this scheme, she met a young Carmelite Father, Juan de Santo Maria,
who was to become St. John of the Cross. She enlisted his help
towards the foundation of a house of discalced Carmelites, where
Mass was said for the first time on the first or second Sunday in
Advent in 1568. Then followed other foundations, both of men and
women, in rapid succession, at Toledo, at Pastrana (1569), at Sala-
manca (1570), at Alba de Tormes (1571), at Segovia, at Veas, at
Seville. The progress was interrupted by the action of a papal
nuncio, Felippo Sega, who arrived from Italy in 1577, and sided with
the unreformed Carmelites. He subjected St. Teresa to a persecu-
tion of four years' duration, which very nearly ruined her work.
However, the situation was restored through the intervention of
King Philip II, and further monasteries were established at Villa-
nueva de la Jara, at Palencia, at Sona (1581). On January 2, 1582,
she left St. Joseph of Avila for the last time, in the heart of winter,
to go to found a house at Burgos, despite the grievous illness from
which she had so long been suffering. After six months of labour
and anguish she retired to the monastery of Alba, where in the
midst of a prolonged ecstasy she departed from this world on Octo-
ber 15, 1582.
The outward facts of the saint's life are not the most important
part of her biography. She herself has described, m the story of. her
Life, the vicissitudes of her spiritual progress, which were of far
greater moment to her. It took her twenty years to reach inward
stability and serenity. Her temptations of frivolity and worldliness
came back again and again, and it was long before she succeeded
in cutting herself off from "natural" affections. She was tormented
PIETY AND. MYSTICISM 233
by ill-health, and suffered great bodily pain, especially in the early
years. She was often the butt of hostile criticism on the part of the
peqple of her native town, who objected to her sublime aspirations
and reforming schemes, and whose motto seems to have been "live
and let live." She did not always meet with understanding and
sympathy on the part of her confessors, several of whom ascribed
her ecstasies and visions to the action of the evil one.
But these outward hardships were as nothing compared to the
struggle within her own mind and soul. Her practice of mental
prayer was neither perfect from the first nor continuous. She inter-
rupted it for as long as one year at a time, and, even when she
persevered in it, was troubled by periods of religious drought and
barrenness. Her very raptures were mixed with cruel pain, caused
by the intensity of her longing for God. At last she was fixed on a
high spiritual level. Her account of her soul's journey, her minute
psychological analysis of the successive phases of prayer, her prac-
tical advice to those who wished to follow in the same tracks, are
the mam points of interest in her written works, the story of her
Life, the Foundations, the Way to Perfection, the Interior Castle.
These books make no claim to literary excellence, but they derive
great beauty from the genuineness of her emotions, and the fresh-
ness of her poetical imagery.
Indeed, it was difficult for St. Teresa to convey to her readers a
precise and concrete notion of ineffable spiritual states, which were
before all a matter of personal experience. Hence her use of beau-
tiful similes to describe the soul's ascent on the mystical ladder.
It is, she says m her Life, like a piece of waste land in which God
sows good seeds, but which man must water in order to turn it
into a garden. This can be effected in various ways. The water can
be painfully drawn out of a well, and this is the first degree of
prayer, that of recollection, in which the mind must struggle to
attain concentration; "the will is active" here, and, while being
helped by the other powers the understanding, memory and imag-
ination reaches a happy state of "enjoyment and rest." Again the
water can be more easily brought up to the surface by means of a
noria, and here we find the second degree, the prayer of quietude,
in which the understanding is active to begin with, but in which the
powers soon fall half asleep, and the soul "touches the supernatural":
the garden may also be irrigated by means of runnels that bring the
234 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
water from a river or a brook; and now, though the gardener suffer
some fatigue in digging the trenches, the watering itself costs him
no trouble. This is the prayer of union, in which the powers a/e
suspended. The mind now cannot wander at all; the whole soul is
rapt up in "an extreme tenderness of love" both for the divine
essence and the human nature of Christ. Lastly the garden may be
watered by a plentiful rain pouring down from heaven, and in this
case the work is done by God Himself, without any help on the
part of man. This is the highest degree of orison, or, as she was to
call it later, "spiritual marriage," which is "an interview" of the
soul with our Lord, of whom it obtains, in one brief moment, a more
direct and intimate knowledge than its senses and powers might
acquire in a thousand years.
The same spiritual progress is described, by means of another
set of images, in the Interior Castle, into which the soul enters, and,
having passed through successive dwellings, finally reaches the in-
most chamber, where it is fully united with God.
Now, while St. Teresa's spiritual raptures seem to ravish the soul
from earth, it is striking that her advice to others should be severely
practical and inspired by the most levelheaded common sense. No
wonder, since she had had many Jesuit directors, that it should re-
mind us of that adaptation of means to end which was stressed as
all-important by the Society. Thus one should carefully note what is
most profitable in one's devotion. "Variety should be used, lest the
soul should tire itself by feeding on one only kind of nourishment."
A soul that has reached a great intimacy with God should beware
against overweening self-confidence, which might cause its ruin.
Again, when in a state of "impetuous rapture," one should not give
way to what might be after all but the gushing forth of an almost
physical emotion, and "let the kettle boil over." On the contrary,
reason should quench the fire of the soul, and bring it back to sweet
serenity. When the soul falls into a state of spiritual drought, one
should not tire oneself in trying to fan a fire that will not burn, but
devote oneself to meritorious good works. Lastly Jesuit influence
being again visible here however great one's longing may be for
God and the eternal life, one's body should not be neglected, since
it is of use for the task assigned to it by God.
On no point, as a matter of fact, does the saint lay greater stress
than on the fact that true devotion lies, not in "shedding tears, in
PIETY AND MYSTICISM 235
feeling those spiritual pleasures and that sweetness, which are so
much desired as a rule . . . but in serving God in righteousness,
strength of soul and humbleness." Ecstasy itself is consequent upon
good works. And the latter are not merely the necessary preparation
for, and the very substance of mental prayer, they are also its fruit
and its benefit. The favours granted by God "compel us to make
further efforts to serve Him, and not to be ungrateful towards Him."
The bliss imparted to the soul "gives it an inkling of the joys of
heaven," and brings it to realise that "its happiness is not here
below." Consequently "it grows in virtue and is brought nearer to
true Virtue, the source of all virtues, that is God Himself." In the
fourth degree of prayer, God works so swiftly upon the soul, that
the same result might hardly be reached by "years of sustained
efforts." The mystic who is favoured with a vision is "entirely
transformed" and "powerless to love aught beside God." The soul
is then "seized with a huge fright, at the thought that it has been
bold enough to offend such a high Majesty" and sinks deep into
humility.
What is really most characteristic in St. Teresa's mysticism, and
we might say most Spanish mysticism, is that combination of prac-
tical efficiency with the most exalted devotional ideal. However
matter-of-fact her common sense may be, there is nothing humdrum
or commonplace about it. Her attitude regarding the problem of life
and conduct is one of bold daring and of brave optimism. "Never
let us straiten our wishes," she writes; "let us firmly believe that
with the help of God and through our own efforts (one almost seems
to hear in these words the ring of the previously quoted Trentine
canon) we also shall be able, in course of time, to acquire what so
many saints, helped by God, have succeeded in obtaining. . . . Our
Lord requires and loves courageous souls, as long as they are humble
and distrust themselves. I have not seen one single such soul dwell
in the lower regions of spiritual life."
The bearing of St. Teresa is especially brave in her periods of
spiritual desolation. Then she faces all the powers of hell boldly and
defies them to do her harm. "I said to them," she writes: "'Now,
come on, all of you! I am the servant of the Lord, and I want to see
what you can do to me.' ... I dominate over them from aloft, and
take as little account of them as if they were flies." Nobly, proudly,
she rejoices in suffering. Praise and regard, she says, are irksome to
236 ' THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
her; "but if I am subjected to persecutions . . . my soul reigns like a
sovereign. ... It is quite certain that my soul then seems to be at
the head of a kingdom and sees everything beneath its feet." Indeed,
she does not merely triumph in bodily or mental pain; she invites it
in the fulness of her love of God. "There is nought I ask of God
with such ardour. I sometimes say to him from the bottom of my
heart: 'Lord, either to die, or to suffer!'" She sets little store by
"those small deeds, as tiny as grains of salt, which have neither
weight nor volume, and that a bird, as it seems, might carry away
in its bill." And she concludes with these words, which are the key
to her whole personality: "My tender Master . . . happy are those
who do great things for Thee."
While the more chivalrous, and at the same time the more
seraphic, aspect of the Spanish character is exemplified by St. Teresa,
we meet with its darker, more tragic side, and with its craving for
the absolute, in the person of her friend and fellow-mystic, St. John
of the Cross. His real name was Juan de Yepes. He was born in 1542
at Hontiveras, no great distance from Avila. When twelve or
thirteen he lost his father, and had to serve as an attendant at the
hospital of Medina del Campo. While tending the sick he was able
to study at the local Jesuit college. At twenty-one he was admitted
into the convent of the Carmelites in the same town, where he made
his profession, in 1564, under the name of Juan de Santo Matia;
next he was sent to Salamanca to study theology. He became
familiar with the writings of Dyonisius Areopagiticus, and also with
those of the Flemish and German mystics.
Following his meeting with St. Teresa, in August, 1567, he de-
cided to undertake the reform of the Carmelites, and founded at
Duruelo the first discalced house of the Order. He himself took the
name of John of the Cross, thus to stress his eager love of suffering.
The success of his reforming efforts brought down a persecution
upon him. He was imprisoned by the "mitigated" Carmelites, at
Toledo, in a narrow dungeon, from December 4, 1577, to August
15, 1578. In his prison he began his literary career by writing the
Spiritual Canticle, in which he described the state of the soul puri-
fied by suffering and inebriated with love. After escaping from his
prison, he was made prior of the convent of the Calvary in Andalu-
sia. Here he set out to write the Ascent of Mount Carmel and the
Darf( Night. These works he completed in 1583, and next wrote
PIETY AND MYSTICISM 237
the Lively Flame of Love, in 1584, at Granada, where he was also
prior. After holding the office of rector at Baeza, he founded several
houses in Andalusia. His death ensued at Ubeda on December 14,
1581.
Like St. Teresa, he made mental prayer the basis of the devotional
life of his reformed religious: like her, he methodically described its
various stages, and the gradual ascent of the soul on its way to the
contemplation of God. But his method is more austere. He divides
the progress of the soul into two parts: active and passive purifica-
tion. The former is the work of man himself; the latter is that of
God alone. Active purification, as described in the Ascent of Mount
Carmel, first cleanses the senses of man, then according to the old
mediaeval psychology adopted by St. Teresa his understanding,
his memory, and his will. The "night of the senses" does not merely
consist in refraining from sin, but in utter self-renunciation : "Seek
not what is easier, but what is more difficult; not what is tastier,
but what is more tasteless; not what pleases, but what repels; not
what consoles, but what grieves; not what brings rest, but what re-
quires pain. . . ." The soul should despise itself and wish for humilia-
tion from others. Then follows the "night of the understanding,"
in which it not only divests itself of all knowledge, but also re-
pudiates all mental representation, and of course all those visions,
revelations, inward voices, which were the essential element of the
mysticism of the illuminated sect of the "Alumbrados." Memory
similarly empties itself of all recollections, through the help of hope;
while the will is purified through the action of charity. The soul
being thus cleared of all obstacles rises to "active" contemplation, in
which "it fixes its glance affectionately upon God," and which all
men can reach if they take the necessary means.
But to attain mystical union with God passive purification is
necessary. Not only must the trunk of sin be cut off, but its very
roots must be extirpated. How this is to be effected by God himself
in those whom He chooses, is the subject of the Dar\ Night. The
soul now renounces its partiality for "sensible consolations"; for
virtue is not to be reached through sweetness and comfort, but
through an "arduous struggle." St. Teresa had taken no such excep-
tion to the spiritual joys which cheer man on his way to perfection.
After an interval which may last for years, there follows the "night
of the spirit," in which "the understanding is in darkness, the will
238 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
barren, memory without remembrance, and the affections of the
soul are lost in grief and anguish.*' This is a period of cruel mental
torment, in which man "is starved of all those goods that can
solace him, temporal, natural, and spiritual." He thinks that God
has forsaken him, and praying has become difficult for him. But
his sufferings will now be rewarded.
The mystical union itself described in the Lively Flame of Love
and in the Spiritual Canticle takes place in the "centre of the
soul." The latter is like a crystal that is struck by a beam of sunlight,
and becomes absorbed in it. It burns with the fire of divine love; it
is tenderly, delightfully wounded. Thus is supreme joy reached
through heroic self-denial. Once again, as with St. Ignatius and St.
Teresa, we here meet the militant spirit of old Spain.
We have already come across the characteristics of the Italian
school when dealing with the Oratory of Divine Love, the Thea-
tines, and St. Philip Neri. It was less speculative than the Spanish
school, and more inclined to action. It had to react against the
pagan sensuousness and moral decay of the Renaissance, and
therefore provided means for each man to struggle against his
own depraved tendencies, and to remain unsullied in the midst of
the surrounding corruption and of the surrounding heresy as well.
This tendency was manifested, early in the sixteenth century when
the Dominican, John Baptist Carioni, also called Baptist de Crema,
was the director of St. Gaetano da Thiene, the founder of the Thea-
tine Order, and of St. Antonio Zaccaria, one of the creators of
the Barnabites. The title of his mam work, published in 1531, ran as
follows: Concerning the Knowledge of, and Victory over, Oneself.
However, Italian spirituality was not merely concerned with the
fortifying of the individual against a dangerous environment; it was
active in bringing about the reform of the Church. The Italian devo-
tional writers aimed first and foremost at an improvement of the
clergy. The excellence of the sacerdotal dignity had been proclaimed
by the Franciscans since the time of their great founder. St. Gaetano
da Thiene marvelled at the "miracle of God's goodness" which had
"separated him from the rest of the faithful, to raise him to the
rank of God's minister"; and he ardently wished to resemble Christ
the sovereign Priest. Both St. Gaetano and the other founders of
PIETY AND MYSTICISM 239
the Clerks Regular insisted that the greatness of the priesthood
implied a rule of conduct leading to virtue; not unduly strict or
monastic indeed for they realised that human nature should not
be overtaxed but yet austere enough. For lack of actual poverty,
they prescribed poverty of the mind and heart.
The most typical work of the Italian school is the Combattimento
spirituale (The Spiritual Fight) ascribed to the Theatine, Lorenzo
Scupoli. It is not, like the treatises of the Spanish mystics, a guide
through the difficult regions of prayer and ecstasy. It touches upon
the devotional life indeed, but it is mainly a directory for personal
sanctification. Spiritual life, Scupoli says, "does not consist in out-
ward practices. It consists in the knowledge of the greatness of God
and of our own nothingness, in the love of the Lord and the hatred
of our own selves, in our submission to the spirit of God, and to
creatures for the love of God, in the complete renunciation of our
will to His, and our full resignation to His sovereign decrees. Again,
these virtues should be practised solely for the glory of God, and to
please Him, for the only reason that he demands and deserves to be
loved and served thus." The Spiritual Fight purposes to enable man
to reach "the summit of perfection," and outlines the necessary
tactics, four weapons being recommended: distrust of self, trust in
God, a good use of the faculties of the soul and body, and, lastly,
the exercise of prayer. Practical advice is provided for the struggle
against temptations. An "order of the day" is issued in the morning,
before the beginning of the daily battle; man is to consider himself
as in the lists, with Christ, the Virgin Mary, and St. Joseph on his
right the devil and his retinue on his left. The influence of St.
Ignatius' meditation of the Two Standards is here obvious, and
appears again in the stubborn optimism recommended to the soul.
Even when nearly vanquished, it should never give way to des-
pondency, but remain "of good cheer," and retain its quietness and
peace. The fourth weapon, prayer, is the most important of all.
Three exercises are particularly recommended, prayer or meditation,
Communion, and the examination of conscience. Meditation should
bear especially on the "mental" sufferings of Christ: these had
already been, as early as 1490, the subject of a work of the blessed
Battista Varani, a Franciscan nun, Dolori mentali di Cristo, which
was known to Scupoli. Devotion to the Virgin Mary and to the
holy angels is also advised. Direction of conscience is suggested
240 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
rather than expressly mentioned: it does not yet, in the Spiritual
Fight, assume the prominent place which it was to take in the works
of St. Francis de Sales.
As for Communion, Scupoh considers it as the most effective
means of combatting the enemies of man who, thanks to it, gives
battle "in the company of Jesus Christ." He wishes the faithful to
receive the body of our Lord as often as they can get permission to
do so. If permission be refused remember that it was not granted
so easily then as it is nowadays recourse should be had to spiritual
communion, which can be repeated at every hour of the day. In-
deed, at a time when the Eucharist had been largely forsaken
throughout Europe, the Italian mystics were the first to revive the
habit of frequent Communion, while St. Gaetano da Thiene urged
his disciples to make it daily.
Undoubtedly, the devotional ideal of the Italian school was one of
great moral austerity; but this austerity is less apparent than in the
case of Spain; it is, most of the time, delicately veiled. The stress is
now laid on what, in Christian teaching, is beautiful and comfort-
ing, on what cheers the heart and attracts the soul. "Be cheerful,
my children," St. Philip Neri used to say, "... the cheerful spirit
acquires Christian perfection sooner than the melancholy one." And
he used music as an* allurement to virtue for his followers. The
blending of reverence for beauty with the notion of divine love
bespeaks the influence of Plato, who had been in great favour among
the Italian humanists of the fifteenth century. The very name of
the Oratory of Divine Love is significant in this respect. The notion
of "pure love," which was later to breed such embittered controversy
at the time of Fenelon and Madame Guyon, is prominent in the
writings of the Italian school: "Thou must serve God," the blessed
Battista Varani said, "not like a slave, for fear of bodily punishment
or eternal pains, not like a sinner, in view of some reward, but like
a daughter who renders to God love for love, blood for blood, death
for death." The soul should not merely divest itself of all interested
motives, of passion and of sin, but of all its faculties, and then it
attains that "nakedness of the spirit" which is the product of pure
love, and is united with God in a way which no words can express.
It should be noted that in sixteenth-century Italy the love of God
inspired many works of charity, and filled the hospitals with volun-
tary attendants.
ST. PJ-'I i K'S - Rome.
:,, oi TRKNT (by Titian) The warm piety of the Fathers
the- Council breathes forth from many a passage ot sober
and restrained piety.
PIETY AND MYSTICISM 241
Such optimism, cheerfulness, and lovingness played an important
part in the religious upbringing of St. Francis de Sales, in whom,
however, they were mingled with other elements. Both in point of
date, in regard to his origins, and also in regard to his devotional
practice, St. Francis stands midway between the Italian and the
French schools. He was born at Thorens, in Savoy, in 1567. His
parents belonged to the local Catholic gentry, but were on good
terms with the Protestants of Geneva. He spent his childhood
amidst graceful landscapes, which were later to colour his poetical
imagery. After five years spent at the college at Annecy, he was
sent to Paris in 1581, where he remained, until 1588, as a pupil at
the Jesuit College de Clermont. There he imbibed his literary tastes,
and his sense of stylistic beauty. From Paris he went on to Padua,
where he studied law for two and a half years, and met Fr. Possevin
(or Possevinus).
After travelling to Rome and rambling through Italy, he came
back home in 1592, and was made provost of the chapter of Geneva.
Since this town was Protestant he resided at Annecy, and, in Sep-
tember, 1594, undertook the conversion of some districts of Savoy,
especially the Chablais, which hitherto had remained obstinately
Protestant. Owing to his moderation, his gentleness, his sound judge-
ment, and his patience, he succeeded in bringing over to Catholicism
the majority of the population. In 1602, he was sent to Paris by the
bishop of Geneva on a diplomatic mission. There he came in touch
with the saintly Madame Acarie, who was to bring the Carmel into
France, and who made him her confessor. He was guided in Parisian
circles by M. de Berulle, and became a preacher of great originality
and fame. Being consecrated bishop of Geneva, he resided at
Annecy, and gave up much of his time to the direction of souls. His
chief penitent was Madame later St. Jeanne de Chantal. For the
rest of their lives both were united in a deep friendship and were to
found together the Order of the Visitation. St. Francis' advice to the
persons he directed was embodied in 1608 in the Introduction to the
Devout Life, which has become as famous as the Imitation; and, in
1616, his spiritual philosophy found expression in his Treatise on the
Love of God. His last years were troubled by a quarrel between
Savoy and France and by other worries. He died in 1622. Nine days
before his death he wrote: "The more I proceed in this life of mor-
tality, the more contemptible I find it."
242 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
St. Francis de Sales provides a unique combination of sweetness
and strength. The former aspect ought not to be emphasized at the
expense of the latter. It is true that the bishop of Geneva has a
peculiar personal charm which gives great attractiveness to his
preaching of virtue. He clothes it in imagery, generally borrowed
from nature, which is both pretty and touching: "A true widow," he
says in the Introduction, "is in the Church like a small March violet,
and emits a matchless sweetness, through the perfume of her devo-
tion; she keeps hidden most of the time under the broad leaves of
her abjection; and through her faint colour, gives proof of mortifica-
tion. She grows in cool untilled spots, being unwilling to be over-
borne by the conversation of the worldly, that so she may the
better preserve the freshness of her heart against all the heat that
might be brought by the desire of wealth, honour or even love." St.
Francis advises his imaginary penitent, Philothee, to go to com-
munion often. "Hares," he says, "become white in our mountains
in the winter, because they see and eat nothing but snow; and thus,
through worshipping and eating the beauty, the goodness and the
purity of that divine sacrament, you will become wholly beautiful,
wholly good and wholly pure."
There is, indeed, about the piety of St. Francis a constant quality
of suavity, cheerfulness, and optimism. He compares devotion to
"spiritual sugar," which "makes mortification less bitter, and conso-
lations less harmful." Despondency, according to him, ought to be
shunned. "The Evil one," he writes, "delights in sadness and melan-
choly . . . and will be thus eternally. He would have all men like
him. Now evil sadness disturbs the soul." Righteousness, on the
other hand, brings joy: "Consider that virtue and devotion alone can
make your soul glad in this world. See how beautiful they are. . . .
Virtues . . . delight the soul with a matchless sweetness and suavity."
Like the Italian Platonists, St. Francis asserts the beauty of the
soul: "What a natural beauty," he cries, "there is in our heart! It is
spontaneously inclined towards God; it feels a certain sweet emotion
when thinking of Him ... a pleasure and trustfulness." It is, indeed,
but the reflection of the divine soul, with which it has "a secret
agreement," and which is, of course, infinitely more beautiful still,
especially experienced to be so when it works upon us. "What a
delightful pleasure to see celestial love, which is the sun of all
virtues, when, little by little ... it sheds its light on a soul, and . . .
PIETY AND MYSTICISM 2431
illumines it with the perfect beauty of its own day! O how cheerful,
beautiful, lovable and pleasant that dawn is."
Yet, though St. Francis insists on the pleasantness of sanctification,
one ought not to consider his devotion as easy-going or facile. It is
the very reverse of this. He himself was of a tender and loving
nature. In the preface to the Introduction he speaks of the "suavity"
of his labours as a director. Yet he knows how to wean himself from
the too human pleasures of friendship: "Cut off friendships," he
wrote, "and do not waste time in untying the knots. You must take
to them scissors and a knife. . . . They can be cut off but with a
sharp knife. Indeed the strings are no good. Let them not be spared."
With all its sweetness, the Introduction is a severe book. It pro-
poses a very high ideal of perfection, not to religious secluded from
human society, but to men and especially to women living in the
world; this being its most original point. True devotion consists in
"working carefully, frequently and promptly" to fulfill God's will.
It is, however, almost impossible for man to attain virtue by his own
unaided means. It is necessary for him to submit to spiritual direc-
tion. St. Ignatius had already insisted on the importance of a direc-
tor in making the Exercises. St. Francis perhaps as a reaction
against the Protestant doctrine of direct inspiration by the Spirit
insists from the very first on "man's need of a conductor." "He must
be," the saint says to Philothee, "an angel for you; in other words,
when you have found him, do not consider him as a mere man, and
do not trust to him personally, nor to his human knowledge, but to
God, who will favour you and speak to you through this man,
putting in his heart and mouth what will be required for your
happiness; so that you ought to listen to him as to an angel who has
come down from Heaven to take you back there." The director
must be a "faithful friend," and between his penitents and him there
must arise "a strong and sweet friendship . . . quite holy, quite
sacred, quite divine and spiritual," in which "reverence should not
dimmish trustfulness, nor trustfulness prevent reverence."
In order to reach perfection, one should begin with "purgation of
the soul"; purgation from mortal sin first, and then from the
"affections towards sin." The former should be achieved through
exercises which strongly recall those of St. Ignatius. The latter
extends to all "affections"; to deliberate venial sin, and even to all
dangerous things which, though not evil in themselves, may be the
244 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
occasion of offending God, such as "dances, banquets, pomps, come-
dies"; lastly, to all those "faults and failings" in our temper which
are not voluntary, and therefore not sinful, but which should how-
ever be amended. In order to achieve purgation, pious exercises are
necessary: daily mental orison of one hour's duration, prayer when
getting up or going to bed, examination of conscience, inward re-
collection or "spiritual retreat," weekly confession and frequent Com-
munion. These were the exercises practised by the Clerks Regular,
and recommended in the Spiritual Fight. St. Francis was the first to
deem it possible to extend them to the laity. However there is
nothing rigid about his devotional scheme. "Devotion should be
differently exercised by a gentleman, by a craftsman, by a valet, by a
prince, by a widow, by a maiden, by a married woman; moreover,
its practice should be accommodated to the strength, business and
duties of each particular person." Such "adaptation" is true to the
Ignatian spirit. It plays no less a part in prayer, where no unvarying
method is prescribed. If, while engaged in vocal prayer, you should
feel attracted to mental prayer, "let your mind glide gently" towards
the latter; if business or some other cause has prevented one from
mental prayer in the morning, "try to amend that fault in the
afternoon."
The same practical-mindedness appears in the scheme adopted by
St. Francis for mental prayer, which is simpler than that of St.
Ignatius or Luis de Granada, and more precise than that of the
Spiritual Fight. It includes four points: preparation, considerations,
affections and resolutions, and the conclusion or "spiritual bouquet."
"Adaptation" to a life in the world again appears in that part of the
Introduction which is devoted to the practice of virtue. To the
monastic trinity of obedience, chastity, and poverty are now added
such virtues as can develop from social relations, patience with
others, humbleness, mildness towards others and towards oneself,
calm in the midst of a busy life. Then, again, there are the natural
qualities which should appear in friendships, in conversations, in the
sober style of one's dress, in games and pastimes. The devout person,
according to St. Francis, ought to be an honnete homme, a perfect
gentleman. Thus will his devotion attract love. Everyday life, as a
matter of fact, provides many occasions for the exercise of the
"small" virtues, which are the necessary preparation for the great
ones. It is not always possible to meet with great sufferings; let us,
PIETY AND MYSTICISM 245
at any rate, "patiently bear petty insults, small inconveniences, tiny
losses, which occur daily ... a headache, a toothache . . . the break-
ing of a glass . . ." the loss of one's gloves, ring or handkerchief, the
trouble of going to bed betimes or getting up early in order to pray
or to go to communion. . . . All these petty sufferings, when
embraced with lovingness, are extremely pleasant to the divine
kindness."
The "small" virtues, "patience, meekness, mortification of the
heart, humbleness . . . tenderness towards one's neighbour, forbear-
ance towards his faults, diligence and holy fervour," play an impor-
tant part in St. Francis' plan for the devotional life. He insists on
lowliness most. He illustrates the Ignatian aliis deferre in the fol-
lowing words: "Readily condescend to the will of your fellow-men,
giving way to their opinions in what is not evil, without being
quarrelsome or peevish." The stress is here laid on the passive rather
than on the active virtues; and here the temper of the saint differs
from that of the Jesuits, who insisted more on the exercise of the
will. "It seems to me," he writes to a Parisian nun, "that I see you
assiduously and restlessly seeking after perfection. . . . Let yourself
be governed by God, do not think so much of yourself. . . ." One
should neither overstrain oneself, nor be led by remorse to aimless
self-searchmgs : "One must not be too finicky in the exercise of
virtue, but go about it roundly, frankly, naively, in the old French
fashion, with freedom, with good faith, grosso modo. For I fear the
spirit of constraint and melancholy."
When all is said, the dominant feature about St. Francis de Sales
is that quality of ease, of simplicity, of naturalness in one word, of
liberty. "We ought to do everything," he wrote, "through love and
not through force; we should love obedience rather than fear dis-
obedience. I leave you the spirit of liberty. . . ." Add to this another
humanistic trait, his partiality for balance, for the golden mean, for
equability; the moderation and yet the stoic fortitude of his moral
and devotional ideal. "We ought to resist evil, he says, and repress
the vices of those in our charge, constantly and valiantly, yet sweetly
and peacefully"; and again: "We should feel dissatisfaction for our
sins, but it should be peaceful, sedate and firm; for as a judge pun-
ishes the wicked much better if he issues his sentences through
reason, in a spirit of tranquillity, than if he acts rashly and pas-
sionately . . . even thus, we chastise ourselves much better through
246 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
quiet and constant repentance, than if it is bitter, solicitous and
angry." One of the chapters of the Introduction is entitled: "That
one should have a just and reasonable mind." Liberty, moderation,
reason: here is the true temper of the Christianized Renaissance, of
that "devout humanism" which was both the cause and the conse-
quence of the Catholic Reformation.
The same spirit is found among the French successors and imita-
tors of St. Francis, such as Etienne Bmet, Jean-Pierre Camus, Father
Yves de Paris. In various ways they still represent the florid imagi-
nation and easy optimism of the Renaissance. However, such
southern freedom and exuberance were really foreign to the true
spirit of France. The properly so-called French school of devotion
is graver and sparer in expression and temperament; it takes a
gloomier view of man's nature, expects less from it and more from
God's grace, and insists on human nothingness. It is Pauline or
Augustiman rather than Salesian. It is not indeed Jansenistic; but
its seriousness and austerity make it possible to understand the later
rise of Jansenism.
The head of the French school was Pierre de Berulle, the founder
of the French Oratory. He was born at Serilly m the Champagne
on February 4, 1575. Through both his parents he belonged to that
class of lawyers, attached to the Pans "Parlernent," or high court of
justice, which was famous for the strictness of its moral life and for
its Gallican tendencies. He imbibed from his mother a distaste for
worldly pleasures and an inclination for piety. He went through his
course of studies in various Parisian colleges, notably at the College
de Clermont, then later at the Sorbonne.
While he was reading philosophy, towards 1593, he was impressed
by the sovereignty of God and the dependency of all creatures upon
Him. He gave expression to his ideas m a Bnef Discourse of Chris-
tian Abnegation, published in 1597, in which the doctrine of "abne-
gation" appears in the following words: "There are two foundation-
stones to this abnegation. The former is a very mean esteem of all
created things, and of oneself more than of all others, acquired by
frequent reflection on their cheapness, and by a daily experience of
one's infirmity and nothingness. . . . The latter is a very high
esteem of God, manifested through ... a total submission of our-
PIETY AND MYSTICISM 247
selves to Him, through worshipping Him and granting Him full
powers over us and what is ours." Berulle takes pleasure in humiliat-
ing decayed human nature. This is obviously contrary to the spirit
of humanism, against which he is initiating a reaction, while revert-
ing to the pessimism of St. Augustine, whom he calls "the eagle
among doctors."
He was ordained a priest on June 5, 1599, and became honorary
almoner to King Henry IV. He was then mostly engaged in the
direction of souls, and in controversy with the Protestants, while
co-operating with Madame Acane in introducing the Reformed
Carmelites into France. In 1611, he created the French Oratory,
wholly consecrated to Jesus Christ, the sovereign Priest. To this
foundation, and to the later career of Berulle, who died in 1629, we
shall later revert. The important fact is that he had already been
struck for some years by the humiliation undergone by Christ in
assuming his human nature, and the consequent necessity in which
we are of thoroughly humbling our own selves. He composed a
formula of elevation to Jesus and Mary, which was censured by the
universities of Louvam and Douai. In reply to this disapproval, he
wrote his master work, the Greatnesses of Jesus, divided up into
twelve discourses. The human nature of Christ, he says, is "essen-
tially in a state of servitude" which is both the cause of its greatness
and the condition of our salvation. We too should be in a state of
servitude towards the son of God and His Mother. Berulle reverted
to that devotion to the person of Christ which had been forgotten
amidst the metaphysical speculations of the fifteenth century.
The essential virtue for him is the virtue of religion. The adora-
tion of God is the chief duty of a Christian. As his disciple, Bour-
gomg, was to say, it was worse "to bring up souls in a certain
liberty and familiarity with God, than in abasement and holy terror
before Him." God ought to be worshipped, not so much on account
of His kindness towards us, as on account of His sovereign majesty.
The reaction against the Salesian school is here obvious. Again, fol-
lowing in the wake of St. Augustine, Berulle insists on the action of
divine grace in our sanctification, as against that of our own will.
The essence of the doctrine of Berulle and of his disciples, Cond-
ren and Olier, is abnegation. This is grounded on the "three nothing-
nesses" of man, the nothingness out of which God drew us through
creation, the nothingness into which Adam cast us through sin, and
248 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
the nothingness into which we must enter to adhere to Christ. Con-
dren, the second superior of the French Oratory (1588-1641) insisted
on the virtue of sacrifice. Jesus, according to him is perpetually in
the "state of a host"; we should not merely worship Him as such,
but become hosts too, through the annihilation of our own selves.
The disciple of Condren, Jean-Jacques Olier, the founder of the
seminary of Saint Sulpice (1608-1657), stressed the necessity of mor-
tification. Man should utterly renounce himself, and "all desires of
honour, pleasure and riches"; what is more note the opposition
with St. Francis and Richeome he should "avoid the occasions . . .
in which his heart can become filled with love and complacency tor
some creature." The soul "ought to place its pleasure and joy in
sacrificing to Jesus all the joy and all the pleasure that it can take
outside Him." The Christian should make himself another Christ,
and appropriate to himself His mysteries, chiefly His incarnation,
His infancy, His crucifixion, His death, His burial, His resurrection,
and His ascension. He accomplishes in himself a "small incarnation"
by casting off his own self and putting on Jesus Christ. He comes
into the state of infancy through the virtues of a child : utter aban-
donment to the guidance of Jesus, indifference to everything, sim-
plicity, purity, sweetness, and meekness. He participates in the state
of crucifixion through mortification, in the state of death through
inward renunciation and peace, in the burial of Christ through the
total destruction of self, in the ascension through perfect union with
Jesus.
This identification with the person of Christ is even more absolute
in the case of the priest, since, in the words of Bourgomg, "of all the
qualities and greatnesses which the son of God has acquired in our
nature, the highest and most exalted one is the dignity of a sovereign
priest." Jesus preaches through the mouth of his priests, consecrates
the host through them, forgives sins through them. The powers of
the priest are stupendous. When he produces Christ in the Eucharist
he may be compared to the Virgin Mary.
The excellency of the priesthood was asserted by another repre-
sentative of the French school, St. Vincent de Paul (1581-1660). His
character is a typical and attractive blending of Berullian austerity,
French common sense, and Salesian cheerfulness. Like St. Teresa
and St. Francis he asserts that true love is necessarily manifested in
action: "Let us love God, my brethren," he writes, "let us love God,
PIETY AND MYSTICISM 249
but let this be in the labour of our arms, let it be in the sweat of our
faces." He warns the alumni at the seminary of St. Sulpice against
"excess to be avoided in the love of God." "His kindness," he says,
"does not want us to ... ruin our health by dint of acts of love; no,
no, he does not ask us to kill ourselves."
The spiritual doctrine of St. Vincent de Paul, like that of the
French school in general, is ascetical rather than mystical. Though
he had experienced ecstasies and visions himself, he did not consider
himself as a mystic. His extraordinary humbleness was such that he
could not believe that he had been favoured with special graces. At
the same time, his devotional ideal was primarily one of charitable
action. "Are we ready," he asked his brother-priests, "to bear the
pains that God will send us, and to stifle the motions of nature, in
order to live solely the life of Jesus-Christ? Are we ready to go to
Poland, to Barbary, to the Indies, in order to sacrifice to him our
pleasures and our lives? If so, let us bless God. But if, on the con-
trary, there are some among us ... who are still the slaves of nature,
and who are given to the pleasures of the flesh ... let them consider
themselves as unworthy of the apostolic vocation to which God has
called them, and enter into confusion on seeing their brethren who
practice it so worthily, and on finding that they themselves are so
far from the minds and hearts of these."
The attachment of the French school to the person of Jesus was
manifested by the flowering forth of several new devotions. The
Holy Sacrament was, of course, an object of especial worship at the
seminary of St. Sulpice, since the most eminent dignity of the priest
consisted, according to Olier, in consecrating the Eucharist. Berulle,
when a cardinal, instituted for the French Oratory the "Feast of
Jesus" in order to honour, "not some particular mystery" of the life
of Christ, but "His divine person and the whole of the adorable
compound of man and God." He himself wrote the office of the
feast, which was approved by Rome on February i, 1625. This was
bter to develop, under the influence of St. Francis de Sales, into the
feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which however was not celebrated
until 1672, in the congregation of religious founded by St. John
Eudes.
Of all the schools of devotion, the French one is no doubt that
which bears the strongest national stamp. National individuality is
however clearly marked in all the various schools including the
250 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
English school, ranging from Thomas More to Persons, Southwell,
and Crashaw, which will be dealt with later. But the differences
even the French anti-humanistic reaction are insignificant by the
side of the essential likeness. All the schools were agreed in stressing
the fact that the mystical life and moral life are intimately related,
that there are no raptures independent from righteous conduct, and
that mere emotion and feeling are to be distrusted and avoided; that
acts of virtue are the due preparation for mystical experiences, no less
than their immediate consequence; that ecstasies are a gratuitous
gift from God, not to be strained after, but only accepted when they
come, and that in their absence, and in states of spiritual drouth, the
only thing to do is to persevere in utter compliance with God's
behests; that though love of God be at the root of all spiritual life,
such love is not so much manifested by motions of the heart, as by
the exercise of the obedient will. Add to this that, in every case, the
ascetical and mystical writers of the various schools utilized their
experiences and directed their teachings so as to lead towards the
betterment of the religious orders, or the laity, or the secular clergy.
From all this there emerges a body of spiritual doctrine which may
truly be said to have been one of the foundations of the Catholic
Reformation.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The sources for the above chapter are first and ioremost the devo-
tional works mentioned in the text. The Works ot St. Teresa are found
in Spanish editions: Las obras de la madre Teresa de Jesus (Madrid,
1607); Las obras de la santa madre Theresa de Jesus (Antwerp, 1649)
and in translations: English translations by Abraham Woddhead (1669);
of the Life, by John Dal ton (1851), by David Lewis (1870); of the
Foundations, by the same (1871). The most up-to-date critical edition is
the French translation by the Carmelites of Pans, Oeuvres completes de
Saintes Thertse de Jesus, traductwn nouvelle par Ics Carmelites du
premier monastere de Pans, avec la collaboration dc Mgi Manuel Mane
Polit, evequc de Cuenca (Equateur), torn. I-V (Pans, Beauchesne, 1907-
1911), the prefaces of which should be consulted. The standard text-book
on which the above pages are largely based is the excellent work of the
Abbe Pourrat, supeneur du grand Semmaire de Lyon, La spintualite
chretienne, III, Les temps modernes, lere partie, De la Renaissance au
jansemsme (Paris, Lecoffre, s.d.), which provides an exhaustive study
of the whole subject. For the philosophy and the sources of St. Teresa's
devotion, see J. D. Berrueta and Jacques Chevalier,. Sainte Therese et la
vie mystique (Paris, Dcmoel et Steele, s.d.). For St. John of the Cross,
PIETY AND MYSTICISM 251
see Jean Baruzi, Saint Jean de la Croix et le probleme de I' experience
mystique (Paris, Alcan, 1924), the very able and complete work of a
wholly detached observer. The same writer has published the original
text of St. John's Aphorisms with a French translation, Aphorismes de
Saint Jean de la Croix (Bordeaux, Feret, 1924). Devotional conditions
in sixteenth-century Italy are fully described in the work of Fr. Pietro
Tacchi-Ventun, S.J., Stona della Compagnia di Gesu in Italia, volume
primo, parte pnma, La vita rehgiosa in Italia, seconda edizione (Roma,
Civil ta Cattolica, 1931). For St. Francis de Sales, consult the beautiful
thesis of Fortunat Strowski, Saint Francois de Sales, Introduction a
I'histoue du sentiment rehgieux en France au dixseptieme siecle (Paris,
Plon, 1897), which is full of sympathetic understanding. For both the
Salesian and the French schools, refer to the admirable work of the abbe
Henri Bremond, Histoire htteraire du sentiment rehgieux en France,
vol. I, L'humamsmc devot (2580-1660), Vol. II, L invasion mystique
(7590-7620), Vol III, La conquete mystique. L'ecole jran$aise (Pans,
Bloud et Gay, 1916-1921), which is both a brilliantly clever study of
devotional doctrines and a literary performance of the first magnitude.
The problem of direction of conscience has been tackled as a whole by
a Protestant author, Jean Daniel Benoit, in his illuminating work, Direc-
tion spmtuelle et protestantisme (Paris, Alcan, 1940), which may be
fruitfully consulted. Also refer to Vacant, Mangenot et Amann, Dic-
tionnaire de theologie cathohque, articles Saint Jean de la Croix, mysti-
cisme, etc.
CHAPTER XI
The Catholic Reformation After Trent
THE Council of Trent was indeed a turning-point in the his-
tory of the Church, and the scandalous conditions which had
prevailed in it till then were never to be repeated to the same
extent. The history of the papacy in the century which followed
Trent discloses a succession of grave, virtuous, and well-meaning
popes. True, intriguing had not entirely disappeared from the con-
claves; yet the cardinals sincerely tried to elect the best one among
them. The work of Reformation essentially that of applying, in-
terpreting, and developing the Trentme code was now proceeding
apace. The very setting in which this religious action was taking
place was now more favourable. Many international problems arose,
it is true, in connection with the spread of Protestantism and the
self-centred policy of the various European sovereigns; yet Italy
was no longer torn by internal wars, and the period was for her
one of peace and plenty. The moral prestige of the papacy had now
been restored; the Church was no longer hard pressed on every
hand and in danger of its very life; its position was now stabilized,
and it was able to take the offensive in its turn. Space forbids de-
tailed examination of the difficulties with which the successive
popes had to grapple in their struggles with the Emperor and with
the kings of France, England, and Spain. We must confine our-
selves to a brief rehearsal of the steps taken by each one of them for
the reinforcement of Church discipline and the strengthening of
Christian faith and devotion.
On the death of Pius IV, the bull he had issued to provide rules
for the conclave was duly complied with. Absolute secrecy was en-
forced, and all relations between the cardinals and the outer world
were interrupted. The saintly Cardinal Charles Borromeo exerted
252
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AFTER TRENT 253
a great influence on the deliberations which lasted three weeks, and
ended, on January 7, 1566, in the election of Antonio Ghislieri, who
was to be known later as St. Pius V.
The new pope was a pattern of monastic virtue and austerity. He
was born on January 17, 1504, near Alexandria, and had, from his
earliest youth, consecrated himself to the service of God. At the
age of fourteen, he entered a Dominican convent. He made his
profession in 1521 and was ordained a priest in 1528. For many years
he was a lecturer in philosophy and theology in the house of his
Order at Pavia. A strict observer of the vow of poverty, blameless
in his life and utterly humble, he refused to wear a mantle, and he
cherished personal cleanliness: "I have constantly loved poverty/' he
used to say, "but dirt never." Despite his humbleness, he rose to be
prior of his convent, then defmitor of the Order; and next he was
appointed inquisitor of the diocese of Como, at the time threatened
with the invasion of Protestantism. The difficulties he met with in
the discharge of his duties brought him into touch with Cardinal
Carafa, the rigid Theatine, who made him commissary general of
the Inquisition. When Carafa became Pope Paul IV, he appointed
Ghislieri bishop of Sutri and Nepi and prefect of the palace of the
Inquisition, then cardinal in 1557, and grand inquisitor in 1558. His
insistence on regular Church discipline kept him out of favour
under Pius IV; and his election to the pontificate was for him quite
unexpected.
His election was due solely to his virtues. He considered the new
dignity as a heavy cross, under which he might be crushed, and he
remained 4s pope the austere monk he had been before. He was
indefatigable in his work, even at the time of the sirocco. He ate and
drank little, and seldom allowed himself any form of entertainment.
Much given to walking, he was likely to tire out those who followed
him. He prayed much and fervently, to the point of tears, spent the
whole of Holy Week in meditation, and had a special veneration
for the crucifix. He took part in all religious ceremonies, and him-
self performed the painful pilgrimage of the seven churches, which
no pope of the Renaissance had ever been seen to undertake. The
feast of Corpus Christi, too, he observed with great devotion. He
cherished the truth in all things, and hated dissemblers.
Not gifted with ability, either for diplomacy or politics, he was
concerned first and foremost with the salvation of souls. In an ad-
254 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
dress to the cardinals, five days after his election, he observed that
the misbehaviour of the clergy had contributed not a little to the
spread of heresy. Let the cardinals reform themselves and their
households. If they did so, they would enjoy his favour and trust.
The prescriptions of the council should, the pope said, be complied
with exactly, especially as regarded the duty of residence. He
wished to establish peace between the Christian princes, to destroy
heresy, and to help in repulsing the Turks.
From the beginning of his pontificate, Pius V asserted his inde-
pendence and disinterestedness. He sent Dominican visitors to the
Vatican back to their convents. He kept free from the influence of
the Theatines and Jesuits. He held the cardinals at arm's length,
especially his nephew, Bonelli, whom he compelled to monastic
austerity. He banished another nephew, Paolo Ghislieri, and de-
prived him of all his goods, on account of his dissolute behaviour.
He enforced the most stringent legislation in Rome against im-
morality in every form. On April i, 1566, he proclaimed severe
penalties against those who disturbed divine service or broke the
Sabbath; against simony, blasphemy, sodomy, and concubinage.
Steps were taken to prevent excessive luxury, ruinous dowries,
games on feast days, and scandalous disguises at carnival time. Phy-
sicians were made to exhort their patients to receive the sacrament
of penance, and suspend their visits if they demurred. Despite the
outcry of those whose financial interests were threatened, all female
panders and notable courtesans were either expelled from Rome
or compelled to amend their lives. Adulterers of both sexes were
punished with public whipping, imprisonment, or exile. The Swiss
guards were obliged to marry or forsake their concubines. In ac-
cordance with the Trentine decree, the children of Rome had to be
sent to church on Sunday afternoons, and to be taught Christian
doctrine; while lay helpers were provided to assist in their catechiz-
ing. The charitable activity of Pius V was intense. In regard to art
he was no barbarian, though he insisted on the decency of the papal
palaces.
Pius V's reforming spirit was manifested in the choice of his
helpers, in the remodelling of the Curia, in the administration of
the diocese of Rome and the other Italian dioceses, in the steps
taken towards the education of the clergy and laity, in the enforce-
ment of monastic discipline. The pope made Borromeo his principal
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AFTER TRENT 255
adviser. When the latter had returned to his archdiocese of Milan,
his place was taken by his chief assistant, Niccolo Ormanetto, a
Veronese priest of the school of Giberti, who severely cut down the
papal establishment. The cardinals were reminded that their style of
life ought to be simple, and that they ought not to eat out of silver
plate. Those who were created by Pius V four in 1563, and the
unusual number of sixteen in 1570 were men of learning and
virtue, such as Jerome Souchier, the abbot general of the Cistercians,
or the Greek scholar, Antonio Carafa. Among them was the Thea-
tine, Paolo Burali, a man of exceptional saintliness, who, as bishop
of Parma, had created free schools, a seminary, an orphanage, an
asylum for virgins and widows, a refuge for converted prostitutes, a
convent of Capuchins and one of Theatines.
Pius V did his best to put an end to the abuses still persisting in
the Curia. Financial needs had led the popes to sell many positions,
and those who had bought them at a high cost tried to squeeze out
of them as much money as possible. The pope tried to put a stop to
this scandal. "Better starve than lose your souls," he said to some
officials of the Penitentiary, as he dismissed them. The Penitentiary
was wholly remodelled in 1569; its offices were no longer for sale,
and were filled with Dominicans, Observants, or Jesuits. Pius V
took his duties to heart as bishop of the diocese of Rome. He under-
took the visitation of the Roman churches, beginning with St.
Peter's; of the hospitals, women's convents, and prisons. He sub-
jected all secular and regular priests to an examination in order to
ascertain their fitness as confessors; and candidates for the priest-
hood had to satisfy the pope's vicars of their qualifications, while
future bishops had to appear before a papal commission. The use of
the ecclesiastical dress was enforced. The churchmen who resided
in Rome without valid reasons were sent back either to their dio-
ceses, to their parishes, or to their benefices. The same measures were
applied to the States of the Church and extended to the Italian
dioceses.
The Trentine catechism was at last printed by the publisher, Paolo
Manucci, and translated into Italian, German, and French. In 1561,
the improved Breviary was issued; it answered to the new spirit of
historical criticism, and many fables or dubious feasts had been re-
placed. The revised Missal was also sanctioned by a bull of July 14,
1570, and enforced upon all churches that had not had a proper
256 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
liturgy for at least two hundred years. Four of the Greek Fathers
were proclaimed doctors of the Church, together with St. Thomas
Aquinas, whose theology had been victorious at Trent. A special
Congregation of the Index was created on November 9, 1570. The
Congregation, entrusted with the interpretation of the council, con-
tinued its heavy work. It declared in favour of the validity of Calvin-
ist baptism. Pius V insisted on the universal enforcement of the
decrees of Trent. Decency and reverence were now restored in the
churches. Pious confraternities were encouraged, such as that of
the Name of God, which purposed to heal private feuds; that of the
Beheading of St. John the Baptist, which looked after persons under
sentence of death; that of the Annunciation of the Virgin, which
provided dowries for poor maidens.
Pius V loathed covetousness and rejected all proposals to obtain
funds for the Church by dubious means. He was disinterested and
generous. He forbade the preaching of indulgences for the benefit
of churches and hospitals. He did away with so-called confidential
simony, through which a benefice was taken in charge by a bishop
or cardinal in the name of a person under canonical age, sometimes
a mere baby, until he should be able to occupy it; which was tanta-
mount to hereditary succession.
Lastly, Pius V made strenuous efforts towards the moral im-
provement of the secular and regular clergy. He supported the work
of such popular missionaries as John of Avila in Spain, or Alessandro
Sauli in Corsica. The Cistercian Order had fallen into great decay;
its Italian monasteries were deserted or occupied by other orders, its
churches were falling to ruin. A bull of March 8, 1570, compelled the
commendatory abbots to leave in their convents a sufficient number
of religious, to provide for their needs, and to repair ruinous build-
ings. The pope dared not abolish the tenure of abbeys in commen-
dam, which was widely spread, especially in France. But he sup-
pressed the Order of the Umiliati, who, forgetful of their origins,
offered a luxurious abode and life to the nobility of Lombardy. Pius
V was eager to correct abuses among the Spanish Franciscans, and
enrolled all the unreformed Conventuals among the Observants.
The same process was applied to the other Spanish, Portuguese, and
Netherlandish orders in which there were Conventuals and Obser-
vants, such as the Benedictines, Cistercians, Dominicans, Augustin-
ian hermits, and Carmelites. The Franciscans as a whole soon fol-
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AFTER TRENT 257
lowed suit, and drafted new constitutions at their general chapter
of 1568.
About that time the pope launched forth a general reform of all
religious orders, which he wanted to recall to their pristine purity,
and especially to the observance of the vow of poverty. "All religious
life," he said, "is ruined by private property." He limited to a short
term of time the office of the superiors, and compelled them to give
up their lordly style of life and share in the privations of the reli-
gious, which made their charges less desirable for the ambitious. A
minimum age of nineteen was prescribed for the taking of vows in
several orders, while monks were forbidden to wander about in
search of monasteries suited to their taste. The dausura was enforced
in women's convents, even where it had never existed or had fallen
into disuse. Lastly several new or reformed orders were created
under Pius V. St. Peter of Alcantara (1499-1562) founded in Spain
a severer branch of the Observants, which later spread to the other
Franciscan provinces. We have already mentioned the Carmelite
reform effected by St. Teresa of Jesus. St. John of God founded the
Brothers of Mercy for the service of the sick in hospitals. On the
whole, though Pius V met with great difficulties in Spain and in the
Empire, and though he did not succeed in bringing England and
Scotland back to the Fold, his pontificate, which culminated in the
victory of Lepanto over the Turks (October 7, 1571), was a par-
ticularly fruitful one, in which the principles laid down at Trent
began to pass into fact.
The work of enforcing the Trentine legislation was taken up
anew when Cardinal Ugo Boncompagm was elected Pius V's suc-
cessor, and became Pope Gregory XIII after a conclave of one day's
duration, on May 12, 1572. Born at Bologna, on January i, 1502, he
had studied and then taught law with great success at trie university
of his native town. He came to Rome in 1539, and began his career
as an official in the Curia, in which he occupied several legal, ad-
ministrative, and diplomatic posts under Paul III and Paul IV. He
was also in favour with Pius IV and had the closest personal rela-
tions with Borromeo, who brought about in him an actual conver-
sion to the reforming spirit. He was active at Trent and enjoyed the
trust of Pius V. It had been thought that he would relax the severity
258 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
of the latter, but any hopes in that direction were disappointed as
soon as he began to create new dignitaries. Under the influence of
Borromeo he made one of the latter's helpers, Cardinal Tolomeo
Galli, Secretary of State. He showed no favour to his nephews or to
the sons he had had before his priesthood. He was an indefatigable
worker, a frugal eater, an austere and devout worshipper, a man of
unbounded generosity. One of the coins minted under his ponti-
ficate bears the inscription "God is love." He used to help, with his
gifts, widows and orphans, marriageable maidens, regular and sec-
ular clerics, scholars, and converted Jews.
He was gifted with great practical sense and was a born organizer.
He improved the system of government of the Church by creating
new congregations of cardinals, notably for reform m general, for
the reform of canon law, for the reform of the ceremonial, and for
the new edition of Holy Scripture. He considered Pius V's orders
enforcing compliance with the decrees of Trent to be irrevocable.
That they might be applied, a committee of cardinals was created,
which included the most rigid reformers: Borromeo, Paleotto, Aldo-
brandmi, Burali. Abuses die hard; and the ever-recurring work of
correction falls under the same heads as in the previous pontificate.
Residence was again made compulsory; non-resident cardinals were
deprived of their bishoprics. The pope refused to sanction the ap-
pointment of bishops by temporal sovereigns, unless the candidates
were fully qualified. The foundation of diocesan seminaries was
prescribed everywhere. The virtues recommended to the bishops
were prudence, charity and patience. They were urged to hold visi-
tations, but also to proceed considerately, and mildly.
The pope's reforming activity was supported by that of Cardinal
Borromeo in his archdiocese of Milan. He held numerous provincial
and diocesan councils, in which the Trentine legislation was com-
pleted and made more precise. .Their decrees were embodied in a
book known as the Acts of the Church of Milan, which was pub-
lished in 1582 and broadcast throughout Europe, where it served as
a prototype for the decisions of other ecclesiastical assemblies. The
archdiocese of Milan was a very large one, with a population of
nearly 900,000 inhabitants. Ignorance and immorality flourished
freely there. A number of priests did not know the words of abso-
lution; many laymen were ignorant of the Pater noster. There were
dances in the churches and women's convents. In order to amend
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AFTER TRENT 259
this state of things, Borromeo cut up his archdiocese into six districts,
over which he placed capable priests, who met frequently to adjust
their views and make proposals to their chief. A number of semi-
naries, schools, and colleges were created. The results obtained were
astonishing. Borromeo congratulated himself, in 1566, on the fact
that his flock "were persuaded . . . that all must henceforth embrace
a new life."
A similar state of things obtained in Rome. In 1576, the great
Spanish canonist, Martin Azpilcueta, deemed that of all the Euro-
pean cities, it was Rome which gave the strongest impression of
moral renovation: "For centuries past," he said, "there has not been
a college of cardinals so blameless, pious, prudent, righteous, chaste
and learned." There was much progress also among the religious
orders, though we cannot dwell at length on the steps taken by
Gregory XIII to restore discipline among them, or to support such
reformers as St. Teresa of Jesus and St. Philip Nen.
The moral improvement of the clergy of all nations was largely
due to the foundation of residential colleges in Rome, which were
entrusted to the Society of Jesus. The German college was endowed
and created in 1573. One year later, it housed ninety-four students,
from all the German dioceses. A Hungarian college followed in
1578. Gregory had subsidized the college founded at Douai in
Flanders by exiles from England. In 1579, he founded at Rome the
English college, where the number of alumni soon rose to seventy.
A Greek college had come into existence two years before, for
Catholics of the Eastern rite. Add to this again a Maronite and an
Armenian college, and one for converts from Islam or Judaism. The
central teaching institution for all these was the Roman college
properly so-called, which was accommodated in new buildings in
1565, and became the Gregorian University, where Suarez, Bellar-
mine, and many other illustrious scholars lectured.
Gregory XIII, himself a learned man, did his best to help in the
advancement of science. He established a printing press for Eastern
languages, and augmented the Vatican library. It is hardly necessary
to recall his reform of the calendar. On the whole, this generous
and cultured pope, by providing extensive means of education for
the clergy and laity, and by helping in the development of learning,
completed the work of his predecessor, the rigid disciplinarian,
Pius V.
260 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
The next pope, Sixtus V, was a commanding personality, and
one who has given rise to much debate and contention both during
his lifetime and afterwards. He was born on December 13, 1521, of a
family of poor peasants. In his childhood he was occupied in humble
farm-work: hence the legend that he was a swineherd by trade. His
maternal uncle, Fra. Salvatore, a Franciscan Conventual, took the
boy under his protection, brought him to his convent to live with
him, and educated him very strictly. Young Felice he had been
so called from a dream of his parents, in which he was seen to wear
the tiara was eager to become a Franciscan himself, and joined
the Order at the age of twelve. He threw himself into his duties as a
religious with characteristic ardour, became a learned theologian
and a fiery preacher, in which capacity he met with great success in
Rome from 1552 onwards. He came into touch with reforming
circles, and made the acquaintance of Ignatius Loyola, Philip Nen,
the Capuchin Felice da Cantalice, and Cardinal Carafa. After a
difficult period during which he met with opposition as an inquisi-
tor in Venice, he was made procurator-general of his Order in Rome.
Then his patron, Cardinal Ghislieri, who had meanwhile become
Pope Pius V, made him vicar-general of the Conventual Franciscans,
and next bishop of St. Agatha of the Goths in southern Italy. On
May 17, 1570, he became Cardinal Montalto. He was in disfavour
under Gregory XIII, whose scholarly temperament could hardly
agree with his vehement character. His elevation to the papacy at
last opened a wide field for his impetuous activities.
Sixtus V was animated with the most ardent personal piety. His
note-book, which has been preserved, began with the following
beautiful words: "Prevent, we beseech thee, O Lord, our actions by
Thy inspiration and further them with Thy continual help; that
every prayer and work of ours may always begin from Thee, and
through Thee be likewise ended." He was sincerely and ardently
desirous to correct the abuses, which had never yet been wholly
uprooted, and were cropping up again. It would be tedious to re-
hearse all the steps which, following in the wake of Pius V, he took
to that end : the energetic visitation of all the churches, colleges, and
religious houses in Rome; the enforcement of the dausura in
women's convents, of residence for the bishops and even cardinals.
Offences were dealt with firmly: a monk and a nun who had had
guilty relations were both put to death. On one point, the reforming
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AFTER TRENT 261
work of Sixtus V was original and remarkably effective: he gave
new force to the order which made it compulsory for bishops to pay
regular visits to Rome, at intervals varying from three to ten years
according to the distance of their sees from the Eternal City. These
visits ad hmina awakened the bishops to a keener sense of their duty
and had immediate effects, especially in Germany.
Sixtus V took other steps in regard to the administration of the
Church. The college of cardinals was remodelled so as to become a
real deliberative assembly, the number of its members being fixed at
seventy, namely six bishops, fifty priests, and fourteen deacons. The
pope also realized that committee work was the best way of govern-
ing the Church, and therefore established, by a bull of January 22,
1588, fifteen permanent congregations, four of which were wholly
new: the consistorial congregation, entrusted with the formation of
new dioceses; that of the Segnatura di Grazia, which was to exam-
ine petitions and graces; that of rites and ceremonies; and lastly that
of the Vatican press. The congregations took over most of the work
up till then transacted in Consistory. In his creation of thirty-three
new cardinals, Sixtus V was actuated by no motives of selfishness or
interest; he appointed only men of virtue and integrity.
He showed favour to Camillus de Lellis (1550-1614), the founder
of the "Fathers of a Good Death," an association of infirmanans,
who bound themselves to give corporal and spiritual assistance to
sick people in the hour of death; and likewise to the Capuchins,
Felice da Cantahce (1515-1587) and Giuseppe da Leonessa (1556-
1612), whose apostolic labours and saintly lives had gained them
both popular veneration. Though he erected new tribunals of the
Inquisition, he was less severe m his dealings with accused persons
than might have been expected. He prepared a new Index which
was not completed. He was even less fortunate in his publication of
a new edition of the Vulgate, corrected by himself in an unscholarly
fashion, which he dared not make the official version of the Church.
Other incidents occurred under his pontificate, which made the
course of the Catholic Reformation less easy. Difficulties arose in
connection with the Jesuit Order, owing both to attacks from out-
side, and to dissensions inside the Society, which however in the
long run continued true to the tradition established by its founder.
The financial policy of Sixtus V was even more deplorable. He
wished to make the papacy powerful and independent, and there-
262 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
fore wealthy; and he went about this task with characterstic
thoroughness. He subjected the population of his States to heavy
taxation, and when this was not sufficient, he used more question-
able means. He generalized the sale of papal offices. An auditor of
the Camera had to pay 54,000 gold scudi, a cleric of the Camera
36,000. Knighthoods were sold profusely, too. In this respect the
correction of abuses suffered a definite setback. On the whole,
though Sixtus V continued the work of his predecessors to some
extent, he has been aptly compared to Julius II, for his action in
favour of the Church was political rather than properly religious.
Nor was the Catholic Reformation much advanced under the brief
pontificates of his three successors, Urban VII (September 14-24,
1590), Gregory XIV (December 5, i59O-October 15, 1591), and In-
nocent IX (October 29-December 30, 1591). It was only to be re-
sumed with Clement VIII.
With the seventeenth century, we come upon a period of compara-
tive stability and security m the history of the Church. The reform-
ing tradition is now established. Abuses, indeed, have not been
finally suppressed how could they be as long as men are men ?
but they are periodically corrected as they reappear. The adminis-
trative machinery of the papacy is now concentrated, simplified, and
efficient. The general atmosphere of Rome is one of piety. The
Church has not succeeded in establishing the theocratical sovereignty
over the temporal rulers of Europe which even such popes as
Clement VIII or Urban VIII aimed at; but its moral situation has
nevertheless been consolidated, and though it cannot command
obedience, it is surrounded with devotion and respect. The jubilee
of the year 1600 was typical in this connection. Three million pil-
grims flocked to Rome to take part in it. Under the successive ponti-
ficates of Clement VIII (1592-1605), Paul V (1605-1621), Gregory
XV (1621-1623), Urban VIII (1623-1644), and Innocent X (1644-
1655), papal policy developed on the lines which have been de-
scribed above. The popes, indeed, had much to do with temporal
affairs, in the period of the Gunpowder Plot, of the Oath of Alle-
giance, and of the Thirty Years' War; but they gave due attention
to the religious needs of the Christian people. The duty of residence
was severely enforced by the energetic Paul V. Even cardinals had
to leave Rome or to resign their benefices. The latter were chosen
among men of virtue and learning. Among those who were created
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AFTER TRENT 263
by Clement VIII were the illustrious convert, du Perron; the
learned Tolet; Bellarmine, the master of controversy; and Baronms,
the master of ecclesiastical history.
The revision and publishing of liturgical books was steadily pro-
ceeding. The Breviary, amended by Clement VIII, was finally put
into its present shape by Urban VIII; the former pope also issued
editions of the Index, the Pontificale, the Ceremonial of bishops,
and the Missal. The government of the Church was made firmer
and safer by the new legislation on papal elections introduced by
Gregory XV, which bound the members of the conclave to swear
that their vote went to the best one among the candidates. The older
religious orders were compelled to observe their rule and discipline,
the wandering about of monks being again proscribed by Urban
VIII. The same pope and Innocent X approved new religious socie-
ties inspired by an ardent devotional ideal: the Order of the Visita-
tion; the Noble Widows of Dole, founded to propagate the worship
of the Immaculate Conception; and the Brothers of Christian Doc-
trine, established by Cesar de Bus in 1592. That the work already
accomplished by the Catholic reformers might be officially taken
stock of and sanctioned, and popular devotion towards them fos-
tered, the most illustrious among them were canonized: St. Charles
Borromeo by Paul V; St. Ignatius, St. Francis Xavier, St. Philip
Neri, and St. Teresa by Gregory XV; while Gaetano da Thiene and
Felice da Cantalice were beatified by Urban VIII. Gregory XV did
much to promote grave and serious devotions that would work as a
healing balm after the Church had been so grievously wounded; he
prescribed the universal worship of St. Anne, fixed the feast of St.
Joseph on the i9th of March, and forbade unedifying denials of the
Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary. The period of the
Catholic Reformation properly so-called worthily closes with the
Jubilee of 1650, in which Pope Innocent X prayed with the crowd
m every ceremony, and induced the Roman noblemen to lend their
houses to strangers, so that Christendom, "as in the times of the
primitive Church," seemed really to be but "one body and one soul."
It was a comparatively easy task to amend Church conditions m
Rome, in the papal States, in Italy, and even in Spam, where Protes-
tantism had gained little or no footing. Even temporal rulers there
264 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
were convinced of the necessity of Catholic reform, and no resistance
was to be expected save from those who profited by the ever-
renascent abuses. But in Germany, in Central and Northern Europe,
it was a different affair altogether. These countries were divided
between Protestant and Catholic rulers; the prevailing religious con-
fusion and social chaos made it difficult to obtain the unanimous
support of civil authorities, while those who stood to suffer from the
disciplinary action of the Holy See immediately threatened secession
to Protestantism. In the circumstances, the first thing to do was to
appeal to the authority of the Emperor who was theoretically
supreme over most of Central Europe, and always protested fidelity
to the Catholic faith and to those among the feudal princes who
had remained true to the old religion, and persuade them to pre-
vail upon their subjects to follow their lead. The principle cujus
regio, ejus religio still obtained in the Empire; it allowed of sweep-
ing changes; and thus the history of the partial reconquest of Ger-
many by Catholicism is largely of a diplomatic nature. We shall not
dwell at length upon the missions of the nuncios. As a matter of
fact, however important their action might be, the mam problem
was that of education; for the Catholic Reformation could not be
continued except by princes and prelates who had had a Catholic
upbringing. Its foundation in the Empire and neighbouring coun-
tries is therefore to be found in the erection of colleges, and is essen-
tially the work of the Society of Jesus.
The abuses, which the Jesuits had set out to correct, provided
ample support for the Protestant revolt. This revolt, however, was
made a pretext for their continuation. To many, evangelical liberty
became a synonym for moral laxity. "The scandalous conduct of the
clergy," a contemporary says, "was the chief cause of sectarianism,"
and, according to a writing of 1561, many prelates and ecclesiastical
superiors took advantage of the new doctrines "to annex the wealth
of the abbeys, to marry, play the temporal lords and lead a joyous
life with the money of the Churches and of the poor." But it was not
merely among the favourers of Lutheranism that moral disorders
prevailed. Even where outward fidelity to the old faith was still
professed, the evils were quite as great. From Vienna the Jesuit,
Peter Canisius, wrote in 1564: "Young men no longer care for the
priesthood. From what I hear on every hand, in the space of twenty
years, scarcely have two students of the university been ordained.
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AFTER TRENT 265
. . . Unless God send workmen to his vineyard, the people will
become, I do not say merely heretical, but like to brute beasts."
"Prelates," the Jesuit Scherer said in a sermon, "do little to provide
with good priests the pulpits and altars of the churches entrusted
to them. They appoint the most incapable pastors, . . . that neither
preach nor celebrate, that are unable to administer any sacrament,
and lead such unpriestly lives that they scandalize people to the
loss of their souls. . . . The few books owned by religious are gnawed
away by rats, worms and dust. . . . Superiors . . . allow licence to
settle down in their houses . . .; they run into debt, they spend their
income in feasts and revels; they consider as their property what
has only been lent to them."
These abuses were largely due to the fact that bishoprics and ab-
bacies were invariably in the hands of noblemen, whom it was
almost impossible to call to account for their misdeeds. The same
reason made it especially difficult to reform cathedral chapters; and
yet they were in sore need of amendment. "Out of twenty-four,
thirty, or even forty canons," the Catholic controversialist, John Eck,
wrote in 1540, "scarcely are there five or six who are priests. I have
lately seen a chapter where neither the bishop nor the provost, nor
the dean were in holy orders." The Catholic flock as a whole had
fallen into a state of listless apathy. "It seems indeed," the nuncio,
Commendone, wrote in 1561, "as if it were our people themselves
who teach that faith is enough without works, so little desirous do
they seem to remedy present evils."
When these lines were written, however, the reaction against the
state of things which they depict had already set in for twenty
years. It was, at the outset, the work of three Jesuits, Peter Faber,
Nicholas Bobadilla, and Claude le Jay, the first two of whom had
taken a solemn vow with St. Ignatius in the chapel at Montmartre.
Peter Faber, who was born in Savoy in 1506, was already a priest
in Worms in 1540, at the time of the Colloquy. He also was con-
vinced that the prime cause of secession from the Catholic Church
was the corruption of the clergy. "One must wonder," he wrote to
St. Ignatius, "that the number of apostates be not even greater than
it is, for people have but too many motives to desert the old reli-
gion . . .; the true cause of the defection of so many towns and
countries ... is the scandalous life of our priests. I do not know
whether, at Worms, two or three might be found who are not en-
266 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
gaged in illegitimate bonds or given to other vices, and all this
openly. I hear- a voice at the bottom of my soul: 'Oh! if there were
only here two or three zealous workmen, they would do whatever
they wanted with this good people.' " In regard to his method of
apostolate, Faber thought that one ought to begin with the
amendment of morals, which would automatically be followed by
the correction of unorthodox doctrine. His Jesuit belief in action
appears here, as well as his optimism, for he wishes to persuade the
Protestants, who believe in the utter weakness of man, that with
the help of God, they will be able to perform the most difficult acts
of virtue.
The same ideas were shared by Claude le Jay, who came from
the diocese of Geneva, and whose centre of action was at Ratisbon,
while that of Nicholas Bobadilla, a Spaniard from the diocese of
Valencia, was in Vienna. Though their labours were fruitful, they
were only a beginning; and the Catholic Reformation in Germany
is really the work of another Jesuit, St. Peter Canisms.
Canisius was a Dutchman, descended from a respected and
wealthy family of Nymegen in Guelders, within the frontiers of the
Holy Roman Empire. Born on May 8, 1521, he was carefully
brought up at Nymegen first, then at the gymnasium at Cologne.
In the latter place he came under the influence of a priest from
Brabant, Nicholas van Esche, a virtuous man and a gifted educator,
who was wont to say: "One only thing matters: the service of God;
all the rest is mere illusion." After taking his university degrees, he
heard of Peter Faber, who was then reading theology at May-
ence. He came to stay with him and in 1543 performed the Spiritual
Exercises under his direction. From that time onwards, as he him-
self wrote in his spiritual testament one year before his death, "my
only and most important business was to imitate Jesus Christ our
Lord, and to follow Him in the condition in which He had pre-
ceded me, through being poor, chaste, obedient, and painfully
climbing up the way to Calvary."
His diary expresses a twofold ideal, both religious and patriotic.
"When I pronounced my vows," he wrote, "I thought I heard a
voice which said to me: 'Go and teach the Gospel to all creatures/ "
But on the same day, he felt that God had repeatedly recommended
Germany to him, and promised to work for her salvation. He
viewed moreover his adopted country as the chosen field of battle
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AFTER TRENT 267
for those of the Society. He deemed, too, that many of his new com-
patriots had erred in good faith, and even conformably with their
proper virtues. Hence they should be brought back to the Fold, not
through controversial debates, but through sweetness and edifica-
tion. In 1558, while preaching a Lenten mission at Staubing, he
never once uttered the names of Luther or of his disciples; and
through his moderation reaped good fruit. "Truth," he said, "must
be defended, charitably, gravely, soberly, sedately."
The aptest way to defend truth, indeed, was not the writing of
polemical pamphlets, but the foundation of colleges, to be used both
for the upbringing of Jesuit novices, and for the education of youth
in general. Canisius, who had meanwhile loined the Society of Jesus,
and had become the provincial of his Order for Germany, Austria,
and Bohemia on June 7, 1556, was enabled to devote his activities
to this purpose, even before the Council of Trent had begun to legis-
late on the matter. Thanks to his influence, Jesuit houses of educa-
tion were established m rapid succession. The first Jesuit college
had been founded in 1555 at Cologne, where studies had fallen into
a sad decay, and placed under the headship of John von Reidt, as-
sisted by twenty members of his order. As early as 1558 the number
of pupils had risen to five hundred. In 1560, the Jesuits were called
to Treves, and in 1561 to Mayence and Wurzburg. In Bavaria,
Duke Albert V was brought over to the Catholic side by the persua-
sions of Canisius, and henceforth a favourable field of action opened
out for the latter. In 1551, he was made vice-chancellor of Ingol-
stadt University. Here he endeavoured to bring back the students
to the frequent use of the sacraments, and every Sunday delivered
a Latin homily to them. In 1556, Duke Albert had a large college
built at Ingolstadt for the Fathers of the Society. Three years after,
he founded another one at Munich. In Austria also the foundation
movement had begun. A college had been created at Vienna in
1552; the number of students rose from one hundred and twenty in
1554 to five hundred in 1558.
Nor was Canisius content with the properly educational side of
his untiring labours: he continued to preach with great success in
Vienna, Prague, Ratisbon, Worms, Cologne, Strasbourg, Osna-
brikk, Wurzburg. A humorous compliment was paid to his powers
of persuasion when it was observed that his hearers sat out his
sermons, and even stayed on till the end of the Mass, instead of
268 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
leaving in the middle as they had been wont to do. The Jesuits,
indeed, did not allow the remaining German Catholics to indulge
their slackness and drowsiness, but made them fully alive to the
moral implications of religion. "Even those among the Catholics,"
Canisius wrote to St. Ignatius, "who think that the Fathers are
overdoing it, own that the poor and the sick heap blessings upon
them; that harlots become converted, that stolen goods are restored,
that many married couples, once at variance, now live on good
terms, all this thanks to them," so that "many Christians who had
long kept aloof from the Church return to fervent practice, and
many who were hostile have become friendly."
Canisius had anticipated the educational legislation of the Council
of Trent by founding colleges; he was no less of a forerunner in
regard to the means of teaching the Catholic faith. The Roman
catechism, the work of Dominicans mostly, was only to appear in
1566; but as early as 1556, Canisius published his first paedagogic
treatise, the Catechismus major, also called the Summa doctnnae
christianae, which was in the same year translated into German.
This work was meant as a counterblast to Luther's Greater Cate-
chism. In the same year again Canisius printed his Catechismus
minimus, intended for the very young, and directed against Luther's
Smaller Catechism. Lastly, a work of the same class for the use of
all the faithful was issued in 1558, the Parvus Catechismus Catho-
licorum t so that altogether a graduated course of teaching was pro-
vided for all ages and all degrees of religious knowledge.
The general plan of the Summa, which is the prototype of all the
rest, was as follows: the author first explained the Apostles' Creed;
then passed on to hope and trust in God, to the Lord's prayer and
the Hail Mary; and next to the commandments of God and the
Church, and to the sacraments. In the second part he discoursed on
sin, its nature and forms, the means to be used to uproot it; and
then came to the works of mercy, to the cardinal virtues, the gifts
and fruits of the Holy Ghost, the eight beatitudes and evangelical
precepts, ending up with the four last things.
Owing to superstitious practices in the Church, the Protestants had
a mistaken notion that Catholic doctrine made justification the work
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AFTER TRENT 269
of man alone. Canisius insisted, throughout his whole work, that
Christ alone was the beginning of our justice, of our strength,
knowledge, and piety. "It cannot be denied," the Summa says, "that
Christ has atoned for us, that he has reconciled us with his Father,
and that this spotless Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the
world, alone has been able to obtain forgiveness for our trespasses
and cleanse our stained souls." Though Canisius' Catechisms were
an exposition of Catholic principles, they were strictly non-contro-
versial, and contained no word of abuse towards his adversaries. The
powerful effect which they produced is clearly demonstrated by the
vehement denunciations to which they gave rise among the Protes-
tants. These did not prevent their success, and no fewer than four
hundred editions of the Catechisms, some of them polyglot, were
published in every country in Europe, and even in Asia and Africa.
It is largely thanks to their clear and coherent statement of Catholic
doctrine that the old faith was maintained or restored in Bavaria,
Austria, Bohemia, Swabia, Tyrol, and Switzerland.
However the work of evangelization would have been far more
difficult without the support of temporal princes, and in fact it is in
those regions where the civil power buttressed the Catholic Church
that progress was most decisive. We have already shown how, even
before Gregory XIII launched his diplomatic campaign, Duke Albert
of Bavaria had assisted the efforts of Canisius and other Jesuits.
"Our duty," Canisius wrote, "is to sustain the courage of Duke
Albert, so that he may, with a burning zeal, take up the defence of
religion on every occasion, neglect no means to have it respected,
and not suffer the commandments of the Church to be despised. . . .
When good examples are set from above, when religion and vir-
tuous manners are honoured at the Court, the whole of Society
feels the effect: such examples are never barren, and persons of all
conditions are drawn towards good." These words clearly show why
the Jesuits were so anxious to provide a Catholic education for the
great. However, they refrained from appearing on the political
stage, and Canisius considered it as a danger for their spiritual life
that they should mingle with court circles, and besought the Father
general of the Society, Everard Mercurian, to resist the solicitations
of noblemen who wanted Jesuits as resident chaplains. He was at
one on this point with Mercurian's successor, Claude Aquaviva,
who in 1600, in an instruction on spiritual diseases sent to all the
270 THE CVTHOLIC REFORMATION
houses of the Society, denounced the "courtier spirit," which should
be rooted out at all costs.
The turning-point for Bavaria occurred on September 5, 1564,
when Duke Albert, together with the archbishop of Salzburg and
other prelates, decided to observe all the decrees issued by the
Council of Trent and sanctioned by the Pope. Two kinds of
measures were then taken, the former of which are hardly consonant
with modern liberalism, but which, it must be remembered, tallied
with the current practice of the times, no matter what the religion
of the nation might be. On the one hand, drastic action was begun
against the "sectarian" press and "sectarian" education, young men
being forbidden to attend Protestant universities even abroad. On the
other hand, an earnest effort was made to Christianize such schools
as were allowed, apart from any needless controversial debates. The
school regulations of 1569 invite children to seek the salvation of
their souls "rather in Christian deeds, and in a sincerely pious be-
haviour, than in vain chatterings and endless disputes." The duke
founded a seminary m Munich for poor children, who were edu-
cated free of charge, and two seminaries for noble children at
Munich and Ingolstadt, and entrusted them all to the Jesuits.
The conditions and difficulties of the Catholic Reformation in
Germany are clearly illustrated by the events which took place in
the neighbouring territory of Fulda. This territory was under the
authority of the abbot of the Benedictine monastery of St. Boniface.
The population, especially the nobility, had been largely gained over
to Lutheranism. The chapter, the members of which had to be of
noble blood, was mostly composed of laymen; the four remaining
ecclesiastical canons dressed like secular priests, dwelt in private
houses, and were unable to understand Latin. The situation was
almost desperate when a young man of twenty, Balthazar von Dern-
bach, was elected abbot in 1570. He was descended from a wholly
Protestant family of Hesse. Where and how he had imbibed Cath-
olic principles is unknown, but as soon as he had become the sov-
ereign prince of Fulda he set about the work of reform with a firm
hand. He surrounded himself with new councillors, two of whom
had been educated in the Jesuit college at Treves; these in their
turn directed him to the Fathers of the Society, when he undertook
to found a college, in response to a request of his noble subjects.
Now the present is a typical instance of the effects of Jesuit educa-
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AFTER TRENT 271
tion in Germany. For this college, which opened on October 20,
1572, managed to survive all the vicissitudes with which Protestant
opposition beset the path of the prince-abbot; and eventually, when
after many long years he had succeeded in consolidating his position,
it was found that a Catholic generation had been brought up, which
quietly took possession of Fulda and restored it to the Church.
The problem was to sway the huge mass of indifferent or luke-
warm people, who might be gained over by either side. It was really
one of superior influence. Now Balthazar von Dernbach had to cope
with a very restive nobility and with the intervention of neighbour-
ing princes who had embraced Lutheran principles. His own chap-
ter was by no means willing to let him proceed with his reforming
schemes. He had demanded the immediate dismissal of concubines
by the priests who kept them, and had even had the "paramour" of
the dean arrested in the public street. Heedless of opposition, he en-
forced the clausura in the monasteries, visited a large number of
convents himself, restored pilgrimages and processions, forbade the
sale of Lutheran literature, and dismissed his Protestant servants.
The canons could not bear such a "hypocritical Jesuit" as a master.
They considered it as a violation of "old custom" that they should
be compelled to sing the Divine Office, assist at ceremonies, and
attend at sermons. Then began a strife which lasted for thirty years,
in the course of which Balthazar was assailed with petitions by the
local nobility and guilds, threatened and even bullied by neighbour-
ing princes, who eventually constrained him to resign his abbacy.
However, he was supported by Pope Gregory XIII, who induced
the Emperor to side with him against his adversaries. Meanwhile
the college was making headway; a papal seminary was added to it
in 1584; it was meant for forty young noblemen, for the Jesuit,
Lopperz, had convinced Gregory XIII that the future of the Church
in Germany depended upon the nobility. When at length Balthazar
was restored to his power and dignities in 1602, Jesuit education had
completely renewed and transformed the chapter, and henceforth
no further obstacles stood in the way of Catholic reform.
The same process was exemplified in many places in Germany.
From 1570 to the death of Canisius in 1596 and from that date to
the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War, new colleges, residences, and
272 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
mission houses of the Society were founded, at Aix-la-Chapelle,
Coblenz, Molsheim, Erfurt, Paderborn, and many other places. The
number of the pupils was everywhere high and increased rapidly.
At Wiirzburg, for instance, it rose from 700 in 1590, to 1070 in
1604. Special provision was made for poor scholars. Canisius had
made himself responsible for two hundred of these at Augsburg, as
early as 1559. The practice of keeping poor students free of charge
gradually became general. Congregations and academies were estab-
lished and soon flourished. The centre for all the Jesuit schools and
seminaries in the Empire was the German college at Rome. Its
extraordinary influence is testified to by the bitter invectives of
Protestant controversialists. Many of its pupils were young noble-
men who, instead of entering cathedral chapters as laymen, and
leading worldly lives, now took holy orders and became learned,
devout, and duty-loving canons. The Germanici were soon dis-
seminated throughout the Empire. Some of them were made the
councillors of bishops, or preached in the courts of princes. Many
others, "on Sundays and feast days, whatever the weather might be,
in the heat or in the cold, in wind, rain or snow, had to rush
about to three or four different parishes and to preach themselves
hoarse, never getting any reward but abuse." Several died the death
of martyrs.
Even the Thirty Years' War did not interrupt the steady progress
of the Catholic Revival in the Empire. It was manifested in the
attempts made to restore discipline in the monasteries that had till
then led an independent life, and had thus escaped supervision, by
uniting them in groups or "congregations," where they stood a
better chance of being reformed. The Council of Trent had at-
tempted to correct abuses in "autocephalous" religious houses by
bringing them under episcopal jurisdiction. The same purpose was
kept in view when endeavours were made in the early seventeenth
century to unite all the monasteries of Germany under the head-
ship of the Benedictine Abbey of Melk or Melek, situated in the
diocese of Passau on the Danube. The scheme dated back to 1460,
but had succeded only in part, and had been ruined by the appear-
ance of Lutheranism, which gained a footing inside the monastery.
In 1587, a new abbot, Caspar Hoffmann, was elected. He was im-
bued with the spirit of the Catholic Reformation, set about restoring
discipline and studies among his religious, and attempted the re-
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION AFTER TRENT 273
assembling of the German monasteries. In 1618, six Austrian abbots
gathered at Melk, and drafted constitutions for the new union.
These were accepted after Hoffman's death, in 1625, by eleven
German abbots. A project of general reunion was set afoot in 1630
by the abbot of Fulda, but was interrupted by the Swedish inva-
sion. The influence of Melk lasted on late into the following cen-
turies, and was destroyed only by the despotism of Joseph II.
In the neighbouring countries of Poland and Switzerland the
Catholic Revival proceeded much on the same lines. Nuncios were
sent and prevailed with the civil power the king in the former
case, the Catholic cantons m the latter to safeguard the interests
of Catholicism. In Poland, as in Germany, the higher clergy had set
an evil example, monastic discipline was relaxed, and the sovereign
had to contend with an unruly nobility, which was attracted by
religious novelties. However, from the first, he enforced the Tren-
tme decrees, which were confirmed by the Synod of Piotrkow in
1574. Here again, the Jesuits were m the forefront of reform. Their
first college was opened at Braunsberg m 1565, and was followed by
those of Pultusk (1566), Jaroslav (1568), and Wilna (1570), later of
Lublin and Kalisch. To even a greater extent than m Germany, the
pupils belonged to the higher classes of society. Eventually the
whole country was regained for Catholicism.
Switzerland largely fell to the care of St. Charles Borromeo, whose
archbishopric of Milan included the three valleys of Ticmo, while
his protectorate extended to the whole of the country. Borromeo
was fond of the Swiss; he trusted to their sterling moral qualities.
He devoted much attention to them, made a visitation of Ticmo
twice, in 1567 and 1570, and on the latter occasion took in the whole
of German-speaking Switzerland as well. In the following years the
Capuchins were particularly active, and the reform of the Catholic
cantons was largely their work. They settled down at Altorf in
1581, at Stans in 1582, at Lucerne in 1583, at Schwytz m 1585, at
Appenzell and Solothurn in 1588. One of them, Father Philip,
preached more than seven thousand times.
The Jesuits established themselves at Lucerne and in the sur-
rounding cantons. Their sermons drew huge crowds, and Jesuit
priests were not numerous enough for the administration of sacra-
ments. In 1575, the number of communicants in the parish churches
of Lucerne was 300 only; in 1588 it had risen to 10,000, and in 1589
274 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
to more than 12,000. A contemporary report of the communal secre-
tary shows that a great change in public morals had taken place,
thanks to the influence of the Society. "Men," he said, "have begun
to give up drinking, dancing and gambling. ... At night mas-
querades and fancy dress parades are done away with. . . . Public
women are banished and many have taken a vow of chastity. . . .
There has been a marvellous change in the public life of all classes."
Thus was the Catholic Reformation, here as well as on the shores
of the Mediterranean, a movement towards the moral regeneration,
not of the clergy alone, but of the whole of the Christian people as
well; and its efforts, not unparalleled by those of Calvinistic puritan-
ism, tended to chasten the barbaric brutality of the North, no less
than the pagan lasciviousness of the South,
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The above chapter is largely based, in all its parts, and more especially
in reference to the Catholic Reformation in Italy, upon Von Pastor,
History of the Popes; Vols. XVII, XVIII, XIX, XX, XXI, XXII. The
Catholic Reformation in Germany is very fully dealt with in Johann
Janssen, Germany and the Reformation, Vol. IV (1555-1580), and Vol.
V (1580-1618). For a later period, information may be obtained from
Mourret, Histoire de I'Eglise, Vol. VI. The subject of the Catholic
Reformation in Germany has been dealt with as a whole in a Protestant
work by Gustav Droysen, Geschichte der Gegenreformation (Berlin,
1893), third part, former half of Wilhelm Oncken's Allgememe Ge-
schichte. This work is comprehensive and informative, but bitterly
hostile to the Society of Jesus and to the "Counter-Reformation" in gen-
eral. For the Catechisms of St. Peter Camsius reference should also be
made to de Backer-Sommervogel, Bibhotheque de la Compagnie de
]6sus, and to an excellent article in the Dictionnaire de theologie catho-
lique of Vacant, Mangenot, and Amann, as well as to the Ada
Sanctorum.
CHAPTER XII
The Catholic Reformation in France
FROM the time of the Council of Trent, and up to the last
decade of the sixteenth century, France was a prey to religious
wars. The strength of the two contending parties was pretty
evenly matched, and thus the task of the Catholic reformers in-
volved a bitter struggle against Protestantism, as well as the reju-
venation of the old religion. Their position was akin to what it was
in Germany, and their means of action were largely the same: the
popes tried, more or less successfully, to enlist the help of the civil
power i.e., of the French monarchy against the Huguenots,
while various religious orders, and particularly the Jesuits, endeav-
oured to carry on apostolic work throughout the population at large,
and to bring up new generations of Catholics in their colleges.
Their efforts were remarkably successful, and when Henry IV
became a convert to the Roman faith, the Calvinists had been re-
duced to the position of a small minority. With the beginning of the
seventeenth century there opened for Catholicism in France a
period of peace and prosperity, in which the seed sown in a
previous age bore plentiful fruit. It was now possible to address one-
self full-heartedly to such reforming tasks as the breathing of a new
spirit into the secular clergy, and the performance of the works of
charity demanded by the social distress of the times.
However, though the Catholic Reformation in France was of an
unequalled spiritual quality, though it flourished more than in any
other country, it bears a peculiar stamp, owing to the fact that it was
not officially supported by the State. The Trentine decrees were
never sanctioned by the French kings, as they had been by the duke
of Bavaria and the German ecclesiastical princes; and thus what-
ever reform was effected was due to the efforts of the French Church
275
276 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
alone, and, even more so, to those of outstanding individuals acting
upon their own initiative; a state of things that will surprise no one
at all acquainted with French history, in which it has been fre-
quently reproduced.
The policy of popes Pius V, Gregory XIII, and Sixtus V, though
fluctuating, was governed by the same motive: they wished Catholic
princes to suppress Protestantism throughout their dominions, so as
to restore Catholic unity in the face of the Turkish peril. In the case
of France this policy suffered serious difficulties. The French kings,
Charles IX and Henry III, were Catholic at heart, but they had no
wish to allow Spanish supremacy in Europe, and therefore refused
to molest their Protestant subjects, or to break with Queen Eliza-
beth of England, who were their best auxiliaries against Spain.
Philip II of Spain, on the other hand, distrusted the French mon-
archy, especially when the Huguenot Henri of Navarre became heir
to the French throne; and he supported the rebellious and disloyal
party of the French Catholic League. The popes hesitated as to
whether they ought to side with the well-meaning, though wavering,
French kings, or with their more determinedly Catholic subjects of
the League. Hence an inextricable political and diplomatic confu-
sion arose. Under the surface of this the Catholic reformers slowly,
patiently proceeded with their apostolic labours, and eventually,
where others had failed to vanquish through force, succeeded in car-
rying the day through persuasion.
Here as well as in the rest of Europe, the initiative came from
Rome. The action of the latter was made easier from the fact that
as we learn from the Venetian ambassador, Giovanni Correro
the effect of the Huguenot uprising had been to tighten the bonds
between the French Catholics and the Holy See. Direct interven-
tion in French affairs, however, was difficult. When in 1566 Pope
Pius V urgently recommended to King Charles IX the publication
and enforcement of the decrees of Trent, notably on the duty of
residence, on the erection of seminaries and the correction of abuses
in the collation of benefices, he met with a refusal; though the
French government favoured the diffusion of the Roman Catechism.
The Trentine legislation, however, was applied in the French papal
dominions, at Avignon and in the surrounding province of Comtat-
Venaissin. Provincial synods were held at Avignon in 1567 and
1569, while the archbishop, Felician Capitone, ordered a visitation
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION IN FRANCE 277
of the whole of the territory under his authority. Meanwhile further
efforts were made to obtain the ratification of the Trentine decrees.
But when the assembly of the French clergy at Melun, in 1579, had
failed to persuade the king to grant this, there was no hope of
reformation left save by means of provincial councils. Such gather-
ings were held in various towns from 1581 to 1585, and through
them the rules issued at Trent were to some extent enforced.
The severe trials undergone by the French Catholics at the hands
of the Huguenots had had a bracing effect. It was a sign of the times
that the poet, Pierre de Ronsard, should have cast upon their side
the considerable weight of his influence. The dawn of the Catholic
Revival could already be seen, not in the secular clergy, indeed, but
among the regulars. The new orders began to appear m France.
The apostolate of the Capuchins, which started in 1568, met with
marked success. The general chapter of the Order sent a few of its
members into France in 1573. They were Italians, and, at the outset,
mingled chiefly in Italian circles. They settled down at Meudon
in 1573, at Lyons and Marseilles m 1574, at Toulouse m 1581, at
Rouen m 1582, at Verdun in 1585. Through their devotion in tend-
ing victims of the plague m 1576 and 1580 they gained the love of
the people, and also through their strict poverty, their solemn sing-
ing of the Divine Office, and their novel practice of decorating their
neatly kept churches with fresh flowers. The French king was
dumbfounded when one of the most influential men in the king-
dom, the brother of Cardinal de Joyeuse, joined their ranks a few
days after the death of his wife, and appeared at court as Father
Angel de Joyeuse, in coarse brown cloth and with naked feet.
The older orders, too, largely owing to Jesuit influence, had their
share in the rejuvenation of Catholicism. Pope Gregory XIII had
initiated a reform of the Cistercians m 1574. It was completed in
1580 by the abbot, John de la Barnere, according to the primitive
rule of the Order. In 1580, the exempt Benedictines of France de-
cided, in compliance with the directions of the Council of Trent, to
hold general assemblies every three years.
But the reform of the older orders, and even the missionary
labours of the Capuchins, pale into insignificance when compared
with the apostolate of the Jesuits. The part they played in preparing
the Catholic Revival in France can hardly be exaggerated. They
sowed the seeds which produced the magnificent harvest of the age
278 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
of Louis XIII. They understood, in France as well as in Germany,
that the essential point was to get hold of the young, and they
brought up a generation of great men who were to achieve distinc-
tion as reformers among the secular clergy as well as in the religious
orders. Their educational campaign was conducted by means of
their colleges. These were in fact far more than schools in the limited
sense of the word. They were centres of propaganda for all ages and
all classes of society. They provided the greatest scholars, preachers,
and theologians of the time with a shelter in which to proceed with
their literary labours and from which to issue forth upon their
missions.
As early as 1540, a small colony of future Jesuits had settled down
in one of the colleges of the University of Paris. But the foundation
of a special college of the Society in the French capital was due to
the efforts of a generous and worthy man, Guillaume du Prat, who
had been elected bishop of Clermont in Auvergne in 1529, at the age
of twenty-three. He had had to struggle against Protestantism in his
own diocese, and coming to the conclusion that his best weapon
was the education of youth, attempted to restore the decayed univer-
sities of Billom and Issoire. His counsellor, a Minim, Father Simon
Guichard, had known Ignatius Loyola and his companions at Rome,
and had been deeply impressed by them. At Trent, Guillaume du
Prat obtained information on the Society, and found it so agreeable
to his wishes, that he decided to create a seminary for it in Paris,
from which he might afterwards draw helpers for his own work in
Auvergne. He visited the Jesuit college in Padua, where he found,
in the words of Father Ribadeneira, union, peace, and happiness.
On returning to France in 1547 he went to Paris and called upon
the Jesuit students at the College des Lombards, and soon after
housed them in the residence of the bishops of Clermont, where
they settled down at Easter, 1550. Everything here was according
to the practice of the Roman college: the students' rooms were very
simple, a small hall served as an oratory, a space had been reserved
for a garden and for recreation, and at the entrance there was a
porter with a bell.
The college continued for a few years as a purely Jesuit com-
munity, with a few members only. However, it was soon to bt
transformed into an institution for the education of the young. New
premises were bought for it, though it retained the name of College
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION IN FRANCE 279
de Clermont, and the classes began on February 22, 1564. Soon the
college developed and met with the most striking success. In 1571
the number of pupils had reached three thousand, and it was nec-
essary to erect new buildings. Such prosperity was due to the
presence, among the teachers, of eminent men, such as Father
Venegas, the professor of humanities, and Father Maldonatus, who
held the chair of philosophy. The latter, in fact, was to reach con-
siderable fame, both as a theologian and as a preacher. He was a
Spaniard, born in 1533 in the Estramadura, and became, for ten
years, a student of arts and philosophy in the University of Sala-
manca, which had recently been remodelled on a classical basis by
Anthony de Lebrixa. Here he acquired a thorough knowledge of
Latin and Greek, and attended the lectures on philosophy of Francis
Tolet. Next he devoted four years to the study of theology in the
same university, under Dominic Soto, until finally he felt a vocation
to the Society of Jesus, and fled to Rome to join it. A few years
afterwards, he was sent by Father Lainez, the general of the Society,
to Paris, in order to establish the reputation of the College de
Clermont.
Father Maldonatus may be said to have directed theological
studies into new channels. He was indeed the true heir of the Chris-
tian humanists, condemning the abuses of decayed scholasticism, less
bitingly indeed, but no less firmly than Erasmus. The successors of
Peter Lombard, he wrote, having no heresies to contend against,
"laid down their arms, in other words, they neglected the Sacred
scriptures, the writings of the Holy Fathers and the ancient manner
of teaching theology. . . . They . . . employed their lives and the
faculties of their minds in inventing, proposing or solving an infi-
nite number of entangled questions, in order to evince the brilliant
subtlety of their minds." Insisting on the necessity of keeping close
to the Scriptures, Maldonatus nevertheless adhered with character-
istic moderation to the classical adage Ne quid nimis, refrained from
the excesses of pure scripturalism, and maintained the usefulness of
traditional theology and of true scholasticism as against false scho-
lasticism. He recommended to future theologians to read every
morning, after prayers, a passage of the Greek scriptures, and every
night, a passage of the Hebrew Old Testament. He himself spent his
whole life in studying ancient languages: Greek, Hebrew, Syriac,
Chaldean, and Arabic, as well as all the accessory sciences which
280 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
help in the interpretation of history. Unfortunately he did not live
long enough to express his views on the whole of Scripture; and
before he died in 1583 he had time to write no more than his Com-
mentaries on the Four Gospels, which were printed at least twenty
times in the course of the seventeenth century.
Maldonatus lectured for many years at the College de Clermont,
but he did so only in the midst of the greatest difficulties, meeting
with the most stubborn opposition on the part of the adversaries of
the Jesuits: the University of Paris and especially the faculty of
theology or Sorbonne. The latter was imbued with a strongly Gal-
lican spirit, remained true to the conciliarist tradition, and looked
askance at papal authority and its supporters. They sought every
possible means of tripping up Maldonatus and putting an end to
his lectures and preaching, finding fault with his theological teach-
ing. Whereas they considered the Immaculate Conception of the
Virgin Mary as an article of faith, the Jesuit professor had taken
exception to such an absolute attitude. He had also declared that
he would readily embrace the opinion of those who thought that
the pains of purgatory possibly extended to no further than ten
years' duration. He was therefore denounced by the four faculties
for heretical teaching, with which the Sorbonne charged him in a
letter to Pope Gregory XIII, dated August, 1575. Their real griev-
ances appear from the reply that was made to them by the Jesuit
provincial, Father Mathieu, on August 19. They took exception, he
wrote, to the "particular vow" through which those of the Society
bound themselves "to uphold the power of the Sovereign Pontiff
above that of the council," and sought "to establish the authority of
the pope on the ruins of the liberties of; the Gallican Church."
Father Mathieu agreed to the charge, and showed that while main-
taining the supreme power of the Holy See, the Society purposed
the reformation of the clergy. "We compel," he said, "to the recita-
tion of the divine office all those who have received sacred orders,
and those who are provided with some benefice; whereas those of
the Sorbonne enforce the fulfillment of that duty upon priests only;
we disapprove of pensions imposed upon benefices without the per-
mission of the supreme Pontiff; they approve and allow of
them. . . ." Such bickerings lasted on for thirty years, until the
Society, as we shall see, was driven out of France.
Meanwhile new colleges had been springing up in many places.
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION IN FRANCE 281
In 1553, the plague having appeared in Paris, Msgr. du Prat asked
the members of the community of the Hotel de Clermont to come to
Auvergne to proceed with their apostolic work there. Two Fathers,
Jerome Le Bas and Jacques Morel, came accordingly, and evangel-
ized the summer residence of the bishop at Beauregard PEveque
and the surrounding country, then the hospital at Clermont. Their
popularity increased the wish of the Auvergnat people for a college
of the Society. The bishop of Clermont appealed to Ignatius
Loyola for a foundation, for which he thought no place would be
better suited than the ancient university town of Billom. The col-
lege was inaugurated on July 26, 1556, eight years before that of
Paris, and was thus the first educational establishment of the Jesuits
in France.
The building of new premises was begun in 1559, together with
that of a chapel, in which Msgr. du Prat, who had meanwhile died
in 1560, was buried. Other foundations followed in rapid succession:
at Tournon (1560-1562), at Rodez (1561-1562), at Mauriac in Au-
vergne and Toulouse (1563-1564), at Avignon (1565-1570), at Cham-
bery and Lyons (1575-1576), at Verdun (1572), at Nevers and
Bordeaux (1572), at Bourges (1575), at Dijon (1581), at Eu (1582),
at Dole (1583), at Le-Puy-en-Velay (1588), at Auch (1589), at Peri-
gueux (1592), while a Jesuit university was created at Pont-a-Mous-
son (1575). Soon after an untoward event provided the adversaries
of the Society with the long-awaited opportunity of getting rid of it.
The murder of King Henry IV was attempted, on December 27,
1594, by one Jean Chastel, who happened to have been a pupil in
philosophy for two years at the College de Clermont. This was
deemed a sufficient reason by the Parliament of Paris to turn the
Jesuits out of the capital and the other towns where they had col-
leges. The eviction was conducted in a brutal manner, and the
Society was only to be brought back by the edict of Rouen, issued
by King Henry IV on September i, 1603.
Meanwhile the missionary work of the Jesuits throughout the
provinces had met with the most extraordinary success, not merely
on account of its theological quality, but also because it was accom-
panied by works of charity in favour of the destitute, the sick, and
prisoners. Father Edmund Auger preached to packed congregations
at Toulouse in 1566, 1567, and 1570; in Paris and at Lyons in 1567;
in Lyons he established a society of pious ladies, to visit the hos-
282 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
pitals twice a week; at Toulouse he founded the Confraternity of
Mercy, for the relief of prisoners. At Dieppe the vicinity of England
had greatly favoured the spread of Protestantism; all the churches
had been destroyed save one, which had been defaced. At the end
of a five days' course of sermons by Father Anthony Possevin (or
Possevinus), out of the six thousand Huguenots in the town, two
thousand five hundred returned to the Catholic Fold; and thousands
more were converted by his successor, Father Oliver Manare. At
Marseilles Father Possevin obtained striking results in 1568, through
getting all the confessors to deal uniformly with their penitents:
the profits of usury were refunded, Sundays began to be kept, and
pious processions took the place of scandalous dances and feasts.
The Jesuit devoted much of his activity to the spiritual care of the
three thousand galley slaves in the port, who were until then wholly
forsaken, and obtained the liberation of one hundred and sixty
among them. Some years later, two Jesuits sealed their apostolate
with their blood.
Father James Sales, one of these victims, had been born in 1556.
He was brought up at Beauregard PEveque, in a school founded
by Msgr. du Prat, at the college of Billom, and at the university of
Pont-a-Mousson, where he became a professor of theology. Being
sent on to the university of Tournon, he was dispatched for a
mission to the Protestant centre of Aubenas, together with Brother
William Saultemouche. Sales' preaching there was successful, but
both Jesuits were captured in the course of a Huguenot raid upon
the town, and, having refused to abjure the Eucharist, were put
to death on February 7, 1593. Their case is a typical instance of
life in and around the Jesuit colleges a mingling of scholarly
work and brave missionary labours. The latter were greatly assisted
by the appearance of the two Catechisms of Father Auger, which
were parallel to those of Canisius, and had a similar effect. As
early as 1570, the nunzio, Frangipam, was able to announce to the
pope that a veritable Catholic revival was taking place in France,
and that the churches were crowded as they had not been for years.
The seventeenth century in France has been rightly termed le
grand siecle. Yet if one refers, not to the wordly splendour of the
French monarchy but to the spiritual life of the Church, it is the
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION IN FRANCE 283
earlier half of the century which deserves the name, not the age of
Louis XIV, but that of Louis XIII, of Richelieu, Pierre de Berulle,
Olier, St. Vincent de Paul, and Pierre Corneille. Now, it is no
exaggeration to say that the ground was mostly prepared for this
revival between 1550 and 1600 by the Society of Jesus. One cannot
help being struck by the fact that such leading figures as St. Francis
de Sales, Peter de Berulle, Olier, and Peter Corneille had all been
pupils of Jesuit colleges. At the same time, though the work of
the Society was far from finished by 1600, the task of reforming
the Church was not so exclusively in its hands after that date as
it had been before. Other activities developed, independent of it
activities fed at the springs of Italian and Spanish devotion, yet in
which the original temper of the French nation was nevertheless
reflected.
However, the part played by the Society remained a very im-
portant one. A Jesuit, Father Coton, became the confessor of King
Henry IV, and the preceptor of his son, the future Louis XIII,
doing much to Christianize the interior politics of France. As a
consequence of the Edict of Rouen the Jesuits again occupied the
colleges from which they had been expelled: at Dijon, Lyon,
Bourges, Billom, Mauriac. At the same time the foundation move-
ment continued apace right through the first half of the seventeenth
century. Between 1606 and 1640, no fewer than forty-seven new
colleges were opened in France, while a boarding-school was added
to the College de Clermont in Paris (1608). The larger cities and
even many smaller towns vied with each other in trying to induce
the Fathers to settle down within their walls; and often they were
unable to comply with the wishes of municipal bodies which had
applied for houses of education. Meanwhile the Jesuit apostolate
continued much on the same lines, though the controversial war
with the Huguenots grew less all-absorbing.
Lastly the Society, and especially Father Coton, whose influence
upon the king was considerable, greatly helped in the reforming
of the older orders and favoured the enthusiastic movement for
the creation of new orders, which was then sweeping over France.
There was, towards the close of the sixteenth century, a devotional
school in Provence, of which the chief representatives were Caesar
de Bus and John Baptist Romillon. De Bus, born at Cavaillon in
1544, had been brought up piously, but having spent some time as
284 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
a courtier in Pans, came home to his native city as a fashionable
and dissipated youth, much given to elegant verse-writing. Thanks
to the efforts of a kindly peasant-woman, Antoinette, and of a
simple and virtuous hatter, Louis Guyot, who struggled to bring
about his conversion, he gave way to grace, changed his life, and
chose Father Pequet, S.J., the rector of the college of Avignon, as
his director. Romillon had been brought over from Calvinism by
a relative, who had given him Luis de Granada's Treatise on Prayer
to read, and, on the advice of the same director, studied, as a
grown-up man, with the children of the Jesuit college at Tournon.
Both became cathedral canons, and began to expound Christian
doctrine to their flocks according to the catechetical method of
Canisius. Wishing to extend their influence still further, they
founded, about 1593, the Congregation of Christian Doctrine at
Avignon. This "congregation" was a society of secular priests, who
were to devote themselves to missionary catechizing. It was later
cut up into two groups, one under Caesar de Bus which assumed
the character of a regular order and the other under Romillon,
which remained true to the original foundation. Cardinal Tarugi,
having sent to Romillon a description of the Roman Oratory, the
latter turned his fraternity into a new congregation, modelled on
the Italian society, which was approved by Pope Paul V m 1615.
It already numbered eleven houses when it was absorbed into the
French Oratory of Peter de Berulle in 1619. Father Romillon also
presided at the beginnings of the Ursulme Order in France, which
was introduced into Provence by Francoise de Bermont, and was
to number three hundred houses by 1699.
The Jesuits again played an active part in the foundation of the
order of the "Daughters of Our Lady" by the Blessed Joan de
Lestonnac. The latter was born at Bordeaux in 1566. She was the
niece of Michel de Montaigne, the author of the Essays, whose
intervention defeated the plans of her Calvinist mother and aunt,
who wished to win the girl to their religious views. Her brothers
were among the first pupils of the college of the Society at Bordeaux,
whose influence she thus indirectly felt. Having married Gaston
de Montf errant in 1573, she bore several children, and lost her
husband in 1597. Owing to the influence of the Jesuits, by whom
her two sons had been brought up, she applied for admission into
the Toulouse monastery of the "Feuillantines," the female branch
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION IN FRANCE 285
of the Cistercians who had been reformed between 1573 to 1586 by
Abbot John de la Barnere. Released, however, from her vows,
owing to ill-health, she soon felt herself moved to found a new
religious order, at the very same moment that two Jesuits of the
Bordeaux college, Father Bordes and Father Raymond, were seek-
ing the means of establishing a community for the education of
girls. The "Institute of the Daughters of Our Lady" was accordingly
created and approved by Pope Paul V on April 7, 1607. It followed
the rule of St. Benedict, but in regard to education, was constructed
on Ignatian principles. The classes, which were free, opened in 1609
at Bordeaux and were soon crowded; while branches were rapidly
established in eight towns of southern France.
More important still was the creation of the Order of the Visita-
tion by St. Jane Frances de Chantal. She was born at Dijon in
Bourgogne on January 23, 1572, of a deeply religious and virtuous
family. Her father was Benigne Fremyot, president of the Parlia-
ment of Bourgogne and mayor of Dijon, a man of absolute moral
rectitude and deeply devoted to the Catholic Church. In 1592, she
married Christopher, Baron de Chantal, and bore him S A X children.
He was killed in a hunting accident in 1601 and thereupon she
took a vow of chastity and consecrated herself wholly to God.
She was greatly perturbed in her mind, however, until she came
under the direction of St. Francis de Sales who wrote out a set of
rules for her, thanks to which she made rapid spiritual progress.
She refused a desirable marriage, and, feeling herself carried away
by the Catholic Revival round her, thought of embracing the life
of a religious. St. Francis, however, dissuaded her from joining the
Carmelites and enlightened her as to her true vocation: to found
an institute of her own. So on June 6, 1610, Jane Frances, together
with two companions, Mary-Jacqueline Favre and Charlotte de
Brechard, took possession of her first convent at Annecy. The con-
stitutions, which were drafted for her by St. Francis, differed from
those of the older orders, resembling those of the Clerks Regular,
and especially those of the Society of Jesus in two important points:
they did away with excessive bodily mortification, which as a matter
of fact might not be borne by women of delicate health, and re-
placed them by prayer and inward sacrifice. They required from
the Sisters that they should exercise an apostolate outside their
convents, through works of charity, such as visiting the poor,
286 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
tending the sick, assisting the dying, and teaching the ignorant.
The original plans of St. Francis and St. Jane Frances de Chantal
were, however, altered. St. Jane Frarces, who had come to Lyons
to found a new house of the Visitation, met with the opposition
of the archbishop, Cardinal de Marquemont. He refused to allow
the Sisters to leave the cloister in order to do work outside. He
wanted the Visitation to be a regular order in the traditional sense
of the word. The founders had to comply with his wishes. For
works of charity in the outer world, they substituted a life of
prayer and perpetual adoration within strictly isolated monasteries.
The final rules of the Visitation were penned by St. Francis in
1616. The Order was placed under the rule of St. Augustine, which
was supplemented by special provisions. It was to admit not merely
maidens, but also widows, and sick or crippled women. Bodily
asceticism was therefore reduced to a minimum. Fasting and night
choir duty were done away with, whereas mortification was prac-
tised by other means: the religious were to be utterly poor, to live
in common, cheerfully to bear one another's imperfections, and to
be constantly engaged in prayer. Utter obedience was due to the
superior, while one of the Sisters was entrusted with the task of
admonishing her of her faults. Each house was independent and
placed under the direct supervision of the bishop of the diocese.
The dominant features of the rules were sweetness, moderation,
and common sense. The Sisters were greeted in France with un-
common enthusiasm, and soon new houses sprang up everywhere.
Mother Charlotte de Brechard founded the convent at Moulins in
1617, while others followed at Grenoble, Bourges, Paris, Mont-
ferrand, Nevers, Orleans, Valence, and many other places. They
were soon to assume a different character. From the outset little
girls had been admitted into the convents, and allowed to share
their life. This practice was later to develop into the establishment
of boarding-schools. This, however, was not to take place within
the lifetime of St. Jane Frances de Chantal, who died on December
13, 1641, at Moulins. Ten years after her death the number of the
houses of the Visitation in France had risen to one hundred and
fifteen.
* * *
The Visitation, it may be said, had developed under indirect
Jesuit influence. There were, however, in France, other sources of
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION IN FRANCE 287
spiritual life, which had existed before the Society of Jesus and had
continued to exist apart from it. Thus the Capuchins among
them such prominent men as Father Archangel of Pembroke and
Father Benedict of Canfeld, both Englishmen played an im-
portant part in the guidance of a numerous group of devout people,
formed towards the sixteenth century, which had its centre in the
Paris house of Peter de Berulle's mother. Madame de Berulle, in
fact, sheltered in her home the future founder of the French Carmel,
Madame Acarie, whose husband; a notorious "leaguer" and opponent
of King Henry IV, had been sent into exile. Among the visitors
to her home were many persons illustrious by their rank and piety,
among them Michel de Marillac, the uncle of Louise de Marillac,
who with St. Vincent de Paul was to establish the Maidens of
Charity; distinguished ecclesiastics, too, came to her home, men
such as M. Asseline and M. de Gamache, both professors at the
Sorbonne, and M. du Val, who was to be the confessor of St.
Vincent de Paul and was to suggest to him the idea of creating
the Congregation of the Mission.
There was, of course, also Pierre de Berulle himself, then a young
man, but already engaged in the task of bringing over Protestants
to the Fold. His confessor was a Carthusian, Dom Beaucousin, one
of the most successful directors among the French aristocracy from
1593 to 1602. From 1594 onwards, Madame Acarie remained under
his direction, and he assisted her in the establishing of the Carmelites
in France. From this centre there radiated, in later years, the vari-
ous movements of the French Catholic Reformation, beginning with
the French Oratory, and ending with St. Vincent de Paul's Mission
and Mr. Olier's seminaries.
Just as Father Coton, S.J., had played an important part, behind
the scenes, in the political life of the reign of Henry IV and during
the minority of Louis XIII, so Father Joseph, the Capuchin, was
to become the adviser and friend of Cardinal Richelieu, the minister
of Louis XIII and the maker of modern France. His real name
was Francis le Clerc du Tremblay. He was born at Paris on
November 4, 1577, of an ancient and illustrious family. At the age
of five, at a banquet in the house of his father, he offered to relate
to the guests "how our Lord had been crucified," and did so in
such a way as to move all those present. In 1585, he was admitted
as a student at Boncourt College, one of the colleges of Paris
288 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
University, where he became a brilliant Latin and Greek scholar.
After completing his studies he lived for three years (1595-1598)
under the name of Baron de Maffliers, as a young gentleman of
leisure; yet religious aspirations were already uppermost in his
mind. He visited Italy, where he came into touch with the Theatines
and Capuchins, and then England. On coming home to France,
he joined the pious circle which met at Madame de Berulle's house
and fell under the influence of the Capuchins. Then, after a period
of hesitations and a struggle with his worldly minded mother, he
became one of them, at Orleans, on February 2, 1599. Meeting with
success as a preacher and director, he later became provincial of
Touraine, and finally began to mingle in public affairs. His inter-
vention put an end to civil war in France in 1616, when the peace
of Loudun was concluded between the king and the rebellious
noblemen; and he further prevented an assertion of the royal
position as against the. Holy See which might have developed into
a French schism. He then undertook to unite the Christian princes
in a Crusade against the Turks, but was unable to effect his purpose
despite six years of persevering efforts.
He represented a thoroughgoing Catholic policy, which purposed
both to deprive the Huguenots of all political power, and to bring
about their conversion through persuasion. Therefore he was, from
1622 onwards, even more than Peter de Berulle, consulted on all
affairs of State. His influence was such that he was able to regain
the favour of the king for Cardinal Richelieu in 1619. He after-
wards prevailed upon him to undertake the Beam expedition in
1620, and upon Louis XIII to lay siege to La Rochelle. He even
advised the building of the dam which eventually sealed the fate
of the town.
But he never lost sight of his Catholic apostolate. He established
numerous Capuchin convents in Poitou from 1610 to 1616, mostly
in the "towns of safety" left by King Henry IV to the Protestants,
thus laying the foundation for a mission in which he obtained
wonderful success. At Christmas, 1617, more than fifty thousand
people flocked to Lusignan to hear him preach; and many Hugue-
nots embraced the Catholic faith. In the case of Beam, military
action was immediately followed by a Capuchin mission, and a
monastery of the same Order was created at Pau. The same process
took place after the capture of St. Jean d'Angely by the royal troops.
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION IN FRANCE 289
Father Joseph also took much trouble to evangelize the besieging
army there and at La Rochelle. Nor was, his manifold activity
limited to the above tasks. From 1606 onwards he assisted in the
reformation of the older regular orders, the Benedictines especially.
He united his efforts with those of Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld,
who had been, on April 6, 1622, entrusted with the same task by
Pope Gregory XV. A reformed Benedictine Order, the Congrega-
tion of Saint Maur, had been approved by the Holy See on May
27, 1621. It was joined, thanks to the efforts of Father Joseph, by
all the abbeys dependent on Cluny and Chezal Benoit, the agree-
ment gradually spreading to one hundred and fifty houses. He
also helped the Bernardines, who were a reformed branch of the
Cistercians. He had been appointed by Urban VIII prefect of the
foreign missions on January 13, 1625, and was active in that field
until his death, which took place on December 18, 1638. Few men
have had such a varied and fruitful range of occupations.
Peter de Berulle also played a part on the political stage, and had
a hand in the negotiations leading to the marriage of Charles I of
England with Henrietta of France. But his sphere of action was
more properly religious, and consisted chiefly in the creation of the
French Oratory, which was to be the mainspring of Catholic
reformation in France. The new foundation was suggested to
Berulle by that of St. Philip Neri; yet he did not strictly copy it,
but altered it so as to make it fit in with the French temperament;
an alteration which was indeed necessary, since the Philippine
Oratory had never succeeded in taking firm root in France. The
name of the new congregation indicates prayer; and indeed, ac-
cording to its founder, the priest of the Oratory must be engaged
in perpetual orison. Berulle's main idea was to restore the dignity
of the priesthood, which was despised by the great, who often
considered the clergy as mere servants. Therefore the priests of the
Oratory were proud to wear their cassock. The actual foundation
took place on November n, 1611, when Berulle gathered to him
five other priests in a house of the Rue Saint Jacques in Paris, to
live there in common.
The Oratory was approved by Pope Paul V on May 10, 1613. It
was to embrace all functions and all forms of employment which
pertained to the sacerdotal condition: preaching, the upbringing of
clerics and future priests, and even the education of youth, which
290 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
was to be its main task in later years, despite Berulle's early mis-
givings. The houses of the French Oratory were to be wholly
dependent upon the bishops of their dioceses. Its constitutions pro-
vided that no vows should be taken beyond those of the priesthood.
Whereas the houses founded by St. Philip Neri, and those of the
Visitation, had each been independent, Berulle, true to the central-
izing spirit which was then prevailing in France, provided that
his Order should be governed by a superior-general, subject, how-
ever, to the confirmation of a general assembly to be held every
three years. The congregation soon directed its activity to the
foundation of colleges, which were to emulate those of the Jesuits,
and to scholarship, philosophy, and theology, in which it was to
attain great fame.
Even before the Oratorians came upon the stage, several attempts
had been made to provide suitable training for the clergy. Semi-
naries had been set up, according to the prescriptions of Trent, in
some twenty towns, from 1567 onwards. Most of them, however,
did not reach their twentieth year, for they lacked spiritual in-
spiration. The assembly of the French clergy again stressed the
necessity for seminaries in 1614, and was echoed by the provincial
council of Bordeaux in 1624. However, it was not the French
Church as a whole, but private initiative, that was at last to provide
the means of religious education so urgently required.
Indeed, the condition of the clergy at the beginning of the
seventeenth century was such as to justify serious concern. Numer-
ous writers bear witness to its debased moral and ecclesiastical
condition. "They were so ignorant of our mysteries," Courtin, the
biographer of Bourdoise, writes, "that some were met with who
did not even know Jesus Christ and could not say how many
natures there were in Him. . . . Many administered the sacraments
in Church clad in a doublet. . . ." Madame de Gondi, when she
went to confession, used to bring with her the written formula
of absolution for the priest to read, for fear he should be ignorant
of it. "The very name of priest," Father Amelote writes, "had
become a by-word. . . . The priests were seen but in the market
or in some low artisan's shop; their tonsure was overgrown and
they feared to wear their clerical dress, as providing matter for
public railing."
This was the state of things against which the Oratorians, first
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION IN FRANCE 291
of all, began to strive. They took over, in 1612, the seminary
that had been established in Paris by the archbishop of Rouen;
in 1616, that of Langres; in 1617, those of Macon and Lujon. But
they founded only one of their own, in Paris, in the Abbey of
St. Magloire. However, Berulle's worthy successor as superior of
the Oratory, Charles de Condren, and four of his disciples, Adrien
Bourdoise, John Eudes, Vincent de Paul, and John James Olier,
were to continue his work and execute his purpose.
Charles de Condren, born in 1588, had been, like Father Joseph,
a brilliant pupil of the Sorbonne. He joined the Oratory in 1617,
and founded the houses of Nevers, Langres, and Poitiers. Recalled
to Paris, he became the head of the seminary of St. Magloire; then
when Berulle dred in 1629, he was made superior-general of the
congregation. He died in 1641. De Condren was one of the leading
directors of conscience of his own time, and among those whom
he guided as such was Olier.
The latter's predecessor, Adrian Bourdoise, however, had earlier
come under the influence of the Oratory. His vocation was decided
in the course of a retreat which took place there in 1611 under the
direction of Father de Berulle. He was born of a humble family
in 1584 at Brou, in the diocese of Chartres. As a child he had to work
as a cowherd, until a charitable parish priest, a friend of his family,
took him in hand and taught him enough to enable him to attain
holy orders. From the age of four he had been "thinking of the
me^ns to bring into the Church priests that should take the way
to Heaven, while leading the peoples thither." He was tough and
bold in his manners, and has been called a new Elias, a second
John the Baptist. His ideal was to restore the parish and the
parochial spirit. He objected to private chapels, and could not
accept that a Christian should not be present at high Mass. He
deemed that a parish should be served by priests living in common,
like monks, in perfect poverty and humbleness. He considered the
secular clergy as holier than the regulars: "Monks, he used to
remark, save themselves through flight, and priests through fight-
ing." Now, "since good Capuchins or good Jesuits are the product
of a good novitiate," a similar period of training should be pro-
vided for secular priests. Hence the necessity of seminaries, which
ought to be diocesan, founded and directed by each bishop.
Bourdoise was unwilling to trespass on the province of the
292 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
hierarchy, and was content to establish communities of priests in
various parishes at Orleans, Chartres, Boinvilliers, Aries, Lyons,
and many other places, especially in the dioceses of Meaux, Senlis,
and Beauvais. Those communities purposed to provide future priests
with an initiation into their ministry. In 1618, his own community
of St. Nicholas du Chardonnet in Paris admitted young clerics to
train them; and, in 1619, it became a real seminary, which was
approved by the archbishop of Paris in 1631. "What we see in the
Church," Bourdoise wrote, "is now silver, whereas the past was
lead. But, O my God, in comparison to the gold to be wished for,
this silver is but lead,"
* # *
The first foundation of seminaries on a large scale was due
to St. John Eudes. He bore the stamp of the Oratory in an even
more marked fashion than Bourdoise. He was born in 1601, at
Ri, a small village of Normandy, the province to which he devoted
most of his labours. From his early years he had been struck by
the indifference of the clergy and of the faithful towards sacred
things. "Go to the houses of the great," he said, "and you will see
nothing there which is not clean and orderly. Go to the churches:
you will find sundry of them surrounded with rubbish, tapestried
with spiders' webs, paved with mud. O God, O great God, where
is the faith of Christians?" He joined the Oratory in 1623, hoping
that he might remedy such evils through the foundation of semi-
naries. The necessity of these appeared to him even greater as a
consequence of the missions which he preached, especially in
Normandy, from 1632 onwards. He used to strike the minds of
the people through the pomp and majesty of religious ceremonies.
There were also open-air meetings, at which immoral books and
drawings were publicly burned. Leagues were organized against
swearing, blasphemy, and duelling. The preacher's eloquence was
forceful, and equally removed from coarseness and preciosity. He
founded the Congregation of the Good Shepherd, for the uplifting
of fallen girls. But M. Bourgoing, then the superior general of his
order, refused to allow him to create, together with a few other
clerics, new seminaries. He then left the Oratory and established,
on March 25, 1643, a new society, the Congregation of Jesus and
Mary. No vows were required "beyond those of baptism and of
the priesthood," but the activities of the Eudistes were confined
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION IN FRANCE 293
to the upbringing of the clergy and the preaching of missions, the
former purpose generally winning the principal place. A general
organization of seminaries in France, suggested by St. John Eudes
to the assembly of the clergy, in 1645, miscarried. But new founda-
tions were to appear after 1650.
A further step in the same direction was taken by St. Vincent de
Paul, whose social and charitable work, however, also deserves
attention. His life was an exceedingly eventful one. He was born
on April 24, 1581, in Pouy, a small village near Dax in Gascony,
the son of a devout family. His childhood was spent in a rural
setting, and he began his active life as a swineherd. He afterwards
studied in the college kept by the "Cordeliers," or Franciscans, at
Dax, where he made rapid progress (1595-1597). Attracted to the
priesthood, he took minor orders on December 20, 1596; then,
after his father had sold a yoke of oxen and given him the proceeds,
he went to study theology at Toulouse. He was ordained priest
on September 23, 1600. A journey to Rome in 1605 filled him with
emotion and enthusiasm. Being called to Marseilles on business,
he was captured at sea on the return trip, by Barbary pirates, and
sold as a slave at Tunis. He escaped in 1607 an d stayed for another
year in Rome. He then came to Paris and chose Peter de Berulle
as his director. He became one of the chaplains of Queen Margaret
de Valois, the divorced wife of Henry IV.
It so happened that on the foundation of the Oratory, one of
the first disciples and companions of Berulle, Francis Bourgoing,
resigned his parish at Clichy, a village near Paris, and made it
over to St. Vincent. Although now a successful and happy parish
priest, he yet accepted the charge of tutor to Peter de Gondi, the
son of Philip de Gondi, general of the royal galleys. In 1617,
Madame de Gondi asked him to join two Jesuit Fathers from
Amiens in preaching a mission at Folleville in Picardy, in which
he taught the country people to make a general confession. That
mission determined his future career. He understood that tutoring
was not the proper field of activity for one who ardently desired
the salvation of souls. Hence he accepted from Peter de Berulle
the offer of a small country parish, Chatillon-les-Dombes, in the
Bresse, where he established his first charitable institution, the
"Association of Charity of the Servants of the Poor."
Meanwhile Madame de Gondi had made plans to place a fund
294 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
of sixteen thousand livres at the disposal of a community that would
preach missions on her estates every five years. Vainly had St.
Vincent sought to interest the Jesuits, Peter de Berulle, and Mons.
Bourdoise in the scheme. Failing in this he returned to Paris,
prepared a plan for the evangelization of the towns and villages
depending on the Gondi family, and immediately began to execute
it, establishing the "Charity" in every village through which he
passed. This confraternity had its rules, its hierarchy, its proper
functions. The sisters were to bring food to the sick, to watch the
bed of the dying, and to "love one another as being persons whom
Jesus-Christ has united and bound through His love." Meanwhile
St. Vincent had done much for convicts and galley slaves, and
was made on February 8, 1619, royal chaplain of the galleys. In
the same year, he became the superior of the first house of the
Visitation in Paris. But his mam creation was yet to come.
In 1624, he established the "Congregation of the Mission," in-
tended to preach first of all on the Gondi estates, then later in
the diocese of Paris. The members of the congregation were to
evangelize the countryside, to be wholly dependent on the bishop
of the diocese and the priest of the parish in which they were
active, to preach their missions gratuitously, and to be entirely
obedient to their superior. The congregation settled down in 1632
in the priory of St. Lazare in Paris.
Meanwhile Mademoiselle Le Gras Louise de Manllac had
chosen him as a director. On the death of her husband in 1625,
she became one of Vincent's auxiliaries in the organization and
multiplication of new "charities," and eventually helped him to
fulfil St. Francis de Sales' original purpose when he had created
the Visitation: to do charitable work among the poor. Together,
they founded the "Company of the Maidens of Chanty," on
November 29, 1633. The new Order was soon to take a striking
development, more than forty houses being established by 1656.
Vincent de Paul had long been impressed, in the course of his
missions, by the necessity of a reformation of the clergy. He thought
it impossible to correct habitually vicious priests; but conceived the
notion of retreats for ordmandi, to be conducted by himself. He
began at Beauvais in September, 1628. In 1632, the archbishop of
Pans, John-Francis de Gondi, struck by the idea, made it com-
pulsory for all clerics who wished to take priests' orders to receive
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION IN FRANCE 295
instruction for a fortnight on their duties and functions. Vincent
de Paul was asked to take charge of them at the Mission, and this
was afterwards made into a regular institution, a retreat of two
weeks being given at St. Lazare every year. Neighbouring dioceses
then took to sending their ordinandi there. St. Vincent's retreats
attracted the most distinguished men: John James Olier; the abbot
de Ranee, the future reformer of La Trappe; Bossuet; the Abbe
Fleury, the famous Church historian; and many others. These re-
treats spread to several French dioceses, where they were entrusted to
priests of the Mission, of the Oratory, of St. Nicholas, etc., pene-
trating next into Savoy and into Italy, beginning at Rome in 1642.
St. Vincent, however, did not think them sufficient and attempted
to provide for secular priests the equivalent of a novitiate, in the
shape of a minor seminary at the College des Bons Enfants of
Paris University, of which he was the principal. It was found, how-
ever, that most of the alumni left the college without taking orders.
St. Vincent, therefore, conceived the novel idea that better results
would be obtained by trying to exert an influence on already
grown-up men, from twenty to thirty years of age, who would
come as subdeacons, deacons, or priests. These then could be trained
for the space of one or two years in the practice of virtue and
prayer, in the use of the liturgy and ceremonies, in singing, in
catechizing, in preaching, etc. Therefore, with the help of Cardinal
Richelieu, he created, in 1642, at the College des Bons Enfants, a
"major seminary," side by side with the already extant "minor
seminary." In the following years several diocesan seminaries were
entrusted to the priests of the Mission: at Annecy, Alet, Cahors,
Samtes, Le Mans, St. Meen, Marseille, Treguier, Agen, Perigueux,
and in still other towns after 1650. In order to keep alive the flame
of sacerdotal devotion, St. Vincent organized regular meetings of
priests at St. Lazare from 1633 onwards. The Tuesday conferences
soon spread to the whole of France, and sent out swarms of priests
to preach missions in various provinces. They were to last on to
the French Revolution.
It is not possible to follow the development of all the organiza-
tions created by St. Vincent; his reform of preaching; his attitude
towards the reform of the older orders; his charitable work on
behalf of foundlings, beggars, prisoners, galley slaves, war victims.
When he died on September 27, 1660, he left behind him, in that
296 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
age of exceptional spiritual richness, the memory of one of the most
fruitful lives that have ever been recorded.
His work for the upbringing of the clergy was paralleled by that
of John James Olier, the founder of St. Sulpice. He was twenty-
seven years younger than St. Vincent, having been born on Sep-
tember 20, 1608, in Paris, and was the son of a councillor in the
Parliament of that city. His father became, in 1617, the royal m-
tendant at Lyons, where he now attended the classes of the Jesuit
college of the Trinity. At the age of eleven years he obtained a
benefice through his parents, but his keen and fiery temperament
seemed to make him unfit for the ecclesiastical state. His mother's
misgivings were, however, allayed by St. Francis de Sales, who
saw him in December, 1622. "Be comforted," he said to her, "God
has chosen him for His glory and for the good of His Church."
After returning to Pans with his father in 1626, he received new
benefices, including the Abbey of Pebrac in Auvergne. He now
studied philosophy for two years at Harcourt College, and then
theology in the Sorbonne. But, though a cleric, he led the dissipated
life of the Latin quarter, and his actual conversion did not take
place until he went to Rome to make himself proficient in the
Hebrew language. There, his eyes were affected with a disease,
which brought him on a pilgrimage to Loretto to seek recovery.
No sooner had he crossed the threshold of the basilica than he was
cured physically, and more than this, was seized by divine grace.
He returned to Pans a different man, took to preaching to the
poor in the streets of the city, and thought of becoming a Carthusian,
but a dream made him conclude that the state of a cure was
superior. He began, therefore, to prepare for the taking of holy
orders, took part in several of the retreats organized by St. Vincent
de Paul at St. Lazare, in 1632 and 1633, and was ordained priest
May 21 in the latter year. True to the spirit and directions of St.
Vincent, he forthwith undertook to preach a mission in Auvergne,
together with several "Lazarists."
On his arrival at Pebrac, where he attempted the reform of his
abbey, the mission met with marked success, and he enthusiastically
enlisted the help of several priests of the country. Returning now
to Paris he became acquainted with Father Charles de Condren,
who prevailed upon him to join the Oratory. He had preached
several missions in France, organized one to Canada, and undergone
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION IN FRANCE 297
severe spiritual trials for the space of two years, when Father de
Condren gathered to him in 1640 the missionaries of the Oratory,
and with them Adrian Bourdoise, in order to suggest to them the
creation of a seminary. After Condren's death, the missionaries
settled down at Chartres in January, 1641, in a house which had
been used in the previous years for retreats for ordmandi directed by
Bourdoise. They hoped now that young clerics would come to them
for training. The attempt failed, but the small company soon found
another abode at Vaugirard, a village close to Paris, where their
community began its life on December 29, 1641
They now established a "major seminary" for clerics only, with
a permanent staff, where both masters and pupils led the same life,
while serving the needs of the adjacent parish. Olier next agreed to
become the cure of the parish of St. Sulpice m Pans, that so he
might transfer his seminary to the interior of the city, accommodat-
ing it in two houses near his presbytery. From now on, he was the
superior of two communities: the college of priests serving the
parish and the seminary itself. He laboured for the conversion of
the Faubourg St. Germain, which was "the refuge of libertines and
atheists." Meanwhile he guided the spiritual life of his disciples,
and founded new seminaries m the provinces, at Nantes, Viviers,
Le Puy, and Clermont. To serve them, he created the "Company
of Saint Sulpice," housing his Pans seminary in new buildings
before he died on April 2, 1657.
We have had occasion to allude to the charitable work under-
taken by St. Vincent de Paul. He was not the only one in seven-
teenth-century France to try to remedy social as well as spiritual
evils. As a matter of fact, most of the missions preached in the
provinces at the time had a twofold character, and made for the
welfare of the people as well as for moral progress. We need but
instance those of John Eudes in Normandy; of Michael le Nobletz
m Brittany; of St. Peter Fourier in Lorraine; of Anthony Yvan in
Provence; of John Le Jeune, the blind Oratonan, throughout the
whole of France. We shall here refer, however, in some detail to
the missions of St. Francis Regis, S.J., the apostle of the Velay.
He was born on January 31, i597> at Fontcouverte,^ a village of
Languedoc. In 1612, he entered the Jesuit college at Beziers and in
298 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
1616 decided to join the Society of Jesus, into which he was ad-
mitted on December 8, at Toulouse. He was of a keen and loving
temperament, and later as a teacher had a lasting influence upon his
pupils. "He exhorted us," one of them was to say, "he enlivened us,
he set us afire." After completing his course in theology at Toulouse,
he said his first Mass at Whitsuntide, in 1630. His exceptional gifts
attracted the attention of his superiors, who sent him in 1632 to the
city of Montpellier, one of the main citadels of Protestantism. There-
after his life was wholly devoted to missionary labours. He organ-
ized charities, founded an association for the relief of prisoners,
pleaded with the Huguenots to induce them to return to the Cath-
olic fold and did his best to root out prostitution while finding
decent employment for fallen girls.
We cannot follow the course of all his missions, but he was active
from 1633 to 1636 in the Vivarais, a Huguenot stronghold. Penetrat-
ing into the deep, craggy, impenetrable valleys of the Cevennes,
where the wild mountaineers had neither priests nor churches, St.
Francis Regis would go into public houses to shame the drunkards,
and occasionally suffered for it. In 1636, he was called to Le-Puy-en-
Velay by Bishop Just de Serres, to help m mending the morals of
that town, which had fallen very low. Crimes were frequent, and
the very judges were corrupt. In the space of fifteen years forty
murders had been left unpunished. St. Francis began to preach in
the Benedictine church, where the power of his speech attracted
audiences of as many as five thousand people, and where all social
classes met to listen to him. He established the society of the "Ladies
of Mercy" to feed the poor, to clothe them and furnish their houses.
Despite opposition from the debauched youth of the town, he
founded a refuge for repentant prostitutes, known as the "Good
Shepherd." He next penetrated the surrounding mountains, where,
in the words of a parish priest of the country, "everyone was so
taken with his holiness, that all ran after him. They came from very
far to hear him. ... I have seen him preach, standing on a mound of
trampled snow, while neither he nor his hearers seemed to mind the
cold."
In 1640, a royal edict forbade the making of lace, which was
then the chief economic resource of the region. Forty thousand
girls were thrown out of work, but St. Francis foretold the repeal
of the edict, and was personally instrumental in bringing it about.
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION IN FRANCE 299
In consequence he has remained, up to this day, the patron saint of
lace-makers. Shortly afterwards, exhausted by his strenuous life, he
died on December 31, 1640, in the small village of Lalouvesc. The
veneration of the people for him was such that many towns claimed
his mortal remains, and even wrangled for their possession.
It should not be thought, however, that Christian social work in
France, in the early seventeenth century, was exclusively in the
hands of individuals. It appeared, as well, in an organized form, as
embodied in a secret society which has given rise to much historical
discussion and has been judged in widely different ways the
Company of the Holy Sacrament of the Altar. Its founder was the
duke of Ventadour, one of the leading noblemen of the kingdom, a
valiant soldier with the soul of a Crusader. He and his wife had
decided to consecrate themselves wholly to God, and therefore while
she became a Carmelite, he sought means to procure the salvation
of souls. The idea of the company came to him in 1627, and he
confided it, first to a Capuchin, Father Philip d'Angoumois, and
then to a Jesuit, Father Suffren, the confessor of Louis XIII, both
of whom approved of it.
The purpose of the company was to promote all the good which
might be obtained, and to prevent all the evil which might be pre-
vented. Its spirit was universal, but no regulars were to be admitted.
Its action was to remain secret. Nor was it to appear as a corporate
body, but its members were to act individually, while deriving
power from the union of their efforts, and spiritual strength and
comfort from their common devotional exercises. Its membership
included men of all social classes, united in a spirit of Christian
equality, and consisted of both clerics and laymen. Among the
former were most of the illustrious missioners whom we have named
above De Condren, St. Vincent de Paul, Olier, and John Eudes.
It further embraced numerous archbishops and bishops, parish
priests, and doctors of the Sorbonne; among the latter, the most
brilliant names in the kingdom, both of noblemen and lawyers.
The Company rapidly spread to the whole of France. Fifty-three
of its local branches are known today, but there were undoubtedly
many more. All of them did their best to remedy the moral evils of
the times which we have already referred to: destitution, prostitu-
tion, drunkenness, and profanity. The Company took over St. Vin-
cent's work for the galley slaves; prepared the establishment of the
300 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
"general hospital" intended to house paupers and beggars; created
a society for the liberation of insolvent debtors; founded a refuge
for repentant prostitutes; undertook the relief of the "shamefaced
poor"; attempted to enforce the keeping of Sundays and feast days
and to prevent the breaking of Lent; to stop the sale of lewd books,
the production of immoral spectacles, and the practice of gambling.
It restored the decency of public worship, took part in the reform
of religious orders, and established a league against duelling.
One of its prominent members, a nobleman, M. de Renty, formed
a close friendship with a pious cobbler from Luxemburg, Henri
Buche, who had dedicated himself to an apostolate among the work-
ing classes. "Like two brothers," they struggled in an admirable
and touching fashion against all sorts of social evils. In order to
counteract the secret workingmen's union known as compagnon-
nage, which was wrongly supposed to indulge in blasphemous prac-
tices, they founded communities of artisans. The "brethren," cob-
blers or tailors, took no vows but lived together, wore the same
dress, and worked at stated hours to the accompaniment of pious
reading or singing. Henri Buche himself, though he had been ap-
pointed the superior of the cobblers, did the meanest household
work, and tenderly nursed the sick.
Unfortunately the activities of the Company were not confined
to providing for the welfare of the lower classes. A body which not
merely undertakes to further good, but also to prevent evil, tends to
become a kind of pious police. In order to put a stop to blasphem-
ing, either among the "companions" or elsewhere, a certain amount
of spying and informing was necessary. It may indeed be said that
greater importance was then attached to offences against God than is
the case nowadays, and that the intentions of the Company were
praiseworthy; nor does it always appear that it was fully responsible
for the tortuous behaviour of its servants. Nevertheless there is some-
thing definitely unpleasant about the mere fact that it was engaged
in nosing out blasphemy and heresy. Its case is one of Catholic
Puritanism, largely parallel to that of Protestant Puritanism, odium
being aroused against both for kindred motives, and especially be-
cause they tried to enforce an austere moral and religious code, and
interfered with what they regarded as the questionable pastimes, in-
tellectual and otherwise, of their contemporaries. No wonder, there-
fore, that the Company was held up to public execration in Mohere's
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION IN FRANCE 301
Tartufe, and eventually suppressed by King Louis XIV in 1663.
As we review the early seventeenth century in France, we are
struck by the extraordinary spiritual enthusiasm of the clergy and
laity, and also by the moral unity among the different religious
bodies as well as among the various classes of the population. The
controversy between Galileans and Jesuits was as yet without any of
the bitterness it was to assume after the appearance of Jansenism.
The influence of the Jesuits and that of the Sorbonne were happily
blended in the Berulle circle and among its continuators. There was
emulation rather than rivalry between the various spiritual schools.
The Church raised the humble and lowered the mighty, to take part
in the same apostolic and charitable labours. St. Vincent, who had
begun as a swineherd, associated with the noble Madame de Gondi
to evangelize Picardy. On the whole, the fiery ardour of Spanish
devotion, the sweetness of Italian piety, and the natural restraint
and moderation of the French temper, combined in the age of
Louis XIII to produce a most attractive type of Christianity, both
heroic and sedate, both austere and tender, in which the Catholic
Reformation may be said to have reached its climax.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The literature on the subject is extremely plentiful, and we cannot do
more here than quote some of the most important works. On the action
of the papacy at the time of the French religious wars, see Pastor, His-
tory of the Popes, Vols. XVIII, XIX, XXI, and XXII. The late sixteenth
century and first two decades of the seventeenth century are dealt with
as a whole in the substantial works of Father J. M. Prat, S.J., Maldonat
ct I'Universite de Pans au XVIeme siecle (Pans, 1856), and Recherches
histonques et critiques sur la Compagnie de Jesus en France du temps
du P. Colon (1564-1626) (Lyons, 1886) (four heavy tomes). Much in-
formation on the Catholic Reformation in France is also found in Henri
Fouqueray, S.J., Histoire de la Compagnie de Jesus en France, tomes
I-IV (1526-1645) (Pans, 1910-1925); while the story of the Jesuit
martyrs at Aubenas is told by Jules Blanc in Les martyrs d'Aubenas
(Valence, 1906). For religious movements brought about by Jesuit in-
fluence, see on Caesar de Bus and Romillon, the indispensable and richly
informative work of the Abbe Bremond, Histoire litterairc du sentiment
religieux en France, Vols. I, II, and VI; also on another point, Canon
L. Entraygues, La bienheureuse Jeanne de Lestonnac (Pengueux, 1940).
On the Salesian school, refer to the works mentioned above (Bibliog-
raphy of Chap. X) and to Francis Trochu, St. Francois de Sales (Lyons-
Pans 1941); G. Beaufils, S.J., La vie de la bienheureuse Mere Jeanne
Francoise Fremtot de Chantal (Annecy, 1752); Msgr. Bougaud, His-
302. THE CATHOLIC ,IEFORMATION
toire dc Sainte Chantal et des origins de la Visitation (Paris, 1909)
(two very substantial volumes); Edouird Everat, Vie de Jeanne Char-
lotte de Brichard (Clermont Ferrand, 1938).
For the seventeenth century as a whole see the excellent chapter on
the Catholic Reformation in France in Fernand Mourret, Histoire gent-
rale de I'Eglise, Vol. VI, L'ancien regime. On the Berulle circle, refer to
the long article Oratoire in Vacant, Mangenot and Amann, Dictionnaire
de thiologie catholique; also to the articles Btrulle and Condren. For
the Capuchins and Father Joseph, see Canon Louis Dedouvres, Le Pere
Joseph de Paris, Capucin (Paris, 1932). For the seminaries from Trent
onwards and their founders in the seventeenth century, see the three
bulky volumes of Pierre Coste, La grand saint du grand siecle, Mon-
sieur Vincent (Paris, 1931), and Father Pourrat, S.J., Jean-Jacques Olier
(Paris, s.d.). Father Georges Guitton has written an elaborate history
of St. Francois Regis (Paris, 1937). The most complete study of the
Company of the Holy Sacrament is the work of a Protestant writer,
Raoul Allier, with the characteristic title La Cabale des dtvots, 7627-7666
(Paris, 1902). It is truthful in its statements of fact, less so in its insinua-
tions. A particular aspect of the Company is shown in the more dispas-
sionate book of Maurice Souriau, La Compagnte du Saint Sacrement de
I'Autel a Caen Deux mystiques normands au XVlIeme siecle t M. de
Renty et Jean de Bernieres (Pans, 1913). Some current misrepresenta-
tions in regard to the Company are corrected in the articles of Fr.
Brucker in Etudes (October 5 and 20 and November 5, 1909), Hommes
d'oeuvres du XVlleme siecle.
CHAPTER XIII
The Catholic Reformation in the British Isles
JUSTICE has never been done to the importance of the Cath-
olic Reformation for the British Isles, and especially for
England. The establishment of Protestantism in the latter
country tended to strengthen its "insularism" and to isolate it from
most of the continent of Europe. Church historians as a whole have
failed to notice that this isolation, though officially enforced, was
far less effective than it was supposed to be. The Trentine move-
ment did not merely permeate what was left of English Catholicism
after the Elizabethan settlement (and that was a very large section
of the population), but also penetrated into the Anglican Church,
and exerted a decisive influence upon the Laudian revival.
The attention of Catholic writers has been absorbed by the heroic
side of the campaign of the Catholic missionaries in England, and
by the political problem which arose on account of their twofold
loyalty to the Holy See and to the sovereign. They have dwelt at
length upon their trials, tortures, and executions. But they have
scarcely touched upon the far more important fact that they repre-
sented a new intellectual, educational, literary, and devotional trend,
which was to mould the English character quite as much as Protes-
tantism itself, and the effect of which is felt even at the present day.
In the British Isles, the Catholic Reformation assumed three suc-
cessive shapes. First of all, before the advent of Protestantism,
efforts were made to amend the state of the Church according to
the spirit of the Council of Trent, and various ecclesiastical assem-
blies were engaged in preparing a considerable mass of legislation,
which, however, was never allowed to take effect. Then, when
Protestantism had been officially established, the Trentine revival
was continued in the English, Scottish, and Irish Catholic centres
303
304 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
extant abroad, through the foundation of colleges or seminaries.
In the mean time the missionaries trained there brought it along
with them to the mass of their co-religionists in the home-countries.
Lastly, the Episcopalian establishment itself was invaded by con-
tinental thought and devotion, and subjected especially to the in-
fluence of France in the reign of Louis XIII. Thence followed that
High-Church renascence, which only ceased temporarily upon the
death of Charles I.
In the first of the three above phases, the lead was taken by Scot-
land. Though greatly hampered by the social and political disorder
prevalent in the country, the Catholic Church was left free to legis-
late until 1560, and made a serious effort to reform itself. Religious
conditions in Scotland in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries
had been much what they were in Italy and France. They offered
the same curiously mixed picture: rich devotional life on the one
hand, and on the other all the evils which were produced by the ad-
ministrative mismanagement of the Church. The number of founda-
tions during the above period is significant: no fewer than forty-six
collegiate churches, hospitals, and colleges educational establish-
ments gradually gaining the upper hand from 1500 onwards. At the
same time, the abuse of lay patronage had brought about an ap-
palling state of moral laxity among the clergy. A writing of the year
1540, addressed to Cardinal Beaton, describes the Scottish Church
in the following words: "How many do we see, who after spending
their years in idle pastimes, after consuming the flower of their age
in the most shameful things, fly to the heads of the Church, in order
to obtain from them some fat benefice, where they may shield their
slothfulness, and finish their old age in luxury. . . . The cure of souls
is granted not merely to ignorant people, but also to children still
incapable of reasoning, so that they seem to be born only to inherit.
. . . Many will be loaded with a multitude of benefices, whose con-
versation, whose life are such, that it may be doubted, whether they
be Christians, or pagans."
While the clergy as a whole provided a spectacle of moral cor-
ruption, their ranks also included men of a different cast, Christian
humanists who, in the fifteenth century, prepared the reformation of
the Church. Foremost among them stands William Elphinstonc
(1431-1514), who received part of his upbringing in the universities
of Paris and Orleans, became rector of the University of Glasgow ir
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION IN THE BRITISH ISLES 305
1474 and bishop of Aberdeen in 1482. In 1494, ^ c founded King's
College, Aberdeen. One of the professors was Hector Boethius, the
historian of Scotland, who had taught at Montaigu College in Paris,
and had been in touch with Erasmus while there; another one was
John Adamson, the provincial and reformer of the Scottish Domin-
icans. Elphinstone issued new statutes for his cathedral chapter, re-
quiring the canons to be at least licentiates in theology, "so as to
announce and preach the word of God to the Christian people,"
and to reside in person. He was one of the first to make use of the
printing-press, newly introduced into Scotland, to publish the Aber-
deen Breviary. It was only in the early sixteenth century, however,
that the reformation of the Scottish Church as a whole was at-
tempted by Andrew Forman, who was made, in 1514, archbishop of
Saint Andrews by Pope Leo X, and held his primatial see until his
death in 1521. He issued diocesan statutes, which cast a lurid light
upon the state of the Church in his time. Non-resident clerics, or
those who did not keep church buildings in good repair or did not
provide them with the necessary utensils, were to lose one fourth of
the fruits of their benefices. Those who, after a third warning, still
retained their concubines, were to lose their charge once and for all.
Clerics who, being indicted for a crime before the ordinary, turned
to the civil power for protection, were to be suspended and fined.
Laymen who fought or shed blood in church were to be excom-
municated. All rectors, vicars, chantry priests were to appear at high
Mass and vespers on feast days and Sundays, at vespers on Saturdays,
and join in singing Mass, vespers, and matins. From each one of a
number of monasteries, which were named, one or two religious
were to be sent to the university of Saint Andrews to complete their
upbringing.
The statutes of Archbishop Forman provide the pattern accord-
ing to which all the Scottish Church legislation was drafted until
1560. Again and again we find the same prescriptions against non-
residence and the keeping of concubines, the same reassertion of the
jurisdiction of the Church as against the civil power, the same
denunciation of lay violence and immorality, the same provisions
for the education of the clergy. There were Scottish provincial
councils at Edinburgh in 1536, at Linlithgow and Edinburgh in
1549, at Edinburgh in 1552 and 1559. It is not our purpose to re-
count how the progress of Presbyterianism in Scotland made itself
306 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
felt in the decisions of the councils. It is enough to say that, as the
Protestant invasion became more and more threatening, the canons
of the synods increased in stringency, and struck almost a desperate
note; for those very laymen, whose invasion of Church rights had
brought about the relaxation of ecclesiastical discipline, were the
first to support the Protestant claims.
The testimony of the Catholic apologist, Quintin Kennedy, the
Benedictine abbot of Crossraguel, is significant in this respect. He
holds up the abuses to execration, but lays responsibility for them
upon lay covetousness. Children, he says, who can scarce hold an
apple in their hands, are granted parishes of five thousand souls.
This is due to the avarice of their parents, who wish to draw the
revenues. Monasteries are going to ruin; and yet those very men,
who hold them in commendam are the same who stand forth as the
revilers of clerical vices. If the Church were to recover her former
liberty, to elect her own abbots and bishops freely, both abuses and
errors m belief would vanish.
One wonders, as a matter of fact, what would have happened if
Protestant interference which in the mam was the interference
of part of the nobility, egged on by England had not prevented
the enforcement of the canons of the above-mentioned Church
synods. The good-will of the assembled Fathers appears indisputable,
and the principles which inspired them were the same as those of
the Council of Trent, which they repeatedly quoted. "There is a
twofold cause for and root of the evils" the Prologue to the canons
of 1549 runs "which have brought about such an outbreak of
heresy; one is the corruption of manners and impurity of life among
churchmen of almost every rank; the other is their gross ignorance
of 'good letters and arts.' "
It is not possible to rehearse even briefly the prescriptions of the
synod, but it may be pointed out that several among them are new.
It lays down a method for preaching sermons: the former part of
these must be devoted to the Epistle or Gospel of the day, the latter
to "catechism," a novel word then, since its meaning is explained.
Parish priests, "most of whom in the whole kingdom of Scotland
are deficient in learning, manners and wisdom," are to be examined
by the ordinaries or their deputies within the space of a few weeks,
under pain of deprivation.
The following councils, and especially that of 1559, again declare
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION IN THE BRITISH ISLES 307
heavy penalties against those clerics who infringe the old canons
on Church discipline; such, for instance, as appropriate Church
lands to satisfy their own greed or that of their relatives. They for-
bid prelates and priests to bring up the children of their concubines
in their own household; archbishops and prelates, to provide their
sons with benefices in their own churches; prelates and clerics at
large to give their daughters in marriage to noblemen, and grant
them dowries out of church property; prelates and other church-
men to engage in trade, and sell victuals, fish, salt, or wool They
again make the wearing of clerical dress and the tonsure compul-
sory for all ecclesiastics, beseech priests to celebrate Mass "more fre-
quently than they are wont to," priests and beneficiaries to say their
hours daily and be present at Mass at least on Sundays and feast
days. They prescribe, according to the Council of Trent, the visi-
tation of monasteries, even if exempt. They settle the stipends of
curates, and put a stop to abuses in the collection of mortuaries and
tithes. Their provisions for the preaching of Christian doctrine to the
people are, however, the most important and original.
Obviously the humanistic dignitaries who drafted the canons of
1552 had only a limited trust in the learning, oratorical ability, or
soundness of belief of their parish priests, as appears from the rules
which they laid down for their preaching or rather reciting of the
catechism. "Neither the inferior orders of the clergy, nor the prelates
of this kingdom," they said, "are for the most part thus advanced
in the knowledge of sacred letters, that they should be able by their
own efforts to instruct the people in the Catholic faith and other
things necessary for salvation, or to convert those in error." The
council therefore decrees that a Scottish Catechism will be published,
of which a copy will be handed to every rector, vicar, or curate.
Due precautions will be taken before laymen be allowed to peruse
it. All priests will read it through in parts, on Sundays and feast days
to the people assembled for divine service, "in a high and audible
voice, distinctly, clearly and articulately, with the greatest possible
gravity, from the pulpit, wearing their surplice and stole, before
high Mass for the space of half an hour. They will," the council
insists, read it "wholly, without any hesitancy, not adding, changing,
suppressing or omitting anything." They will be careful to prepare
this reading in advance "by a frequent and lengthy rehearsal, lest
they should expose themselves to ridicule or stumble in the course of
308 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
their recital." They will not allow anyone in the audience to begin
a discussion, and carefully refrain from entering into controversy
themselves. Should they neglect the above orders, they will be fined
twenty shillings for a first offence; fifty shillings for a second
offence; for a third offence, they will pay twice the amount and be
imprisoned on bread and water for at least one month. The weight
of those penalties, the severity of the canons, and the hugeness of
the offences to be punished, show what a pitiable condition the
Church of Scotland had fallen into. The correction of abuses came
unfortunately too late.
The direct appeal of Protestantism to popular rectitude and rough
common sense, especially when in league with the noblemen who
had despoiled the Church, had an explosive force which could not
be resisted. However, the scholarly leaders of the Scottish clergy
had made a brave attempt to carry it along with them on the path
to Catholic reformation, and would have deserved a better fate.
In Ireland there prevailed, in the fifteenth century, a social and
political confusion even greater than in Scotland. There was internal
strife everywhere: the Church was at war with the nobility, the
seculars were quarrelling with the regulars. It is scarcely surprising,
in the circumstances, that no comprehensive attempt at reformation
should have been made before the Henrician schism, and that until
then provincial and diocesan councils should have been mostly
anxious to defend the privileges and jurisdiction of the Church
against the encroachments of lay persons and religious orders.
Some traces of the reforming spirit, however, appeared as early
as 1453, when the synod of Limerick issued canons, a few of which
had to do with clerical discipline, those for instance which prescribed
the singing of hours by clerics on Sundays and feast days, the wear-
ing of clerical dress, or the payment of parish revenues to the vicar
when the parson did not reside. Prescriptions of the same nature
appear here and there before Henry VIIFs secession from Rome.
The provincial synods of Cashel (1514) and Dublin (1518) forbade
priests to wear their hair over their ears, and to play football. The
Council of Dublin in 1529 corrected abuses among the regulars, and
established a stricter rule in Franciscan convents. But Henry VIH's
efforts to separate the Irish Church from Rome put an end to all
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION IN THE BRITISH ISLES 309
such activities, although Robert Wauchop, created archbishop of
Armagh by Paul III in 1539, took a prominent part in the opening
sessions of the Council of Trent.
It was only under Mary Tudor that the Catholic Reformation
really made its appearance in Ireland, and, strange to say, through
the instrumentality of a man who had submitted to the will of
Henry VIII. In Ireland as well as in England, Henrician prelates,
who had accepted the royal supremacy without realizing all its im-
plications, stalwartly resisted the government of Edward VI when
it tried to enforce the use of the Anglican liturgy and the acceptance
of Protestant dogma; an attitude which qualified them, when
Catholicism was restored by Mary Tudor, to become reconciled
with Rome, and to resume possession of their sees. .Such was the
case of George Dowdall, who had been made archbishop of Armagh
and primate of Ireland in 1543 by Henry VIII, despite the fact that
the Holy See had already invested Robert Wauchop with the same
dignities. Dowdall devoted himself to the preaching and teaching
of Catholic doctrine and, under Edward VI, in 1550, put himself
at the head of Irish opposition to the Book of Common Prayer, and
boldly threatened the Lord Deputy St. Leger with excommunica-
tion. When Wauchop died the Irish Catholics besought the pope to
choose Dowdall as his successor. The request was granted on March
i, 1553. As soon as he was reinstated in his see, the archbishop
sought to heal the wounds of the Irish Church, and therefore con-
vened, at Dublin, in 1556, a provincial council, which undertook
reformation on Trentme lines. Its canons have been preserved and
bear, among others, on the following points:
Bishops and other collators, who appointed priests to benefices,
under condition that they should pay the revenues to laymen or
children, were deprived of their powers of patronage. Simoniacal
bishops, who sold benefices, were to be suspended. Churchmen of
all degrees were forbidden to make a charge for the administration
of sacraments, under pain of suspension. The wearing of clerical
dress and the tonsure were again made compulsory for priests.
Severity in the collection of mortuaries was to be mitigated, espe-
cially in regard to widows and orphans. All rectors and vicars who
were unable to preach in person were to pay for a substitute, who
was to deliver sermons four times a year. The other canons bore
upon the prosecution of heretics or the restoration of Catholic rites.
3io THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
There is, however, nothing in the decisions of this council which
goes beyond the reinforcement of mediaeval Church discipline.
There is no trace of constructive work, especially in regard to the
education of the clergy. Originality was scarcely to be sought for in
the attempts at reformation in Scotland or Ireland. It appears in
England only, where it was due to the outstanding ability and en-
thusiasm of one of the leaders of the Catholic revival, Cardinal
Reginald Pole.
The ground had indeed long been prepared for Catholic Reforma-
tion in England. The country had been par excellence that of Chris-
tian humanism. One need only recall the names of Grocyn, Lmacre,
Colet, Erasmus, Thomas More. These men have been mistakenly de-
scribed as the precursors of Protestantism. There can be no doubt,
indeed, that Colet's vehement denunciations, and Erasmus' biting
satire of the vices and ignorance of churchmen, helped to strengthen
the current of anticlerical opinion, which eventually merged with
Protestantism. But the Christian humanists themselves felt no par-
tiality for the methods and spirit of the religious revolution. They
were aristocrats in more senses than one. They stressed the impor-
tance of Scripture, but as interpreted by means of the most search-
ing scholarship, and not by unenlightened personal inspiration.
They were lovers of peace, and disapproved of popular tumults.
Peace, indeed, and a measure of protection from some friendly
Maecenas were necessary for their refined and somewhat artificial
literary labours. However much they might criticize or even ridicule
clerical abuses, they had no wish to subvert the Church, and hoped
for reformation from within. They were deeply attached to tradi-
tional beliefs and disinclined to embrace the new dogmatic tenets
of Lutheranism. Yet they were so averse to open strife that they did
not raise the standard of revolt against Henry VIII, when, to exert
pressure upon the pope, he began to favour religious innovations, or,
later, broke with Rome altogether. The most heroic among them,
such as John Fisher and Thomas More, suffered patiently for their
faith. Others, such as Stephen Gardiner, Cuthbert Tunstall, Edmund
Bonner, John Stokesley, supported the king's supremacy, possibly
with the idea that reformation might be achieved by Christian
princes, in default of a weakened and decrepit papacy.
The years which followed the sack of Rome in 1527 were indeed
a period of eclipse for the Holy See, and one need not be surprised
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION IN THE BRITISH ISLES 311
that earnest Catholics should have turned elsewhere for the protec-
tion of their ancient faith. But as the Trentine movement gathered
momentum, its influence began to be felt in England as well, and
resistance to the Protestant inroads began to stiffen. Henrician op-
pression was so severe that it was impossible for the English prelates
of the time to own up in the home-country to relations with the
rising group of Catholic reformers on the Continent; and therefore
direct traces of such relations are not available in the State Papers.
But we know that Gardiner was at Ratisbon in 1541; and there is
every reason to believe that he came into touch with German Cath-
olics such as Latomus, Cropper, and Eck, if not with Wauchop and
Peter Faber. It is not a little suggestive in any case that he should,
just as the Council of Trent was about to begin, have engaged in
controversy with Martin Bucer, making use of the very same Cath-
olic printing-presses at Louvain, Cologne, and Ingolstadt as the con-
tinental adversaries of the Strasbourg reformer.
What is more, in the years which followed the opening sessions
of the Council of Trent, there was a revival of Catholic resistance
inside the Henrician, and then the Edwardine, church. Numerous
treatises by English divines appeared in England or abroad, in
defence of the Eucharist, the sacrifice of the Mass, and the celibacy
of priests. Between 1546 and 1552, no fewer than seven of these
were composed by Stephen Gardiner against English or continental
Protestants, such as Hooper, Peter Martyr, or Oecolampadius; four
were written by Richard Smith, D.D., and one by Cuthbert Tun-
stall. Meanwhile, Reginald Pole was preparing, in France and Italy,
for his task as a Catholic reformer of the English church, and taking
part, as a legate, in the debates of the Council of Trent.
Indeed, on the part of Catholics the Rejormatio Anghae, like the
reform of the Church at large, was a perennial undertaking; it had
lasted throughout the Middle Ages, in its negative aspect at least,
that is to say, the mere forbidding of malpractices. It was already in
full swing at the time of the Constitutions of John Peckham, arch-
bishop of Canterbury, which date back to 1281, and later served as a
basis for all disciplinary canons, including those of the sixteenth
century. When Thomas Wolsey, archbishop of York, gathered the
312 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
Northern convocation in that town in 1518 to legislate on Church
matters, he had but to publish a tabulated edition of the canons
issued by his predecessors to cover practically the whole ground of
ecclesiastical abuses. These canons refer in succession to the duties
of a good archdeacon, a good archpriest, a good priest, who should
not "show himself unwilling to visit the sick at any hour, and send
them deacons with the Eucharist, while he himself is engaged in
drinking or other pleasures"; to the residence of clerics; to the
decency of worship and the expulsion of traders from the churches;
to the abuses due to the hearing of confessions by others than the
parish priests; to the payment of stipends to priests and especially
poor vicars; to the building and repairing of churches. On no point
are the canons more vigorous than against the quaestores or sellers
of indulgences, whom Chaucer had not branded more scathingly
in the prologue to his Pardoner's Tale. The text, formerly published
by Archbishop George Neville, runs as follows: "Not without
temerarious audacity, and for the deception of many souls, they have
granted indulgences to the people on their own responsibility, dis-
pensed them from fulfilling their vows, and absolved from perjury,
murder, and other sins. . . , They have, as they falsely asserted, ex-
tracted from Purgatory, and led to the joys of Paradise, three or
more souls of the parents or friends of those, who have brought
them alms."
The negative prescriptions of the Middle Ages were again the
basis of the canons issued, on the eve of the schism, by the convoca-
tion of the province of Canterbury, held at St. Paul's in London,
from November 5, 1529, to April 29, 1530; which canons in their
turn served as a starting-point for the debates of the same convoca-
tion, sitting at Westminster, from November 4, 1555, to February
25, 1556, in the reign of Mary Tudor. One feels, however, when
reading the regulations of 1529, that there is a new spirit abroad.
Beside the actual forbidding of faults, we find a beautiful portrait of
the ideal priest, who should also be an ideal teacher: "Idleness
being the mother of all vices, this sacred council commands and
prescribes to all rectors, curates and vicars, that once they have per-
formed their divine office, they be occupied in study, prayer, reading,
or other honest business which befits their profession, namely in
teaching children the alphabet, reading, singing or grammar. And
let them exercise themselves on three days a week, for three or at
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION IN THE BRITISH ISLES 313
least two hours, in the reading of Holy Scripture, or of some ap-
proved doctor, ..." *
The necessity of learning as the foundation of piety is again as-
serted in the passage which rehearses the duties of an ideal bishop,
who should "see to it more diligently [than of yore] that the begin-
nings of pure faith and pure letters be proposed to pure listeners, no
less in the universities, than in other schools, and increase more
purely and more sincerely." Indeed, a whole section is devoted to
school-teachers. The rules laid down for their choice the fact, for
instance, that they must take an oath before their appointment
obviously betray the fear of heresy; but they are also inspired by a
wish to benefit the morals and intellect of the pupils. Convocation
has noticed that a change of methods, consequent upon a change
of masters, is detrimental to the young; consequently it decides that
"one uniform mode of teaching [classical] grammar will be used
throughout the province of Canterbury," after being determined by
a committee of bishops, abbots, and archdeacons.
The Christian humanists had been the leading element in the
convocations of York in 1518 and of Canterbury in 1529. Like
Thomas More, they combined a belief in the sufficiency of learning
to improve Church conditions, with a conservative position in regard
to Church organization and policy; and one must wait until the
Canterbury convocation of 1555-1556 to find a really new departure
on Trentine lines. The settling of dogma in coherent and fixed ways,
which it undertook, was however not exclusively a Catholic novelty.
The Protestants also, under Edward VI, had had homilies written
to be read in church, and apparently distrusted their own preachers
quite as much as the representatives of the "old religion." It is
nevertheless striking that the convocation of 1555-1556 should have
felt it necessary to hearten and strengthen their flocks by providing
them with a clear body of doctrine. Proposals were made to the
effect that "for lack of preachers, four types of short sermons in
English be composed, and read to the people on Sundays and feast
days by vicars, rectors and parsons"; the first bearing on the Eu-
charist, penance, auricular confession, and other controverted sub-
jects, such as free will and justification, good works, the authority
of the Church; the second on the articles of faith, the Lord's Prayer,
the Hail Mary, the commandments, and sacraments; the third on
the proper feasts and saints; the fourth on ceremonies, the cardinal
314 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
virtues, the capital sins. It was also proposed that a brief catechism
for the young should be published in Latin and English; also
guides for confession and the visitation of the sick. The Breviary
and Missal were to be simplified and unified, and the same ceremo-
nies were to be used in all dioceses.
The attempt to train a new and reformed clergy by means of
seminaries is altogether more original. The assembly groped its way
m that direction, before Pole, in his decrees, published a fuller
scheme of clerical education. The rules proposed for cathedral
churches provide for the teaching of "sacred letters." In each of
these, it was suggested, a learned man should be granted a prebend,
in order to expound Scripture to the clergy and people; while sixty
or more boys, supported through the appropriation of benefices,
should be taught grammar, in view of a future clerical career. A
syllabus of courses was contemplated for the universities, where a
sufficient number of scholars was to be maintained, towards the
recruiting of the clergy, The teaching of theology was to include
lectures on the Bible, on Peter Lombard, or some author who had
"renewed" scholastic theology; that of philosophy was to rest on
Aristotle alone, but the humanistic thinker, Rudolph Agncola, might
also be introduced into the course. The hearing of lectures in col-
leges was to be made compulsory; scholarships were to be reserved
for poor students, whose parents bound themselves to urge them, in
due time, to join the ranks of the clergy. On the other hand, no one
was to be admitted to the priesthood, or to a benefice of twenty
pounds sterling or above, unless he had spent three years in an
"academy," and obtained at least the degree of bachelor. Card-play-
ing and dicing were prohibited; and the endless quibblings of
mediaeval disputations were to be done away with. Lastly such
beneficiaries as were staying in the universities would be compelled
to reside in colleges, to take part in disputations and attend public
lectures.
When one compares the proposals made by Convocation with the
decrees published by Pole on February 10, 1556, one is at once struck
by the fact that the latter, couched in perfect Latin, are far superior
to the former; this being due no less to Pole's personal ability than
to the experience he had gathered on the Continent. The cardinal
begins with the re-enforcement of former legislation; all clerics are
bound to have a copy of the old constitutions of the English Church.
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION IN THE BRITISH ISLES 315
Steps are then taken to prevent the spreading of false beliefs, and
Catholic doctrine is rehearsed at large, on the model of the Trenjtine
decrees. The serious strictness of Trent appears in the passage de-
voted to the dedication feast of churches: it condemns "the profane
and irreligious habit of showing vain spectacles, of engaging in
orgies, dances and other things of the same kind." On that day
and other feast days, the people should "fervently apply themselves
to the hearing of divine offices." The opening lines of the third
decree are a beautiful warning to clerics against non-residence, to
which the decay of ecclesiastical morals is almost wholly ascribed:
"Whereas the reformation of the Church," it runs, "must begin
with those who have the care of others; and whereas this abuse is
flourishing among them, namely that not residing in the churches
committed to them, they leave them to mercenaries; which thing is
the cause of almost every evil in the Church; first of all, we urgently
exhort in the Lord all those who govern cathedral churches, even
metropolitan, and other inferior churches, implying the cure of souls,
and we beseech them by the bowels of mercy of Jesus-Christ, that
attending to themselves, and to their whole flock . . . they exhibit
to it their due presence, and, void of all cares of secular business,
watch over its safety, and labour in everything according to the
precept of the apostle, and fulfill their ministry."
Canons are to be granted leave of absence subject only to the ap-
proval of the majority of their chapter. Pluralities are forbidden
under heavy penalties.
The fourth decree, on preaching, requests archbishops and bishops
to address their flocks in person, and renews former canons for
other clerics; but it strikes a new line when recommending direc-
tion of conscience: "This duty of preaching will be wholly fulfilled
if, apart from public sermons, the pastor, after calling up those of
the flock committed to him whom he knows to have strayed from
right faith, or from good manners, warn and exhort them paternally
and with all tenderness of charity, and if need be dissuade them,
endeavouring to bring them back to the Catholic faith, and to a
right rule of life." The fifth decree, on the life and virtues of clerics,
begins with the following beautiful words: "Since the example of
one's conduct adds most authority to the word, and seems to be a
kind of preaching, those who are placed above others must be care-
ful to surpass them, as well by the righteousness of their manners
316 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
and the holiness of their life, as by that excellence in governing
one's own house, which the apostle requires from bishops." Here-
upon follows a veritable rule of life for prelates, a rule of wise
moderation and simplicity, inspired by Christian humanism. They
should "indulge in no pomp or luxury, wear no silken cloth, use no
precious furniture; their board should be frugal and spare," with
only three or at most four dishes, besides dessert; they should have
few domestics and horses, and only those needful; their lay servants
should wear "a modest and decent dress." The surplus of their in-
come should be used to feed the needy and to educate children in
schools. "Let them be the fathers of the poor, the refuge and protec-
tion of orphans, widows, and those oppressed." Let them apply
themselves to the reading of Scripture, and abstain from profane
business.
We need not dwell at length on the decrees referring to the
marriage of priests (which had taken root in England under Ed-
ward VI), and on clerical dress, but the prescriptions on the exam-
ination of future priests are worthy of especial attention. The bish-
ops should not be content to trust to others as to the qualifications
of ordinandi. They should examine them in person. All those who
seek orders should confess their sins to an able priest, and receive
Communion on the day of their ordination. Beneficiaries should be
similarly examined, and promise on oath to reside. The heads of
universities and colleges should be requested to supply lists of candi-
dates "suited by their life and learning" for promotion to a living;
and no benefice should be left vacant. But by far the most important
decree is that which provides for the creation of diocesan seminaries
and which anticipated the similar decree of Trent by several years.
"Since there is in these times," it begins, "a great penury of church-
men, especially of worthy ones . . . and since the best means to
remedy such an evil is to create and conserve in cathedral churches
a kind of progeny and so to say a nursery [seminarium] of min-
isters ... we decree that each metropolitan and cathedral church of
this kingdom be bound to maintain a certain number of boys, ac-
cording to its revenues and means." Detailed prescriptions follow:
the minimum age of the alumni should be eleven or twelve; they
should know how to read and write, and give fair promise of becom-
ing priests. Poor scholars should be preferred (as in the Trentine
decisions) though rich ones be not excluded, if they really wish to
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION IN THE BRITISH ISLES 317
serve God. Their studies should begin with grammar, then proceed
with religious doctrine. Those who study the latter should be divided
into two classes, juniors and advanced pupils, the latter being aco-
lytes. Both will wear clerical dress and submit to the tonsure. The
acolytes will be promoted to holy orders according to their age and
merit, and be appointed to some ecclesiastical charge; while the
gaps left in their ranks will be filled in by the most deserving of the
inferior class.
The grammar school will admit all sorts of suitable pupils; the
ablest ones, and those most desirous of serving God, will replace the
seniors who take orders. One fortieth of the diocesan revenues will
serve to finance the seminary; one fortieth of the income of each
benefice will be turned to the same purpose. All masters at present
teaching in schools, or candidates for such posts, should be "dil-
igently examined" by the ordinary. Pole's decrees close with a
lengthy chapter on episcopal visitations, which shoijld take place
every three years, and include all priests, whether in charge of par-
ishes or not. The visitations should bear on the condition of the
churches, on the conduct of priests, and also on the morals, beliefs,
and piety of the people, inquiring in regard to the latter "whether
they be usurers or concubmaries, whether they live and sully them-
selves in sin, whether there arise among them hatred or enmity . . .;
whether they spend their time devoutly in church, and hear the
whole mass with attention and reverence; whether they walk about
during divine offices; whether the fathers of families bring up their
children, and govern their houses, piously and virtuously."
The ideal of life contemplated by the synod, for clerics as well as
laymen, was both austere and harmonious. It was full of fair prom-
ise for the future. Unfortunately it was never allowed to fructify.
Pope Paul IV was so ill-advised as to cancel Pole's commission as
legate, and thus to put a stop to his reforming activities. Convoca-
tion had been prorogued to November n, 1557. But both Queen
Mary and the cardinal died on November 17, and Protestantism was
firmly settled in England by Anne Boleyn's daughter, Elizabeth.
Nevertheless a beginning had been made. Such men as Allen, Cam-
pion, Parsons had received their upbringing at the time of the Cath-
olic Restoration, had imbibed the Trentine spirit, and were to estab-
lish it firmly in later years, among their co-religionists.
318 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
The English seminaries, which Pole had planned, came into being
on the Continent only at the time of the Elizabethan persecution.
Just as the English Protestant exiles under Mary had gathered in
Lutheran or Calvinistic towns abroad, at Frankfurt or Geneva, so the
English Catholic exiles now sought refuge in countries staunchly
loyal to the Church, at Rome and throughout the dominions of the
most Catholic king, in Flanders and in Spain. The existence of those
centres in turn provided the justification for the foundation of
colleges.
The first one of these, in respect both of date and of importance,
was that created in 1568 at Douai by William Allen. His purpose
to begin with was not to provide priests for the English mission,
but to establish a spiritual rallying-pomt for Catholics on the Con-
tinent, to replace the universities they had lost, and to supply them
with educational facilities for their children. Gradually it assumed
the character pf a seminary for the English missionary clergy. Ac-
cordingly the teaching was meant to fit the alumni for the practical
part they would have to play, rather than to store them with
theoretical knowledge. They were trained in preaching and debat-
ing, and made familiar with Protestant tenets.
In those early years, Jesuit influence was paramount, and there
\fras no trace as yet of the stubborn opposition to the Society which
afterwards bred such unedifymg dissensions. The Oxford divines
who, for reasons of conscience, migrated to the Continent, enthusi-
astic and gifted men such as Allen, Campion, Parsons, and, later,
Southwell, were wholly conquered by the ardent spiritual ideal of
St. Ignatius. Devotional life at Douai was based upon the saint's
method. "We ought to do penance and confess our sins," Allen
wrote, "not in a perfunctory way as we used to do when, for cus-
tom's sake, we confessed once a year; but we should go into our
whole past life and perform the Spiritual Exercises under the
Fathers of the Society, in order to the perfect examination of our
consciences." Nor were Jesuit directors far to seek. Douai had been
chosen as being, not merely the seat of a university, but also that of
an educational establishment of the Society, Anchin College, the
lectures of which were attended by the students of the English sem-
inary. The latter soon overflowed, and it was found necessary to
convert the English hospital at Rome into another residential house
for English students, which was put under the direction and spir-
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION IN THE BRITISH ISLES 319
itual guidance of the Fathers of the Society, and bore the same rela-
tion to their Roman college which Douai had borne to Anchin.
We again find the Jesuits in charge of English colleges founded
by Fr. Parsons, S.J., at Valladolid (1589), at Seville (1592), at Ma-
drid, at Lisbon, and finally in Flanders at St. Omer (1593). This last
was both a seminary for priests and a school for boys. In 1600, it
numbered a hundred pupils. Mention should also be made of the
"institute" of Mary Ward, founded in St. Omer, in 1608, under Jesuit
direction for the education of girls. Whatever truth there may be in
the complaints repeatedly made against the Jesuit management of
English colleges, and although it was suspended in some of them in
later years, the debt of English Catholicism to the Society appears
as an important one.
It played a similar part, but with far less success, in regard to
Scottish Catholicism. The efforts of Fr. Creighton, S.J., did indeed
bring about, in 1576, the founding of a seminary which wandered
about from town to town and finally settled down at Douai. Others
were started at Braunsberg (1574) and Rome (1600), while the old
mediaeval Scottish college of Paris University was remodelled on
Trentme lines. But there was little enthusiasm among the Scottish
youth, and the number of students never rose above a few units. The
Irish colleges were far more prosperous, and as a rule, save in Spain
and Portugal, were not in the hands of the Jesuits. They were
founded in rapid succession in Paris (1578), in Salamanca (1588),
at Lisbon (1593), at Douai (1594), at Seville (1612); then at Rouen,
Bordeaux, Louvain, and other places, the older orders playing a
prominent part in their creation.
In the case of each of the three nations mentioned above, the col-
leges did more than provide tuition for scholars: they trained the
poets and prose-writers who formed the English devotional school of
the Catholic Reformation. The history of this literary school has not
even been attempted as yet, and will not be attempted here. It opens
a wide field for English-speaking critics, who might wish to emulate
the work done for France by the Abbe Bremond. It will be enough
in these pages to survey its most important productions.
The considerable mass of these is dominated by one major piece,
which is also a masterpiece, the Christian Directory of the Jesuit,
Robert Parsons. This is a huge expansion reaching to eight hun-
dred octavo pages of the former part of St. Ignatius' Spiritual
320 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
Exercises, that which deals with the crucial choice man has to make
between sin and Christian virtue; and therefore it is also called the
Bool( of Resolution. It bears a twofold character: it is a close-knit,
forcible, and lucid demonstration of the reasons which induce man
to throw in his lot with God and to spurn the world, profusely sup-
ported by quotations from Scripture and from the Fathers, and by
elaborate scholarship; and it is also a spiritual method, each chapter
supplying the background for one of a course of meditations, ar-
ranged in two series of ten and fourteen days respectively. It is
further divided into two parts: the first rehearses the arguments
which make it necessary for man to enter upon a "resolution" con-
cerning his salvation. It is a treatise of Christian apologetics, begin-
ning with the proofs of the existence of God, going on with those
of Christianity, especially the fulfilment of the prophecies. It then
proceeds to show how man's purpose on earth can be attained, de-
scribes the awful punishment of sin in hell and purgatory, and the
rewards of virtue in heaven. The second part professes to deal with
the impediments which stand in the way of "resolution": mistrust
of God's mercy, fear of the difficulty of virtue, procrastination, sloth-
fulness. But the chief obstacle which prevents English Catholics
from declaring themselves openly is obviously the fear of retaliation
on the part of the State; and therefore Parsons lengthily describes
the persecutions of the first centuries of the Church, and the forti-
tude of the martyrs.
In many respects, the Christian Directory reproduces the atmos-
phere of the Spiritual Exercises. It is a manly and soldier-like book.
Military metaphors, and such words as "battle," "combat," "war,"
"fighting," "conquering," "captain," repeatedly occur in it. The
author, like Lorenzo Scupoli, no doubt remembers Ignatius' two
standards, when he speaks of the banner under which the Christian
serves. Life is likened to a tournament, fought in the presence of our
Lord. "Christ our Saviour," Parsons writes, "delighteth so much in
this battle and combat of ours against sin, that he vouchsafeth to be
present, and standing by us, looketh on and abetteth us therein,
subministring to us both force and grace wherewith to gain the
victory."
As in the Exercises, the stress is laid upon the strengthening of
man's will, and the very title commonly given to the book is signifi-
cant in this respect. "Somewhat must be said of the manner how we
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION IN THE BRITISH ISLES 321
are to fight and behave ourselves [in the struggle against sin], that
is to say, with what diligence, with what attention, with what rigour,
constancy, sincerity, severity and resolution." Another Ignatian fea-
ture is the extraordinary intensity of the pages which describe the
pains of hell and the joys of heaven; though the former, with their
Murillo-like tints, may be more effective than the latter: "Most prob-
able it is, that our Saviour used this word Gehenna above all other
for Hell, thereby to signify the miserable burning of souls in that
place, the pitiful clamours and cries of the tormented, the confused
and barbarous noise of the tormentors, together with the most
loathsome filthiness of the place."
Indeed the whole colouring of the Christian Directory is rather
gloomy, and Parsons' devotional treatise is not bathed in that
atmosphere of radiant light, of optimistic Platonism, which was to
be that of Blessed Robert Southwell's poems and prose works. He
does indeed refer to "the perfection of Christian vocation, if it were
fulfilled"; but he insists more upon the imperfection of man, upon
the horror of sin, upon the terror of God's wrath: "Our Lord God
of his mercy," he writes, "give us his holy grace to fear Him as we
should, and to make such account of His judgments and justice, as
by threatening the same, he would have us to do, for the avoiding
of sin." True to the spirit of Trentine strictness, he recommends
"cutting off a great many of those worldly pleasures. ... I mean,"
he says, "of those good fellowships in eating, drinking, laughing,
singing, disputing, and other such vanities that distract us most.
Hereof Christ gave us a most notable advertisement, in that he
wept oftentimes . . . but he is never read to have laughed in all his
life." Parsons does, indeed, state that virtue is "sweet and pleasant,"
but he does not attract us to it as St. Francis de Sales was to do; he
argues more than he allures; and his plea for Christian life fore-
shadows Pascal's "bet":
"My counsel should be therefore unto thee (gentle Reader) that
. . . thou shouldst at least prove once by thine own experience
whether this thing [Christian doctrine] be true or no. ... If a mean
fellow should come unto thee, and offer, for hazarding of one crown
of gold, to make thee a thousand by alchimy; although thou
shouldst suspect him as a cozener, the hope of gain being so great,
322 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
and the adventure of loss so small, thou wouldst go nigh for once,
to venture and see the trial. And how much more shouldst thou do
it then in this case, when by proof thou canst lose nothing; and if
thou speedest well, thou art sure to gain as much as God's kingdom
and the everlasting joy of Heaven is worth."
Parsons' work is an appeal not to feeling, but to reason. It pro-
vides reasonable proofs of Christianity; describes the reasons why
God sends crosses to man, and why one should love them; and in a
colder and less homely way than that of Thomas More, expounds
the reasons why we should be comforted in tribulation. The argu-
ments are methodically, scholastically divided and subdivided. Al-
together, though the Christian Directory be lacking in warmth of
emotion, it is perfect as an intellectual construction. The author dis-
plays the most robust English commonsense: "The evil," he says,
"has this prerogative above the good, in our life; that one defect only
overwhelmeth and drowneth a great number of pleasures together.
If a man had all the felicities heaped together that this world could
yield, and yet had but one tooth out of tune, all the other pleasures
would not make him merry." The demonstration is clear and
connected.
Parsons' prose, a full century before Dryden, may be considered as
a model. Francis Bacon's seems heavy and unwieldy when com-
pared to it. It testifies to the influence of the classical training fav-
oured by the Catholic Reformation. It is not merely terse, it is elo-
quent as well; and though one may dislike the rhetorical quality
of some passages, others are of great beauty. One might scarcely
improve upon the balanced and harmonious fulness of the follow-
ing piece, on the hour of death: "Imagine now, my dear Brother,
and Friend, even thou (I say) which art so fresh and frolick at this
instant, and [if] the ten, twenty or two years (or perhaps two
months or days), which thou hast yet to live, were to come now to
an end, and that thou wert even at this present stretched out upon
a bed; wearied and worn out with dolour and pain; thy carnal
Friends about thee weeping, and many of them desiring thy goods;
the Physicians departed with their fees, as having given thee over;
and thou lying there mute and dumb, in a most pitiful agony, ex-
pecting from moment to moment the last stroke of death to be given
unto thee. Tell me in this instant, what will all the pleasures and
commodities of the whole Earth avail thee?"
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION IN THE BRITISH ISLES 323
Many passages of similar perfection might be quoted, especially
those in which Parsons varies his demonstration with "similitudes."
The following one is an instance of the Jesuit's vivacious and graphic
manner. He wishes to show how those who have been most famous
during their lives are forgotten after their death, while those who
have been humble and deserving are remembered: "The world," he
says, "is like . . . unto a covetous and forgetful Host; who, if he
see his old Guest come by his Inn in beggarly estate, all his money
being spent, he maketh semblance not to know him: And if the
Guest marvel thereat, and say, that he hath come often that way,
and spent much money in the house; the other answereth, it may
be so, my friend, for there pass this way many, and we use not to
keep account of all. But what is the way (saith one) to make this
Host remember you? It is to use him evil as you pass by ... and
he will remember you as long as he liveth, and many times will
talk of you, when you are far off from him." However, Parsons'
style is as a rule classically abstract, even in his descriptions, such as
that of the sea, which, as he says, "sheweth God." "We espy the
sea on each hand of us, that mvironeth round about the land. A vast
Creature, that contameth more wonders than man's tongue can
express. A bottomless Gulf, that without running over, receiveth all
rivers that perpetually do flow. A restless fight and turmoil of waters,
that never repose neither day nor night; a dreadful raging, and
furious element, that swelleth, and roareth, and threateneth the
Land, as though it would devour it all at once."
The stylistic qualities of the Christian Directory, though out-
standing, are secondary to its devotional purpose. It is noteworthy
that it should be directed mostly against that "atheism" which pre-
vailed in court circles during Elizabeth's reign, and which was
really tantamount to religious indifference. In order to vanquish it,
Parsons proposes a spiritual method which, though it be scattered
through the pages of his book, is nonetheless coherent. It rests
mainly on "consideration," aided by the Ignatian applicatio sensuum.
The following passage might have been culled out of the Spiritual
Exercises: "Imagine then now (my loving Brother) . . . that thou
seest before thy face, this great and mighty King sitting in his
Chair of Majesty, with Chariots of Fire, unspeakable Light, and
infinite Millions of Angels about him. Imagine further . . . that
thou seest all the Creatures in the World stand in his presence, and
324 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
trembling at his Majesty, and most carefully attending to do that,
for which he created them, as the Heavens to move about, the Sun,
Moon, and Stars, to give light and influence, the Earth to bring
forth her substance; and every other Creature diligently to labour
for performance of the duty assigned unto him." Consideration
should be followed by meditation, "an exact examination of [one's]
thoughts and deeds," and inward "mortification of our passions,
evil affections, and sinister inclinations."
The word "sinister" again suggests the sombre atmosphere of
most of the work; a sombreness which is due to the author's horror
of sin, but which however disappears when he describes the rap-
turous and almost mystical joys consequent upon a righteous be-
haviour. Through "cogitation" and "contemplation," he says, "we
are greatly stirred up to joy, alacrity, confidence and consolation."
The way of virtue is made "easy and pleasant" by "a certain hidden
and secret consolation which God poureth into the heart of them
that truly serve him. . . . How exceeding great and inestimable the
sweetness of this Heavenly Wine is to them that taste it, no tongue
of Man or Angels can express." It is a "foretaste" of the joys of
heaven, and God's servant enjoys "a certain heavenly peace, serenity
and tranquihty of mind." Death itself is to him the object of "love
and desire"; the day of its coming will be a "day of joy," and the
rewards granted to the virtuous soul in heaven are described by
Parsons in an ecstatic manner; "Imagine (dear Brother) . . . what
a joy it shall be unto thy soul at that day, to meet with all her godly
Friends in the Kingdom of Heaven; with Father, with Mother, with
Brethren, with Sisters, with Wife, with Husband, with Masters, with
Scholars, with Neighbours, with Familiars, with Kindred, with
acquaintance, the welcomes, the mirth, the sweet embracements,
that shall be there."
Parsons is indeed at times almost lyrical. The oblivion into which
the greatest men sink is handled by him almost as poetically as by
Villon, Dunbar, and Southwell: "Who doth remember now one of
forty thousand jolly fellows in this world, that thought themselves
great people whiles they were here : Captains, Soldiers, Counsellors,
Dukes, Earls, Princes, Prelates, Emperors, Kings, Queens, Lords and
Ladies?. Who remembereth them now, I say? Who once thinketh
or speaketh of them? Hath not their memory perished with their
sound, as the Prophet foretold?" In the face of this rare combina-
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION IN THE BRITISH ISLES 325
tion of clear, coherent reasoning and forceful eloquence which is
found in the Christian Directory, one overlooks the wearisome
lengthiness of many passages, their abstract character, the author's
lack of critical acumen in dealing with historical problems; one
rather remembers the utter good will of a man who, as he himself
says, will be content if he can "understand, conceive, or hope, that
any one soul . . . shall be moved to Resolution, by anything that is
here said, or shall be reclaimed from the bondage of sin, and restored
to the service of our Maker and Redeemer."
We have dwelt at length upon the Christian Directory, because it
holds the first place among the English devotional literature of the
Catholic Reformation. Though it has now fallen into undeserved
oblivion, its popularity in the late sixteenth and seventeenth cen-
turies was almost beyond belief. It went through a surprising num-
ber of editions, both in Britain and abroad. Almost from the very
first, it appeared in two different shapes, one authentic, professedly
Catholic, and bearing the imprint of English centres on the Con-
tinent; one pirated, printed in England, and adapted for the use of
the Protestant public. Of the former, seven editions only followed
each other between 1582 and 1633; but the latter spread like wildfire.
There were seven editions of it in 1584 and 1585, and twenty-two
more between 1586 and 1640, not counting the Welsh edition of
1632. It should not be forgotten, of course, that even the continental
editions were smuggled into England, while the expurgated editions
testify to the deep penetration into Anglican circles of the literature
of the Catholic Revival. Nor was the fortune of Parson's work an
isolated instance. Southwell's prose and poetry have been dealt with
elsewhere. One knows how he imbibed, in the course of his stay at
Douai College, at Clermont College in Paris, and at the English
College, Rome, the principles of the Catholic Reformation; how he
later endeavoured to introduce them into English literature; how,
true to Jesuit methods, he adapted current literary forms to a reli-
gious end, and even recast well-known lyrics to make them serve a
devotional purpose; how, in his Short Rule of Good Life, he
preached the Jesuit ideal of wise moderation, orderly seemliness, and
cheerful fortitude. That his influence was widespread appears from
the fact that his works were repeatedly published on the Continent
326 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
and in England before the end of Charles I's reign. There were
three editions of Mary Magdalen's Tears between 1594 and 1609;
four of the Short Rule of Good Life; seven of Saint Peter's Com-
plaint, and four of the Maenioae; besides eight editions of the col-
lected works, most of these being printed in England.
Parsons and Southwell are but the two figureheads of a consider-
able devotional school, both of prose and poetry. That this school
should be overlooked in current histories of English literature may
give rise to some wonder, for a mere glance at any good biblio-
graphical catalogue will reveal its existence. It began to flourish
when the colleges abroad had had time to train the first batches of
pupils, at the time of the appearance of Parsons' Christian Directory,
that is, about 1582. It attained its greatest development between
1600 and 1640, and lasted on for many years after. Its representatives
mostly belonged to the Society of Jesus, though it also included a
number of Benedictines. It was closely connected with the French
devotional school of the reigns of Henry IV and Louis XIII, and
many of the books it produced were printed at Rouen and Paris.
We have already mentioned, as being related to the Berulle circle,
Father Benedict Canfield, the Capuchin, alias William Fitch, whose
Rule of Perfection was published at Rouen twice in 1609, and whose
Christian Knight appeared in England in 1619. Many other names
might be rehearsed, such as that of the Catholic agent at Antwerp,
Richard Verstegan, who wrote pious verse of a delicate and intimate
quality; David Baker, O.S.B., who penned forty spiritual treatises,
excerpts from which were afterwards gathered by Father Hugh
Cressy, in the famous book known as Sancta Sophia; and some
twenty other writers, most of whom were also engaged on the work
of translation from the French, Italian, or Spanish.
It is indeed a striking fact, the meaning of which can hardly be
overstressed, that practically every important work of the conti-
nental devotional schools but primarily of that of Spain should
have been translated into English, and published either in England
or abroad between 1580 and 1640. The issuing of a book is generally
meant as a profitable commercial venture; and it is scarcely under-
taken unless the existence of a prospective public make it worth
the while. Therefore it cannot be doubted that the literature of the
Catholic Reformation permeated extensive classes of the English
population and of the Scottish population as well; for was not
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION IN THE BRITISH ISLES 327
Southwell's Saint Peter's Complaint published at Edinburgh too?
It is not possible to quote here every one of the continental works
of devotion turned into English, and a few instances will suffice.
The Dominican, Luis de Granada, was, as it seems, extremely pop-
ular; for we find no fewer than twenty-three editions of various
works of his between 1582 and 1633, twelve of these being published
in England and one in Edinburgh. His Treatise on Prayer and Medi-
tation alone went through ten editions within the above-mentioned
dates. St. Teresa's Life, written by herself, was turned into English
and published in 1611 and 1623; St. Peter of Alcantara's Golden
Treatise of Mental Prayer, in 1632. Among the writers of the other
schools, we find nine editions of the works of St. Francis de Sales
between 1622 and 1637, the Introduction to a Devout Life being
printed twice in England in 1616 and 1637; anc ^ as f r his expounder,
good John-Peter Camus, bishop of Belley, five English editions of
his works appeared in England and in France between 1630 and
1639. Two editions of the Spiritual Fight were issued about the
same time, and among the continental authors whose works were
rendered into English at this period may be mentioned St. Ignatius
Loyola, Father Caussin, S.J., and others, not to speak of the com-
pilers of catechisms such at Bellarmme and Camsius.
The effect of continental mysticism upon the English school is
obvious in many places. Bl. Robert Southwell translated a Spanish
mystical work, Diego de Estella's Hundred Meditations of the Love
of God. The influence of St. Teresa's poems upon him can scarcely
be doubted, though it has not hitherto been pointed out. It appears
in those lyrics in which he expresses his longing for death and the
life beyond, and which tender-hearted Grosart mistakenly believed
to have been written in the intervals of torture. Southwell's treat-
ment of the theme is an Euphuistic elaboration of the more direct
and more passionate style of St. Teresa. The likeness is however
striking. The saint had written:
Doleful is the life,
Bitter to excess,
Of a lonely soul,
Far away from thee.
O my treasure sweet,
How unhappy I!
Longing to behold thee,
I wish to die. (Poesia /.)
328 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
Compare the above lines with Southwell's Life Is but Loss:
By force I live, in will I wish to die;
In plaint I pass the length of lingering days;
Free would my soul from mortal body fly,
And tread the track of Death's desired ways . . .
Again, we find in St. Teresa's Poesia 2 the following conceit upon
the same theme:
I live a life which is no life;
Expect another life so high
That longing for death makes me die.
Southwell improves upon his model:
I live but such a life as ever dies;
I die but such a life as never ends.
My death to end my dying life denies,
And life my living death no whit amends.
Half a dozen similar instances might be quoted. And in a later
generation, the same influence is manifested in the poems of Cra-
shaw, who had read St. Teresa, and written a hymn in praise of her,
"when he was yet among the Protestants." The above-quoted Poesia
2 of the saint was paraphrased by him in the following words:
Though still I die I live again;
Still longing so to be still slain;
So gainful is such loss of breath
I die even in desire of death.
Such direct traces of the Catholic Reformation are not very fre-
quent among the Caroline poets. It must not be forgotten that
"popery" was still proscribed by the penal laws; that memories of
the Gunpowder Plot still lurked in men's minds; and that it was
dangerous to own up to having made use of "popish" sources. Be-
sides George Herbert and his disciples sincerely considered them-
selves as Protestant; they themselves were to some extent unaware of
the part which the Catholic Reformation had played in their reli-
gious upbringing. Or again, they went so far as to conceal it, as
when Christopher Harvey, making use of Haeften's emblems in his
Schda cordis, was careful to remove from them whatever was too
markedly Catholic. But though genuinely Anglican, the works of
George Herbert, Henry Vaughan, and Richard Crashaw in his first
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION IN THE BRITISH ISLES 329
period unmistakably bear the stamp of the Trentine movement. It
would be hard to prove this in detail, since it is, more than anything
else, a question of atmosphere; and besides such a demonstration
would take us too far afield. There are two points, however, on
which it is possible to trace the great likeness between the works of
the Anglican poets of Charles I's reign, and those of their Catholic
predecessor, the Jesuit Southwell.
The latter, true to the spirit of his Order, repeatedly asserted that
poetry must not confine itself to ddcctare through the handling of
profane subjects, but that it should prodesse by devoting itself to
religious themes. Now, it is not a little striking that Southwell, on
the one hand, in the prose and verse prefaces to St. Peter's Com-
plaint, Herbert and Vaughan on the other, should have expressed
themselves on the point practically in the same words. The Jesuit
had written: "Poets by abusing their talent, and making the follies
and feignings of Love the customary subject of their base endeav-
ours, have so discredited this faculty, that a Poet, a Lover, and a
Liar, are by many reckoned but three words of one signification."
Similarly Vaughan wrote in the preface to Silex scintillans: "That
this kingdom hath abounded with those ingenious persons, which
in the late notion are termed Wits, is too well known. Many of
them having cast away all their fair portion of time, in no better em-
ployments, than a deliberate search, or excogitation, of idle words,
and a most vain, insatiable desire to be reputed poets . . . minister
sin and death unto their readers." Again, Southwell had insisted
upon the same idea in verse:
Still finest wits are stilling VENUS' rose,
In Paynim toys the sweetest veins are spent:
To Christian works few have their talents lent.
Herbert was to give expression to the same thought almost in the
same words; though more lengthily:
My God, where is that ancient heat towards thee,
Wherewith whole shoals of Martyrs once did burn,
Besides their other flames? Doth poetry
Wear Venus' livery? only serve her turn?
Why arc not sonnets made of thee? and lays
Upon thine altar burnt? Cannot thy love
Heighten a spirit to sound out thy praise
As well as any she? Cannot thy dove
Outstrip their Cupid easily in flight?
33 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
More important still is the likeness between Southwell and the
Caroline poets in regard to the practical moral ideal which they
preach: the ideal of wise moderation, of staid decency, of modest
gravity and sobriety. Indeed that ideal was no new thing. It was
essentially that of the Christian humanists, sustine et abstine; and it
might be considered a moot point whether it came down to the
Caroline poets directly from the times of Surrey and Wyatt, through
a purely English tradition, or from the writers of the Catholic
Reformation. The latter seems, however, the more likely. The tradi-
tional element in the Church of England had suffered a Calvinistic
eclipse of thirty years' duration after the accession of Queen Eliza-
beth; and it is striking enough that it should only have reappeared
from 1590 onwards, after the Catholic mission had had time to fruc-
tify, thus coming back to England on a circuitous route. Anyhow,
there is a notable similarity between the practical advice included
in Southwell's Short Rule of Good Life, and that which appears
in Herbert's Church Porch, and, to some extent, in Vaughan's
Rules and Lessons. A detailed comparison would repay the trouble
spent upon it, but a few quotations must suffice here. Referring to
dress, the Jesuit poet had written : "Mine apparel must be free from
lightness, or more gaudmess than fitteth mine age, company, or
calling: it must be decent and comely, not too open, nor with any
unusual or new-fashioned dresses, that other grave persons of my
quality and calling ... do not use : it must be handsome and clean,
and as much as may be without singularity, that therein the staid-
ness and seemly estate of my soule may be perceived." Herbert
reproduced the same ideas in verse:
In clothes, cheap handsomeness doth bear the bell.
Wisdom's a trimmer thing, than shop e'er gave.
Say not then, This with that lace will do well;
But, This with my discretion will be brave . . .
Southwell had deprecated excess in laughter: "My voice neither
ought to be very loud, nor my laughter so vehement, as to be heard
afar off, both seemly and modest " And similarly, Herbert was
to say:
Laugh not too much: the witty man laughs least
A sad wise valour is the brave complexion
That leads the van, and swallows up the cities
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION IN THE BRITISH ISLES 331
It is to be noted that both Herbert and Vaughan recommend the
Ignatian practice of examination of conscience. The humble and
orderly sweetness of the Caroline poets was already extant in South-
well's Rule, and in so far as it tended to complete the ideal of the
English gentleman, the Catholic Reformation may be said to have
had its share in moulding it.
The height of its influence in the Laudian revival was manifested
in the Anglican communities established by Nicholas Ferrar at
Little Gidding and Lady Letice Falkland at Great Tew. Both the
founders expressly asserted that they were Protestant and hostile to
the Church of Rome, in which they were obviously sincere. Yet it
seems no mere chance that the Stories with which the inmates of
Little Gidding entertained their pious gatherings (those of Sapor
and Usthazanes for instance) should bear a striking likeness to the
themes of Jesuit tragedies. At Great Tew, the presence of St. Francis
de Sales is obvious, though never mentioned by those who were fol-
lowing in his wake. Lady Letice Falkland, having resolved, after the
death of her husband at the battle of Newbury, to amend the style
of her life, chose an Anglican clergyman, John Duncon, as her
director. The latter, who was related to the Herbert circle, wrote
letters of direction for his patroness, in which he advised her on her
spiritual condition, and which were published in 1648 under the
following title: The returns of spiritual comfort and grief in a
devout soul. This very title is reminiscent of the Introduction to a
Devout Life, and in fact Duncon expounds in an orthodox way the
mystical theory of St. Francis on "spiritual and sensible consola-
tions" and on periods of spiritual drought. In the very organization
of her household, Lady Letice may be considered as another Phil-
othee; and besides turning her relatives and servants into a quasi-
monastic community, she contemplated the foundation of an actual
religious order of women. Deeper research into this fascinating sub-
ject must be left for further studies. Enough has been said, how-
ever, to show that the Catholic Reformation in the British Isles,
though prevented from running its normal course, was far from
abortive, and that it was instrumental in bringing about that re-
awakening of the Church of England which was to mature in the
shape of the Oxford Movement.
33 2 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Catholic Reformation in the British Isles has never been dealt
with adequately. The work of Philip Hughes, Rome and the Counter*
Reformation in England (London, 1944), reviews the activities of
Cardinals Pole and Allen, but does not touch upon the devotional and
literary aspects of the subject. For Scotland and Ireland, two comprehen-
sive histories are available, those of Dr. Alphons Bellesheim, Geschichtc
der Katholischen Kirche in Schottland, Vols. I-II (Mainz, 1883), and
Geschichte der Katholischen Kirche in Irland, Vols. I-II (Mainz, 1890).
The proceedings of provincial councils in Scotland, Ireland, and Eng-
land are printed in Wilkins, Concilia Magnae Bntanniae (London,
1737), anc ^ reproduced in Mansi, Sacrorum connhorum nova et amplis-
sima collectio, phototype edition, tomes XXXII, XXXIV, and XXXV
(Paris, 1902). The relations of Stephen Gardiner with the Catholic
Revival on the Continent are studied in an article by Pierre Janellc, La
controverse entre Etienne Gardiner et Martin Bucer sur la discipline
ecclisiastique, in Revue des Sciences rehgieuses (Strasbourg, 1927). The
foundation movement in the Low Countries is described in minute
detail by Peter Guilday, in The English Catholic Refugees on the Con-
tinent, Vol. I (London, 1914); while the political aspect of the Catholic
Reformation in England is dealt with very fully in Dr. Alphons Belle-
sheim, Wilhelm Kardmal Allen und die Enghschen Semmare auf dem
Festlande (Mainz, 1885), and more scientifically in Arnold Oskar
Meyer, England und die Kathohsche Kirche unter Elisabeth und den
Stuarts (Rome, 1911). Information on the religious life of Douay College
is found in Thomas Francis Knox, The First and Second Diaries of the
English College, Douay (London, 1898). In regard to the devotional
literature of the Catholic Reformation, a mass of information is con-
tained in Charles Dodd's old Church History of England, Vols. IMII
(London, 1739^1742), while more accurate particulars may be gathered
from Gillow, Biographical and Bibliographical Dictionary of English
Catholics (London, 1885 sqq.), and even better from Pollard and Red-
grave, A Short-title Catalogue of Boo{s . . . (London, 1926), and DC
Backer-Sommervogel, Bibhotheca scriptorum societatis fesu. The spir-
itual and literary side of the Catholic Reformation in England is exam-
ined in Pierre Janellc, Robert Southwell the Writer, a study in religious
inspiration (London, 1935). The influence of the Catholic Reformation
upon the Anglican Church has seldom been handled at all, and one
should therefore refer to the original works of St. Teresa, Parsons,
Southwell, Herbert, Vaughan, Crashaw, and to the Story BooJ^s of Little
Gidding, edited by E. Cruwys Sharland (London, 1899). The adoption
of Salesian mysticism by John Duncon is studied in Pierre Janclle, Un
cas de direction protestante au XVUeme siecle, m Revue d'Historie et
de philosophic religieuses.
CHAPTER XIV
The Missions
THE missionary movement of the sixteenth and early seven-
teenth centuries was of far greater importance than any other
one of the activities of the Catholic reformers, and would de-
serve far more attention than can possibly be given to it in the
course of a brief chapter. It spread the Catholic faith, which up till
then had been practically confined to Europe, to the four corners of
the world. It laid the foundation for a truly universal Church. It
brought more souls to the Fold than had been lost to it through the
Protestant upheaval. Nor should it be considered as important solely
in the religious field. It contributed more than anything else to the
progress of civilization in newly discovered countries. It took its
stand no less against the barbarity of tribal customs than against the
vices, excesses, and cruelty of the European colonists. It opened
schools, colleges, universities; it helped in the study of native lan-
guages, of native art and culture, and opened out wide fields to his-
torical and geographical scholarship. It evolved methods of evan-
gelization in agreement with the intellectual needs and liturgical
practice of the times. Even in the realm of art, the results it achieved
were far from negligible. In a word, it followed closely in the steps
of traders and explorers, and gave its full significance to the discov-
ery of new continents.
The missionary movement was not, any more than the Catholic
Reformation itself, a direct consequence of the Protestant outbreak.
As a matter of fact, it had never wholly ceased in the Church, and
the proselytizing zeal of the first conquistadores, however ill-advised
in many of its manifestations, was in itself a proof of its continued
vitality. From the very first voyages of Columbus in 1492, and Vasco
da Gama in 1498, there was an eager desire on the part of the
333
334 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
Spaniards and Portuguese to spread the Christian faith. However,
it was only as the Catholic Reformation gained momentum that the
great missionary expansion began. It was to a large extent spon-
taneous, being due to the apostolic spirit of various religious orders:
the Franciscans, the Dominicans, the Augustmians, and above all
the newly created Society of Jesus.
Trent did not legislate on the missions, but from the very outset
the popes turned their attention that way and provided directions
and encouragement. In 1568, perhaps on the instigation of St. Fran-
cis Borgia, general of the Jesuits, and a great founder of missions,
Pope Pius V appointed a committee of cardinals for the conversion
of infidels. Gregory XIII, the "pope of missions," added another
committee to deal with Eastern rites and the reunion of schismatic
churches. It was only Clement VIII (1592-1605) who created a con-
gregation of cardinals specially devoted to missionary questions; and
Gregory XV followed this move in 1622 by proclaiming, in his con-
stitution Inscrutabilis divinae, the canonical institution of the Holy
Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, commonly known
as the Congregation of the Propaganda.
When this final development took place, however, the missionaries
had been at work for a whole century, in America, in Asia, and even
in Africa. Their earliest activities outside Europe took place in Mex-
ico, at the time of its conquest by Fernando Cortes. The latter,
despite his vices, was sincerely desirous of spreading Christianity,
though he went about it too hurriedly. He was accompanied by
some Brothers of the Order of Mercy, who set out to establish Cath-
olic worship and to christen natives. Little was effected until the
coming of three missions, one of twelve Observant Minors, a second,
of twelve Dominicans, and a third, of seven Augustmians, who ar-
rived at Mexico in 1524, 1526, and 1533, respectively. In fact, the
evangelization of the country was exclusively the work of the reg-
ulars of the three above Orders, the Franciscans occupying the land
first, the Dominicans settling down where it was still free, and the
Augustinians filling in the gaps.
In 1559, there resided in Mexico 380 Franciscans, 210 Dominicans,
and 212 Augustinians; which numbers, though they may appear
considerable, were yet wholly inadequate for such a vast region. In
1570, there were no fewer than 140 monasteries or foundations: 61
Franciscan, 40 Dominican, and 39 Augustmian. The number of
THE MISSIONS 335
baptisms, in the first few years of the mission, was extremely great.
It is estimated at five million for the period beginning in 1524 and
ending in 1536. In a letter of 1529, Brother Peter of Ghent, the fore-
most apostle of Mexico, speaks of fourteen thousand baptisms daily.
There is, indeed, no cause for surprise at this remarkably swift
spreading of Christianity; nor should the sincerity of most of the
converts be doubted. Their deities had failed to rescue them from
the foreign invader, whose God was apparently all-powerful; they
felt like children in the presence of a superior race, and the Spaniards
had no difficulty m making religious instruction compulsory for
them. Paganism persisted locally, but there is no reason to ascribe
to its survival present-day Mexican superstition. The work of evan-
gelization was performed ably and thoroughly.
It gave rise indeed to a number of problems which it is worth our
while to study in some detail, since they were, on the whole, to be
faced with local variants in every mission field. First of all,
what attitude was to be observed in regard to native religious beliefs?
Should they be considered as wholly false and wicked, and to be
therefore ruthlessly rejected, or should they be viewed as containing
an approach to Christian truth, which might be used as a starting-
point ? The question was particularly in point in Mexico, from the
fact that the native religion included baptism and confession of a
kind. Nevertheless, the fear of heresy, especially on the part of the
Dominicans, was such that no attempt was made to utilize local
beliefs as a basis for Christian apologetics. The method of catechiz-
ing used was that of the tabula rasa. Temples and idols were de-
stroyed, and native religion uncompromisingly denounced. At the
same time the missionaries to their praise be it said did not try
to Europeanize their flock, except in a very few cases. They did not,
in the face of a great variety of local dialects, enforce the use of
Castilian as an overriding tongue, but they chose for that purpose
the most widely used of the local languages, nahuatL This, of course,
entailed one major difficulty, that of finding the proper words to
express Christian notions. If use was made of native words, the sense
of which more or less approximated that of Spanish religious vo-
cables, there was a danger that pagan notions might be perpetuated,
as when the name of the goddess Tonantzin was applied to the
Virgin Mary. On the other hand, if Castilian words were imported
into the native tongue, the ideas to be imparted might very well
THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
remain foreign to the Indian mind. The latter solution was, how-
ever, generally adopted; so great was the fear of heresy in the minds
of the missionaries.
In any case, they did their best to provide Christian substitutes
for the pagan customs which they abolished, in that spirit of adapta-
tion which was later to be that of the Jesuits. Before the coming of
the Europeans, the Indians had continual religious feasts and cere-
monies. Every effort was now made to satisfy them in that respect:
"Ornaments and pomp in the churches," a Franciscan writer says,
"are very necessary to elevate the soul of the Indians and bring
them to divine things, for their nature is lukewarm and forgetful
of inward realities, and they must be helped by means of outward
appearances."
The taste for music of the Indians was taken into account. They
were made to sing plain chant, in which they are said to have done
as well as any Spanish choir. They were also made to play instru-
ments in church: flutes, bugles, cornets, trombones, oboes, guitars,
drums. We hear of one of them composing an entire Mass. Solemn
processions were organized. In addition to all this, it was necessary
to afford the natives a chance of giving vent to their animal spirits
through singing and dancing. Spanish songs were translated into
nahuatl, or Christian words adapted to local tunes. Dancing some-
times took place in the very churches. However the enthusiasm of
the Indians soon led to abuses, which had to be prohibited by the
provincial councils of Mexico in 1555 and 1565. The native temper
was also taken into account in the case of religious drama, which
was used as a means of evangelization almost solely by the Francis-
cans. The equivalent of Spanish autos sacramentales was performed
in Mexico, the subjects being scriptural themes such as the sacrifice
of Isaac or the adoration of the Magi. All the actors, singers, dancers
were Indian; and the text, spoken or sung, was in a native tongue,
generally nahuatl.
Apart from all those auxiliary modes of teaching, the Indians were
duly catechized by the missionaries. Wherever there was a convent,
catechism took place on Sundays and feast days. The population of
each village came in a procession headed by a cross and reciting
prayers. A roll-call was taken of those present, and those who ab-
sented themselves unduly were subjected to penalties. Catechisms
were published in the nahuatl tongue. The expounding of dogma in
THE MISSIONS 337
them was entirely similar to what it was in Spain; but huge pictures
were used to bring home to the Indian mind the elements of reli-
gious truth, God in His glory, amidst angels and saints, some of
them Indian, the pains of hell, with some Indians among the
damned, and other kindred subjects. The Franciscans were too few
to deal with the crowds they had to teach. They were assisted by lay
helpers chosen from among the Indians, the fiscales or mandoncs,
who also acted as censors of the manners of their fellow-villagers;
saw to the administration of baptism and confirmation; repressed
adultery, drunkenness, and sorcery; and organized worship where
there were no priests to do so.
The children of the Indian aristocracy were brought up with
especial care in residential schools established within the convents
themselves. They learnt Latin and often attained to remarkable
proficiency in that language, and later formed a most distinguished
native elite. Colleges were established for them by the Augustinians
in Mexico in 1537 and by the Franciscans in the suburb of Santiago
in 1536. The pupils of both led an altogether monastic life, and the
founders of the latter intended to prepare for the upbringing of a
native clergy. Most unfortunately, in Mexico as well as in most co-
lonial countries, there was an anti-native party, which was bitterly
opposed to the granting of the priesthood to Indians. Fear was ex-
pressed lest they should be incapable of the virtues necessary for the
sacerdotal ministry; and also in strange contrast to this lest they
should, if sufficiently educated, discern and condemn the vices of the
European colonists. The opposition was such that the Provincial
Council of 1555 forbade the ordaining of natives and half-castes.
This was the more deplorable as some Indians had been notable for
the sanctity of their lives.
Indeed, the notion that the Indians were not to be fully trusted,
that they were to be treated like children, was the reason why the
otherwise remarkable work of the regulars in Mexico did not reach
the full results that might have been expected. The intentions of the
missionaries were no doubt excellent: they wanted to withdraw the
natives from the habits of a nomadic life, to plant them firmly in
agricultural communities where they might lead a thrifty existence;
also to keep them wholty apart from the Europeans, whose corrupt-
ing influence and cruelty were but too well known. From the first,
therefore, they gathered the Indians in villages, all of these built on
338 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
the same plan, taught them how to till and irrigate the land, to ply
various trades, to produce silk; they forbade Europeans to stay for
more than three days in the native settlements. The advantages and
the drawbacks of such a policy are clear. It undoubtedly established
Christian communities and civilized the Indians; but it required
the continued presence of the missionaries among them, kept them
under a perpetual tutelage, and did not make them morally and
religiously self-dependent.
When all is said, however, the work of the Franciscans, Domin-
icans, and Augustinians is in many ways a model of Christian char-
ity. They loved the natives deeply, passionately; they respected their
personality, and they treated them with the utmost disinterestedness.
"The Indians marvelled," the Dominican Davila Padilla writes, "to
see the perseverance of the preachers, and even more to see them so
little affected by the gold and silver that Spanish laymen hold in
such esteem; and so experiencing how the religious despised the
riches of the world, they were fortified in their belief in the proper
wealth of the soul."
The religious of the three Orders always objected to the payment
of tithes by the Indians; and they led austere lives amidst the sump-
tuous surroundings which were provided by their beautiful churches
and cloisters, which, even nowadays, are one of the glories of Mex-
ico. Brother Francis of Ghent was so humble that he insisted on
remaining a lay Brother and refused the priesthood, which would
have ensured to him the archbishopric of Mexico. When he died in
1572, after having "broken several idols, brought down several
temples of idolaters, built more than a hundred churches, converted
several thousand infidels," many Indians went into mourning. In
fact, whatever may be said of the shortcomings of Mexican evan-
gelization, there was good reason for the enthusiasm of Brother
Martin of Valencia, one of the original batch of twelve Franciscans,
who wrote on June 12, 1531, referring to the Indians: "Their women
are very chaste, and embellished with that modesty which makes
their sex agreeable. . . . Their confessions, especially those of the
women, are full of matchless purity and candour, of unbelievable
subtlety, and of the greatest sincerity. They receive the sacrament of
the Altar with plentifijl tears."
The conditions were largely the same in the province of Lima,
which included not only modern Peru, but most of South America
THE MISSIONS 339
as well, barring Brazil. The spreading of Christianity was hampered
from the very first by the vices, cruelty, and covetousness of Spanish
laymen and even secular priests. When Pizarro first invaded Peru,
he held a conference with the king of the country, Atahualpa. Ac-
cording to the Augustinian chronicle, a Dominican who was present,
Vincent de Valverde, asked him to believe in Christ and pay a
tribute. On his refusal, he was presented with a breviary. The In-
dian turned over the leaves, and failing to understand what the
print meant, threw away the book and spat upon it. "What, you
Christians," Valverde cried, "is the Gospel trampled down? Justice
and revenge against the idolaters!" Whereupon the Spaniards came
out of their hiding-places with a great uproar, and slaughtered five
thousand Indians without suffering a single wound. Atahualpa
was made a prisoner, then killed despite the promises made to him.
Such a beginning was obviously inauspicious.
Before the arrival of the Augustinians, the chronicle runs, "there
was no talk of divine law or Christian doctrine: people were merely
intent on defending themselves or attacking, in repulsing or inflict-
ing violence, m stealing other men's goods or preserving their own.
As to teaching those poor vagrants [the Indians], there was no news
of that." The change was really no less due to the work of four
other religious orders: the Dominicans despite Valverde who
remained confined to Peru proper; the Franciscans, who migrated
to Rio de la Plata; the Order of Mercy, which spread to the whole
of South America; and the Jesuits, who arrived at Lima in 1568, but
whose expansion was also very swift, since they had five colleges in
Peru by 1582.
It is a fact that the low moral and intellectual level of the secular
clergy seriously compromised the evangelization of Peru. The Span-
ish government had placed at the head of each district an enco-
mendero, who was supposed to ensure to the Indians the doctrina,
i.e., the teaching of the catechism, the exercise of divine worship, and
the administration of the sacraments, and therefore to provide a
priest. But the encomenderos were often remiss, and entrusted the
ministry of the Gospel, the Augustinian chronicle runs, to certain
"caymans, vagabonds, men of no standing, who hired themselves to
teach doctrine to their Indian subjects, and even baptized children
against the will of their fathers." The Indians called them Bixa-
trayques, that is to say, the slaves of their bellies, though they called
34 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
themselves "doctrinarians." In fact, the bishops complained that
the home-country sent them "scandalous priests/' who dressed
gaudily, used weapons, traded, gambled, obtained wills in their
favour by underhand means, or were even guilty of simony. Add to
this that they had often to take charge of too many Indians over
too large an extent of territory, that they were very frequently
ignorant of the native language, and that they compelled the In-
dians by main force to work for their sustenance. Even the cathedral
chapters were not above reproof.
On the other hand, though it cannot be contended that the reg-
ulars were always faultless, it is in any case certain that they were
inspired with the highest apostolical ideal. Read the "articles*' which
were prepared for the Augustinian missionaries: they were to lead a
perfect life and set a good example; to suffer hunger, thirst, the
weather, and the insults of men, even unto death.
In particular they were "to serve the Indians with a free and dis-
interested heart; to take neither gold nor silver nor rewards; to
make it clearly understood that the religious did not seek riches in
those lands like the other Spaniards, but much the rather sought to
plant faith and virtues in souls as the ministers of Jesus Christ; . . .
to accommodate themselves to the capacity of each man, and suffer
with forbearance and patience stupidity and ignorance; and season
with loving sweetness and affability all their speeches and 'doctrine,'
so as to draw the Indians by that charm, while it was forbidden to
treat them harshly or to chastise them."
The missionaries were further admonished "that going out there
to serve, and not to be served, they should request no service from
any Indian man or woman; however, that they should induce them
to build churches and found hospitals, and themselves nurse the sick;
that they should morning and night teach Christian doctrine and
good morals; that they should try to establish schools wherein to
teach reading, writing, and reckoning, as well as the trades nec-
essary for social life, such as those of goldsmiths, painters, carpenters
and others; that they should instruct the Indians in regard to divine
worship, founding chapels, where music should be sung to the ac-
companiment of flutes, and organs, and other instruments, so as to
impress upon the heart of those pagans, through that lustre, a
greater respect and devotion; . . . lastly, that they should seek out
those savages in the mountains, in caves and marshes, where they
THE MISSIONS 341
hid, and gather them whenever possible that they might preach
Jesus to them, and put them in the way of their salvation, without
ever shrinking from the fatigue implied by such a search."
The document is a capital one, because it outlines the whole of
the evangelizing and civilizing policy of the regulars. They had
gathered the natives of Mexico and the Antilles into pueblos* or
villages; and according to their advice and to that of St. Pius V, the
Christian-minded viceroy of Peru, Francis Toledo, did the same
from 1568 onwards, by establishing "reductions" for the Indians.
These were to be placed in the best possible locations, and provided
with public buildings. As to the beauty of divine worship, which
was meant to impress the Indian mind, the Augustinians compla-
cently insist on the splendour and wealth of their monastery and
church at Lima. The reredos, they say, is finer than anything in
Spain; the pews are of delicately carved cedar. The articles made for
the refining of Indian manners by Father Anthony Ramirez provide
that each Saturday there will be a Mass for the members of the
Confraternity of Our Lady, the brethren holding lighted tapers;
while on Sundays and feast days, after Catechism, "the girls will
come to church in procession, crowned with wreaths of flowers. . . ."
In the first Augustmian women's convent, that of the Incarnation,
established at Lima in 1558, "one hears ... the most beautiful music
in the Indies, in which there are nine choirs of viols, bassoons,
harps, lutes, guitars and other instruments, the which marrying
their sounds and accents with the voices and trills of fifty girls . . .
make a concert, the most delectable and harmonious that can be
heard."
The main obstacle to the evangelization of the Indians was how-
ever their ignorance of die Castihan tongue. It had been the ideal
of the Augustinians to bring them to "imitate the Spaniards in dress,
food and conversation," but this was found to be impracticable. It
was necessary for the clergy to study and learn the native languages,
among which quichua held the same position as nahuatl m Mexico.
A quichua grammar had been composed by a Dominican, but the
Jesuits were the first to tackle the problem seriously.
Father Alonzo Barzana, S.J., travelled to the East of the Andes
and made himself master of five Indian dialects. His successor was
Father Diego Gonzalez Halguin, who devoted himself to the qui-
chua tongue. A printing-press was established at the Jesuit college
342 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
of Juli, where grammars, dictionaries, and books of devotion were
published in several native languages. Nor were the Fathers con-
tent with philological studies; they investigated the history, geogra-
phy, and customs of the country, and such a work as Father Jose de
Acosta's Natural History of the Indies has remained invaluable
down to the present day.
There was considerable fervour and enthusiasm among the Span-
ish regulars in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries; and
their contribution to the Catholic Revival was no less great in Amer-
ica than in the Spanish home-country. They forestalled the Trentine
movement and they also joined m it later on. Most of the reforming
bishops of the New World, who followed the directions of Trent,
belonged to the Franciscan and Dominican Orders. The first arch-
bishop of Lima (1540-1575), Francis Jerome de Loaysa, was a Do-
minican, who held two provincial councils. His successor (1579-
1606), St. Tonbio (or Turibius) de Mogrovejo, was however a
secular, but one who was deemed worthy of the title "apostle of
Peru." He was born in 1538 at Mayorga, m the Spanish province of
Leon. His reforming zeal was no less ardent than his devotion to the
native population. He held no fewer than thirteen diocesan councils,
and three provincial councils m 1583, 1591, and 1601, extending to
the whole of Spanish South America. In order better to direct and
supervise the evangelization of the Indians, he made three general
visitations of his huge diocese, penetrating to the remotest valleys of
the Andes at the peril of his life, everywhere preaching and improv-
ing religious conditions. In 1594, he wrote to the king of Spam that
he had journeyed more than three thousand leagues, and confirmed
five hundred thousand persons. He founded churches, convents,
seminaries, almshouses. In the course of his third episcopal visitation,
he was surprised by death at Sana, on March 23, 1606.
The Provincial Council of 1583 that which is meant when one
refers to the Council of Lima undertook to reform the Church of
Peru. It prescribed the appointment of one priest for the doctrinas
of one thousand to two thousand souls; and of two priests for the
doctrinas of more than two thousand souls. Villages with a popula-
tion of less than one thousand souls were to be gathered together
into "reductions." Each priest was to be helped by two majordomos,
in charge of the material organization of the parish, and two over-
seers exactly similar to the fiscales of Mexico. The Council of 1567
THE MISSIONS 343
had organized the teaching of catechism, which was to take place
twice a week, early in the morning, before work; attendance was
compulsory. Variations in the teaching of the dottrina were a
stumbling-block for the Indians, whose quibbling minds were easily
perturbed. Therefore the Council of Lima ordered the drafting of
three catechsims, based on that of Trent, and of graded difficulty,
like those of Canisius. Stress was laid in them on the idolatrous char-
acter of pre-Columbian religions; warnings were issued against an
anthropomorphic conception of the Creed and against abuses in the
worship of images; and carnal vices were condemned with especial
force.
The Council also insisted upon the necessity of beautifying divine
worship, and on the importance of training singers and instrument
players. All sacraments were to be open to the Indians, save holy
orders. The "superior" catechism, however, allows of Communion
only when permission is granted by a confessor. In regard to bap-
tism, the Council of 1567 had forbidden the christening of unwilling
or unprepared adults; for children, the consent of one parent at least
was required. Considering the weightiness and efficiency of the work
of the Council of Lima, it is surprising that its members should have,
as m Mexico, overlooked the true interests of evangelization by
denying to the Indians access to the priesthood and to the religious
life. They had a poor opinion of their minds, which, according to
them, "were not guided by reason." The Church was identified with
the Spaniards, and even with the Spanish crown, which enjoyed the
rights of padronado in America; and it stood to lose much on the
day on which governmental support was to be withdrawn, owing
to the secession of the colonies from the home-country.
Brazil stood apart from the rest of Latin America, belonging, as it
did, to the Portuguese, and also owing its evangelization mostly to
the Jesuits. But the conditions of religious life were largely the same
as in Peru. The country was being conquered by Europeans, who
enslaved the natives and considered them as brute beasts; while the
task of the missionaries, on the contrary, was to protect, educate, and
civilize the Indians, whose paganism easily gave way to Christianity.
It was important, therefore, to induce them to give up their nomadic
life and settle down in villages or aldeos.
This work was performed first and foremost by the Jesuit, Father
Jose d'Anchieta, whose fame is due no less to his Latin verse than
344 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
to his apostolic labours. He was born at Teneriffe in 1533, and
studied at the University of Coimbra. Joining the Society when still
very young, he was sent to Brazil in 1553. In 1576, he became the
rector of the college of San Vicente and, in 1578, provincial of his
Order in the country. He penetrated into the most remote wilder-
nesses and, through his gentleness, won the respect of the wildest
tribes. He also composed a grammar and a dictionary of the Brazil-
ian tongue. His death took place in retirement on June 9, 1597. A
great deal has been said about his thaumaturgic powers, to which he
no doubt owed much of his influence. His work was continued by
another Jesuit, Anthony de Vieira (1608-1697), who ran up against
the opposition of the slave-drivers; his activity, however, belongs
mostly to the late seventeenth century, and therefore need not detain
us here.
In Paraguay the Jesuits had a chance to experiment with their
notion of a Christian community. They were here given a free hand
by the Spanish government, and found the natives isolated from the
Spaniards, whose vices were too often an excuse for those of the
Indians who refused to accept Christian morality. The first three
Jesuits were called to Paraguay by the bishop of Tucuman, Don
Francis Vittona, and were invited on account of the failure of
previous attempts to convert the natives. They penetrated into path-
less forests, gained a few souls through their sweet and peaceful
demeanour, and then rowed down the rivers with the neophytes,
singing hymns accompanied by instruments. Their work was fruit-
ful, and in 1609 they established "reductions," to which the Spanish
crown granted independence, and from which all foreigners were
carefully excluded. The Indians were attracted, Muraton remarks,
not merely by the moving exhortations of the Jesuits, but also by the
prospect of obtaining plentiful victuals. The reductions soon gath-
ered from four to six thousand inhabitants each, the district of
Gayra alone numbering one hundred thousand souls in 1629.
Paraguay soon became a Christian republic, with the missionaries
acting not merely in their spiritual capacity, but as administrators
as well. The land was the property of the community as a whole,
according to local custom. Work was made cheerful, as in the
European colleges of the Society. Every morning, after Mass, the
people went to their several tasks to the accompaniment of flutes
and tabors, and solemnly carrying the image of a saint. Absolute
THE MISSIONS 345
equality prevailed; all wore the same uniform dress. The education
of the young was much on the same lines as in Mexico or in Peru.
The religious fervour of the people was both extraordinary and
touching. "They shed floods of tears while confessing sins so slight
that it is doubtful whether they provide matter for absolution. . . .
They declare their sins with such pain and groaning, that the con-
fessor is moved and cannot help joining his tears to those of the
penitent." In fact, devotional practice was pushed very far, and there
were "congregations" of St. Michael and the Virgin Mary, the mem-
bers of which were accustomed to frequent Communion. All the
wealth and splendour available were, as in Mexico and in Peru,
concentrated upon public worship. On the whole the experiment
was, both from the Christian and the purely human angle, an un-
doubted success, and has compelled the admiration even of Montes-
quieu and Voltaire.
* * #
The Conditions prevailing in Latin America favoured the whole-
sale conversion of the Indians. Huge tracts of land had been wholly
conquered by the Spaniards, who could exert pressure over the
natives. These were largely barbarians, and found themselves face
to face with a superior civilization, which could not but impress
them. Their paganism could not hold its own against Christianity.
But the problems confronting the missionaries in the East Indies
were of a more difficult kind. The Portuguese colonial empire in
Asia and Malaya really consisted of little more than trading-posts,
beyond which lay vast unconquered countries, where no support
was to be expected from the civil power. The peoples of Asia had
attained a high degree of civilization, and many of them professed
religions such as Mohammedanism, Buddhism, or Confucianism
which were capable of offering stubborn resistance. One point
there was, however, in common between the West and East Indies:
the European colonists were given to all manner of vices, and evan-
gelization had to begin with them, if any measure of success was to
be reached with the natives.
As in America, the older religious orders had followed in the
footsteps of the Portuguese adventurers. In 1500, eight Franciscans
of the Strict Observance had accompanied Alvarez Cabral, and three
of them had suffered martyrdom at Calicut. In 1510, when Alphonse
Albuquerque took Goa, he turned over to the Franciscans the use
346 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
of a mosque to establish a convent there. In 1540, Father Anthony
Patroni made a small cabin for himself under the walls of the town
of San Thome, where "he stayed in prayer, meditation, fasting and
abstinence," while ever and again he went into the city. Here he
always gained some soul to God, so that in a little time he converted
to the faith more than thirteen hundred of the infidels. He then built
the monastery of St. Thomas, where he died. The Franciscans settled
down at Goa in 1542. One of their number, Father Vincent, founded,
"for eighty children of converted Gentiles," the college at Cranganor,
which educated fourteen native priests to serve churches in their own
country, and fourteen more who became canons of the cathedral
church of Cochin. The same Father brought over to the Christian
faith the king of Tanor, who persevered to the end. By the close of
the sixteenth century, the Franciscan province of St. Thomas num-
bered twelve convents, six colleges, and sixteen residences. As for the
Dominicans, they established a house at Goa in 1549.
The work done by the older orders was no doubt considerable.
However, the history of Christian expansion in the East is wholly
dominated by the figure of St. Francis Xavier, "the apostle of the
Indies and of Japan." His career flashed like a shooting star across
the Asiatic skies. His story is a fascinating tale of spiritual adven-
ture. His character, to the present day, retains surpassing attractive-
ness. He was young barely forty-six when he died, after a life
packed with action. He was handsome, cheerful, gentle, heroic
withal. He was no doubt an exceptional personality, gifted with
extraordinary powers. "His power over nature was so great," writes
one of his biographers, "that it was said to be a kind of miracle,
when he performed no miracle." In any case, he evidenced a star-
tling penetration into men's motives and thoughts, and a surprising
foreknowledge of future or distant events; and no doubt the remark-
able influence which he exerted over those who came near him ac-
counts for much in the success of his apostolic labours.
He was born at the foot of the Pyrenees, at the Castle of Xavier,
on April 7, 1506, of a noble Spanush family. When he was eighteen
years old, his father sent him to study philosophy in the College
Sainte Barbe of the University of Paris. He took his degree of master
of arts, and was judged worthy to teach philosophy at the College
de Beauvais. Ignatius Loyola, arriving at Pans about that time,
judged him to be a highly suitable prospect for the teaching of the
THE MISSIONS 347
Gospel, and therefore began to lay siege to him and to his com-
panion, Peter Faber, taking lodgings with them for that purpose.
Xavier, who was of a haughty spirit, and whose head was filled
with ambitious thoughts, resisted Ignatius for sometime; but the
latter absolutely won his trust, "preserved him from error," and
afterwards "weaned him from the world." Xavier was one of the
six disciples of Ignatius who, together with him, took vows in the
chapel at Montmartre on Assumption day, 1534. He accompanied
his leader to Venice, where he tended the sick in the hospital of the
incurables, then to Rome, then back to Venice, where he took holy
orders. Next he went to Bologna and again to Rome, participating
everywhere in the apostolic work of the young Society.
It was now that the king of Portugal, John III, asked Pope Paul
III to grant him six Jesuits to evangelize the East Indies. Ignatius
appointed only two, one of these being Xavier. The latter accord-
ingly repaired to Lisbon, where he stayed for some months, labour-
ing so successfully for the reformation of the Church and laity, that
the king wanted to keep him in Portugal. He was, however, un-
willing to remain, and Ignatius insisted upon his departure. The
pope issued four briefs for the benefit of St. Francis, ranging in
date from July 27 to October 2, 1540, in which he constituted him
apostolic nuncio, and recommended him to the sovereigns of the
cast coast of Africa and the south of Asia. For throughout that
immense territory Xavier was entrusted, both by Paul III and by
the king of Portugal, with a general mission of information, inspec-
tion, and organization; which accounts for the apparently disconcert-
ing swiftness and extent of his movements in the course of the brief
ten years that were to elapse before his death. He embarked for the
Indies on April 7, 1541. Wherever Xavier happened to be throughout
his life, he sowed the seeds of Christianity. On board ship he made
himself omma omnibus, at the hospital of Mozambique, in Melinda,
he vainly tried to convert Moslems, as also at Socotora which he was
loath to leave. He arrived at Goa on May 6, 1542.
Henceforth the brief career of St. Francis Xavier apart from his
attempt to penetrate into China in the last phase was divided be-
tween three main theatres of activity. First came the south of India,
with the Portuguese settlements of Goa, Cochin, San Thome, and
regions such as the coast of Fishery and Travancore, where Chris-
tianity had been more or less firmly planted but where it was Ian-
348 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
guishing for lack of priests. Secondly, he entered the Portuguese
colonies in Malaya, Malacca, and in the Moluccas, Amboyna, and
Ternate; with the background of half -heathen islands, such as the
terrible island, Del Moro, where the inhabitants scarcely remem-
bered that they had been baptized. Thirdly, he arrived in Japan,
which lay altogether outside the pale of European rule, though the
Portuguese traders had some influence there.
Xavier was active in South India for more than three years, from
his arrival at Goa until September, 1545; in Malaya for two and a
half years, since he was back at Goa on March 20, 1548, spending
seventeen months there; in Japan for more than two years, from his
arrival at Cangoxima (Kagoshima) on Assumption day, 1549, to his
departure from Figi on November 20, 1551. The remainder of his
life was spent at Goa, and in the island of Sancian (San Choan)
near Canton, where he died of a fever on December 2, 1552. We
shall not attempt to follow Xavier in his journeys by land or sea.
It is of more interest to study his missionary methods and assess the
value of the results which he obtained.
Indeed, it should not be forgotten that St. Francis was, first and
foremost, a Jesuit, one who had thoroughly imbibed the spirit of
the nascent Society. "It is impossible to relate," Father Bouhours
writes, "with what tenderness he loved the Society." He himself
wrote from Cochin, in 1547, to the Fathers at Rome: "If I ever
forget thee, O Society of Jesus, let my right hand be unprofitable to
me, and may I even forget the use of it." His devotion to St. Igna-
tius was unspeakable. "My only, dear Father, in the bowels of Jesus-
Christ," he wrote to him from Cochin, "father of my soul for whom
I have a most profound respect, I write this to you upon my knees,
as if you were present and I beheld you with my eyes." It is not
surprising, under the circumstances, that Xavier's apostolate should
have been imbued with the spirit of the Society, and in particular
with its practical-mindedness. He made it a rule for himself always
to apply his effort where it was likely to be most effective. When he
sent Father Barzeus to Ormuz, he issued instructions to him, in
which the following words occur: "Always prefer those employ-
ments which are of a large extent, to those which are more limited.
According to that rule you shall never omit a sermon in public in
THE MISSIONS 349
order to hear a private confession. You shall not set aside the
catechizing that you may visit any particular person, or for any good
work of the like nature."
He himself applied this principle, and determined the order of
importance of his tasks according to the profit which might be
expected. He began his apostolic work with the Europeans, whose
Christian beliefs provided a starting-point for the reformation of
their manners, and whose good example might carry much weight
with the natives. He was never weary of writing to Europe, to ask
for preachers for the Portuguese stations. "We must remedy our
own miseries first," he wrote; "then we shall go to the rescue of the
Infidels." Next in order of preference came those natives who had
become Christians through baptism, but whose religion had often
become sadly decayed, as in the neighbourhood of Cape Comorin.
Then followed those who were still infidels, but who were asking
for priests, as at Travancore. After these, Xavier attended to those
whose natural moral qualities and intellectual gifts fitted them for
the acceptance of the truth, like the Japanese, and their masters in
regard to civilization, the Chinese.
In the Portuguese settlements, colonial vices flourished amidst a
population of adventurers. At Goa, "the Portuguese themselves
lived more like idolaters, than Christians. . . . Every man kept as
many mistresses as he pleased, and maintained them openly in his
own house. . . . They bought women, or took them away by force,
either for their service, or to make money of them. . . . Justice was
sold at the tribunals, and the most enormous crimes escaped punish-
ment when the criminals had wherewithal to corrupt the judges.
All methods for heaping up money were accounted lawful. . . .
Murder was reckoned but a venial trespass, and was boasted of as a
piece of bravery."
Religious conditions were no better: "The use of confession, and
the communion, were in a manner abolished; and if anyone by
chance was struck with remorse of conscience ... he was con-
strained to steal to his devotions by night, to avoid being seen by
his neighbour." The lack of priests contributed to this state of things,
which also prevailed at Meliapore, Malacca, and Ternate. It needed
some pluck on the part of Xavier to undertake the amendment of
such a lawless crowd. At Malacca, "walking the streets at night,
with his bell in his hand, he cried with a loud voice, Tray to God
350 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
for those who arc in the state of mortal sin,' and by this, he brought
into the minds of sinners, the remembrance and consideration of
their offences." However, he trusted to other means, and realized
how important it was to get hold of young people. He gathered
them into the church at Goa for catechism, and "it was through
those babes that the town began to change its face."
According to another principle, which the Society had borrowed
from St. Paul, Xavier consistently made himself all things to all
men, managing to gain the confidence even of hardened sinners.
Once he told a gamester who used to swear, "that gaming required
a composed spirit," and thus brought him "to show a kindness for a
man who was so much concerned about his advantage," and who
eventually converted him. He would visit concubinaries, asking to
see the children and their mother, and would treat her respectfully.
If she were beautiful, he would praise her, and recommend mar-
riage. If she were a "swarthy, ugly Indian," he would advise dis-
missal. It was by all these means that "he left the town (of Meha-
pore, or San Thome) so different from what it was at his coming
thither, that it could hardly be known for the same place."
With the nominal Christians or infidels, Xavier was not m a posi-
tion to do any elaborate work. There was, first of all, the language
difficulty. Few of the natives had a smattering of Portuguese, and
interpreters were necessary. There was next the question of time
with the Paravas, the saint spent one month only in each centre. His
methods had to be swift and simple. He generally managed, even in
Japan, to compose a translation into the local tongue of a few essen-
tial religious texts: "the words of the sign of the cross, the apostles'
creed, the commandments, the Lord's prayer, the salutation of the
angel, the confiteor, the Salve regma." He would then, as in the
case of the Paravas, gather the adults and children, and recite to
them the various prayers in their own tongue, that they might
repeat them after him. "This being done," he says, "I repeated the
Creed singly, and insisting on every particular article, asked if they
certainly believed it. They all protested to me with loud cries, and
their hands across their breasts, that they firmly believed it." The
same happened with the commandments, which were interspersed
with resolutions uttered in common. It is clear that such a lesson,
in which the audience were made to take part through their words
and gestures, must have impressed the native mind greatly. Nor was
THE MISSIONS 351
Xavier averse to the use of a measure of compulsion in addition to
persuasion. The natives with whom Xavier had to deal were gener-
ally half-barbarians, low caste or outcaste people, who might be
treated with paternal authority. He made use of the Paravas children
to "break in pieces as many idols as they could get into their power.
. . . Xavier went often in their company, to make a search of ...
suspected houses; and if he discovered any idols, they were imme-
diately destroyed."
As a matter of fact, the Portuguese were, in his eyes, to play the
same part in their Asiatic dominions towards the spread of Chris-
tianity that the Spaniards had played in America. He obtained
orders from the king of Portugal to the effect that "no toleration
should be granted to the superstitions of the infidels in the isle of
Goa." Houses should be searched for idols, and the latter broken.
Those who concealed them should be punished. Brahmins should
be banished if they opposed the publication of the Gospel. Xavier,
in fact, went to the length of calling the Portuguese to arms against
the king of Jafanapatan (Ceylon) who had slaughtered the Chris-
tian population of the island of Manar. Nor was he above using
wise diplomacy, and appealing to the temporal interests of prospec-
tive Christians, as he eventually did with the king of Jafanapatan,
advising him to accept, for his own good, the protectorate and the
faith of the Portuguese. But of course he kept in view the ultimate
spiritual welfare, no less than the temporal welfare, of his proselytes;
for he also obtained from King John III "that no exaction should
remain unpunished; that no slaves should henceforth be sold, either
to Mahometans, or to Gentiles; that the pearl fishing should only
be in the hands of Christians, and that nothing should be taken
from them, without paying them the due value."
Firm fatherliness was suitable for a primitive population, espe-
cially where support was available from the civil power. It was
altogether out of place in Japan, and Xavier accordingly modified
his plans, with a true Jesuit sense of adaptation. When he and his
companion, Fernandez, preached at Amanguchi (Yamagutsi), with-
out permission from the king, "people admired their courage, ac-
cording to the humour of the Japonians, whose inclinations are
naturally noble, and full of esteem for actions of generosity." Their
35 2 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
noble-mindedness, however, implied no respect for poverty, and
when Xavicr appeared at the court of Bungo, his miserable attire
was likely to draw contempt upon him. He therefore agreed with
the Portuguese merchants who had brought him, "that he should
present himself with all the pomp and magnificence they could de-
vise," even to the extent of his donning a new cassock, which was
much against the grain. Besides, the Japanese were almost on a par
with Europeans in regard to their intellectual faculties. On no point
does the saint insist so much as upon the fact that they are "ingen-
ious and very rational," "of docible and reasonable minds." With a
true scholastic and humanistic belief in the compelling power of
reason, Xavier again and again reverts to the necessity of proving
to the Japanese, "according to the rules of the schools," that "the
Christian doctrine is most conformable to good sense." Hence his
spectacular disputations at the court of Bungo, with the chief bonze
of the kingdom. More than forty years later, his successor, Father
Valignani, in a treatise on the evangelization of the Japanese, recom-
mended the confutation, by means of arguments, of erroneous be-
liefs: "We must," he said, "follow reason as did our leader."
His work, however, did not end with convincing the infidels.
Steps had to be taken to maintain religious life in the Christian com-
munities, after the departure of the saint. With the Paravas, Xavier
"called together the most intelligent amongst them, and gave them
in writing what he had taught, to the end that as masters of the
rest, on Sundays and Saints' days, they might congregate the people,
and cause them to repeat, according to his method, that which they
had learnt formerly. He committed to these catechists (who in their
own tongue are called canacapoles) , the care of the churches . . .
and recommended to them the ornament of those sacred buildings."
The same was done at Ternate and in Japan.
Meanwhile the saint was painstakingly and patiently organizing
the missions of the East. He was constantly writing to Europe to
obtain more priests, and allotting to each newcomer a sphere of
action. Even before the Society had become fully conscious in Europe
of the part it was to play in the realm of education, the saint began
to create Jesuit colleges in the East. He had founded one at Malacca
in 1548, and he took over from the Portuguese principal, James de
Borba, on behalf of the Society, the Seminary of Holy Faith at Goa.
His ambitions were huge: "Whatever he performed, he looked on
THE MISSIONS 353
it, as no more than an essay." He purposed to convert China, and
then "to return to Europe by the North, that he might labour in the
reduction of heretics; . . . after this, he planned to go over into
Africa." In fact the results which he obtained, though not propor-
tionate to his wishes, were considerable. He is said to have brought
over seven hundred thousand souls to the Christian faith. This, of
course, would apply mostly to the mass conversions in southern
India and Malaya. In Japan, the figures quoted are more modest:
five hundred persons in the first two months at Amanguchi, the
number soon rising to three thousand.
In fact, though the work done by Xavier was merely preparatory,
it laid down a solid foundation for further conquests. Christianity
was firmly planted and has remained prosperous in every one of the
regions he visited, save in Japan, where it was suppressed by the
direst persecution. Whatever the practical results, in any case, the
life of St. Francis is one of supreme spiritual beauty. He was a
great mystic as well as a great preacher. When he was in the "barren
and inhospitable" island, Del Moro, "I do not remember," he wrote,
"to have tasted such interior delights." His thirst for martyrdom is
revealed in the admirable lines which he wrote to the Fathers at
Rome: "Let our brethren then, who desire to shed their blood for
Jesus Christ, be of good courage, and anticipate their future joy.
For behold a seminary of martyrdom is ready for them; and they
will have wherewithal to satisfy their longings."
Xavier trusted much to the effect produced upon the common
people by the fearless proclamation of Christian belief. Yet, true to
the invariable practice of the Jesuits, he aimed at conquering in-
fluential individuals, who might carry along with them whole sec-
tions of the population. Hence his efforts to gain over the local
sovereigns of Japan, and his scheme of an embassy to the emperor of
China. In India, however, he failed to win over the Brahmins, who
despised low caste converts, and also foreigners who used cow leather
and ate cow meat.
In 1608, another Jesuit, Father Robert de Nobili, devised a new
method for the religious conquest of the Brahmins, and consequently
of the whole of India. He adopted their dress and their mode of life,
and withdrew to a hut made of turf, where he lived for one year as
a hermit, feeding on vegetables and drinking only water. At the
same time he studied the sacred books of the Hindoos. His renown
354 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
gradually spread. He was consulted by Brahmins, and, like St. Paul
preaching the "unknown God," explained to them that the Christian
faith was the fourth veda, which had not as yet been revealed. This
interpretation of the Hindoo religion met with prodigious success.
It scandalized, however, some of the inhabitants of Goa, who de-
nounced it to the Holy See; but in 1623, Pope Gregory XV ex-
pressly approved of it. In 1639, De Nobili instituted two classes of
missionaries: the first, called Saniasis, were subjected like him to the
etiquette of the Brahmins; the second, called Pandara-swamis, were
to mingle with all classes. When he died in 1656, the Madura mis-
sion numbered one hundred thousand Christians.
In Japan, Xavier's work was continued by the Jesuits, the Fran-
ciscans, the Dominicans, and the Augustinians. A huge movement
of conversions took place, especially under a wise and ambitious
ruler, the Emperor Nobunaga, who reigned from 1565 to 1582, and
favoured Christianity. During this period, the number of Christians
rose to 200,000, with 250 churches; it was to reach the figure of
600,000 in 1622; "Christians, mark," the Franciscan chronicle runs,
"not like ours, who are mostly hermaphrodites in their belief; but
Christians faithful unto death, yea unto death on the Cross." The
truth of these words had been proved as early as 1596, when a
bloody persecution began. The captain of a stranded Spanish galleon,
to save his cargo, attempted to intimidate the Emperor Hydeyoski
by describing to him the dominions of the king of Spain, which, he
said, had been acquired by first converting the natives. This roused
the suspicions of the sovereign. All the Franciscans present in Japan
were arrested and sentenced to crucifixion, together with seventeen
tertiaries and three Jesuits. The traditional Japanese contempt of
death was now turned to a Christian purpose. "It was a fine thing to
see some of the first of the town of Nagasaki running about the
streets, saying in a loud voice, *I too want to be a martyr.' " A new
and terrible persecution began in 1610; it was renewed in 1624, when
30,000 Christians were put to death. The final blow was struck m
1640, when Christianity was utterly proscribed in Japan.
The situation was more favourable in China for the space of
almost a century. Until the Spanish Dominicans arrived in 1631,
the Jesuits had a free hand in the Empire, and obtained the most
remarkable results. In 1562, they settled down in the newly founded
Portuguese colony of Macao, where a college was to be established
THE MISSIONS 355
in 1595. But the method still followed was to Europeanize the con-
verts. It was Father Valignani who directed the Far Eastern apos-
tolate into apter channels, by prescribing to the new missionaries
the study of Chinese characters.
Xavier's principle for the conversion of China was applied by
Father Matthew Ricci (1552-1610). His plan was to start from
above, and to conquer the people through the scholarly class of the
mandarins; while these were in their turn to be gained by means
of European science. Ricci was qualified for the performance of
such a task, for he was scientifically gifted, and had studied mathe-
matics and astronomy in Rome. Besides, like De Nobili in India,
he assumed, as far as he could, the style of life of the people among
whom he had to move; he first dressed like a bonze, then more
advisedly like a mandarin. His progress through China was slow
and patient. He obtained the favour of dignitaries through the gift
of European instruments, especially clocks. He gradually made his
way to Peking, rendered himself agreeable to the emperor, and con-
verted a number of men and women in all classes of society. His
successors continued his work on the same lines. Father John Adrian
Schall, a Rhinelander, became an official character through his
reform of the Chinese calendar. Father John de Rocha, in charge
of the Nanking residence, brought over to Christianity an illustrious
doctor, Paul Siu Koank-k'i, who travelled to Macao on purpose to
make himself better acquainted with Catholic life, and there went
through St. Ignatius' Exercises. About 1650, there were in Shanghai
30,000 baptized Christians, and the annual increase was from two to
three thousand. It is even reported, though perhaps too optimistically,
that there were 100,000 Christians in the province of Nanking in
1641. This remarkable development was checked, from 1630 on-
wards, by the unfortunate quarrel which broke out between the
Jesuits and Dominicans over the question of Chinese rites, such as
"ancestor worship," which the Jesuits, stretching "adaptation" to its
utmost possibilities, sanctioned as compatible with Christian belief,
obviously excluding, of course, the intention of giving divine honors.
The controversy was to last on until 1705; it had been fatal to the
Catholic apostolate in China.*
* It is interesting to note in this connection the regulations set down in Canon 1258
of the Code of Canon Law. One section of this canon specifically deals with "Cere-
monies in Honor of Confucius Permitted as Purely Civil Acts." There is question
356 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
* * *
Just as the Spanish revival initiated by St. Peter of Alcantara and
St. Teresa was responsible for the planting of Christianty in Central
and South America; just as Jesuit enthusiasm and militancy gave it
a firm footing in Asia; even thus was its establishment in North
America a consequence of the French Catholic renascence of the
early seventeenth century. New Spain cannot be considered apart
from Castile and Aragon; nor can Canada, "New France," be
separated from the home-country. There are, however, essential
differences between the conditions of the Spanish and French apos-
tolates. The former, in its dreams of political and religious aggran-
dizement, enjoyed the whole-hearted support of the State; whereas
here of ceremonies in honor of a Chinese sage who died in the fifth century before
Christ. A vital portion of this section reads:
"i. Since the Chinese Government has several times openly declared that all arc
free to profess whatever religion they choose, and that it is far from their mind
to issue laws or orders about religious matters; and that consequently the ceremonies
in honor of Confucius which are cither performed or ordered by the public author-
ities, are done not with a view of offering religious worship, but solely in order to
encourage and manifest due honor toward a great man and due observance toward
ancient traditions- it is permitted to Catholics to be present at ceremonies of honor
which are performed before an image or tablet of Confucius in Confucian temples
or in schools.
"2. It is, therefore, not to be considered forbidden to erect an image of Confucius
or even a tablet inscribed with his name, in Catholic schools, especially if the author-
ities order it, or to bow the head to such image or tablet. If at any time there is
danger of scandal, the right intention of Catholics in performing these acts should
be declared.
"3. It is to be tolerated that Catholic magistrates and students, if they arc ordered
to assist at public ceremonies which have the appearance of superstition, may indeed
be present, provided that, according to canon 1258, they remain passive and give
signs of that observance only which may rightly be considered purely civil; declaring
their intention as above prescribed, if at any time this seems necessary in order to
obviate false interpretations of their act.
"4. Inclinations of the head and other manifestations of civil observance before
the deceased or their images, and even before a tablet of a deceased person simply
inscribed with the name, are to be considered as licit and unobjectionable." (Bouscaren,
The Canon Law Digest, p. 371.)
On the other hand, in the same canon, the following question and reply are
offered showing what, for instance, is to be considered a forbidden act:
"4. If in a Catholic school there is given an order to install before the image
of Confucius a kind of altar with candelabra, incense, etc., may this manner of action
be tolerated?
"Reply. No; because in spite of the reply of the authorities on the civil character
of the cult paid to Confucius, the ceremony would present too great a likeness to
the religious and superstitious practices, and would cause scandal." (Ibid., p. 366.)
EDITOR.
THE MISSIONS 357
the latter received but niggardly help from the crown. The king of
France had to reckon with the Calvinists, who were numerous
among oversea traders, and who were opposed to Catholic expan-
sion. Fur merchants, as a rule, considered Canada as their private
preserve, the ownership of which would be endangered, if colonists
were too numerous, or if the natives became civilized. Besides there
was in France an anti-colonial party, the party of the "stay-at-homes/*
who thought that any expenditure of strength in far-away countries
would be a needless and expensive drain upon national resources.
For all these reasons the French apostolate in Canada was, like the
reformation of the Church in France, due chiefly to the private ini-
tiative of regular or secular priests, and very often of laymen. On
the other hand, apart from English or Dutch raids on coastal posts,
the Spaniards were left m undisturbed possession of their American
colonies; and their ecclesiastical policy met on the whole with little
opposition. It was far otherwise with the French in Canada. They
were subject to ceaseless attacks from their Protestant adversaries of
England, New England, and the Netherlands, who went so far as
to arm and egg on against them tribes of "Redskins," such as the
ferocious Iroquois. The evangelization of Canada was carried on
amidst constant dangers and vicissitudes; that it should have ob-
tained such deep and lasting results proves the stintless devotion to
Catholicism of the French pioneers.
It is not possible here to rehearse the religious history of Canada.
The chief events are well-known: the landing of two Jesuits in
Acadia in 1611; the destruction of the colony by the English in
1613; the arrival of the Franciscans at Quebec in 1615; their work
among the Hurons; the appearance of the Jesuits in 1625; the de-
parture of the Franciscans after the capture of Quebec by the Kirke
brothers in 1629; the Jesuit apostolate as far as Lake Superior; the
foundation of Montreal as an advanced post in 1641 ; and finally, the
slaughter of the Christianized Hurons by the Iroquois in 1648-1649.
The essential fact, throughout that chain of events, is the close
connection between the activities of the Catholic reformers in France
and the Canadian apostolate. The exalted religious atmosphere of
the home-country provided a fit preparation for the missionaries and
for lay settlers imbued with the missionary spirit. It is a significant
fact that out of 450 books on far-away countries printed in France
from 1600 to 1661, one hundred and seventy-three were missionary
358 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
works, published in twenty-seven different towns. The Jesuit college
at La Fleche was a centre of propaganda for the evangelization of
Canada. Father Masse*, who had preached Christianity in Acadia,
was minister of the college in 1615, and imparted his enthusiasm to
his pupils. In 1647, a miscellany of Latin verse by Father John
Chevalier was adopted for use in the classes. It included five poems
devoted to the Canadian apostolate, and was imbued with the
chivalrous heroism of the period.
It is, therefore, not surprising that we should find every prominent
Catholic of the reigns of Henry IV and Louis XIII more or less
associated with the mission to Canada. Father Co ton, the provin-
cial of the Society of Jesus in Paris, and the duke of Ventadour, the
founder of the Company of the Holy Sacrament and viceroy of
Canada from 1624 onwards, were both instrumental in sending
Jesuit Fathers across the Atlantic. Eveiy where among the French
aristocracy and bourgeoisie, in the world or* in religious houses, mis-
sionary vocations occurred. The aspirations of an Ursulme nun,
Mother Mary of the Incarnation, were turned towards the teaching
of young native girls in Canada by the rector of the Jesuit college at
Tours, Father Dinet. She was accompanied in her exile by Madame
de la Peltrie, a gentlewoman of Caen, who had been encouraged in
her purpose by Father de Condren the Oratorian and St. Vincent
de Paul, and helped by M. de Bernieres, a prominent local member
of the Company of the Holy Sacrament. The Duchess of Aiguillon
sent Hospitaller nuns to found a hospital in Quebec. M. de la
Dauversiere, a former pupil of the college of La Fleche, who shared
in the devotion of the Fathers towards St. Francis Xavier, founded,
with the approval of M. Olier, the Society of Our Lady of Montreal,
to colonize the island of the same name. A suitable governor was
found by the Jesuits for the new settlement. He was a gallant Chris-
tian soldier, M. de la Maisonneuve. The Montreal Society was also
mentioned by the Jesuits to a clever and virtuous woman, Mad-
emoiselle Jeanne Mance, who joined the group of the emigrants.
Division had not yet crept into French Catholicism; and all ener-
gies were united towards one purpose, which has been rightly de-
scribed as a "crusade."
The settlers were prepared to live and die for the advancement of
Christianity. Champlain had served in the army of the League. He
was "in everything a religious and God-fearing man," who tolerated
THE MISSIONS 359
no blasphemy on board ship, who conducted prayers there, morning
and night, and who desired, whenever possible, the assistance of a
chaplain. "The conversion of a single infidel," he wrote in his
Travels, "is worth more than the conquest of a kingdom." His com-
panion, Louis Hebert, formerly an apothecary, now become a tiller
of the soil, asked for a grant of land, "so as to make a beginning
of a Christian people."
The communities of colonists established on Canadian ground
recalled the purity and fraternity of the early Church. In the fort of
Quebec, of which Champlain was the governor, "some good book
of history was read aloud during the midday meal, and the Lives of
Saints in the evening. Everyone examined his conscience at night in
his room, and then took part in prayers, which were said kneeling.
The angelus was rung at dawn, at noon and at dusk." The "gentle-
men" who founded Montreal did not consider themselves as traders,
but as working for "the glory of God," and for "the salvation of the
savages." When they had settled down in their colony, "they all lived
m common as in a sort of mn, and all were one heart and one soul
m Jesus-Christ. . . . The vice of impurity was not even heard of. ...
If by any chance they offended each other, they asked each other's
forgiveness at night before going to bed." This devotional spirit
culminated in the heroism shown in times of stress by the settlers
themselves and by their spiritual advisers, the Jesuit Fathers, who
had to put up with severe hardships, and several of whom, such as
Jogues, De Brebeuf, and Lalemant, suffered martyrdom amidst ter-
rible tortures. "It is a singular favour," Father de Brebeuf wrote in a
farewell letter, "that God's kindness does to us, to make us endure
something for his sake. ... If he wants us to die at this very hour,
the better for us."
Even where it did not end in martyrdom, the task proposed to the
efforts of religious and lay missionaries was indeed a difficult one,
the more difficult as their aim in regard to the natives was noble
and exalted. Contrary to Spanish practice, they raised no barrier
between the Reds and the Whites. They wanted the former, once
Christianized, to become the equals of the latter. Their religious
ideal was humanitarian, with its settled belief in equality between
the races. Richelieu stipulated that a baptized native was to become
in every respect similar to a French subject, to the extent of enjoying
all his legal privileges, without having to take out letters of natural-
360 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
ization. At Sillcry, towards 1639, the governor of Quebec and
Madame de la Peltrie went to Communion side by side with the
natives. No wonder, under these circumstances, if, as Fr. Lalemant
wrote in 1631 after the capture of Quebec, "the savages longed after
the return of the French, who treat them far otherwise than the
English."
About the same time earnest efforts were made at Quebec by the
Jesuits to establish a seminary for the natives, in order to turn them,
when grown up, into Christian propagandists. Unfortunately, the
attempt ended in failure. The Redskins were easily enough cap-
tivated by their new surroundings at the outset; but soon they began
to pine after their life of freedom in the wild woods, and fled from
the seminary. They were indeed a ticklish population to deal with.
They were often friendly to the missionaries, and listened to them
willingly; but afterwards proved elusive and disappointing. "Even
after baptism [which some accepted as a guarantee of bodily health]
there was little change in them," Father Biard wrote in 1611. "The
same wildness and the same manners remained, or nearly so; the
same customs, ceremonies, uses, fashions and vices." Father Le
Jeune did not remember "having seen them do one single act of
true moral virtue; they had," he said, "but their pleasure and satis-
faction in view. They were gluttonous, vindictive, pitiless with the
old and sick, superstitious, morally and physically unclean." It re-
quired especial good will on the part of the missionaries to conclude
that their soul, though spoiled by long neglect, "was naturally an
excellent soil."
Besides, the variety in their modes of life required a corresponding
adaptation of missionary methods. When the Jesuits had to deal
with nomads, the Algonquins for instance, they endeavoured, as in
Paraguay, to establish agricultural "reductions." In some cases, they
met with no little success. At St. Joseph de Sillery near Quebec, they
built a residence for themselves, houses for the neophytes, a fort, a
hospital, and a chapel. In 1638, two large families of Algonquins
agreed to settle down there; in 1645, the number of families had
grown to thirty. The same happened in other cases. The problem
was wholly different for sedentary tribes like that of the Hurons,
who lived in villages, and who on the other hand were too far from
the centres of white population for the latter to exert a lasting in-
fluence. The Jesuit apostolate had to proceed among them on other
THE MISSIONS 361
lines. The Fathers, under De Brebcuf, built a hut in Ihonatiria, in-
cluding a storehouse, a common room, and a chapel, and tried to
attract the natives by displaying objects which to them were mar-
vels: a prism, a magnet, a microscope, joiner's tools, a handmill for
flour, clock. They gathered the children together and taught them
the elements of Christian belief; but the elders were more obdurate.
It was soon found that it was impracticable to multiply such estab-
lishments, and new methods were adopted by Father Lalemant. A
single central residence, named Samte Marie, was established, not in
an already extant village, but in a vacant site suitable for the pur-
pose. Thence flying missions were to issue forth towards other tribes
from time to time; while their members were to come back period-
ically for rest and spiritual refreshment. In their apostolate the
Jesuits were assisted by a new class of servants who devoted them-
selves freely to the service of the mission, and who, because they
made a gift of themselves, were called the donnes. No provision
had been made in the rules of the Society for such helpers, who were
akin to tertiaries; they were authorized, however, by the Father
general Vitelleschi, after Father Lalemant had provided that they
should take no vows and wear no clerical dress.
The difficulties of the apostolate, especially among the Western
tribes, were increased by the fact that the English and Dutch col-
onists conducted among the red tribes a merciless anti-Jesuit prop-
aganda. The Dutch supplied the Iroquois with firearms, while the
military support which would have kept them in check was sadly
lacking. As early as 1634, Father Le Jeune bemoaned the reluctance
of the French to display their strength to impress the natives, as the
Portuguese had done with the Indians. Champlam had asked Riche-
lieu to send him one hundred and fifty well-armed soldiers, who
would have sufficed to reinforce the Hurons and Algonquins. But
the cardinal needed every available resource for his war against the
house of Austria, and refused to grant one single man. That in such
circumstances, the hard-beset mission should have gained a firm foot-
ing in Canada may give rise to some wonder.
Indeed, the results obtained are not expressed by such huge figures
as those which we have quoted in the case of the West and East
Indies. The country was thinly populated, and such important tribes
as the Hurons and Algonquins ran only to tens of thousands. There-
fore the numbers of baptisms were necessarily small. The Huron
362 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
mission reported 22 in 1633; 115 in 1636; more than 300 in 1637. In
1640, Father Le Jeune wrote to Richelieu that the Gospel had been
preached to more than 10,000 savages, and that more than 1000 had
been christened during epidemics. In the new settlement of Ville-
marie (Montreal), seventy to eighty natives were baptized in 1643.
In the years that followed considerable progress was made to such
an extent that in 1650 Father Lalemant could write that "on de-
parting from the country, he scarcely left one Huron, Algonquin,
or 'montagnaise' family, that was not altogether Christian." This
may sound too optimistic; but the missionaries repeatedly testify to
the genuine piety and devotion of the converts. Their apostolic
zeal, Mother Mary of the Incarnation wrote, knew no bounds. "A
Christian woman has gone on purpose to a very remote nation, to
catechize those who dwelt there; in which she succeeded so well,
that she brought them all to Quebec, where they were christened."
And when Father de Brebeuf was tortured by the Iroquois, the
Christian Hurons who were with him replied to his exhortations:
"Never fear, Father, our souls will be in Heaven while our bodies
suffer here below."
Indeed, the beginnings of French Canada were of great spiritual
beauty, and worthily close the history of the Catholic Reformation.
There were also secondary mission fields, such as Constantinople,
Syria, Ethiopia, Morocco, Congo, and South Africa, which it is not
possible to deal with here in detail. Both these and the larger ones
in America and Asia confirm the views which have been expressed
above, on the continued vitality of the Church, both before and
after the Lutheran outbreak.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Plentiful and frequently outspoken information is supplied by the
missionary chronicles published in the seventeenth century, especially in
France, such as Father Pierre du Jarric, S.J., Histoire des chose s plus
memorable* advenues tant es Indes Orientates &c., Vol. I (Bordeaux,
1608) and Vol. II (1610); Father Matteo Ricci, S.J., De Christiana expe-
ditione apud Smos (Augsburg, 1615); Vita patris Gonzah Silvenae . . .
in urbe Monomotapa martyrmm passi (Lyons, 1612); A. de la Calanche,
Histoire du Peru aux Antipodes (Toulouse, 1643); Charles Rapm, His-
toire generale de I'origine et des progrez des freres mineurs (Pans,
1644); Alexandre de Rhodes, S.J., Histoire du royaume de Tunquin (Ly-
ons, 1651); Danielle Bartoh, Dell' Historia della Compagma de Giesu
I' Asia (Rome, 1653). Among modern works, refer of course to Pastor,
THE MISSIONS 363
op. cit., Vols. XII, XIII, XVIII, XX, XVI; Mourret, op. cit., Vol. VI;
Vacant et Mangenot, op. at., art. Missions, Amerique, etc.; also, in
regard to French missions, refer to the works quoted in the bibliography
of Chapter XII, by Fouqueray, Prat, Dedouvres, Coste, Pourrat, and
Alher, the first of these being especially valuable. The methods of evan-
gelization in the West Indies and Peru are dealt with in a masterly hand
by Robert Ricard in his thesis, La conqutte spintuelle du Mexique
(Paris, 1933), and in an article on Lcs origines de I'Eglise sud-ameri-
came, published in Revue d'histoire des Missions (December, 1932):
Muraton's Relation des missions du Paraguay (Paris, 1754), gives a very
full picture of the Christian republic of Paraguay. On St. Francis Xavier,
the biography of Father Bouhours, S.J., translated into English by John
Dryden, The Life of St. Francis Xavier (London, 1688), though over-
loaded with miraculous events, and occasionally unsafe, mentions the
essential points in regard to the apostolate of the saint, and makes excel-
lent reading. There are numerous modern works on Xavier, such as
Father L. Jos. Marie Cros, S.J., Saint Francois de Xavier, documents
nouveaux (Pans, 1903), Father L. Michel, S.J., Vie de Saint Francois
Xavier (Paris, 1908); Father Alexandre Brou, S.J., Saint Francois Xavier
Conditions et methodes de son apostolat (Bruges, 1925) which is most
illuminating. Father Vahgnam's short work on the evangelization of the
Japanese is reprinted by Possevmus, Bibhotheca selecta, of which Books
IX, X, and XI are a very full and interesting missionary treatise. On
China, precise data are found in Father J. de la Serviere, Les anciennes
missions de la Compagnie de Jesus en Chine (Shanghai, 1924), while
George Souhe de Morand, L'epopee des Jesuttes jranqais en Chine, is
mostly concerned with a later period. On Canada, the work of Georges
Goyau, Les Origmes rehgieuses du Canada (Paris, 1934), deals with the
question as a whole, though Fouqueray, op. cit., is clearer; Father Le-
compte, S.J., Les anciennes missions de la Compagnie de Jesus dans la
Nouvelle-F ranee (Montreal, 1925), provides archaeological detail, and
Father Auguste Carayon, Premiere mission des Jesuites au Canada,
Lettres et documents (Paris, 1864), adds new documents to the well-
known Relations. On Constantinople and Syria, see Father Auguste
Carayon, Relations inedites des Missions de la Compagnie de Jesus a
Constantinople et dans le Levant au XVIIeme siecle (Poitiers, 1864), and
Father G. Levenq, S.J., La premiere mission de la Compagnie de Jesus
en Syne, 1625-1774 (Beyrouth, 1925). General information on the geo-
graphical and scientific value of the missions, also on missionary prop-
aganda, may be obtained from Father De Dainville, S.J., La geographic
des humanistes (Paris, 1940).
Conclusions
THE Catholic Reformation has been presented, in the preced-
ing pages, in a somewhat bewildering diversity of aspects : ad-
ministrative, moral, devotional, literary, artistic; while further
diversity has been shown to arise from the variety of national tem-
peraments. It is time to pause and to point out, despite such seem-
ing confusion, the underlying unity. This unity, to begin with, was
manifested in the revival of traditional piety among Western
Europeans, in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. We
have seen how the printing-presses of the time turned out book
after book of devotion and mysticism books which were the direct
predecessors of the works of St. Teresa and St. Francis de Sales.
Deep religious cravings were united, in every country of the West,
with humanistic learning applied to the study of Scripture and the
Fathers. Both, in turn, were coupled with sporadic efforts to heal
the sores of Christendom. Every element of the Catholic Reforma-
tion was already present there.
Such influences, too, were everywhere obscurely at work, at the
very time which is considered as the darkest one in the history of
the Church, that of the scandalous pontificate of Alexander VI. It
was in those years and this should not be forgotten that young
men, engaged in study and meditation, received the religious up-
bringing which was to turn them into the Catholic reformers of the
next phase. Such of the Fathers of Trent, at the opening of the
Council, as were fifty years old, had spent their decisive years of
formation between 1500 and 1510. The movement as a whole was
bound to come to a head sooner or later though of course it was
lashed into prompt action by the Protestant outbreak. It would not,
however, have become the Catholic Reformation had it not been
364
CONCLUSIONS 365
unified and strengthened by the Council of Trent, the latter in its
turn being made possible through the authority of a centralized
hierarchy.
The Middle Ages had frittered away the organization of the
Roman Empire. Sovereignty had become divided and subdivided
into innumerable local powers, in the Church no less than in civil
society. The Renaissance, on the other hand, with its ideal of class-
ical orderliness, made for unification; and in fact, feudalism was
coming to an end, in the sixteenth century, to a greater or lesser
degree, in every country in Europe. For the picturesque tangle of
the previous centuries in the building art was substituted the
harmonious composition of ancient architecture. So too we behold
to some extent the process of simplification and concentration in
the Church.
"Reason" alone, however, would not have been sufficient to ensure
the improvement of ecclesiastical conditions; and while the Cath-
olic Reformation did away with the cumbrous machinery of the
Middle Ages, it really harked back to them for religious inspira-
tion. There is no definite break between the mysticism of St. Francis
of Assisi or St. Bonaventura, and that of St. Teresa and St. John of
the Cross. Palestinian music had much in common with Gregorian
plain-chant. The spirit of the builders of the cathedrals still appears
in the upward trend of the churches of the late sixteenth century,
and the Jesuits once again made St. Thomas Aquinas the prince
of theological studies. From the religious upheaval of the fifteenth
century to that of the Catholic Reformation the distance is not so
great as might at first appear.
The unity of the Trentine movement was further enhanced by
the fact that it implicitly proclaimed its purely spiritual character.
In the Middle Ages the dependence of the Church upon the civil
power had been as in Scotland the source of many malprac-
tices. Provincial councils had repeatedly bewailed this state of
things, and asserted that it barred the way to thorough reformation.
At Constance and Basle national rivalries had had the same effect of
weakening any central authority in the Church. At Trent, the posi-
tion was reversed. The ambassadors of temporal princes could no
longer sway the Council at will. The independence and universality
of the Church were restored; and while the agreement of sovereigns
was sought to enforce the decisions of the Fathers, they were never-
366 THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION
theless carried out, as in France, even in the face of their opposition.
On no point was the action of the Council more decisive. By pro-
claiming that the Church ought to be above worldly interests, it
enhanced its prestige considerably. It prepared the saintly pontificates
of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Looking
further ahead we can see how it enabled the papacy to gain the
moral position which it enjoys to-day, and to play its part in the
international field as a benevolent agency of reconcilement, and a
help in healing the injuries of a sorely bruised world.
Nor is this the only point wherein the Catholic Reformation con-
tributed to the creation of modern civilization. It refrained from a
very natural impulse wholly to destroy the work of the Renaissance.
The moral evils produced by the latter were so flagrant that any
reformer might well wonder whether anything of it should be al-
lowed to stand. And in fact the Fathers of Trent stood on the brink
of taking drastic measures which would have been untrue to the
spirit of Christian humanism. The latter, however, prevailed; the
legacy of classical antiquity, insofar as it might be reconciled with
Christian belief, was saved for later generations; and was made the
basis of an academic culture which has left its mark, down to the
present day, on the educational systems of the whole civilized
world.
The diffusion of this culture was mainly the work of the Society
of Jesus. This fact has been mentioned repeatedly in the above
pages, and should be mentioned again here, because of the prom-
inent part which it played in the Catholic Reformation. If the latter
was truly "modern," it was largely thanks to the Jesuits. The latter
crystallized into a system many tendencies which were already
manifest among the Christian humanists, the Brothers of the Com-
mon Life, the new Italian Orders. They broke loose from the fetters
of old monasticism; they proclaimed the paramount value of action;
they made use of the most up-to-date psychology in their devotional
and educational schemes towards the training of the will; they
understood the value of the practical adaptation of means to ends.
They realized that individual efforts towards reformation would be
unavailing if these were not co-ordinated, and sanctioned from
above; and hence, more than any others they were instrumental in
establishing the authority of the papacy on a firm basis. They them-
selves, in their Constitutions, combined the absolute power of the
CONCLUSIONS 367
Father general with representative government. In the mission
field, they used "adaptation" no less than in literature and art. They
refrained from presenting Christianity to the natives as something
foreign and strange; they made it, as far as might be, tally with
their customs and social environment; they favoured the creation of
a native clergy, thus anticipating the decision? of twentieth-cen-
tury popes. Nor should it be forgotten that their first generations
were afire with the most ardent enthusiasm, an enthusiasm which
was contagious, and carried along with it many distinguished
men. Whatever may have been urged against them in later days,
their part in bringing the Church into line with the world of to-day
can hardly be overstressed.
Taken as a whole, the results obtained by the Catholic Reforma-
tion appear monumental. We might* speak of it almost as a second
birth of the Church: a Church, indeed, greatly reduced, at least in
Europe, and from which all abuses had not been weeded out; a
Church, nevertheless, purified and strengthened, concentrated, more
sinewy, more capable of endurance, of bearing persecution at home
and abroad, and of expanding m the mission field; a Church with
its dogma clearly defined and firmly settled, fit to serve as a rallymg-
pomt; a Church spiritually independent, and apt to play its part in
dealing with great moral, social, and charitable issues; last but not
least, a Church which was supported m its reforming action by
literature and art, and which created a cultural movement of lasting
value. A sure sense indeed, of what was best in Renaissance letters
and erudition was found among the Christian humanists who be-
came the Fathers of Trent. At any rate, they undoubtedly had the
leading part in preserving the heritage of ancient culture, and all
that it means for man, while raising it to the level of the highest
spiritual life; and m so doing they may be said to have largely
contributed to the moulding of the modern world.
Index
of persons, places, and other proper names
Abdication of Charles V, college play in
Germany, 186
Aberdeen, 305; King's College, 305;
Breviary, 305
Abruzzi, 113
Academy, in Jesuit colleges, 155
Acadia, 357, 358
Acane, Madame, 160, and St Francis of
Sales, 241; co-operation with Berulle,
247, 287; establishes Carmelites in
France, 287
Achilles, 175
Achilleus, St., see Nereus
Acosta, Fr. Jose de, Natural history of
the Indies, 342
Acts of the Church of Milan, 258
Acts of the Roman Maityrs, 205
Adamson, John, 305
Adrian VI, pope, 50, 55, 100, 101, 113,
130, sober pietv, 48; viewed as Bar-
barian, 48, supported by reforming
party, 49; undertakes reform, 50 f, has
to fall back, 51, promises reform to
Germany, 51, death, 52; reviled by
Berm, 52, epitaph, 52
Adriatic sea, 67
Aeneas, 169
Aeneid, 37
Aesculapius, 205
Aesop, Fables, 37
Africa, 66, 137, 269, missions in, 334,
347' 353' South, missions m, 362
Agatha, St , martvr, 206
Agen, Lazarist seminary there, 295
Agricola, Rudolph, 314
Aiguillon, the duchess of, 358
Aix-la-Chapelle, 272
Alba de Formes, 232
Albano, 1', 210
Albert V, Duke of Bavaria, helps Ca-
nisms, 267, 269; adopts Trentme de-
crees, 270
Albuquerque, Alfonse, 345
Alcantara, Peter of, see Peter
Alcock, his Hill of Perfection, 227
Aldobrandim, cardinal, 258
Alecto, 175
Alet, Lazarist seminary, 295
Alexander VI, pope, 65, 112, 364; diffi-
culties with Spam, 14; borrows from
bankers, 16; scandals of pontificate,
17, favours Dominicans, 25; attempts
Reformation, 28; appoints Benedictine
visitors, 30, appoints Cardinal d'Am-
boise as legate, 30
Alexandria, 253
Algonqums, 360 f
Allen, William, cardinal, 317 f; founds
Douay college, 318
Alsace, 149
Altorf, 273
Alumbrados, 237
Amanguchi (Yamagutsi), 351, 353
Amboise, Cardinal d', palace, n; legate
in France, 30; reforms Franciscans
there, 31, opposition to^ 31
Amboyna, 348
Ambrose, St , 171; Oblates of, see
Oblatcs
Amelote, Fr , on condition of the French
clergy, 290
America, 343, 351; Philip unwilling to
enforce Trentme decrees in, 108; the
missions in, 334, 362; the Catholic
revival in, 342
America, Latin, 345
America, North, 356
America, South, 137; Missions m, 338,
339; councils in, 342
Amiens, 23, 293
Ammanati, Bartolomeo, his letter to the
Academy of Florence, 203
Ananias, character in Caussm's Na-
buchodonosor, 190
Anchicta, Fr. Jose d', his work in
Brazil, 343
Anchm college at Douai, 214, 318
Andalusia, 236, 237
Andes, 342
Andrew, St., Flagellation of, 205
369
370
INDEX
Aneno, G. F., Tcatro armomco spintuale
of, 221
Angel of peace, college play in Ger-
many, 1 86
Angela Menci, St., founds the Ursuhnes,
159; pedagogy, 160
Angeliche, 119
Angoumois, Fr. Philip d', 2^9
Animuccia, Giovanni, and Trentine re-
form in music, 219, 221; at the
Oratory, 221
Annales ecclcsiastici , of Baronius, 164;
used by artists, 205
Anne, St., 263
Annecy, 241, 285; Lazanst seminary at,
295
Antilles, 341
Antoinette, peasant woman, 284
Antonme, St., 23
Antonio Zaccaria, St., 238; founds or-
der of Barnabites, 118
Antwerp, 326
Apennines, 113
Apollo, 41
Appenzell, 273
Appolomus Tyaneus, 187, 188
Aquaviva, Claude, Fr. general S.J., 269
Aragon, 356
Arator, 169, 171
Archangel of Pembroke, Fr., see Pem-
broke
Archipelago, the Greek, 67; fathers
from, at Trent, 82
Ar c hit hr emus, of Jean de Hantvillc, 175
Ariadne, 41
Anosto, 42
Aristotle, 314; his doctrine followed by
Jesuits, 163
Arkadelt, James, 218
Aries, Bourdoise's community at, 292
Armagh, 309
Armida, 175
Arnold, Dr. Thomas, 150
Aroulanda, plays of, in Tamil, 184
Arsaccs, Fr. Dehdcl's play, 192
Ascent of Mount Carmel, of SL John
of Cross, 236; describes spiritual
ascent, 237
Asia, 66, 184, 269, 345, 355; missions
in 334> 362; Xavicr in, 347; the
Far East, 137
Assehnc, M., professor at Sorbonnc, 287
Assisi, 23
Association of Charity of the servants of
the poor, 293, 294
Atahualpa, 339
Aubenas, 282
Auch, 149; Jesuit college at, 281
Auger, Fr. Edmund, S.J., preaching of,
in French towns, 281; Catechisms of,
282
Augsburg, 28, 147; Diet of 1548, 85;
Diet of 1566, 1 06; Trentine decrees
published at, 106
Augustine, St., 286; his Confessions,
231; inspires Berulle, 247
Augustmian hermits, reformed by Giles
of Vitcrbo, 113; by Pius V, 256
Augustmian monks, 201; their mission-
ary work, 334; in Mexico, 334, 337,
338; in Peru, 339, 341; in Japan, 354
Ausomus, 171
Austria, 26, 206, 269; Jesuit colleges
there, 149, 267, the house of, 361
Auvergne, 144, 278, 281, 296; Olier's
mission in, 296
Avignon, 54, 160, 218, Trentine legis-
lation applied there, 276; Jesuit col-
lege at, 281, 284
Avila, 230, 231, 236; John of, 256
Azpilcueta, Martin, judgement of, on
Rome, 259
Babylon, 58
Bacchus, 41
Bacon, Sir Francis, 322
Bade, Jose, humanist, 143
Baeza, 237
Baghone, frescoes of, 206
Baker, Dom David, O.S.B., works of,
326
Banez, Domenico, St. Teresa's confessor,
230
Barberini, cardinal, 202
Barnabites, their character, 115, 118;
their foundation, 118; their progress,
119; their colleges, 147
Barocio, painting of Lord's supper, 208
Baronius, Caesar, cardinal, companion of
St. Philip Nen, 121, 123; life and
character, 164; created a cardinal,
263; Annales of, 164, 205; his Mar-
tyrologium Romanum, used by il
Domenechino, 205; respects mediaeval
legends, 205
INDEX
371
Barnere, Abbot John de la, reforms Cis-
tercians, 277, 285
Bartholacus, Nicholas, Chnstus Xyloni-
cus of, 185
Barzana, Fr. Alonzo, S.J., his study of
Indian dialects, 341
Barzeus, Fr., S.J., 348
Bascio, Mattco da, reforms Franciscans
and founds Capuchins, 114; his
preaching, 115
Basil, St., 36, 37, 157
Basle, Council of, 53, 58, 70, 80, 84;
and nationalism, 3, 365
Bavaria, at Trent, 84; duke of, pub-
lishes Trentme decrees, 106, 270,
275; church architecture in, 216; work
of Camsius in, 267, 269
Baxter, Richard, 228
B6arn, 288; won over by Barnabitcs,
1 1 8; Capuchin mission in, 288
Beaton, cardinal, 304
Beaucousm, Dom, a Carthusian, 287
Bcauregard 1'Eveque, Jesuit apostolate
in, 281; school at, 282
Beauvais college in Paris, 182, 346
Beauvais, diocese of, Bourdoise's com-
munities in, 292; town of, Vincent
de Paul's retreats in, 294
Beda, Noel, rector of Montaigu College
in Paris, and humanism, 143 n
Bede, the venerable, 171
Beelzebub, 1 75
Bclcan, Feo, 20; Vita del . Cohm-
bini of, 121
Bellarmme, Robert, cardinal, 259; con-
troversy with James I, 107, activities,
163; defence of papacy model for
Catholic artists, 207; defence of
Church music in Controversies, 221,
reforms Church singing, 222; made
cardinal, 263; works translated into
English, 327
Bembo, Pictro, humanist, 71, 72
Bcncius, Franciscus, 171
Benedict, St., 285
Benedict XII, pope, and monasteries, 8
Benedict de Canfcld, sec Canfcld
Benedictines, favoured by Julius II, 25;
visited under Alexander VI, 30; re-
formed by Pius V, 256; exempt, re-
formed in France, 277; with the help
of Fr. Joseph, 289
Bergamo, town of, 118
Bergamo, Giustimam da, founds her-
mitages, 113
Bermont, Francoise dc, introduces Ursu-
hnes into Provence, 284
Bernard, St., 50
Bernardmes, 289
Berm, satire on Adrian VI, 52
Bernieres, M. de, 358
Bernini, 197
Bertelot, Guillaume, 211
Berulle, Madame de, 287, 288
Berulle, Pierre de, Cardinal, 158, 160,
283, 284, 288, 291, 293, 294, 301;
biography, 246, 247; the circle in
Paris, 287, 326; founds French Ora-
tory, 289, 290; guides St. Francis of
Sales, 241; institutes the "Feast of
Jesus," 249; admirer of Jesuits, 158,
partiality for St. Augustine, 247
Beze, Theodore de, his Sacrifice of
Abraham, 1 85
Beziers, Jesuit college at, 297
Biard, Fr., S.J., on conditions in Canada,
3 6o
Bibbiena, cardinal, scandalous appoint-
ment of, 40
Bible, 280; early editions of, 20; a model
for poetry, 169; new edition of, under
Gregory XIII, 258; neglected by late
Scholastics, 279 t
Billom, university of, 278, 281; Jesuit
college at, 137, 144, 148, 282, 283;
college drama at, 185
Binet, Etienae, 246
Biverus, Fr., SJ , his Sacrum sanctu-
anum, 206
Blocq, Br. Jean du, 216
Blois, Louis de, reforms Liessics abbey,
226
Bobadilla, Nicholas, Fr., S.J., work in
Germany, 265, 266
Boccacio, on the Index, 104
Bocce, 37
Boethms, Hector, 305
Boetius, character in Caussm's Thco-
doricus, i88f; akin to Polyeucte, 193
Bohemia, 118, 267, 269
Boileau-Despre*aux, Nicolas, 176
Bomvillers, one of Bourdoise's commu-
nities at, 292
Boleyn, Anne, 317
Bologna, 18, 200, 257, 347; Council of
Trent transferred to, 80, 85; meets
372
INDEX
there, 81; school of painting of, 209,
210
Bonavenmrc, St., 226, 365; and the
three ways, 227
Boncompagni, Ugo, cardinal, sec Greg-
ory XIII
Boncourt College in Pans, 182, 287
Bonelh, Pius V's nephew, 254
Boniface VIII, pope, 53
Bonner, Edmund, bishop of London,
supports royal supremacy, 310
Bons enfants, college dcs, in Pans uni-
versity, 295
Boot( on prayer and meditation, Luis de
Granada's work, 230
Book of resolution, see Christian di-
rectory
Boonen, James, bishop of Ghent, destroys
indecent pictures, 203
Borba, James de, 352
Bordeaux, 185, 284; Jesuit college at,
281, 284, 285; Institute of the Daugh-
ters of our Lady at, 285, Irish college
at, 319; provincial council at, 290
Bordes, Fr., S.J., 285
Borgia, Caesar, favour shown to, by
Alexander VI, 17
Borgia, Lucrece, festivities at wedding
of, 17
Borgiam, Orazio, his painting of St.
Francis, 203; of Charles Borromco,
208
Borromeo, family of, 102
Borromeo, Fedengo, brother of Charles,
his death, 102
Borromeo, St. Charles, see Charles
Bossuet, Jacques-Bemgne, bishop of
Meaux, 295
Bouhours, Fr., S.J., Xavier's biographer,
348
Bourdoise, M. Adnen, 290, 292, 294;
biography of, 291; communities, 292;
retreats, 297 f
Bourgcs, Jesuit college at, 281, 283;
convent of Visitation at, 286
Bourgogne, 285 f
Bourgoing, M. Francis, superior general
of French Oratory, 292, 293; on virtue
of adoration, 247
Bramantc, 215
Brandi, Giacinto, 207
Braunsberg, 149; Jesuit college at, 273;
Scottish college at, 319
Brazil, 137, 339; evangelization of, 343,
344
Brebcuf, Fr. de, S.J., 359, 361, 362
Brechard, Charlotte de, 285, 286
Bremond, the abbe, his writings, IX, 319
Brescia, 159
Bresse, 293
Breton, Nicholas, Blessed weeper of, 180
Brief discourse of Christian abnegation,
Berulle's work, 246
Britain, 325
British Isles, Catholic reformation in,
303
Brittany, churches in, 22; apostolate of
Michael le Nobletz in, 297
Brixen, in Tyrol, 28
Brothers of Christian doctrine, founded
by Cesar de Bus, 263
Brothers of the common life, see Com-
mon life
Brothers of mercy, 257
Brou, 291
Bruges, 145
Brunn, 206
Bruno, Vincent, 199
Brutus, 34
Bucer, Martin, reformer, 23, 144; con-
troversy with Gardiner, 311
Buchanan, George, tragedy, Jcphthes,
,8 5
Buche, Henri, 300
Buda-Pesth, 52, 67
Bungo, 352
Bunyan, John, 228
Burah, Paolo, cardinal, 255, 258
Burgos, reform in diocese of, 63, St.
Teresa founds a monastery at, 232
Bursfeld, reforming movement of, 26
Bus, Cesar de, biography, 283; founds
Brothers of Christian doctrine, 263,
284
Butzbach, Johann, denunciation of
higher clergy, 11; praise of classical
studies, 36
Cabral, Alvarez, 345
Caccia, Giovan Battista, on dangers
threatening Church in 1534, 66
Caen, 358
Cahors, Lazanst seminary there, 295
Cajetan, Thomas (Tommaso dc Vio),
general of Dominicans, speaks at
INDEX
373
Lateran council, 32, made cardinal, 40
Calicut, 345
Callot, Jacques, 201; engravings of
martyrs, 206
Calvin, John, reformer, 68, imitates
John Sturm, 144
Camaldolese, reform among, 113
Cambarana, Angelo Marco, successor of
Miam, 1 1 8
Cambrai, 141
Cambridge, King's college chapel at, 22
Camenno, 168; plague at, 114, Caterma
Cibo, duchess of, 114
Camillus de Lelhs, see Lelhs
Camilus, 34
Campeggio, Lorenzo, cardinal, pope's
ambassador, scheme of reform, 49, 50
Campeggio, Tommaso, bishop of Feltre,
influenced by Caraffa, 117
Campion, Edmund v 317, 318
Camus, Jean-Pierre, bishop of Belley,
246, 327
Canada, 355, 362, mission to, organized
by Oher, 296, French Catholic revival
and, 357 f, missionary results in, 361
Canfeld, Fr. Benedict, alias Fitch, Wil-
liam, 287; works of, 326
Cangoxima (Kagoshima), 348
Canisio, Egidio, sec Viterbo, Giles of
Camsius, St. Peter, see Peter
Canossa, 207
Cantahce, Felice da, blessed, 260, 261,
beatified, 263
Canterbury, 311, Observants introduced
in, 31; Convocation of, 1529, 312,
313; Convocation of, 1555, 313
Canton, 348
Capitone, Fehcian, archbishop of Avi-
gnon, applies Trentine legislation, 276
Capua, 163, 222
Capuchins, 68, 115, 200, 255, 288,
birth, 114, character, 114; preaching,
115, 123; colleges, 147; action in
Switzerland, 273, apostolate in France,
277, 287
Caracalla, 49
Caracciolo, Caraffa's biographer, 1 1 f
Carafa or Carafta, Gian Pietro, cardinal
(see also Paul IV, pope), 64, 117, 260,
biography, 112, assists Adrian VI, 51;
in "pre-council," 72; made cardinal,
72; helps in reforming Curia, 75,
joins Oratory of divine love, 112; re-
forms Camaldolese, 113; his sister
reforms Dominican nuns, 113; protects
Capuchins, 114; joins the Theatmes,
1 1 6; his Breviary, 104; favours
Ghisheri, 253, 260
Caraffa, Antonio, cardinal, 255
Caravaggio, 202; paintings condemned
as vulgar, 204
Carioni, John Baptist, devotional work,
238
Carmel, and Carmelites, 236, 285; re-
form of, 63; reformed by St. Mag-
dalen de' Pazzi, 226; of Avila, re-
formed by St. Teresa, 230; Consitu-
tions of, 232, houses of, founded by
St. Teresa, 232, reformed by St. John
of the Cross, 236; brought into France
by Madame Acane, 241, 247, 287;
reformed by Pius V, 256, devotional
painting, 208; churches, 215
Carracci, Agostmo, conversion, 200;
career as painter, 210
Carracci, Annibale, painting m St.
Peter's, 207; head of Bolognesc school,
210
Carracci, Ludovico, 210
Cartesianism, embraced by French Ora-
tory, 1 62
Carthusians, 24
Carvajal, cardinal, speech of, to Adrian
VI, 49
Cashel, synod of, 308
Castiglione, Baldassaro, 42
Castile, 356, Old, 230
Catacombs, 205
Catechism, Roman, 268; adopted in
France, 276, Camsius' Major cate-
chismus, Parvus catechismus, Minimus
catechismus, 268, 269; Luther's
greater, smaller, 268; Fr. Auger's, 282
Catherine, St., martyr, 206
Catherine of Siena, St., 121; how repre-
sented by painters, 202
Cato, 34
Catullus, 156
Caussm, Fr. Nicholas, S.J., prose tragedy
Hermenegildus, 185, 186; tragedies
Solyma, Nabuchodonosor, 186; "Theo-
doruus, 1 88; Fehcitas, 186, 190, 191,
works translated into English, 327
Cavaillon, 283
Cavaherc d'Arpmo, 207
Cawood, Walter, will, 21
374
INDEX
Caxton, printer, 24
Cecilia, St., statue of, by Maderno, 211
Cellot, Fr., S.J., Jesuit dramatist, 191
Centunac of Magdeburg, refuted by
Baromus, 164
Cervantes, 229
Ccrvia, coveted by Clement VII, 55
Cervim, cardinal legate at Trent, 83,
170; on residence, 87
Cesar de Bus, see Bus
Cevennes, 298
Ceylon, 351
Chablais, 241
Challand, Robert, the pope's ambassador,
47
Chalons-sur-marne, Notre-Dame church
at, 22
Chambcry, Jesuit college at, 281
Champagne, 22, 246
Champlam, Samuel de, 358, 359, 361
Chantal, Christopher, Baron de, 285
Chantal, St Jane Frances, sec Jane
Chanty hospital at Lyons, 214
Charles Borromeo, St., cardinal, 122,
252; part played at Trent, 83; ap-
pointed to secretaryship of state, 102;
wishes to return to Milan, 102; re-
forms archdiocese of Milan, 102, 103,
258, 259; imitates Gibcrti, 65; his
struggle with a chapter, 108; grants a
church to Somaschi, 118; favours
Barnabites, 118; educational work,
147; founds Ursulme congregation,
1 60; introduces Trentine reform into
Switzerland, 273; adviser of Pius V,
254; converts Gregory XIII, 257; and
advises him, 258; reforms Church
music, 219, 220; subject of paintings,
208; canonized, 263
Charles I, king of England, 289, 304,
326, 329
Charles V, Emperor, 53, 55, 61, 62, 70;
wishes to seize government of the
Church, 54; against general council,
60; denounces Francis I, 68; in league
with Henry VIII, 68, 69; reluctant to
obey council, 85; imitated by France,
86; by Maximilian II, 105; knights
John Sturm, 146; death, 81
Charles VIII, king of France, enforces
Church reform, 30
Charles IX, king of France, refuses to
adopt Trentine decrees, 276
Chartres, town of, diocesan synod at,
30; community of Bourdoise at, 292;
seminary at, 297; diocese of, and
episcopal taxation, 9
Chastel, Jean, 281
Chatillon-les-Dombes, 293
Chaucer, Geoffrey, his "povre persoun,"
9, his Pardoner's tale, 312
Chevalier, Fr. John, S.J., 358
Chezal Benoit, the monastery of, 289
Chieregati, nuncio, at Nuremberg, 51
Chicti, 113, 117
Chigi, Agostino, Roman banker, 41
China, Xavier in, 347, 353; the emperor
of, 353J the Jesuits in, 354, 355
Christian directory, Robert Parsons' work,
3 i9ff
Christian l^ntght, Canfeld's work, 326
Chnsttas, Vida's poem, 44
Chnstus xylonicus, play by Bartholacus,
185
Church porch, Herbert's poem, 330
Ciacomus, his Vitae pontificum, 207
Cibo, cardinal, 50
Cibo, Caterma, duchess of Camcrmo,
protects Matteo da Bascio, 114
Cicero, 129, 144; De amicitia of, 37;
in Jesuit syllabus, 156
Cid, Corneillc's play, 190
Circe, 175
Cisneros, Garcia Ximenes dc, Ejcrctta-
tono of, 226
Citeaux, order of, and Cistercians, 8;
early reform m, 30, reformed by Pius
V, 256; by Gregory XIII, 277; by
Abbot dc la Barnere, 277, 285; by Fr.
Joseph, 289
Clemens, character in Stephomus Flavia,
i87
Clement VII, pope, 52, 58, 60, 62, 65,
114, 215; and Henry VIII, 53; his dif-
ficulties with Emperor, 54; attempts
reformation, but engages m political
game, 55; man of the past, 59; ap-
points worldly cardinals, 61; attempts
reform before the Sack, 62; and after,
63; favours Giberti, 64, 65; recom-
mends Farnese as successor, 65; allows
Caraffa to join Theatmcs, 117
Clement VIII, pope, publishes Vulgate,
105; makes Bcilarmine a cardinal,
164; against nudes, 203; reforms lit-
urgy, 222, 263; continues reform of
INDEX
375
Church, 262, 263; favours the mis-
sions, 334; his tomb, 211
Clermont, the diocese of, 148, 278, 281;
excommunication in, 9
Clermont, Hotel de, later College de, m
Pans, 148, 278, 281, 283, 325; foreign
masters at, 159; college drama at, 183,
185, 192; St. Francis de Sales pupil
at, 241; Pierre de Berulle at, 246;
Maldonatus teaches there, 279, 280
Clermont, town of, the hospital at, 281;
Sulpician seminary at, 297
Chchtoue, works on eloquence, 37
Chchy, 293
Cluny, order of, 8, 30, 289; against
episcopal taxation, 9; reform at, 30
Coblenz, 272
Cochin, 347, 348; the cathedral at, 346
Cognac, league of, 54, 55
Coimbra, Jesuit drama, 184, 185; uni-
versity of, 344
Colde, Dedench, catechism, 24
Colet, John, dean of St. Paul's, misrep-
resented as Pre-reformer, 35 n, 310
Colic, Bomfazio da, helps Gaetano di
Thiene, 116
Cologne, 267; Charterhouse at, 24; uni-
versity of, 85; gymnasium at, 266,
Jesuit college at, 267; printing presses
at, 311
Colombmi da Siena, Giovanni, founder
of Jesuates, Life of, 121
Colonna, cardinal, 55
Colonna, family of, feud with the Or-
smis, 15
Colonna, Vittona, poetess, 71; protects
Matteo da Bascio, 114
Columbus, Christopher, 333
Combattimento spintuale, see Spiritual
fight
Commendonc, legate in Germany, in-
duces German princes to endorse
Trentine decrees, 106; induces Poland
to do the same, 109; on abuses in
the Empire, 265
Commentaries on the jour gospels, Fr.
Maldonatus' work, 280
Common life, brothers of, 150, 229;
favoured by popes, 25; educate Adrian
VI, 48; forestall Jesuit plan for edu-
cation, 140, 366, through Montaigu
college, 141, 142; imitated by Prot-
estants, 143; educate John Sturm,
144; influence Ignatius Loyola, 145
Como, diocese of, 253
Comorin, cape, 349
Company of the Holy Sacrament of the
Altar, foundation and purpose, 299 f;
faults, 300; and Canada, 358
Comtat-Venaissin, 276
Concordat with France (1516), 32, 33
Condren, Fr. Charles de, 158, 248, 296,
297, 299, 358; biography, 291; Latin
grammar, 159; on virtue of abnega-
tion, 247; on sacrifice, 248
Confessions, St. Augustine's work, 231
Confraternita della Carita, St. Philip Neri
chaplain of, 120
Confraternity of Eternal wisdom, founded
by French at Milan, 118
Confucius, 355 n, 356 n
Congo, 137, 362
Congregation of B.V.M., in Jesuit col-
leges, 155
Congregation of Christian doctrine,
founded by de Bus and Romillon, 284
Congregation of holy angels, 119
Congregation of Jesus and Mary, see
Eudistes
Congregation of Mission, founded by
St. Vincent de Paul, 287, 294, 295
Conrad of Bavaria, college play m Ger-
many, 1 86
Consihum delectorum cardinalium, 72 fi
Constance, council of, 53, 60, 70, 80;
and nationalism, 3, 14, 3^5
Constantinople, patriarch of, invited to
Trent, 78; missions in, 362
Constitutions, S.J., 150, 152, 155, 163,
212, 366; accounted for by Spiritual
Exercises, 125; drafted by Ignatius
Loyola, 130; their merit and original-
ity, 131; forbid charges for spiritual
services, 132; enjoin obedience, 132;
forbid idleness, 134; stress authority
of general, 136; ensure permanency of
Society, 137; outline plan of education,
149; forbid chastizing of pupils, 153;
foster devotional life of pupils, 155
Constitutions of the Carmelites, 232
Contarini, Gasparo, 77; made cardinal,
71; presides over "prc-council," 72;
helps in reforming Curia, 75; helps
Theatines, 117
Conventual Franciscans, 260; reformed
by Observants, 113; by Pius V, 256
376
INDEX
Cordeliers, see Franciscans
Corfu, 67
Corneille, Pierre, 188, 283; his upbring-
ing, 191, 192; influence of college
drama upon, 184, Ctd, 190; Polyeucte,
1 86, 191; poet of Jesuit school, 192,
194
Correggio, 209; followed by Bolognese
school, 210
Correro, Giovanni, on conditions in
France, 276
Cortes, Fernando, 334
Cortese, Gregono, reformer of the Bene-
dictines, helps the Theatmes, 117
Coster, Francis, 199
Coton, Fr., S.J., influence upon Henry
IV, 283 f, 287, sends Jesuits to
Canada, 358
Courtin, the biographer of Bourdoise,
290
Cranganor, Franciscan college at, 346
Crashaw, Richard, 250, 328; his poem
The weeper, 181; imitates St Teresa,
328
Creighton, Fr., SJ , founds Scottish
seminary, 319
Crema, Baptist de, see Canom
Crepy-en-Valois, peace of, 70
Crescenzi, cardinal-legate at Trent, 83
Crespi, Daniele, painting of St. Chailes
Borromeo, 208
Cressy, Fr Hugh, 326
Crete, Fathers from, at Trent, 82
Cnspus, character in Caussm's Peluita^,
191
Croatia, Fathers from, at Trent, 82
Crossraguel, 306
Cruz, Luis da, Sedecias of, 185, 186
Cusa, Nicholas de, cardinal, reform of
Germany, 26-28, administers papal
States, 28
Cyprus, Fathers from, at Trent, 82
Dalmatia, Fathers from, at Trent, 82
Damascene, St., 171
Daniel, prophet, 186
Danube, 67, 272
Dark, night, of St. John of the Cross,
236 f
Dathi, Agostmo, work of, on eloquence,
37
Daughters of our Lady, see Institute
Daurade, chapter of, at Toulouse, 108
Dauversierc, M. de la, 358
David, king, 208
David, tragedy by Desmazuies, 185
Dax, 293; Franciscan college at, 293
Deborah, 186
Deddmgen, abbey of, 28
De La Rue, Fr., S.J., epistle of, to
Corneille, 192
Dehdel, Fr., S.J., Corneille's professor,
his Arsaces, 192; Corneille's commen-
dation of, 192
Del Moro, Island, 348, 353
Demosthenes, 157
De poesi et pictura, Possevmus' work,
170, 198
Dernbach, Balthazar von, abbot of
Fulda, founds Jesuit college, 270,
struggles against opposition, 271
Desiderati, academy of the, 210
Desmazures, Holy tragedies of, 185
Des Pres, Josquin, 218
Deuteronomy, 169
Diana, 41
Dieppe, Jesuit apostolate at, 282
Dijon, 285, Jesuit college at, 281, 283
Dmet, Fr , S J., 358
Distorsi of Torquato Tasso, 174
Doctnna chnstiana, Bellarmme's cate-
chism, 164
Dole, Jesuit college at, 281
Dolon mentah di Cnsto, of Battista
Varani, 239
Domenechino, il, 210; piety, 200, 201,
uses Baromus, 205
Dominican nuns, reformed by CararTa's
sister, 113
Dominicans, 255, 268, 355; and myster>
plavs, 24, favoured by Alexander VI,
25; CarafTa tries to join, 112, by Paul
III, 113; build Trentine churches, 215,
reformed by Pius V, 256, by John
Adamson in Scotland, 305, missionary
work, 334, in Mexico, 334, 338; in
Peru, 339, 342; at Goa, 346; in Japan,
354; the Spanish, in China, 354
Domitian, 186, 187
Donatus, Alexander, college play, Suevta,
187
Dona, Andrea, fights Turks, 67
Dona, family of, lend money to popes,
17
Dorothy, St., martyr, 206
INDEX
377
Douai or Douay college, 37, 259, 318,
325
Douai, town of, Anchm college at, 214,
318; university of, 247; Scottish and
Irish colleges at, 319
Dowdall, George, archbishop of Armagh,
reforms Irish Church, 309
Dryden, John, 322
Dublin, councils at, 308 f
Dudon, Fr. Paul, S.J , on Montaigu Col-
lege, 143 n
Dula, St , martyr, 206
Dunbar, William, 324
Duncon, John, director of Lady Letice
Falkland, 331
Du Perron, cardinal, 263
Du Prat, Guillaume, bishop of Cler-
mont, founds Jesuit colleges, 148
Duruelo, 236
Dusseldorf, 184
Dvomsius Areopagiticus, the pseudo-,
227, 229, 236
East Indies, Missions in, 345, 346, 347,
361; Xavier in, 347
Eck, Johann, Catholic reformer, at Nu-
remberg, 51, on abuses in the Empire,
265, at Ratisbon, 311
Eckhardt, master, 229
Edinburgh, councils at, 305, Catholic
works printed at, 327
Edvinus, college play in Germany, 186
Edward, St , rnartvr, 206
Edward IV, king of England, favours
Observants, 30
Edward VI, king of England, 313, 316,
Irish policy, 309
Egypt, 203
Ejercitatono, work of Cisneros, 226
El Greco, see Greco
Ehas, 291
Elizabeth, queen of England, 181, 276,
317, 323^ 330
Elphmstone, William, bishop of Aber-
deen, biography, 304; statutes, 305
Elpidia, character in Caussm's Theo-
doncus, 1 88
Empire, holy Roman, 54, 70, 86, 257,
264, 266, 272, policy in Italy, 15, 47;
unwilling to endorse Trentine decrees,
1 06; Jesuit colleges in, 149, 264, 272
Enchiridion militis chnstiam, of Eras-
mus, 228
England, 24, 31, 32, 33, 35, 44, 54, 61,
62, 112-113, 229, 252, 257, 259, 282,
288, 325; opposition to Church taxes
in, 9; early printed works in, 20, 24;
XV th century devotion m, 2 1 ; and per-
pendicular style, 22; how affected by
the Trentine spirit, 109; and tearful
poetry, 180; Catholic poetry m, 181;
Catholic reformation m, 303, 3iof;
diffusion of Catholic works m, 326 f;
Church of, 330, 331; New, 357
English college, Rome, 259, 325
Ennius, 170
Epme, Notre Dame de 1', 22
Erasmus, Desidenus, 145, 146, 149, 153,
162, 229, 279, 305; miscalled Pre-
Reformer, 35/2, 310, work of, fa-
voured by Leo X, 43; some works
struck out of the Index, 104; en-
couraged by Caraffa, 113; treatise on
education, 139-140; relations with
Montaigu college, 143 n, Enchiridion,
227-228
Erasmus of Limburg, bishop of Stras-
bourg, recommends John Sturm to
magistrates of Strasbourg, 146
Eratosthenes, 174
Erfurt, 272
Esche, Nicholas van, 266
Essays, of Michel de Montaigne, 284
Estella, Diego de, his Hundred medita-
tions translated by Southwell, 327
Estienne, Robert, translation of Tansillo's
La-grime, 1 77 f
Estouteville, Guillaume d', reforms
French Church, 26
Estremadura, 231, 279
Ethiopia, Church of, invited to Trent,
78, missions in, 362
Lu, Jesuit college at, 281
Eudes, John, St., see John
Euchstes, 292
Europe, 66, 70, 108, 109, 148, 175, 202,
205, 258, 264, 269, 276, 303, 334,
549' 353 367
Faber, Peter, see Le Fevre
Fabricius, 34
Falkland, Lady Letice, 331
Farnese, Alessandro, cardinal, see Paul
III, pope
Farnese, Ottavio, 86
Farnese, Pier luigt, see Pier
37 8 INDEX
Fathers of a good death, founded by
Camillus de Lellis, 261
Faustus, Dr., Marlowe's play, i
Favre, Mary Jacqueline, 285
Fecamp, abbey of, 7
Felice da Cantahce, see Cantalicc
Fehcttas, Caussm's tragedy, 186; its
lyricism, 190-191
Felicity, character in Caussin's Feltcttas,
191
Felix, character m Corneille's Polycucte,
192 8
Feltre, 117
Fenelon, 240
Ferdinand, king of Romans, 62; Em-
peror, 104
Fernandez, Xavier's companion, 351
Ferrar, Nicholas, 331
Ferrari, Bartolomeo, companion of Zac-
cana, 118
Ferreri, Zaccaria, recasts hymns of Bre-
viary, 43
Ficino, Marsiho, the Platomst, 44
Fidehs, St., martyr, 206
Fieschi, Stefano, his De Eloquentia, 37
Figi, 348
Fiorcttt, of St. Francis, 20
Fisher, John, bishop of Rochester, 310
Fishery, the coast of, 247
Fitch, William, see Canfield
Flanders, 13, I37 ML M5> M9> 203,
210, 259, 318; Jesuit colleges there,
149; Trentine architecture in, 211;
revert to mediaevahsm in church
building, 216
Flavia, Stephonius' tragedy, 186; analy-
sis of, 187; foreshadows Polycucte,
193
Fleury, the abbe, 295
Florence, 20, 55, 65, 57, 83, 119, ri-
valled by Rome, 41; reform in diocese
of, 63; the Academy of, 203; school
of painting at, 209
Foix, Thomas dc, the French general, 47
Follevillc, 293
Fontcouverte, 297
Fontevrault, abbey of, reformed, 31
Forman, Andrew, archbishop of Saint
Andrew's, Statutes, 305
Fornari, Ottaviano, bishop, his tomb, 20 1
Fortunatus, 169
Fossombrone, Lodovico da, vicar general
of the Capuchins, joins Matteo da
Bascio, 114; defies Observant chap-
ter, 114
Fossombrone, Raffaele da, joins Matteo
da Bascio, 114
foundations, St. Teresa's work, 233
Four crowned saints, church of, in
Rome, 205
Fourier, St. Peter, see Peter
Fra Angehco, 209, 210
France, 7, 9, 26, 30, 31, 32, 41, 44, 47,
54, 59, 61, 62, 67, 79, 83, 86, 107,
108, 113, 118, 123, 137, 146, i47
159, 160, 180, 197, 201, 210, 212,
226, 229, 230, 241, 247, 252, 256,
278, 285, 286, 287, 288, 290, 293,
295, 296, 297, 298, 304, 311, 319,
366; threatens schism, 14; influence
m Italy, 15; early printed works in,
20, conservative reformers m, 29;
reform of Franciscans in, 31; Con-
cordat with, 33, bishops from, at
Trent, 82, unwilling to publish Tren-
tine decrees, 106; Jesuit colleges in,
149, 283, Trentine architecture m,
21 1 ; reverts to mediaevahsm m archi-
tecture, 216; devotional school in,
246; Catholic reformation m, 275,
289; Capuchin apostolate in, 277; the
age of Louis XIII in, 282; Jesuit col-
leges in, 283; new orders m, 283,
New, 356; and Canada, 357
Franche-Comte, 149
Francis I, king of France, 46, 54, 55,
61, 62, 70; designs of, in Italy, 47;
recriminates with Adrian VI, 53;
against council m Germany, 61; in-
terview with Clement VII, 62; in
league with Henry VIII, 68
Francis of Assisi, St., 114, 132, 198,
365; Fiorettt, 20; imitated by Matteo
da Bascio, 114; how represented by
painters, 202, 203
Francis Borgia, St., general of Jesuits,
334
Francis Regis, St., apostle of the Vclay,
biography, 297; work in the Vivarais
and Le Puy, 298
Francis de Sales, St., 160, 230, 248, 283,
294, 296, 321, 364; biography, 241;
works, 241; suavity and optimism,
242; severity, 243; recommends direc-
tion of conscience, 243; method for
prayer, 244; insistency on "small"
INDEX
379
virtues, 245; spirit of liberty, 245;
imitates Oratorian preaching, 123;
favours devotion to Sacred Heart,
249; director of St. Jane de Chantal,
285, 286; French imitators, 246;
works turned into English, 327; influ-
ence at Great Tew, 331
Francis Xavier, St., 346, 351, 355* 35$,
canonized, 263; career, 347 f; mission-
ary methods, 348 f, 350, 353; with
the Paravas, 350 ff; in Japan, 351 f;
evangelizes Japan, 137; spiritual
beauty of life, 353
Franciscans, 115, 118, 132, 238, 293;
favoured by Sixtus IV, 25; early re-
form of, in Paris, 30; in England, 31,
reformed by Capuchin movement,
ii3f; by Pius V, 256; missionary
work, 334; in Mexico, 334, 337; in
Peru, 339, 342; in Goa, 345; in Japan,
354, in Canada, 357
Frangipam, the nuncio, on conditions
in France, 282
Frankfurt, 318
Fraticelh, imperialist theories, 54
Frederick II, Emperor, 187
Fregoso, Fedengo, Christian humanist,
in "Pre-council," 72; made cardinal,
76
Fremyot, Bemgne, 285
Trusius, Andreas, 171
Fugger, family of, lend money to popes,
17
Fulda, Catholic reformation in, 270 f ;
centre of reunion for monasteries, 273
Gaetano da Thiene, St., 238; biography,
112; Oratory of divine love, 25, 112;
founds Thea tines, 116; admits Caraffa,
1 1 6, 117; purpose, 117; veneration
for priesthood, 238; recommends daily
communion, 240; beatified, 263
Gaguin, Ars rersificatona of, 37
Gaillon, palace of Cardinal d'Amboisc at.
ii
Galh, Tolomeo, cardinal, 258
Galves de Montalvo, Luis, Uanto de
Sant Pedro of, 177
Gama, Vasco da, 333
Gamache, M. de, professor at Sorbonne,
287
Gardiner, Stephen, bishop of Winches-
ter, justifies Anglican schism, 14;
judges Clement VII, 55; supports
royal supremacy, 310; and Catholic
reformation, 311
Gascony, 293
Gasquet, Cardinal F. A., Eve of the
Reformation of, 35 n
Gaul, patriarch of, 86
Gayra, district of, 344
Gazzella, Tommaso, assists Adrian VI,
5i
Genet, Elcazar, 218
Geneva, 68, 241, 266, 318; Protestant
Academy at, 147; Protestant drama
there, 185; St. Francis de Sales and,
241
Genoa, 25
Geraldinus, Antomus, 171
German college, Rome, 204, 259, 272
Germany, 24, 26, 32, 33, 35, 39, 44,
5i 54> 59> 61, 62, 81, 85, 86, 118,
137, 184, 229, 275, 278; early printed
works in, 20, 24; XV th century
churches m, 22; the iremcal party in,
106; Jesuit colleges m, 149; college
drama in upper, 183; plays with secu-
lar subjects m, 186; reverts to mediac-
valism in architecture, 216; church
building in, 216; Catholic reformation
m, 264, 266, 267, 270, 271, 273
Gerson, 121, 226
Gesu, church of, in Rome, 205, 214;
built by Vignole, 212; Zuccaro's
painting in, 207; its altars, 213
Ghent, 203, 208
Ghent Peter of, Fr., on conversions in
Mexico, 335; his humbleness, 338
Ghmucci, cardinal, helps in reforming
Curia, 75
Ghishen, Antonio, see Pius V
Ghishcn, Paolo, Pius V's nephew, 254
Giacomo della Porta, see Porta
Giberti, Gian Matteo, bishop of Verona,
a Christian humanist, 255; life and
reforming work, 63 ff; taken into
service of Clement VII, 55; supports
reform under Clement VII, 63; wel-
comes Christian humanists, 65; in
"pre-council," 72; trains Ormaneto,
103; consorts with Caraffa, 117; for-
bids lascivious music, 218
Gierusdemme libcrata, of Torquato
Tasso, 174, i?6
INDEX
Giotto, 203, 209, 210
Giovanni da San Giovanni, frescoes of,
205
Gmsseppe da Leonessa, see Leonessa
Giustmiani da Bergamo, see Bergamo
Giustmiam, Paolo, founds hermitages,
"3
Glasgow, the university of, 304
Goa, 345, 347, 348, 354, college drama
at, 184; moral condition of, 349,
conversion of, 350; seminary at, 352
GofTredo, 175
Golden Legend, Nicholas de Cusa
against, 28; adhered to by Jesuits, 206
Golden treatise of mental prayci , St.
Peter of Alcantara's work, 327
Gondi, Cardinal Henry de, 185
Gondi, the family of, 294, its estates,
294
Gondi, John Francis de, archbishop of
Pans, 294
Gondi, Madame de, 290, induces St
Vincent de Paul to preach a mission,
293^ 30i
Gondi, Peter de, 293
Gondi, Philip de, 293
Good Shepherd, congregation of, 292,
established m Le-Puy-en-Velay, 298
Goths, 1 86
Goudimel, Claude, 218
Gozzoh, Benozzo, painting of the Mc-
dici, 209
Granada, Luis de, 199, 244, admiration
of Plato, 229, Book, on piaycr and
meditation, 230; Guia de peccadoret,
230, Treatise on prayer, 284, 327
Granada, town of, 237
Great Tew, 331
Greatnesses of Jesus, Berulle's work, 247
Greban, Arnould and Simon, mystery
play of, 24
Greco, el, 202
Greece, ancient, 34
Gregorian university, 259
Gregory VII, pope, 207
Gregory VIII, pope, 214, 260, 269,
280; biography, 257, establishes the
Oratory, 121; founds colleges, 210,
advances science, 259; reforms liturgy,
222 f; reforms religious orders, 259;
reforms Cistercians, 277; supports
Balthazar von Dernbach, 271; policy
toward France, 276; favours mis-
sions, 334
Gregory XIV, pope, 262
Gregory XV, pope, 210, 262, 263; laws
of, on papal elections, 263, fosters
new devotions, 263; reforms Bene-
dictines, 289; founds the Propaganda,
334; approves Nobih's methods, 354
Gregory Nazianzen, St., 157, 171, 188,
198
Gregory Thaumaturgus, St., 207
Grenoble, Convent of Visitation at, 286
Grevm, his comedies, 182
Grocyn, 310
Groot, Gerard, 229
Cropper, 311
Grosart, the Rev. Alexander B , 327
Gubbio, the diocese of, reformed by
Fregoso, 76
Guelders, 266
Guercmo, 210
Gum de peccadores, of Luis de Granada's,
230
Guichard, Fr. Simon, 278
Gunpowder Plot, 262, 328
Guyennc, college de, at Bordeaux, 185
Guyon, Madame, 240
Guyot, Louis, hatter, 284
Haeften, Emblems of, 328
Halgum, Fr. Diego Gonzalez, S J , study
of quichua, 341
Hampton Court, Wolsey's palace at, i T
Hantville, Jean de, his Archithrenius,
175
Harcourt college, in Pans, 296
Harvey, Christopher, Schola Cordis of,
328
Hebert, Louis, 359
Hector, 175
Hcmold, abbot of St Godeshard, 27
Henrietta of France, queen of England,
289
Henry II, king of France, and council
of Trent, 85, death of, 81
Henry III, king of France, refusal to
publish Trentmc decrees, 107; fear of
Spam, 276
Henry IV, king of France, 247, 275,
276, 283, 287, 288, 293, 326, 358;
reforms Paris university, 157; at-
INDEX
3 8i
tempted murder of, 281; recalls
Jesuits, 1 60, 281
Henry VII, king of England, 22; favours
Observants, 30-31; refuses to join
Crusade, 46
Henry VIII, king of England, 33, 62,
310; uses popular feeling against
Church taxation, 9; policy toward
Clement VII, 53; attitude of Clement
VII toward, 59; against general
council, 60, 68; against council in
Germany, 61; in league with Charles
V, 69; imitated by Charles V, 85,
108; and Ireland, 308 f
Herbert, George, 331; influence of
Catholic reformation on, 328; imitates
Southwell's prefaces, 329; his Short
rule, 330
Hercules, 42, 169
Hermengildus , Caussm's tragedy, 185,
1 86, foreshadows Polyeucte, 193
Herod, college play performed in Paris,
185
Herolt, Johann, Dominican, sermons of,
24
Hcsiod, 157
Hesse, 270
Hildesheim, 27
Hill of Perfection, Alcock's work, 227
Hoffmann, Caspar, abbot of Melk, re-
stores discipline there, 272; unites
German monasteries, 273
Holland, 188; Jesuit colleges in, 149
Homer, 157, 174
Hontiveras, 236
Hooper, John, reformer, 311
Horace, 156, 170, 174, 190
Hucsca, the bishop of, at Trent, 87
Huguenots, 205
Humihati, reform of, 63; suppressed by
Pius V, 256
Humphredus, college plav m Germany,
1 86
Hundred meditations of the love of God,
Estella's work, translated by South-
well, 327
Hungary, 67, 83; threatened by Turks,
45, 46; Fathers from, at Trent, 82;
Jesuit colleges in, 149
Hunyades and Ladislaus, college play in
Germany, 186
Hurons, 357, 360 ff
Hydeyoski, Emperor of Japan, 354
Hylton, Walter, 229; Ladder of Perfec-
tion of, 227
Ibanez, Pedro, the confessor of St.
Teresa, 230
Ignatius Loyola, St., 102, 123, 129, 130,
193, 201, 202, 224, 225, 226, 228,
243, 244, 260, 265, 268, 278, 281,
318, 319, 320, 327, 355; influence of
XVth century mysticism on, 20; con-
trasted with St. Philip Nen, 124; his
Spiritual Exercises, 125; trains the
will, 125, 126; prefers "golden mean,"
127; believes in reason, 127; sense of
reality, 128; humility his end, 128;
and necessity of love, 129; takes vows
at Montmartre, 130; drafts Constitu-
tions, 130; forbids Jesuits to hold
benefices, 131; use of "adaptation,"
134; works from above, 135; ensures
government of the Society, 135; en-
sures its permanency, 137; influenced
by Montaigu college, 141, 142; sub-
jected to same influences as John
Sturm, 144, 145, educational work,
147, 149; accepts foundation of col-
leges, 148; combines secondary and
university classes, 151; puts humani-
ties on a par with philosophy, 151;
influence upon Corneille, 194, and
Scupoh, 239; dealings of, with St.
Francis Xavier, 346 ff, canonized, 263
Ihonatina, 361
Iliad, 37, 174
Imitation, 20, 241; recommended by
Ignatius Loyola, 129
India, 148; missionary methods m, 353;
South, 348, 353
Ingolstadt, university of, 267; Jesuit
college at, 267; seminary at, 270,
printing presses at, 311
Innocent IX, pope, 262
Innocent X, pope, 262, 263; approves
new religious orders, 263
Inscrutabihs divinae, the constitution,
334
Institute of daughters of our Lady,
founded by Joan de Lestonnac, 284,
285
Interim, 85
Interior castle, of St. Teresa's work, 231,
233
Introduction to devout life, of St. Francis
3**
INDEX
of Sales, 241, 243, 246; translated into
nghsh> 327; compared with Dun-
con's Returns, 331
Ireland, Fathers from, at Trent, 82; state
of, before schism, 308; Catholic refor-
mation in, 309 f
Iroquois, 357, 361 f
Isaiah, 169; in Tansillo's Lagrime, 176,
177
Isocratcs, 157
Issoire, the university of, 278
Italy, 15, 23, 41, 47, 53 55 63, 65,
68, 81, 86, 113, ii7> n8, 137,
146, 147, 175, i97 2 i> 226 2 4!
263, 288, 295, 304, 311; early printed
works in, 20; religious drama in, 24;
new religious orders in, 25; threat-
ened by the Turks, 45, 67; pious
brotherhoods in, in
Jacopone da Todi, see Todi
Jafanapatan (Ceylon), king of, 351
James I, king of England, controversy
of, with Bellarmme, 107, 164
Jane Frances de Chantal, St., biography,
285; founds the Visitation, 286; the
penitent of St. Francis of Sales, 241
Jansenism, 301
Japan, 137, 346, 353; Xavier in, 348;
his missionary methods there, 352;
expansion of Christianity in, 354
Jaroslav, Jesuit college at, 273
Jean du Blocq, Br., see Blocq
Jephthes, Buchanan's tragedy, 185
Jerome, St., 37, 113, 19^; the Com-
munion oj, by Agostmo Carracci, 210
Jerusalem, 130
Jesus, Society of, and Jesuits, 4, 34,
in, 115, 120, 124, 127, 133, 134,
I35> *37> 154. *55> I57> 161, 183,
204, 205, 214, 234, 254, -255, 268,
278, 279, 280, 281, 284, 285, 287,
294, 298, 301, 347, 35 2 > 365; its
purpose, 119; inspired by Spiritual
Exercises, 125, 129; its beginnings,
130; its Constitutions, 130; its expan-
sion, 137; influence of Montaigu col-
lege on, 141; begins to open colleges,
144; in great numbers, 145; its edu-
cational scheme, 37, 145; its educa-
tional work, 147; its colleges, 148;
revives older colleges, 149; insists on
texts being understood, 152; fosters
devotional life of pupils, 155, 156;
rejects lewd poetry, 156; imitated by
Oratory, 158; contrast with Oratory,
159; theology of, 162; Rules, on
drama, 183; value of its drama, 184;
imitates humanistic drama, 185; its
dramatic technique, 185; prepares pro-
gramme for painters, 206; including
Immaculate Conception, 207; takes
lead in architecture, 212; builds Tren-
tine churches, 213, 214, 215; reverts
to conservatism in architecture, 216;
its later partiality for the baroque,
217; colleges in Rome entrusted to,
259; in charge of seminaries, 102,
103; its difficulties with Sixtus V
261 f; founds colleges in the Em-
pire, 264, 267, 270, 272; educates the
great, 269; introduces Trentine re-
form into Poland, 273; into France,
2 75 277; turned out of France, 281;
recalled by Henry IV, 160; its mis-
sionary work m France, 281, 283; its
influence in the English colleges,
318 f; in the Scottish and Irish col-
leges, 319; in English devotional lit-
erature, 326; missionary work, 334;
in Peru, 339; in Brazil, 343, in Para-
guay, 344; inspires Xavier, 348; work
in Japan, 354; in China, 354; attitude
toward Chinese rites, 355; work in
Canada, 357, 358, 361; contribution
to the Catholic reformation, 366
Job, 169
Jodelle, his tragedies, 182
Jogues, Fr , S.J., 359
John, pope, character in Caussm's Theo-
doncus, 189
John III, king of Portugal, dealings with
Xavier, 347, 351
John XXII, pope, rules on Church
music, 218
John, St.,^ apostle, 129, 177
John of Avila, 256
John the Baptist, St., 291; Confraternity
of beheading of, 256
John of Capistrano, St., supported by
Nicholas V, 26
John Chrysostom, St., 157
John of the Cross, St., 202, 365; biog-
raphy, 236; meets St. Teresa, 232, 236
John Dudley's baleful ambition, a college
play in Germany, 186
INDEX
383
John Eudes, St., 293, 299; biography,
292; mission in Normandy, 297;
founds seminaries, 291; founds devo-
tion to Sacred Heart, 249
John of God, St., 257
John Scholasticus, St., 21
Jordanus, character in Donatus' Suevia,
is?
Josaphat, college play performed at
Pondicherry, 184
Joseph, Fr., Capuchin, biography, 288,
289, 291; adviser of Richelieu, 287
Joseph, St., 126, 198, 208, 231, 238,
feast of, fixed on I9th of March, 263,
monastery of, at Avila, 231, 232
Joseph II, the Emperor, 273
Joyeuse, Fr. Angel de, 277
Joyeuse, Cardinal dc, 277
Juan de Yepes, or De Santa Matia, see
John of the Cross
Judas Maccabeus, 207
Juli, Jesuit college at, 342
Julius II, pope, 50, 112, 215, 262;
policy, 15; borrows from bankers, 17,
raises moral level of the Curia, 17;
favours Benedictines, 25; forbids brib-
ery at papal elections, 40
Julius III, pope, 79, 81, 86; presides over
council of Tient as Cardinal del
Monte, 81; calls it up again, 81, 85,
reforming briefs, loof; calls Palestnna
to Rome, 220
Jupiter, 41, 169, 199
Juvencus, 169
Kagoshima, 38
Kahsch, Jesuit college at, 273
Katharine of Aragon, queen of Eng-
land, 53
Kennedy, Qumtm, abbot of Crossraguel,
on conditions in Scotland, 306
Kirke, the brothers, 357
La Chaise Dieu, the abbey of, 7; Dance
of death at, 24
Ladder of perfection, Hylton's work, 227
Ladies of mercy, established by St. Fran-
cis Regis, 298
Laetus, Pomponius, see Pompomus
La Fleche, Jesuit college at, 214; and
Canada, 358
Lagrtme della Maddalcna, Valvasone's
work, 175; published with Tansillo's
Lagrtme, 177; their literary value, 179
Lagrtme di San Ptetro, of Luigi Tansillo,
175; officially revised, 176; an epitome
of Christian epics, 176
Laincz, Fr. General, S.J., 279; appears
for pope at Trent, 83, 137
Lake Superior, 357
Lalemant, Fr., S.J., 359, 360, 362;
methods in Canada, 361
Lalouvesc, 299
La Magdeletne repentie, 180
Lanfranc, 210; his mosaic in St. Peter's,
207
Lang, Matthaeus, cardinal, imperial en-
voy m Rome, 46
Langres, Diocesan synod at, 30; Ora-
tonan seminary at, 291; Oratorian
house at, 291
Languedoc, 297
Laocoon, the group of statuary, 42, 48,
198
Laredo, Bernardino de, Subida del Monte
Sion, 230
La Rochelle, 288, 289
Lascans, Jan, rector of Greek college in
Rome, 43
Las Infantas, Don Fernando de, 222
Lassus, Roland de, 221
Lateran council, 80, 112, 113; gathering
of, 31; decisions of, 32, 33; results of,
39, influence of, on Raphael, 42;
decrees of, not observed in Germany,
51; Paul III in, 66; its influence upon
art, 201
Lateran, palace of the, 41, 220
Latomus, 311
Lausanne, 185
Laynez, see Lainez
Le Bas, Jerome, Fr., S.J., 281
Le Bel, Firmin, Palcstrina's master, 219
Lcbnxa, Anthony de, 278
Lc Clerc du Tremblay, Francis, see
Joseph, Fr.
Le Fevrc, Pierre, Fr., S.J. (Peter Fabcr),
347; takes part in council of Trent,
137; work of, in Germany, 265, 266;
at Ratisbon, 311
Lefevre d'Etaples, looks up to pope,
36; attacked by Noel Beda, 143
Le Gras, Mademoiselle, see Marillac,
Louise de
INDEX
Lc Jay, Fr. Claude, S.J., 148; speaks
on education at Trent, 147; work m
Germany, 265, 266
Le Jeune, Fr., S.J., 361
Lellis, Camillas de, 261
Le Mans, Lazanst seminary at, 295
Le Nobletz, Michael, apostolate m Brit-
tany, 297
Leo X, pope, 39, 48, 50, 52, 64, 66,
76, 113, 114, 215; his pontificate,
4044; borrows from bankers, 17;
Concordat with France, 32, 33; policy
with other nations, 33; Turkish peril
prevents him from reforming Church,
45 f; threatened in Italy, 47; befriends
Vida, in
Leon, province of, 342
Leonardo da Vinci, sec Vinci
Leonessa, Giuseppe da, 261
Lepanto, 257
Le-Puy-en-Velay, Jesuit college at, 214,
281; its chapel, 212, how altered in
XVIIth century, 217; Sulpician semi-
nary at, 297; St. Francis Regis' work
in, 298
Lestonnac, Joan de, founds Daughters of
our Lady, 284
Le Vergier, abbey of, visitation of, 13
Lichetto, Francesco, general of the Ob-
servants, founds the Riformati, 114
Liege, 140, 144, 150
Liessies abbey, 226
Life of St. Francis Xavier, a college play
performed at Goa, 184
Life of St. Teresa, 232, 233; describes
spiritual ascent, 233; published in
English, 327
Lima, town of, 339; Augustmian monas-
tery there, 341; Augustmian women's
convent there, 341; the council of,
34 2 > 3435 ^e province of, missions
m, 338
Limerick, synod of, 308
Linacrc, 310
Lmhthgow, council at, 305
Lisbon, 347; English and Irish colleges
at, 319
Little Gidding, 331
Lively flame of love, the work of St.
John of the Cross, 237; describes
mystical union, 238
Loaysa, Francis Jerome de, archbishop
of Lima, 342
Lombard, Peter, 279, 314
Lombards, College des, in Paris, 278
Lombardy, 159, 256
London, 181, 312; National Gallery in,
207
Lopperz, Fr., S.J., 271
Lorenzo de Medici, 65
Loretto, 23, 296
Lorrain, Claude, 210
Lorraine, 149; apostolate of St. Peter
Fourier in, 297
Loudun, peace of, 288
Louis XII, king of France, following of
prelates, n; convenes council of Pisa,
14, 32; undertakes reform, 30; designs
in Italy, 47
Louis XIII, king of France, 197, 278,
283, 287, 288, 299, 304, 326, 358,
Catholic revival under, 283, 301
Louis XIV, king of France, 197, 283
Louvam, 141, 144, university of, 48, 85,
247; printing presses at, 311; Irish
college at, 319
Low Countries, 140, 229
Lublin, Jesuit college at, 273
Lucerne, Capuchins and Jesuits at, 273 f
Lucifer, 126, 207
Lucon, Oratorian seminary at, 291
Luis of Granada, see Granada
Lusignan, 288
Luther, Martin, 25, 29, 33, 36, 39, 40,
54, 85, 130, 139, 146, 229, 267;
views on the badness of man, 228;
Catechisms, 268
Luxembourg, 216
Lyons or Lyon, 214, 296; Jesuit college
of the Trinity at, 214, 281, 283, 296;
Charity hospital at, 214; Capuchin
house at, 277; house of the Visitation
at, 286; apostolate of Fr. Auger at,
281
Macao, 355; the Jesuit college at, 354
Macchiavelh, his Prince and its spirit, 46
Macon, Oratorian seminary at, 291
Maderno, Stefano, his statue of St. Ce-
cilia, 211
Madrid, English college at, 319
Madura, the mission, 354
Maeomac, Southwell's work, its diffu-
sion, 326
Maffliers, Baron de, see Joseph, Fr.
Magdalen dc' Pazzi, St., 226
INDEX
385
Magdeburg, 164
Mahomet, 66
Maidens of chanty, company of, founded
by St. Vincent dc Paul, 287; and
Louise de Marillac, 294
Maisonneuve, M. de la, governor of
Montreal, 358
Malacca, 348, 349; the college at, 352
Malaya, 345, 348, 353
Maldonatus, Fr., S.J., upbringing and
theological action, 279; difficulties
with Sorbonne, 280
Male, Emile, writings of, ix; on paint-
ings of saints, 202
Malherbe, Francois de, translation of
Tansillo's Lagnme, 177
Mahnes, 141
Manar, island of, 351
Manareus, or Manare, Fr. Ohvenus, S.J.,
his rules on college drama, 183; apos-
tolate at Dieppe, 282
Mance, Mademoiselle Jeanne, 358
Manfred, 187
Manresa, 130
Mantua, council called up at, 69
Manucci, Aldo, or Manutius, Aldus,
printer, 143, 156; favoured by Leo X,
43
Manucci, Paolo, or Manutius, Paulus,
printer, published Bible and Fathers,
105; and Trentme catechism, 255
Marbach, Lutheran, 146
Marcellus II, pope, 81; reforms Church
music, 219; Palestrma's mass of pope,
220
Marches, 113
Mare magnum, bull, 25, 32
Margaret le Valois, queen of France, 293
Marillac, Louise de, co-operates with St.
Vincent de Paul, 287, and founding
of Maidens of Chanty, 294
Marillac, Michel dc, 287
Markham, Gcrvase, Tears of the Beloved,
1 80; Mary Magdalen's lamentations,
180
Marquemont, Cardinal de, archbishop of
Lyons, 286
Marseilles, 159, 293; interview of Fran-
cis I and Clement VII at, 62; Capu-
chin house at, 277; Lazanst seminary
at, 295
Marsihus of Padua, imperialist theories
of, 54
Marsyas, 41
Martellangc, Br., S.J., career as archi-
tect, 214, 215
Martial, 173
Martyr Vermigli, Peter, an Augustiman
monk, 311; goes over to Protestantism
68
Mary, St., the Blessed Virgin, 125, 126,
182, 198, 203, 239, 247, 248, 263;
prominent in Trentme art, 206, 207,
209; her Immaculate Conception, 280;
called by name of Mexican goddess,
335; confraternity of the Annuncia-
tion of, 256; Confraternity of, in Peru,
341; Congregation of, in Paraguay,
345
Mary of the Incarnation, Mother, 358,
362
Mary Magdalen, St., 163, 198, her re-
morse in literature, 175; m Valva-
sone's Lagrime, 178, 179; how repre-
sented by painters, 202, 208.
Mary Magdalen's conversion, 180
Mary Magdalen's lamentations, 181
Mary Magdalen's pilgrimage, 181
Mary Magdalen's tears, Southwell's work,
its diffiusion, 326
Mary Tudor, queen of England, 312,
317, 318; and Ireland, 309
Massaccio, 113
Massarelh, chief secretary of council of
Trent, 83
Masse, Fr., S.J., 358
Mathieu, Fr., S.J., controversy of, with
Sorbonne, 280
Matteo da Baccio, see Bascio
Matthew, St., 204
Mauriac, Jesuit college at, 281, 283
Maximilian I, Emperor, rivals the pope,
46
Maximilian II, Emperor, follows Church
policy of Charles V, 105
Mayence, 266; reform m diocese of, 63;
Jesuit college at, 267
Mayorga, 342
Meaux, the diocese of, Bourdoise's com-
munities in, 292
Medea, 41
Medicean graduale, 222
Medici, family of, 48, 55; lend money
to popes, 17; favoured as being the
family of Leo X, 40; Lorenzo di, 65;
painted by Gozzoh, 209
3 86
INDEX
Medina del Campo, 232, 236
Meliaporc, see San Thom6
Melinda, 347
Melk or Melck, abbey of, 28, 272; centre
of reunion for monasteries, 273
Mellini, cardinal, 205
Mclun, Church assembly at, 107, 277
Mercurian, Everard, Fr. general, S.J., 269
Mercury, 41
Mercy, order of, mission in Mexico, 334;
in Peru, 339
Menci, St. Angela, see Angela
Meudon, 277
Mexico, 341, 345 f; missions in, 334*
335; reasons for partial failure, 337*
343; "autos sacramentales" in, 336,
"pueblos" in, 341
Mexico, the town of, 334, 338; councils
in, 336; Augusunian college in, 337
Miam, Girolamo (Hieronymus Aemilia-
nus), founds Somaschi, 117; death of,
1 1 8; successor to, 118
Michael, St., archangel, 175, 207, 346
Michaelangclo, Last Judgment, 203;
Moses, 209; raises cupola of St. Pctcr*s,
215
Milan, n, 47, 7<>, 102, 117, "8, 122,
255, 273; coveted by French, 53, and
by Emperor, 59; early reform in dio-
cese of, 63; Fathers from duchy of, at
Trent, 82; archdiocese of, reformed by
Borromeo, 103, 258; Philip II un-
willing to enforce Trentme decrees at,
1 08; school of painting at, 209; Acts
of the Church oj, 258
Minerva, 40
Minims, favoured by popes, 25
Minorites, discalccd, reformed by St.
Peter of Alcantara, 226, 231
Misael, character in Caussm's Nabucho-
donosor, 190
Modcna, 218
Mohacs, battle of, 52
Mohere, Tartufe, 300
Molshcim, 272
Moluccas, 348
Mombririus, Sanctuanum respected by
Baronius, 205
Moncada, Ugo de, rebellion against
Clement VII, 55
Montaigne, Michel de, 152, 284, per-
forms a part in Jephthes, 185
Montaigu college in Paris, 29, 143, 145,
149, 156, 305; relation to humanism,
143 n; influence on Ignatius of Loyola,
141, 142, 145; practice of debates
there, 153
Montalto, cardinal, see Sixtus V
Montanus, Arias, 171
Monte, Cardinal del, see Pius III
Monte Celio, in Rome, 205
Monte Corona, 113
Montefalcone, Observant convent at, 114
Montesquieu, 345
Montf errand, convent of the Visitation
at, 286
Montferrant, Gaston dc, 284
Montmartre, chapel at, 130, 265, 347
Montpelher, 298; Protestant academy at,
146
Montreal, 357, 358 f, 362; life in colony,
359
Moore, George Foot, author, on pre-
Reformation, 35 n
Mopsus, a college comedy in Germany,
188
More, St. Thomas, see Thomas
Morel, Jacques, Fr., S.f., 281
Morizia, Jacopo Antonio, companion of
Zaccaria, 118
Morocco, 137, 362
Morone, cardinal, legate at Trent, 83;
tried by Inquisition, 81; prohibits
"figured" music, 218
Moses, 41, 206, 209
Mouhns, cathedral at, 22; Jesuit college
at, 214; convent of Visitation at, 286
Mozambique, hospital in, 347
Munich, Jesuit college at, 267; semi-
naries at, 270
Muratori, on Paraguay, 344
Muretus, 156
Murillo, Estcban, 201, 210, 321
Mutius, Macarius, of Camcrmo, against
paganism in letters, 168; in favour of
Christian subjects, 169, 170
Nabuchodonosor, Caussm's tragedy, 186;
dialogue in, 188; lyricism in, 189
Nagasaki, 354
Nanking, 355; province of, 355
Nantes, diocesan synod at, 30; Sulpician
seminary at, 297
Naples, 112, 187; kingdom of, 16, 47,
54, 164; early reform in diocese of,
63; Fathers from kingdom of, at
INDEX
387
Trent, 82; Philip II unwilling to
enforce Trentme decrees at, 108; The-
atme house at, 117; Oratorian house
at, 122; the Academy, 167
Natural history of the Indies, Acosta's
work, 342
Navarre, Henry de, see Henry IV
Ncarque, character in Corneille's Poly-
cuctc, 192
Nemesis, 188
Nepi, see Sutri
Neptune, 169
Nereus, St., and Achiileus, St., legend
of, 205
Neri, St. Philip, see Philip
Nero, 49
Netherlands, 41, 48, 49, 357
Nevcrs, Jesuit college at, 281; convent
of the Visitation at, 286; Oratorian
house at, 291
Neville, George, archbishop of York, 311
Newark, Observant house at, 31
Ncwbury, the battle of, 331
Newcastle, Observants introduced into,
30
Nicholas V, pope, attempts Reformation,
26, 28
Nicholas of Arras, 211
Nimes, Protestant academy at, 146, 147;
Jesuit college at, 149
Nobih, Fr. Robert de, missionary meth-
ods in India, 353, 354, 355
Noble Widows of Dole, order of, 263
Nobunaga, Emperor of Japan, 354
Normandy, 191; poor priests in, 10,
Eudes' apostolate in, 292, 297
Nuremberg, diet at, 51
Nymegen, 266
Obiatcs of St. Ambrose, created by Bor-
romeo, 103; imitated by the Oratory,
122
Observant Franciscans, 120, 255; used
for reform in fifteenth century, 30,
31; in sixteenth century, 113, 114;
hostile to Capuchins, 114; established
in Spam by St. Peter of Alcantara,
25 f
Ochmo, Bernardino, vice-general of the
Capuchins, goes over to Protestantism,
68, 114
Oecolampadius, the reformer, 311
Ofen (Buda), 67
Ohcr, Jean-Jacques, 283, 291, 295, 299,
358; his biography, 296; his semi-
naries, 287, 291; establishes seminary
at Saint-Sulpice, 297; on the virtue of
abnegation, 247; on the necessity of
mortification, 248; on the dignity of
the priesthood, 249
Olivet, Mount, 175, 177
On the Lord's supper, a college play in
Germany, 186
Oratory, the French, and Oratorians,
French, 160, 246, 248, 249, 284, 287,
291, 292, 293, 295; founded by
Berulle, 247, 289; how organized,
290; founds seminaries, 290; number
of its colleges, 145; their renown,
147; revives older colleges, 149; imi-
tates Jesuit pedagogy, 157, 158; and
yet diverges from it, 158; its masters
recruited m France, 159; their dis-
tinctive patriotism, 159; their philoso-
phy, 162
Oratory of divine love, 25, 72, 117,
238, 240, foundation, 112; Giberti
member of, 64, Fregoso member of,
76; Sadolet, Gaetano di Thiene, and
Carafla members of, 112, 113; contin-
ued by Thea tines, 116
Oratory, Roman, and Oratorians, Ro-
man, ill, 158, 164, 284, 289; pur-
pose, 119; beginnings, 120; change
in character, 121; remains free asso-
ciation, 122; simple preaching, 123;
churches, 215; creates oratorio, 221
Origen, 207
Orleans, 288; convent of Visitation at,
286; community of Bourdoise at, 292;
university of, 304
Ormaneto, Niccolo, helper of Borromeo,
103; of Pius V, 255
Ormuz, 348
Orpheus, 169
Orsmi, family of, feud with Colonnas,
15; allied with Clement VII, 55
Osnabruck, 257
Ossuna, Francisco de, Tersto abecedano
of, 230, 231
Otranto, Turkish landing at, 67
Ovid, 156, 172
Oxford, 318; Pre-Reformcrs at, 35 n;
movement, 331
INDEX
Padcrborn, 272
Padilla, Davila, on conditions in Mexico,
338
Padua, early reform at, 63; university of,
71, 112, 209, 241; Jesuit college at,
278
Palencia, 232
Palcotto, cardinal, 258
Palestrma, Giovanni Pier Luigi, career,
219; reforms Church music, 219;
value as composer, 220; at Oratory,
221; revises liturgy, 222
Palladio, 217
Pallas, 41
Panza, Sancho, 229
Paraguay, Jesuit apostolate in, 344, 360
Paraxas, Xavier's methods with, 350, 352
Pardoner's talc, Chaucer's work, 311
Pans, 12, 24, 29, 30, 130, 141, 144, 214,
241, 246, 278, 279, 281, 287, 291,
292, 293, 294, 295, 296, 297, 304,
326, 346; proving of wills in, 9; ab-
sentee priests in, 12, lewd life of
monks in, 13; university of, reformed,
26; consulted by Charles V, 85; influ-
ence upon Ignatius Loyola, 145;
practice of disputations there, 153; re-
formed on Jesuit model, 157; college
drama in, 183, 184; Carmelite church
in, 208; controversy of, university
with Jesuits, 280, controversy of Par-
liament of, with Jesuits, 281; convent
of Visitation m, 286; Oratonan semi-
naries in, 291; Scottish and Irish
seminaries in, 319
Parma, 255; early reform in diocese
of, 63; diocese of, visited by Card.
Farnese, 66; claimed by Ottavio Far-
nese, 86; school of painting at, 209
Parsons, Robert, Fr., S.J., 250, 318, 326,
upbringing under Mary Tudor, 317;
founds English colleges, 319; Chris-
tian directory, 319-326; quality of his
prose, 322; images, 323, spiritual
method, 323; lyricism, 324
Pascal, Blaise, 128, 321
Pascelupo, 113
Pasqumo, statue in Rome, 48
Passau, diocese of, 272
Pastor, Ludwig von> historian, 62
Pastrana, 232
Patrom, Fr. Anthony, 346
Pau, Capuchin monastery at, 288
Paul, St., Apostle, 35, 199, 350, 354;
life of, in Sistme chapel, 42; Clerks
regular of, or Barnabites, 118
Paul III, pope, 73, 75, 77, 80, 81, 86,
2 57> 395 elected, 65; surrounded by
dangers, 66; efforts to unite princes,
69; accepts Colloquia in Germany,
69 f; forms "pre-council," 72; sum-
mons council of Trent, 70; organizes
it, 71; appoints reforming cardinals,
71; reforms Penitentiary, 76; purges
Dominicans, 113; approves Barnabites,
118; sends Xavier to Indies, 347; his
tomb, 211
Paul IV, pope, 102, 196, 257; averse to
council, 81; his reformation of the
Curia, 101; proscribes nudes, 203,
building of churches under, 215; fa-
vours Ghishcri, 253; revoke's Pole's
commission, 317
Paul V, pope, 284, 285; continues re-
form, 262, 263; approves French
Oratory, 269; tomb of, 211
Pauline, character in Corneille's Poly-
eucte, 1 92 ff
Pavia, 253
Peace and religion . . , college play
m Germany, 186
Pebrac, abbey of, 296 f
Peckham, John, archbishop of Canter-
bury, Constitutions, 311
Pedroso, Minorite convent at, 231
Peking, 355
Peltrie, Madame de la, 358, 360
Pembroke, Fr. Archangel of, 287
Pequet, Fr., S.J., 284
Pengueux, Jesuit college at, 281; Lazanst
seminary at, 295
Perseus, 41
Persius, 170
Persons, Fr. Robert, see Parsons
Peru, 341, 343, 345, missions in, 338,
339, 342; low level of conquerors,
339; reform of Church of, 342
Perugia, revolt of, against Paul III, 67
Petau, Fr. Denis, S.J., 191; tragedy
Sisaras, 186
Peter the hermit, 175
Peter, St., apostle, 198; life of, in Sistme
chapel, 42; Carracci's painting of, 200;
used by painters to represent remorse,
INDEX
208; remorse in poetry, 175, in Tan-
sillo's Lagnme, 176, 177; Peter's com-
plaint, Southwell's work, its diffusion,
326, 327, 329
Peter of Alcantara, St., 356; St. Teresa's
confessor, 231; founds branch of the
Observants, 257; Treatise on prayer
and meditation, 226, 230; Golden
treatise of mental prayer, 327
Peter Camsius, St., 268, 284, biography,
266; founds colleges, 267, provides for
poor students, 272; action upon the
great, 269, preaching, 267; on abuses
in the Empire, 264; Catechisms, 104,
268, 269, 282, 327, 343; death,
271
Peter Fourier, St., his apostolate in Lor-
raine, 297
Peter Morone, St., 187
Philemon, 170
Philip, Fr., Capuchin, 273
Philip the fair, king of France, 53
Philip II, king of Spam, 222; unwilling
to accept Trentine decrees, 108; sup-
ports St. Teresa, 232, distrusts French
kings, 276
Philip Ncn, St , 123, 164, 202, 221, 225,
238, 259, 260, 289, 290; biography,
119; founds Oratory, 120, 121, elected
provost, 122; shrinks fiom rules, 122,
character, 124, contrasted with St
Ignatius Loyola, 124, recommends
cheerfulness, 240, death, 123, canon-
ized, 263
Philothee, 242, 331
Phocio, 34
Piacenza, claimed by Ottawo Farnese, 86
Picardy, St. Vincent de Paul's work in,
293, 301
Pico della Mirandula, Giovanni-Fran-
cesco, De amore divino* 44, address
to Lateran council, 45
Pier Luigi Farnese, 66
Pilgrims of Emmaus, Rembrandt's paint-
ing, 211
Pindar, 157
Piotrkow, synod of, 273
Pisa, council of, 14; attacked by Cajetan,
32; university of, 65
Pistoja, 24
Pius II, pope, attempts Reformation, 28
Pius III, pope, 28
Pius IV, pope, 83, 252, 253, 257; in-
vites Eastern Churches to Trent, 78;
approves work of Trent, 79; negoti-
ates for new session of council, 82,
appoints Charles Borromeo to secre-
taryship of state, 102; and Trent,
103 f; revises Vulgate, 105; struggle
with Philip II, 1 08; reforms Church
music, 220
Pius V, St., pope, 109, 257, 258, 259,
260; biography, 253; allows Borromeo
to rejoin Milan, 102; continues woik
of Trent, 104, 256; grants the cup to
Empire, 106; struggle with Philip II,
1 08; revises Breviary and Vulgate,
105; reforms liturgical music, 218,
222, enforces morality, 254; has pagan
images removed, 200; and nudes, 203;
reforms the Curia, 255; and the re-
ligious orders, 257; policy toward
France, 276; favours missions, 334,
341; tomb, 211
Pizarro, Francesco, 339
Plato, 229; a precursor of Christianity,
35, 229; on Jesuit syllabus, 157
Plautus, a model for Jesuit drama, 185
Plotmus, 227, 229
Pluto, 169
Poggiam, Giuho, amends the Latin of
Trentine canons, 92; of the Trentine
catechism, 104; of the Breviary, 105
Poissy, the "colloquy" at, 86
Poitiers, Oratorian house at, 291
Poitou, 288
Poland, 249; agreement of Leo X with,
33; threatened by Turks, 45, 46;
early reform in, 63, Fathers from, at
Trent, 82; Trentme decrees adopted
in, 109; Jesuit colleges in, 149;
Catholic reformation in, 273
Pole, Reginald, 103, 318; Contarim's
friend, 72; member of "pre-council,"
72; made cardinal, 72; tried by In-
quisition, 81; helps Thea tines, 117;
reforms English Church, 310, 311;
reforming decrees, 314, 317; commis-
sion cancelled, 317; death, 317
Polyeucte, Corneille's tragedy, 186, 191;
the apex of Catholic Reformation lit-
erature, 192; akin to Jesuit tragedies,
193; the character in the play, 192,
*93> 194
Pomarancio, il, paints the persecutions,
204
390
INDEX
Pommereu, Madame dc, on Ursulinc de-
votion, 1 60
Pompomus Laetus, the neo-pagan phi-
losopher, 65
Pont-a-Mousson, Jesuit university at,
281, 282
Pontanus, Jacobus, 171; moralizing the-
ory of letters, 168; theory of "imita-
tion," 171, 172; list of sacred subjects,
174
Pontanus, Jovianus, a lascivious poet,
167, 1 68
Pope, Alexander, 171
Porta, Giacomo della, 214, alters plan
of St. Peter's, 215; of the Gesu, 216
Portugal, 83, 113, 137, 184, 319, 351;
favoured by Leo X, 33; Fathers from,
at Trent, 82; king of, accepts Tren-
tine decrees, 108; Xavier in, 347
Possevin or Possevmus, Antomus, Fr.,
S.J., neo-classical literary theory, 170;
view of the poet, 173; views on
painting, 198, 199; afraid of Renais-
sance sensuousness, 200; in favour of
decorousness, 203; of realism, 204;
meets St. Francis of Sales, 241; apos-
tolate at Dieppe and Marseilles, 282
Poussin, Nicholas, 210
Pouy, 293
Prague, 267
Prat, Guillaume du, bishop of Clermont,
282; founds College de Clermont,
278; the college at Billom, 281
Prato, Giovanni Andrea, denounces
monks, 4445
Premontre, order of, 8
Prcvesa, Doria's defeat at, 67
Procopius, 1 88
Propaganda, congregation of the, 334
Provence, 283, 284; apostolate of An-
thony Yvan in, 297
Prudentius, 169, 171
Pucci, cardinal, agrees to reform of
Penitentiary, 76
Pultusk, 149; Jesuit college at, 273
Pylgnmagc of perfection, 227
Pythagoras, 34
Quaerengius, Antomus, 171
Quattuor sermones, 24
Quebec, 357, 358, 360, 362; life in
fort of, 359
Quinones, cardinal, Breviary of, 104
Quixote, Don, 229
Rabelais, Francois, satire of lower clergy,
12
Racine, Jean, 188
Ragazzoni, Hierommo, bishop, speech
at termination of council of Trent, 88
Raimundus, Franciscus, epigram, 173
Ramirez, Fr. Anthony, on ceremonies
for Peru, 341
Raphael, painter, work in the Sistme
chapel, 42; friend of Sadolet, 42;
death, 42
Ranee, Abbot dc, reformer of La Trappe,
295
Ratio studiorum, Jesuit, 145, 147, 149,
151; likeness with Protestant peda-
gogy, 146; builds up personality, 150;
insists on texts being understood, 152;
encourages public speaking, 153; for-
bids violence to pupils, 153; syllabus
of studies, 156; recommends study
of Scripture, 162; against "quaes-
tiones," 162; gives central position to
St. Thomas Aquinas, 163; the Ora-
torian, 159
Ratisbon, town of, 266, 267, diet of, in
1541, 70, 311; "colloquy" of, in
1546, 85
Ravenna, coveted by Clement VII, 55
Raymond, Fr., S.J., 285
Regis, St. Francis, see Francis
Reidt, John von, 267
Rembrandt, expression of Trentinc de-
votion, 2 1 0-2 1 1
Reni, Guido, 210; painting of St. Peter,
208
Renty, M. de, 300
Returns of spiritual comfort, John Dun-
con's work, 331
Rheims, the diocese of, and episcopal
taxation, 9
Rhine, college drama in Jesuit province
of, 183; in lower province, 183; in
upper province, 184
Rhineland, church building in, 216
Rhodes, helped against Turks, 46
Ri, 292
Ribadeneira, Fr., S.J., on Jesuit college
in Padua, 278
Ribera, 210
INDEX
Ricardi palace, at Florence, 209
Ricci, Fr. Matthew, S.J., 355
Richcheu, Cardinal de, 283, 287, 288,
295> 359> 36i, 362
Richeome, 248
Richer, Edmond, professor at Sorbonne,
praises Jesuit teaching, 157
Richmond, Observant house at, 31
Riformati, founded by Lichetto, 114
Rmaldo, 175
Rio de la Plata, 339
Robinson, Thomas, Life and death of
Mary Magdalen, 181
Rocha, Fr. John de, S.J., 355
Rochefoucauld, Cardinal de la, 289
Rodez, Jesuit college at, 281
Roman college, S.J., 186, 259, 278, 319
Romanelh, pictures in St. Peter's, 207
Rome, 15, 31, 42, 46, 48, 50, 52, 58,
63, 65, 66, 69, 72, 77, 79, 80, 81 f,
83, 86, 87, 95, 97, 102, 104, 105, 113,
n6f, 120 f, 164, 188, 197, 201, 205,
207, 211, 214, 219 f, 222, 241, 249,
2 55> 257, 260, 261, 263, 276, 278,
279> 2 93> 2 95 296, 308, 310, 331,
347, 348, 353, 355; ancient, 34;
magnificence of, under Leo X, 40,
threatened by Turks, 45, 67; Sack of,
41, 52, 54, 55> 56, 58, 310; fer-
menting with devotion in early XVIth
century, in; Theatme house at, 117;
takes lead at Trent, 84; reformed by
Paul IV, 10 1, by Charles Borromeo,
102; the "irenical" party in, 106, the
Catacombs in, 205; school of art at,
209; 'building of churches at, 215, im-
morality at, repressed by Pius V, 254,
model of morality under Gregory XIII,
259, colleges founded at, 259; English
refugees in, 318, Scottish college at,
319; German college at, 204, 272;
Jubilee of 1600 m, 262
Romillon, John Baptist, biography, 284,
founds new congregation, 284, and
the Provencal devotional school, 283
Ronsard, Pierre de, poet, 277
Rosa, Pcrsiano, St. Philip Nen's con-
fessor, 1 20
Rouen, town of, 291, 326; Jesuit col-
lege at, 191, 192; Capuchin house at,
277; Irish college at, 319; Edict of,
281, 283; archbishopric of, its reve-
nue, 9; undignified priest in, 12;
number of ordained clerics in, 30
Rowland, Samuel, Betraying of Christ,
i 7 8
Rubens, 210; painting in Tournai ca-
thedral, 207
Ruffo, Vincenzo, follows Trentine re-
form in music, 219, 221
Rugby School, 150
Rule of perfection, Canf eld's work, 326
Rules and lessons, Vaughan's poem, 330
Sacrifice of Abraham, Beze's tragedy,
i8 5
Sadolet, Christian humanist, 171; life
and friends, 42, 43; literary tastes, 43;
joins oratory of divine love, 112; left
aside by Adrian VI, 48; taken into
service of Clement VII, 55; letter of,
to Clement VII, 58; supports reform
under Clement VII, 63; letter to
Paul III, 66; in "pre-council," 72;
made cardinal, 72
Saint Agatha of the Goths, 260
Saint Amand, abbey of, its debts, 13
Saint Andrews, 305
Saint Boniface, abbey of, at Fulda, 270
Saint Dems, abbey of, 7; commendatory
abbot of, 12
Sainte Barbe, college, in Pans, Ignatius
Loyola at, 145; Francis Xavier at, 346
Sainte Beuve, Madame de, establishes
Ursulme house in Paris, 160
Sainte Marie, Jesuit residence m Can-
ada, 361
Saintes, Lazarist seminary at, 295
Saint Euverte, abbey of, 8
Saint Germain, abbey of, in Paris, refor-
mation of, 30
Saint Germain, the Faubourg, Paris, 297
Saint Gervais, church of, Pans, 216
Saint Godeshard, abbey of, 27
Saint Jacques, street, in Paris, 289
Saint Jean d'Angely, 288
Saint Joseph de Sillery, 360
Saint Lazare, priory of, m Paris, 294,
295, 296
Saint Leger, Lord deputy in Ireland, 309
Saint Louis des Frangais, church of, m
Rome, 204
Saint Luke, academy of, 203
Saint Magloire, abbey of, m Paris, Ora-
torian seminary at, 291
392
INDEX
Saint Mary Major, the church of, in
Rome, 220
Saint Maur, congregation of, 289
Saint Meen, Lazanst seminary at, 295
Saint Nicolas du Chardonnet, church of,
in Pans, one of Bourdoise's communi-
ties at, 292, 295
Saint Omer, or Saint Omers, 216; Eng-
lish college at, 319; Mary Ward's
Institute at, 319
Saint Paul-Saint Louis, church of, in
Rome, 216
Saint Paul's cathedral, London, 312
Saint Peter's church, Rome, 44, 50, 207,
215, 255; plundered, 56, successive
alterations in plan of, 215, Palestrma
choir master at, 220
Saint Peter's complaint, Southwell's
poem, 178
Saint Peter's path, 178
Saint Peter's ten teares, 178
Saint Sulpice, society or company of,
seminaries, 147, 297; seminary of, in
Paris, 248, 249, 297
Saint Thomas, monastery of, 346, Fran-
ciscan province of, 346
Saint Ulnc, abbey of, at Augsburg, 28
Salamanca, 236; university of, 163, 279;
St. Teresa founds house at, 232, Irish
college at, 319
Sales, Fr. James, S.J., death at Aubenas,
282
Salmeron, Fr., S J , appears at Trent for
pope, 83, 137
Salvatore, Era, unck of Sixtus V, 260
Salzburg, 270
Sana, 342
San Barnaba, church of, at Milan, 118
San Choan, 348
Sancian (San Choan), 348
San Carlo a Corso, church of, 207
Sancta Sophia, Baker's work, 326
San Giovanni, church of, Florence,
branch of the Oratory at, 121
San Girolamo, church and convent of,
120; Oratorian community founded
at, 121
San Maiolo, clerks regular of, 118, see
also Somaschi
Sannazaro, 171; poem De partu virgims,
43
Santa Maria dclla Minerva, church of,
in Rome, 208
Santa Maria della Scala, chapter of, at
Milan, 108
Santa Maria del Suffragio, church of, in
Rome, 207
Santa Maria de Monti, church of, in
Rome, imitated by Martellange, 214
Santa Maria Maggiore, church of, in
Rome, 206, 207
Santa Maria in Valhcella, church of,
granted to Oratory, 121; used for
Oratory meetings, 122
Sant Angelo, castel, plundered, 56
San Thome, 346, 347, 349, 350
Santiago, Mexico, Franciscan college at,
337
San Vicente, college of, S.J., 344
Sapor, 331
Sarpi, Fra Paolo, 164
Sarrancolm, priory of, 107
Sauh, Alessandro, 256
Saultemouche, Br. William, S.J., 282
Savonarola, 29, 67, 120
Savoy, 149, 241, 295, converted by
St. Francis de Sales, 241
Scandinavia, 54
Schall, Fr John Adrian, SJ , 355
Scherer, Fr , S J , on abuses m Empire,
265
Schmner, cardinal, 50; memoir to Adrian
VI, 49
Schwytz, 273
Sclafcnati, cardinal, tomb, 201
Scotland, 257, 305, 306, 310, 365,
Fathers from, at Trent, 82, conditions
in, before Reformation, 304, 308
Scupoh, Lorenzo, Spiritual fight, 225,
238, 320; recommends frequent com-
munion, 240
Sebastian, St., 205
Sedecias, Luis da Cru/\ tragedy, 185,
186
Seduhus, 169
Seebohm, Frederic, author, on Christian
humanism, 35 n
Seez diocese, number of ordained clerics
in, 31
Sega, Fehppo, papal nuncio, persecutes
St. Teresa, 232
Segovia, 232
Sehm, sultan, 45
Seneca, philosopher, 129
Senlis, diocese of, Bourdoise's commu-
nities m, 292
INDEX
393
Sens, diocese of, excommunication in,
9; town of, provincial council at, 29;
Jesuit college at, 149
Serilly, 246
Seripando, Girolamo, reforms Augus-
tmian hermits, 113
Serres, Just de, bishop of Le-Puy-en-
Velay, 298
Severe, character in Corneille's Polyeucte,
192 fi
Seville, 232; English and Irish colleges
there, 319
Sezze, 203
Shakespeare, William, 188
Shanghai, 355
Short rule of good lije, Southwell's work,
325; diffusion, 326; compared with
Herbert's Church porch, 330, 331
,Sigismund, duke of Tyrol, strife with
Nicholas de Cusa, 28
jhgismund Augustus, king of Poland,
accepts Trentme decrees, 109
Sigomus, 156
Silex scintillans, Vaughan's work, 329
Sillery, 360
Simon Magus, 207
Simon Stock, St., 209
Simonetta, cardinal, helps in reforming
Curia, 75
Simorre, scandalous quarrels between
monks at, 107
Stsaras, Petau's tragedy, 186
Sistme chapel, 203, 219, decorated by
Raphael, 42
Sittich von Hohenems, Mark, cardinal,
published Trentme decrees, 106
Sm Koank-k'i, Paul, 355
Sixtus IV, pope, pawns tiara, 16; bor-
rows from bankers, i6f, favours
Franciscans, 25
Sixtus V, pope (Felice Montalto), bi-
ography, 260; piety, 260, adminis-
trative and financial policy, 261, sells
papal offices, 262; policy toward
France, 276; brings errors into Vul-
gate, 163; has pagan images removed,
200; reforms liturgy, 222, tomb, 211
Sleidan, Strasbourg Reformer, at Trent,
7
Smalkalden, league of, 85
Smith, Richard, D.D., Catholic treatises,
3ii
Society of our Lady of Montreal, 358
Socotora, 347
Socrates, 34
Sohmanno, 175
Solomon, 169, 177
Solothurm, 273
Solyma, Caussin's tragedy, 186
Somasca, gives name to Somaschi, 118
Somaschi, character, 115; origin and
purpose, 117, ii 8, 119
Sonnenburg, nunnery at, 28
Sophocles, 170
Sorbonne, 246, 291, 296, 299; struggle
with Jesuits, 280, 301
Sona, 232
Soto, Dominic, 279
Souchier, Jerome, cardinal, 255
Southampton, Observants introduced in-
to, 30
South Kensington museum, 42
Southwell, Fr Robert, S.J., 43, 250,
318, 321, 324, 326, 327; his St
Peter's complaint, 178; his Mary Mag-
dalen's tears, 180; applies Catholic
reformation principles, 325; influence
of Spanish mystics upon, 327, 328;
prefaces and moral ideal imitated by
Caroline poets, 329 fi
Spain, 41, 47, 48, 82, 83, 113, 130,
137, 180, 226, 252, 257, 263, 276,
318, 319, 342, 354; threatens schism,
14; policy in Italy, 15; favour shown
to, by Leo X, 33; opposed to papal
authority at Trent, 79, 86; unwilling
to accept Trentme decrees, 108; reli-
gious inspiration of artists in, 201;
mystical school in, 229, 240; influence
on England, 326; New, 356
Spires, diet of, 70
Spiritual canticle, work of St. John of
Cross, 236; describes mystical union,
238
Spiritual exercises of Ignatius Loyola,
I3> *33i !37> I50> 226, 228, 243,
266, 355; gone through by Charles
Borromeo, 102; inspire the Society of
Jesus, 125, 126; how composed, 125;
train the will, 127; practical wisdom
of, 127; inspired by love, 129; inspire
the Constitutions, 132, 135; influence
on Polyeucte, 194; on painting, 201;
found school of devotion, 224; at
Douay college, 318; expanded in Par-
son's Directory, 319, 320, 323
394
INDEX
Spiritual fight, 244; Scupoh's work, 225;
its scheme of spiritual life, 239, 240;
rendered into English, 327
Stafileo, bishop, 58
Standonck, Jean, principal of Montaigu
college, 29, 143; reforms the college,
141
Stans, 273
Staubmg, 267
Stephonius, Bernardmus, tragedy Flavia,
1 86, 187
Steps to the temple, Crashaw's work, 181
Stokesley, John, supports royal suprem-
acy, 310
Strabo, 174
Strasbourg, 78, 267; John Sturm founds
Gymnasium at, 149
Stratonice, character in Corneillc's Poly-
eucte, 193
Sturm, John, career as educationist, 144;
undergoes same influences as Ignatius
Loyola, 145; not typical Protestant,
146; takes no exception to Terence,
156
Suarez, 259
Subhmis Deus, bull, 72
Suetna, Donatus college play, 186
Suffren, Fr., 299
Summa doctnnae chnstianae, Camsius'
Catechism, 268
Surrey, the earl of, 330
Sutri and Nepi, 253
Swabia, 269
Switzerland, 83, 269; Fathers from, at
Trent, 82; Jesuit colleges in, 149;
Catholic reformation in, 273
Sylvanus, character in Caussm's Fchcttas,
191
Symmachus, Boetius* son, character in
Caussin's Theodoncus, 188, 189
Syria, 362
Talon, Omcr, 158
Talpa, Antonio, companion of St. Philip
Neri, wishes Oratory to become a re-
ligious order, 122
Tanor, the king of, 346
Tansillo, Luigi, Lagrime di San Pietro,
i?5> 176* conversion, 175, 220; his
literary merit, 176
Tartarus, 169
Tartuje, Mol icre's comedy, 301
Tarugi, cardinal, 284
Tasso, Torquato, literary theory in Dis-
corsi, 174; how applied m Gicrusa-
lemme, 174, 176; tearful poems, 179
Tauler, 229
Tenenffe, 344
Tercto abecedano espintual, Ossuna's
work, 230, 231
Terence, 37; excluded from Jesuit syl-
labus, 156; model for Jesuit drama,
i8 5
Teresa of Jesus, St., 202, 226, 229, 237,
248, 259, 356, 364, 365; forerunners,
230; biography, 230 f; founds Car-
melite houses, 232, 257; describes her
spiritual progress in her works, 233;
Way to perfection, 226; provides prac-
tical advice, 234; character of her
mysticism, 235, 236; meeting with
St. John of the Cross, 236; canonized,
263; Life published in English, 32^;
influence upon Southwell, 327, 328
Ternate, 348, 349, 352
Theate (Chieti), 117
Theatines, 25, in, 114, 117, 196, 238,
2 54> 2 55> 288, character, 115, 118;
continue Oratory of divine love, 116;
origin of name, 117; numbers, 117;
purpose, 119; Giberti consorts with,
6 4
Theatrum crudehtatum haereticorum ,
204
Theodoric, king of the Goths, 188, 189
Thiene, Gaetano di, see Gaetano
Thomas Aquinas, St., 174, Summa, 27,
authority restored by Jesuits, 162, 163,
365; proclaimed doctor by Pius V, 256
Thomas More, St., 250, 310, 314, 322;
and Christian humanism, 4; monastic
leanings, 25; miscalled a pre-
Reformer, 35 n, 310
Thorens, 241
Thucydides, 157
Tiber, 113
Tibullus, 156
Ticmo, visited by Borromeo, 273
Tiron, abbey of, reform in, 30
Tizio, Sigismondo, against financial mal-
practices, 45
Todi, Jacopone da, Laudi, 121
Toledo, the town of, 232, 236
Toledo, Francis, viceroy of Peru, estab-
lishes "reductions," 341
INDEX
395
Toledo, Garcia de, the confessor of St.
Teresa, 230
Tolet, Francis, cardinal, 263, 279
Tonanzin, 335
Torclh, Luigia, founds the Angehche, 119
Toribio or Turibius de Mogrovejo, arch-
bishop of Lima, biography, 342
Torsellmus, Franciscus, S.J., ode on
Mary, 173
Toulouse, 293, 298; diocese of, num-
ber of ordained clerics in, 30; chap-
ter of the Daurade at, 108; Capuchin
house at, 277; Jesuit college at, 281;
Jesuit province of, 214; Fr. Auger's
apostolate at, 281, 282; monastery of
Feuillantmes at, 284
Tourame, 288
Tournai, 207
Tournon, Jesuit college at, 281, 284;
university of, 282
Tours, general assembly of French clergy
at, 29
Trajan, column of, 205; Thermae of,
205
Travancore, 347, 349
Treatise of the love of God, of St
Francis de Sales, 241
Treatise on prayer, Luis de Granada's
work, 284
Treatise on prayer and meditation, St
Peter of Alcantara's work, 226, 230,
327
Treguier, Lazanst seminary at, 295
Trent, council of, 4, 27, 33, 34, 43, 63,
65, 69, 72, 77, 90, 100, 103, 107,
113, 130, 137, 139, 144, 163, 174*
175, l8l, 208, 212, 213 ft", 2l8, 257 f,
267, 268, 275, 277, 278, 290, 303,
306, 307, 309' 3U> 3^5' 3i6, 331,
342, 343, 364, 365, 366; summoned,
70; true nature, 78; guided by Holy
Sec, 78; choice of site for, 80; located
m Trent, 80, 81, 82; permanent offi-
cials at, 83; French bishops at, 86;
moral ideal, 91; attends to recruiting
of priests, 97; prescribes drafting of
catechism, 104; amends Breviary and
Vulgate, 104, 105, legislation of, rati-
fied, 105; interpreted by Philip 11,
108; importance, 109; supports neo-
ciassicism, 170; sternness in regard to
art, 196; legislates on images, 197,
198; influence on art, 202; wishes art
to teach dogma, 206; reforms Church
music and the liturgy, 220 ff; opti-
mism, 224; decrees of, adopted in
Bavaria, 270; reforms "autoccphalous"
monasteries, 272; decrees of, in France,
276 f
Treves, Jesuit college at, 267, 270
Trevisa, reform at, 63
Trmita dc' Pellegrini, founded by Philip
Neri, 120
Trinitarians, churches of, 215
Trinity, Jesuit college of, at Lyons, 214,
290
Tnthemius, on classical studies, 36, 139,
i 5 6
Triumph of Christ, Macarms Mutius'
poem, 1 68
Triumph of David, college play per-
formed at Pondicherry, 184
Troyes, diocesan synod at, 30
Truchsess, cardinal, archbishop of Augs-
burg, 147; publishes Trentme decrees,
106
Tucuman, 344
Tunis, 293; taken by Emperor, 67
Tunstall, Cuthbert, bishop of Durham,
supports royal supremacy, 310; writes
Catholic treatise, 311
Turkey, invasion from, 39
Tyndale, William, Reformer, 4
Tyrol, 28, 269
Ubeda, 237
Ulysses, 169
Umbria, 114
Umiliati, see Humiliati
Urban VII, pope, 262
Urban VIII, pope, 215, 262, 263, 289;
amends Breviary, 263
Ursulmes, foundation, 159; pedagogy,
1 60; introduction into France, 284
Usthazanes, 331
Val, M. du, 287
Valence, convent of Visitation at, 286
Valencia, town of, 266
Valencia, Br. Martin of, on Mexican
piety, 338
Valenciennes, 141
Vahgnani, Fr., S.J., 352, 355
Valla, Lorenzo, 143
Valladolio, English college at, 319
Valvasone, Erasmo de, Lagrtmc delta
396
INDEX
Maddalena, 175, 177; their literary
value, 178, 179; his sensuousness, 180
Valverde, Vincent de, 339
Van Dyck, 210
Vanni, mosaic in St. Peter's, 207
Varani, Battista, blessed, Dolon mentah
di Crtsto, 239; stresses love in piety,
240
Vasari, Last judgment, 209
Vatican, 50, 51, 254; plundered, 56;
library of, 259; press, 261
Vaughan, Henry, influence of the Cath-
olic reformation on, 328; imitates
Southwell's prefaces, and his Short
rule, 329 F
Vaugirard, 297
Veas, 232
Velasquez, 210
Velay, apostolate of St. Francis Regis in,
297
Vendemmtatore, Luigi Tansillo's work,
i?5 A
Vendome, 6
Venegas, Fr., S.J., teacher at College de
Clermont, 279
Venice, 18, 55, 69, 83, 116, 117, 260,
347; independent Church policy of,
14; influence in Italy, 15, forbids in-
dulgences, 44, reform in diocese of,
63; joins league against Turks, 67,
Fathers from, at Trent, 82; promul-
gates Trentme decrees, 105; Theatine
house at, 117
Ventadour, duke of, 299; viceroy of
Canada, 358
Venus, 40, 41, 169, 199, 329
Verdun, Capuchin house at, 277; Jesuit
college at, 281
Vermigh, Peter Martyr, see Martyr
Verona, 63, 64, 65, 116, 118, 218
Veronese, Paolo, his Lord's supper, 203-
204; his trial, 209
Verstegan, Richard, Our Lady's lullaby,
182; works, 326
Vicenza, 25, 112, 116; council called up
to, 69
Victonus, Petrus, 156
Vida, Marco Girolamo, bishop of Alba,
poet, 171, befriended by Leo X, 43,
in; Chnstias, 44; friend of Gibcrti,
64
Vieira, Fr. Anthony de, S.J., 344
Vienna, 264, 266, 267; Jesuit college
at, 267
Vienne, 214
Vignole, builds the Gesu, 212, 216
Villanueva de la Jara, 232
Villemarie (Montreal), 362
Villon, Francois, 324
Vincent, Fr., founds college at Cranga-
nor, 346
Vincent de Paul, St., 65, 283, 287, 295,
296, 297, 299, 358; biography, 293,
missions, 294, 301; "Maidens of
charity," 294; founds seminaries, 291,
295; imitates Oratorian preaching,
123; stresses excellency of priesthood,
226, 248; spiritual doctrine, 249
Vinci, Leonardo da, 209
Vio, Tommaso de, see Cajetan
Virgil, 156, 170, 173
Visitation, order of, 294; foundation,
241, 285; approved by popes, 263;
rules, 286, 290
Vitelleschi, Fr general, S J , 361
Vitelh, cardinal, reforms Church music,
218, 220
Viterbo, Giles of (Egidio Canisio), gen-
eral of Augustiman hermits, speech at
Lateran council, 31, made cardinal,
40; reforms order, 113
Vittona, Don Francis, bishop of Tucu-
man, 344 *
Vittona, reforms Church music, 219
Vivarais, St. Francis Regis' work in, 298
Vives, Luis, Spanish humanist, memoir
to Adrian VI, 49; entertains Ignatius
Loyola, 145
Viviers, Sulpician .seminary at, 297
Voltaire, 345
Vulgate, amended by Bellarmmc, 163;
disfigured by Sixtus V, 261
Wagner, Richard, 220
Walsmgham, Our Lady of, 23
Ward, Mary, her "Institute," 319
Wartburg, 130
Wauchop, Robert, archbishop of Ar-
magh, 309; at Ratisbon, 311
Way to perfection, St. Teresa's work,
226
Weeper, Crashaw's poem, 181
Wernz, Fr., S.J., on French i evolution
and monastic reform, 108
INDEX
397
West Indies, 14, 345> 3^1
Westminster abbey, 22; Convocation at,
I555> 312
Willaert, Andrew, 218
Wilna, 149; Jesuit college at, 273
Wittenberg, 40
Wolsey, cardinal, palace, n; assumes
quasi-papal powers, 54; publishes re-
forming statutes, 311
Worde, Wynkyn de, printer, 20
Worms, colloquy at, 265; town of, 265,
267
Wurtemburg, ambassadors of, at Trent,
78 f
Wurzburg, 267; Jesuit college at, 267,
272
Wyatt, Sir Thomas, 330
Xavier, castle of, 346
Xavier, Francis, St., see Francis
Ximenes, cardinal, protest of, against
indulgences, 44
Yamagutsi (Amanguchi), 351
York, 311; the Convocation of, 313
Yvan, Anthony, apostolate in Provence,
297
Yves de Paris, Fr., 246
Zaccaria, Antonio Maria, St., see Antonio
Zano, Bernardino, sermon at Lateran
council, 31
Zoilo, Annibal, revises liturgy, 222
Zuccaro, Federico, paintings at the Gesu,
207
Zurbaran, 202
1 26 268
