....

The Concordat of Bologna was substantially a triumph of the absolutist principle, as represented by the King and the Pope, over the constitutional, as embodied in the liberties of the Galilean Church. The Pope arbitrarily conferred upon the Crown a prerogative which was not his to bestow, obtaining in exchange the formal repeal of the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges, and, by consequence, a tacit repudiation of the odious Councils of Constance and Basle. For the Crown the bargain was a cheap one; since the concession thus purchased not only invested it with the vast patronage of an enormously wealthy establishment, but supplied, withal, a convenient instrument for controlling the spirit of ecclesiastical independence.

Yet it was a dangerous experiment on both sides. For days of trial were at hand. Storms were gathering on the horizon, which threatened the stability of all principles and all institutions belonging to the mediaeval structure of society; and, among the rest, the fidelity of the Church of France to her natural protectors, who had so ungenerously leagued together to betray her liberties, was about to be rudely tested. The Concordat synchronized with the commencement of the (so-called) Reformation.

I do not purpose to enter upon a regularly detailed narrative of the transactions of this tempestuous period—a period which exhibited in France scenes of internecine strife, fanatical extravagance, and remorseless cruelty, unparalleled elsewhere in Europe. These are amply described in the contemporary chronicles, and also by the various modern writers who have treated of the rise and progress of French Protestantism. I shall content myself with tracing the general line of action pursued by the National Church during these perplexing times, including some account of the proceedings of its representatives at the eventful deliberations of the Council of Trent.

The outcry for ecclesiastical reform, which led eventually to the terrible conflicts and convulsions of the sixteenth century, was twofold;—arising partly from inveterate abuses in the practical administration of the Church, and partly from the alleged corruption of primitive doctrine. With regard to the former class of grievances, it was denied by none that the condition of the Church afforded just ground for reproach : this was a patent fact, frankly acknowledged by all right-minded Catholics. All the world was well aware that the higher Church appointments were made from motives of political ambition, Court favouritism, family interest, or sordid avarice, rather than from considerations of real merit and the public advantage. The superior clergy were notoriously pluralists—bishoprics and abbeys being granted in commendam to such an extent that residence, or any approach to efficient pastoral supervision, was simply impossible. Simony was systematically practised: even the Court, the Ministers of State, the proudest nobles, were no strangers to this shameful traffic. Rich preferments were lavished upon persons manifestly incapable of holding them—upon laymen, married men, military officers, young children, even upon females. These anomalous incumbents enjoyed the revenues, while the duties were abandoned to miserably-paid substitutes, styled "confidentiaires" or "custodinos." An annalist of the time assures us that towards the middle of the century the greater part of the benefices in France were in the hands of persons disqualified according to the Canons.

It was maintained, however, by the clergy, that the true remedy for these monstrous evils was perfectly clear, and that it lay with the State to apply that remedy. Let the Crown consent to relinquish the privilege it had acquired by the Concordat, and restore the primitive usage of free election. In that case, they were convinced that most of the prevalent disorders would be effectually checked, and would ere long disappear. The Episcopate, if the elective franchise were once more entrusted to the clergy, would consist of men distinguished by all the qualifications for their exalted office. They would reside among their flocks; they would enforce the wholesome discipline enjoined by the Councils; they would diligently instruct the young and ignorant; they would carefully expound the meaning of the Church's venerable ceremonial; they would vindicate the authority of that pure Catholic tradition which had come down from inspired Apostles. This was the only sure way to stem the rising tide of irreverent innovation, to extirpate heresy, and to restore the unity of Christendom.

The clergy pressed these views on the attention of the Government with unwearied earnestness. And, although they were perhaps over-sanguine in imagining that the re-establishment of free election would act as a panacea for all the spiritual distempers of the age, it must be acknowledged that their demand was just, and their reasoning weighty.

The Crown, however, turned a deaf ear to their representations, and obstinately declined to surrender its prerogative of patronage. From the secular point of view, there was no ground for making any alteration in the existing relations between Church and State.

But there was a second branch of the reforming movement, namely, that which tended towards doctrinal changes, under the plea that the Church had departed widely, in many essential particulars, from the teaching of Holy Scripture and of the earliest ages. This the Gallican clergy steadily discountenanced; upholding, with unshaken consistency, the system of belief which had prevailed for centuries throughout the Latin obedience. It is true that there were some members of the Episcopate who sympathized with the Lutheran opinions to a certain extent. Such were, during the earlier stage of the agitation, Guillaume Briçonnet Bishop of Meaux, Jacques Spifame Bishop of Nevers, Pelissier Bishop of Maguelonne, Etienne Poncher Bishop of Paris, afterwards Archbishop of Sens; and, at a later period, Cardinal de Chatillon Bishop of Beauvais, St. Romain Archbishop of Aix, Montluc Bishop of Valence, Guillurd, of Chartres, and Barbançon of Pamiers. But little impression was made upon the minds of the great body of the clergy. In proportion as it became clear that the Protestant leaders aimed at nothing short of religious revolution—that they were prepared to incur all the risks of permanent divorce from the visible centre of Catholic unity—the French Church rallied round the throne of St. Peter with intense and indomitable zeal. The venerable Sorbonne—that perpetual Galilean Council, as it has been styled—displayed a vigilance which nothing could elude, and uttered, with no uncertain sound, its judgments on the various phases of heterodox speculation as they appeared. Luther, in the course of his conferences with Cardinal Cajetan, had spoken with great respect of the Theological Faculty of Paris, and professed himself willing to submit his doctrine to its verdict. The divines accordingly examined his various published works, and in a session on the 13th of April, 1521, condemned a series of more than one hundred propositions extracted from them, as "heretical, schismatical, impious, and blasphemous.

They pointed out, in the preface to this sentence, that Lutheranism, in many of its characteristic features, was but a specious reproduction of errors long since proscribed and exploded. Like the Montanists, Luther rejected the authority of the Church; like the Manicheans, he denied the freedom of the will; he coincided with the Hussites in disparaging the Sacrament of Penance—with the Wickliffites in repudiating Confession—with the Catharini, the Waldenses, the Bohemians, in attack- ing the privileges of the clergy, railing against the ecclesiastical Courts, and cavilling at counsels of evangelical perfection. He had the audacity to prefer his own judgment to that of the most profoundly learned doctors of antiquity, and even to the decrees of Ecumenical Councils;—as if the Almighty had revealed the way of salvation exclusively to Martin Luther, and had left His Church for fifteen centuries in ignorance of essential truth. Proceeding to enumerate the tenets to which the censure applied, the Sorbonne placed in the front rank that favourite sophism of the Wittemburg professor, that inasmuch as all Christians are (in one sense) priests, the power of the Keys belongs to all in common, and that they all possess the same authority with regard to preaching God's Word and administering the Sacraments. Among other sentiments reprehended are the following: —That the faith of the recipient constitutes the efficacy of sacraments. That absolution is effectual, not by virtue of what is done by the priest, but by virtue of the penitent's believing that he is pardoned. That moral virtues and speculative sciences are not truly virtues and sciences, but rather sins and errors. That the just man sins even in his good works, the best possible action being nevertheless a venial sin. That it is mistaken to say that we know not whether we are in a state of grace; the believer ought never to be in doubt whether his works are acceptable to God; for whosoever thus doubts commits sin, and all his efforts are vain and worthless. That it is wrong to say that God has laid upon us no commands which are impossible, since no man, however holy, has ever kept the last two commandments of the Decalogue; notwithstanding which we are guilty of sin in not fulfilling them. That the Church has suffered infinite damage for hundreds of years past through the corruption of Holy Scripture by its doctors. That the introduction of Scholastic theology has led to the abandonment of the religion of the cross. That many opinions condemned by Councils, for instance, many of those held by John Huss and the Bohemians, are orthodox, and cannot be lawfully censured. That neither Pope nor Bishop, nor any human authority, can enact the smallest ordinance as binding upon the faithful unless they consent to it; and that whatever has been otherwise ordained is simply tyrannical.

Not content with this vigorous demonstration against Luther, the Parisian doctors, a few years later, passed a severe censure on the 'Colloquies' of the great Erasmus;—a work in which the author, without advancing statements which could be taxed with formal heresy, had criticised, in a style of trenchant satire, some of the most venerated institutions of the Church. Erasmus was denounced by the Syndic of the Faculty, Noël Béda, a man of fervent and apparently intemperate zeal. A sharp controversy ensued, in which Erasmus defended himself with remarkable ingenuity, and, while avowing himself an advocate of reformation, at the same time vindicated his character as an attached and dutiful son of the Church. He concluded by appealing for protection to Francis I. That monarch, whose generous patronage of men of letters was one of his most estimable qualities, interposed at once, in the arbitrary fashion of the time, and ordered the Parliament to suppress the writings of Béda. But the Sorbonne, undeterred by this exhibition of royal partisanship, pursued their investigation of the case, and in due course pronounced sentence upon thirty-two extracts of a heterodox tendency from different works of Erasmus. These related chiefly to matters connected with the disciplinary system of the Church;—to oaths, vows, celibacy, divorce, fasting, the observance of festivals, and other ceremonial usages. Francis testified his displeasure with the Faculty for their boldness on this occasion by giving orders that a new edition of 24,000 copies of the 'Colloquies' should immediately be printed at Paris.

Nor did the Gallican Church fail to declare itself against the Lutheran innovations by the more authoritative method of synodical decision. Six Provincial Councils were held for this purpose in one year, 1527-8, at Lyons, Paris, Bourges, Reims, Tours, and Rouen. Of these the most celebrated is the Council of the province of Sens, which met at Paris on the 3rd of February, 1527, and sat till the following October, 1528. The Metropolitan, Cardinal Du Prat, Archbishop of Sens and Chancellor of France, presided, and was attended by six of his suffragans, the Bishops of Paris, Chartres, Meaux, Auxerre, Troyes, and Nevers, with the vicar-general of the Bishop of Orleans, and a numerous assemblage of the clergy of the province.

Sixteen decrees or canons (decreta fidei) were promulgated by this Synod, enunciating the Catholic faith with reference to the principal points controverted by the Protestants. These affirm, in very precise and stringent terms, the unity and the infallibility of the Church; that there is no covenanted salvation beyond its pale; that it is a visible body,—the Lutheran notion of an invisible Church being "not only heretical, but the very well-spring of all heresies"; that it is represented by General Councils, which have the power of deciding all questions affecting the purity of the faith, the extirpation of heresy, the reformation of the Church, and the correction of manners; and that those who obstinately resist them must be accounted enemies to the faith.

The synod next asserts the authority of the Church in fixing the canon and determining the true sense of Holy Scripture; and declares that those who despise the guidance of the orthodox Fathers to follow that of their own private understanding, are to be classed with schismatics and heretics.

Further, it establishes the necessity and validity of Catholic tradition, and condemns those who reject a doctrine or observance under the pretext that it is not explicitly laid down in Holy Writ. The Canon on the Sacraments (Decret. 10) defines their number, seven, and explains in what manner each of them is a true instrument or vehicle of Divine grace.

A separate article teaches that, in the Mass, the Body and Blood of Christ are truly offered by the priest as the proper and peculiar sacrifice of the new law. T

he 15th decree maintains the real freedom of man's will, yet without excluding thereby the action of Divine grace. The human will, being assisted by the secret inspiration of prevenient grace, draws nigh to God, and prepares itself for that sanctifying grace by which it is at length accepted unto life eternal. It is true that God draws us towards Himself, but not by constraint; it is true that He predestines, elects, and calls us, but He glorifies those only who, being rooted in Faith and charity, have "made their calling and election sure" by good works.

The 16th and last dogmatic decree affirms that faith is then only effectual to salvation when it worketh by love; since the righteous will be accepted at the last day, not because they have believed, but because they have abounded in good works. It is not, therefore, faith alone that justifies, but rather charity; and good works not only are not sins, but in adults are necessary to salvation, and may in that respect be considered meritorious.

The decrees are followed by a catalogue of the various errors ventilated by the heretics of the day, in opposition to the foregoing doctrines of the Church. The acts of the Council conclude with an earnest exhortation to the princes of Christendom to labour for the extermination of heretics. "If they would consult their own safety—if they desired to maintain intact the rights of their own sovereignty—if they would preserve the nations subject to them in peace and tranquillity—let them protect the Catholic faith with a strong arm, and manfully subdue (dehellare) its enemies."

Thus distinctly and decisively did the Galilean Church express her mind on the eve of the great battle between the prescriptive authority of the Past and the new-fledged independence of thought engendered by the Reformation.

The reader will not fail to observe that, in the proceedings of this important Synod, while language of the most unqualified kind is employed to set forth the supreme jurisdiction of the Church Catholic, and of General Councils as its representatives, no mention is to be found of the dogma of the absolute supremacy, much less of the personal infallibility, of the Pope. The Ultramontane theory of Church government—enunciated as it had been with the utmost technical precision by Cardinals Torquemada and Cajetan—was professed at this time, to its full extent, by the Roman Curia and its accredited divines; and it is true, moreover, that since the last Lateran Council a certain reaction had set in against the limitations attempted to be imposed on the Pontifical authority by the Councils of Constance, Basle, and Bourges. Nevertheless, the principles of Gerson and D'Ailly—representing, as they did in the main, those of the primitive undivided Church—were still predominant in France. By opposing to the innovators that authority which, beyond all question, belongs to the collective Episcopate (since that body occupies by succession the place of the Apostles), the Gallican prelates took their stand on a vantage-ground from which nothing could dislodge them. Those who found it necessary to defy the consentient tradition of the whole Catholic world confessed thereby the untenableness of their own position; and it is not to be wondered at that, ere long, they pursued such perverse reasonings to their logical conclusion, and openly seceded from the visible communion of the Church.

The project of a General Council of the West, for the settlement of the momentous questions at issue between the Church and the Protestants, was agitated for many years, as is well known, before it was found possible to carry it into execution. The idea was originally propounded by the Lutherans of Germany. It was formally sanctioned by the Diet of Spires in 1529, and it was the theme of lengthened consultations between Charles V and Pope Clement VII.when they met at Bologna in the following year. Personally, Clement was opposed to the holding of a Council, for reasons which he fully explained in a letter to the Emperor, preserved by Martin Du Bellay. He was not in a position, however, to resist the repeated and urgent demands of Charles; and, after much hesitation, he signified a reluctant consent upon certain conditions. These were, that the place of meeting should be on the Italian side of the Alps; that those who attended the Council should engage beforehand to submit to its decrees; and that, in the mean time, no innovation should be allowed in Germany with regard to points of controverted doctrine.

A nuncio was now despatched to bespeak the co-operation of the King of France in the design, which was readily promised; and Francis appealed accordingly to the Landgrave of Hesse, and other Protestant princes with whom he was in alliance, to accept the Council on the proffered terms, as the only chance remaining for the restoration of religious unity.

But the Protestants declined these overtures; or rather, they insisted, as an indispensable condition of their adhesion, that the Council should be held in Germany; adding, moreover, other stipulations which the Pope pronounced inadmissible. And, in truth, it must be confessed that matters had by this time reached such a point that the scheme of reconciling the Reformers to the Church by the expedient of a Council was simply chimerical.

It is true that Luther and his friends had demanded that mode of arbitration in the early days of the movement; but at that date they had not taken the decisive steps which placed them in open antagonism to the Church. By their subsequent proceedings, in separating from the Apostolically-descended hierarchy, and inventing a novel form of ministry unsanctioned by a valid succession, they rejected the essential principles upon which alone the action of a Council is legitimately based. Lutheran and Calvinist sectaries could not well be admitted to sit and vote in synod on equal terms with Catholic prelates; and even if this difficulty could have been overcome, there was little or no prospect of a satisfactory result, inasmuch as the recusants did not acknowledge the supreme authority of General Councils; whatever conclusions, therefore, might be arrived at, they might disallow or evade them at pleasure. Nevertheless, the negotiations were not discontinued.

Paul III, who succeeded Clement, seems to have been sincere and earnest in endeavouring to conduct them to a practical effect; but his efforts were long counteracted by one grave obstacle, namely, the bitter personal enmity which reigned between the leading princes of Christendom, the Emperor and the King of France. Both the civil and the ecclesiastical policy of Francis I were full of inconsistencies ; in fact he may be said to have had no real policy except that of blind, passionate hostility to Charles V. This is the master-key to all the anomalies of his reign with regard to the treatment of the Protestant Reformers. If he encouraged them, it was in order to strengthen his own domestic interests and to embarrass and distress his rival; if he persecuted them (and this he did at times with merciless rigour), it was with a view to curry favour with the Pope, whose good graces might otherwise have been monopolised by the Emperor.

For upwards of twenty years, with brief intervals, did Francis, single-handed, struggle for predominance in Europe against the concentrated strength of the Germanic empire; and it was not till the Peace of Crespy, in 1544, that the two monarchs could be brought to agree on any plan of combined action for the suppression of heresy and the pacification of the Church. Paul III now hastened to convoke at Trent, for the spring of the year following, the General Council which had been so importunately demanded of him and his predecessors.

No sooner, however, had the Synod commenced its sittings, than it appeared that the feud between the two great Catholic potentates, instead of being extinguished, was merely transferred to a new scene. The emperor, as the principal promoter of the Council, naturally desired that his influence should predominate in it; Francis strained every nerve to prevent this, and to establish his own ascendency.

The Pope, meanwhile, maintaining an attitude of vigilant neutrality between the competitors, laboured so to shape and control the proceedings of the assembly as to subserve above all things the interests of the Holy See. Feelings of jealousy sprang up ere long between the Pope and Charles, in consequence of the advantages gained by the latter over the revolted Protestants in the brief campaign of 1547. Paul had supported him in this movement; but he now began to view the success of his arms with apprehension, lest it should tend to reduce the Council at Trent altogether into subjection to the Imperial will.

At the risk, therefore, of giving mortal offence to Charles, he availed himself of the first plausible pretext for removing the Synod from Trent to Bologna, a city within his own dominions. The emperor protested vehemently, and most of the German bishops refused, by his orders, to quit Trent. Francis, for the sole reason that the emperor's influence was less likely to prevail at Bologna, seconded the Papal policy; and the result of these intrigues was that the deliberation were suspended for the space of nearly four years.

The action of the Galilean Church was much embarrassed by these political complications. During the earlier sessions at Trent it was represented by only four prelates—the Archbishop of Aix, the Bishops of Clermont, Agde, and Rennes; and in the memorable decrees concerning original sin and justification it cannot be said to have taken any effective part.

Francis, however, sent three ambassadors, one of whom, Pierre Danès, a man of superior talent and learning, made an energetic speech on taking his seat. He descanted on the eminent services which the kings of France had rendered to the Church in all ages, eulogised the religious zeal of the reigning monarch, and pleaded powerfully for the preservation of the well-known rights and privileges enjoyed, by immemorial tradition, both by Church and State in France.

The Cardinal-Legate Del Monte, in reply, thanked the ambassador for the sentiments he had expressed in the name of his sovereign; assured him that the Concordat granted by Leo X, as well as all other privileges, should be preserved to his Most Christian Majesty, "so far as equity and the present position of affairs would admit"; and pledged himself that the proceedings of the Council should be such as to give the king no reason to repent of the affection and sympathy which he had testified towards the Church.

Henry II trod in the footsteps of his father; and during his reign the tide of animosity between France, the Empire, and the Papacy, ran higher than ever. Hostilities broke out upon the subject of the duchy of Parma; the King of France pertinaciously supporting the cause of Ottavio Farnese, whon the Pope (Julius III) had denounced as a rebellious vassal of the Holy See. The emperor—more for the sake of opposing France than for any other reason—sided with Julius, and declared war against Parma in May, 1551.

At this juncture the Pope, in compliance with the wishes of Charles, determined to reassemble the Council of Trent, and took measures for that purpose, contrary to all precedent, without previous consultation with the King of France, "the eldest son of the Church". In the "bull of resumption" the only prince mentioned by name was "our beloved son in Christ, Charles Emperor of the Romans".

Henry, indignant at this treatment, not only refused to permit the prelates of his realm to obey the summons to Trent, but ordered them to repair to their dioceses and prepare for the celebration of a National Council, which he purposed to convoke without delay. As a further mark of resentment, he prohibited, by letters-patent, the transmission of money in any shape from France to Rome.

Upon this the Pope despatched an envoy to explain and adjust matters; but Henry was not to be pacified; he persisted in standing aloof from the Council and pointed out (what was, indeed, true) that, in the absence of the Galilean episcopate, and deprived of the co-operation ol the "eldest son of the Church", that assembly could not be regarded as ecumenical. At the same time he assured his Holiness, through his ambassadors at Rome, that he was by no means averse to a General Council, provided it were such as it ought to be, for the advantage, repose, and reunion of the Universal Church— for the increase and preservation of true religion, and the extirpation of prevailing errors and abuses;—the assembling of such a Council was an object which he desired above all things.

In short, the real ground of Henry's opposition was precisely that of his predecessor; that in an ecclesiastical assembly sitting at Trent, the views, influence, and authority of the German Emperor would to a certainty predominate.

At the first session of the restored synod (September 1, 1551) Jacques Amyot, Abbot of Bellozane, made his appearance as special envoy from the King of France, and presented a letter addressed "to the most holy and venerable fathers in Christ of the Tridentine Assembly" (conventus). This superscription, being deemed offensive to the dignity of the Council, provoked angry comments, and it was with difficulty that the document was at length received and read. It contained an exposition of the reasons by which Henry felt himself precluded from taking part in the proceedings; reflected somewhat severely on the conduct of the Pope; renewed the protest which had been made previously by the French representatives at Rome; and concluded by stating that his Majesty and the Gallican Church could not recognize the Council as legitimate, and must, therefore, decline to be in any way bound by its decrees.

The fathers of Trent, in reply, expressed their deep regret that opposition should have arisen in a quarter from which the Council might reasonably look for cordial support; observed that the road to Trent was as freely open to the prelates of France as to those of any other nation; and besought them, even at the eleventh hour, to obey the Pope's citation, and join the deliberations of their brethren.

Thus hampered by the secular dissensions of the day, the French Church found itself excluded from all share in the eventful debates which preceded the Tridentine definitions on the Sacrament of the Eucharist and Transubstantiation.

Indeed the difficulties arising from the religious aspect of afiairs at this period involved the Government in a course of conduct which was glaringly—almost ludicrously—self-contradictory. At the very moment when Henry was thus embroiled with the Pope, and exhibiting his independence by forbidding his subjects to send money to Rome, he was cruelly persecuting the Calvinists, who had but gone a few steps farther, and renounced the authority of the Roman Pontiff altogether.

Again while proscribing Protestantism, under the severest penalties in his own dominions, he was making common cause with Maurice of Saxony and his confederates, who, as declarec champions of Protestantism, had defied the Emperor, and plunged Germany into civil war. Nor was he at all more logical in vaunting his privileges as the "eldest son of the Church", while in the same breath he forbade the bishops o France to repair to a regularly-constituted Council, and even threatened to convene a local assembly in direct opposition to it.

Such were some of the singular incongruities which marked the earlier stages of the Reformation. So true is it, that in estimating most of the great public acts which helped to mould the destinies of Europe at that perplexing crisis, we must refer them to political, rather than to purely religious, considerations. Even princes who were thoroughly Catholic at heart were often driven to belie their convictions, and act injuriously to the real interests of the Church, by motives which on examination prove at best to have been utterly worldly,—suggested by mere self love and personal pique.

In the sixteenth session, April 28th, 1552, a Papal Bull was read announcing the suspension of the Council for the secom time. The reason assigned was the sudden outbreak of hostilities between the Emperor and the Elector of Saxony. The latter prince (who was in alliance, as before mentioned, with the King of France), had routed the Imperialists in several actions, and entered Augsburg in triumph on the 1st of April.

These tidings spread consternation at Trent, and numbers of prelates and divines fled from the city in extreme confusion.

The Council, though nominally suspended for two years only now remained in abeyance till the accession of Pope Pius IV, whose bull, issued November 29, 1560, directed it to reassemble at Trent at Easter the year ensuing.

 

 

CHAPTER II.

STRENGTH OF PROTESTANTISM IN FRANCE