BOOK IX.
FROM THE END OF THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE TO THE END OF
THE FIFTH COUNCIL OF THE LATERAN, A.D. 1418-1517.
CHAPTER VII.
PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL—MEASURES AGAINST JEWS AND
MAHOMETANS IN SPAIN—WITCHCRAFT—SECTARIES—FORERUNNERS OF THE REFORMATION.
CHRISTIANITY was now professed throughout the European countries, although in the
Byzantine empire it had been forced to stoop under the ascendency of the
victorious Turks. We also meet with occasional notices of missions to some of
the regions which had been the chief scenes of such enterprise in the ages
immediately preceding—as when Eugenius IV, in 1433, sent a bishop and twenty
Franciscans into the countries bordering on the Caspian Sea. But the progress
of geographical discovery opened new fields for missionary labour.
Thus the Portuguese, carrying their explorations along
the coast of Africa, made settlements in Congo, where many of the natives were
brought to receive baptism. In 1497, the passage to India round the Cape of
Good Hope was discovered by the same nation; and in their intercourse with the
east they were brought into acquaintance with the church of Abyssinia, which
they supposed to be the country of Prester John, and with that of Malabar,
which traced its origin to St. Thomas.
But the discoveries of the Spaniards, which revealed a
new world to Europe, were yet more important. Christopher Columbus, himself a
Genoese, after fruitless endeavours to recommend to various potentates the project
which he had conceived of reaching the Indies by a western course, gained with
difficulty the patronage of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. He set sail on his
first voyage in August 1492, and returned in March 1493, having discovered the
West Indian islands; and by him and his successors in adventure, a large
portion of the great western continent was explored within the following years.
The newly-found territories, according to a principle which the popes had
succeeded in establishing, were supposed to belong to the apostolic see; and
Alexander VI was requested to decide between the claims of the two neighbouring
nations which had been foremost in the work of discovery. In May 1493,
Alexander VI issued a bull, by which the boundary line was fixed at 100 leagues
west of the Cape de Verde islands and of the Azores, all new discoveries within
this line being assigned to Portugal, while all beyond it were to belong to
Spain. But the Portuguese were dissatisfied with the award; and in the
following year the Spaniards and the pope consented that the boundary should be
drawn 370 leagues westward of the Azores.
In dealing with such questions, the pope inculcated on
the discoverers the duty of spreading the gospel in the countries which had
come under their dominion; and some missions to the natives were very early set
on foot. But it would be of little use to enter on any account of these
missions, when all but the very beginning of their work belongs to a later
period of history.
While it was desired and intended that the knowledge
of the Christian faith should be propagated by peaceful and gentle means among
the heathens of the newly-discovered countries, measures of a very different
kind were employed in order to force it on the Jews and the Mahometans of Spain. For this purpose the inquisition, which during the schism of the
papacy seemed to have been dormant, was now revived in that country, with new
circumstances of iniquity and cruelty, which have made the Spanish inquisition
an object of especially profound and deserved abhorrence.
The union of Aragon and Castile under Ferdinand and
Isabella suggested the idea of establishing entire unity of religion among
their subjects; and, while with Ferdinand religion was commonly little better
than a pretext for a selfish and treacherous secular policy, the mind of his
more estimable consort was much under the influence of the clergy. Thomas de
Torquemada, who had acquired a power over her by having been her confessor in
early life, is said to have exacted a promise that, if she should inherit the
crown, she would devote herself to the extirpation of heresy, for the glory of
God. The earnestness with which Torquemada and others now urged the fulfilment
of this promise overpowered the queen’s natural tenderness, and she was
reluctantly persuaded to request of Sixtus IV that an inquisition might be
established in Castile. On All Saints’ day, 1478, the pope issued a bull for
this purpose. The new inquisition was distinguished by its peculiar connexion
with the state; the members of the tribunal were to be appointed by the
sovereigns, and might be dismissed by them; and the property of the victims was
to be confiscated to the crown. The bishops had no share in the management of
the inquisition, but were themselves subject to the action of this new and
irresponsible power. Even the papacy, after a time, found itself unable to cope
with the inquisitors on their own ground.
In 1483, the organization of the tribunal was completed
by the nomination of Torquemada as chief inquisitor for Castile, and he was
confirmed in his office by Innocent VIII, in 1486. Four years after his
original appointment, his power was extended to Aragon, where an inquisition
had been established by Gregory IX for the suppression of the Albigensian
doctrines, but had latterly differed little from an ordinary ecclesiastical
court. The new institution speedily gave signs of activity. It surrounded itself
with a host of “familiars”—spies, and ministers of its tyranny; indeed the
machinery was so extensive that the cost of it almost absorbed all the funds
which were obtained by confiscations and fines. Every year, in the beginning of
Lent, the clergy were required to declare from the pulpit the duty of informing
against any who might be suspected of religious error— even the nearest
relations; and the information thus obtained by secret, and often anonymous,
accusations, was used against the persons denounced, with more than all the
injustice which had marked the proceedings of the inquisition in other
countries and in its earlier stages. No fair opportunity of defence was
allowed; and torture was employed to wring out confessions. The severities of
the inquisition began on the Epiphany of 1481, when six victims were committed
to the flames at Seville; and within the following ten months, 298 were burnt
in that city alone. During the first few years of its operations, 2000 were
burnt alive in Spain, and a still greater number were burnt in effigy, having
been driven to seek their safety in exile. Torquemada, by proclaiming an offer
of pardon to all who should voluntarily surrender themselves, induced about
17,000—“men and women of all ages and conditions”—to seek reconciliation with
the church, although this commonly involved such penalties as heavy fines, or
total confiscation of property, civil disabilities, or imprisonment, which in
many cases was for life.
In Aragon—a country which had enjoyed much of liberty,
and where many of the chief families, from intermarriage with persons of
Jewish descent, were likely to fall under the suspicion of the new tribunal—a
spirit of indignation was aroused. The cortes remonstrated against the
inquisition, both at the Spanish court and at Rome; they protested that the
practice of confiscation, and the denial of a fair and open trial, were
violations of their hereditary privileges. The chief inquisitor of the province,
Peter Arbues, was mortally wounded while attending a
midnight office in the cathedral of Saragossa; and it was found that the
assassins had been hired by the contributions of many nobles, and of many
converts from Judaism. The crime was immediately punished; but there were
serious tumults throughout the kingdom. The cortes renewed their remonstrances
from time to time against the horrible tyranny which had been imposed on their
country.
Torquemada himself lived in constant fear of a violent
end. It is said that he endeavoured to fortify himself against poison by having
always on his table a horn, which was supposed to be that of an unicorn, and to
be an infallible test of its presence; and he never stirred abroad without a
strong body-guard. He was thrice obliged to send his colleague Badaja to defend him at Rome, where charges had been
preferred against him; and in 1494 Alexander VI appointed four bishops to be
his coadjutors, under the pretext that his age required assistance, but in
reality to mitigate his severity. The Roman court, in its eagerness to get
money by all means, attempted to sell exemptions from the authority of the
inquisition and pardons for offences condemned by it; but the tribunal was too
strong, and Alexander was obliged to give up this source of gain.
The first objects of the inquisition’s zeal were the
Jews, who in Spain had advanced more than in any other country as to wealth,
culture, and general prosperity. Many of them from time to time had professed
Christianity; many noble houses had sought to improve their fortunes by
alliances with these “new Christians”; and not a few of them had attained high
dignities, as well in the hierarchy as in the state. The inquisition now set
itself to search out any symptoms of Judaism among the descendants of converts,
and to punish it with unsparing severity, as a relapse. The old stories of
outrages against the holy Eucharist, of administering poison in the character
of physicians, of stealing and crucifying Christian children, were revived
against the Jews, and a more general measure for the suppression of Judaism in
Spain was designed. The unfortunate people endeavoured to avert this by
offering largely towards the expenses of the Moorish war; but while the matter
was under consideration, Torquemada burst into the royal council, holding the
crucifix in his hands; he told the sovereigns that to accept such an offer
would be like the bargain of Judas, who sold his master; and dashing the
crucifix on the floor, he indignantly departed. After the capture of Granada,
Ferdinand and Isabella issued from that city an order that all Jews should
before the end of July either submit to baptism or go into exile. They were
allowed to sell their property, and to carry away the value of it in bills of
exchange, but were forbidden to take with them gold, silver, or precious
stones.
The Jews disposed of their possessions at a grievous
loss, and at the appointed time they left the land which for many generations
had sheltered their forefathers. The greater part sought a refuge in Portugal,
where king John II was willing to admit them on payment of a tax for each
person; but his successor, Emanuel, pledged himself, as a condition of marrying
a Spanish princess, to imitate the policy of Ferdinand and Isabella by
requiring the fugitives to choose between baptism and exile. Such of them as refused
to be baptized were shipped off to Africa, where they suffered extreme
miseries. Many died of hardship or of ill-usage; some struggled to a Spanish
settlement, where they made profession of Christianity, in the hope of being
allowed to return to Spain. Of those who sought a refuge elsewhere, some
repaired to Rome, to appeal to Alexander VI against an intolerance of which the
popes themselves had given no example; and Ferdinand remonstrated with Alexander
for having (for the sake of money, as it appears) allowed them to pitch their
tents on the Appian way, near the tomb of Caecilia Metella.
At the conquest of Granada, the catholic sovereigns
had promised to the Moors by treaty the free exercise of their religion, with
other privileges which might mitigate the loss of their independence. But in
this case too it was regarded as a duty to establish unity of religion. Francis
de Talavera, the first archbishop of Granada, wished to pave the way for the
acceptance of the Christian faith by means of conviction and with this view he
himself, although no longer young, undertook to learn the language of the
Moors; he encouraged his clergy to do the like, and promoted the compilation of
vocabularies, and the translation of some parts of Scripture into Arabic.
But a different course was taken by the most prominent
ecclesiastic of the Spanish church in that age, Francis Ximenes de Cisneros.
Ximenes, who was born in 1436, of a family belonging to the poorer class of
nobility, had in earlier life given many proofs of a resolute character and of
a burning ecclesiastical zeal. After having spent six years in study at Rome,
he had obtained from the pope a presentation to an “expected” archpriestship in the diocese of Toledo. The archbishop,
Carillo, to whom the patronage ordinarily belonged, regarding this as an
invasion of his rights, endeavoured to make him relinquish it, and on his
refusal committed him to prison; but, as Ximenes at the end of six years showed
no disposition to yield, the archbishop set him at liberty, and allowed him to
take possession of his benefice. Ximenes, however, exchanged it for one in the
diocese of Siguenza, where, under the bishop, Mendoza, he was speedily
promoted, and appeared to have a prosperous career before him, when he suddenly
resigned his preferments and entered the Franciscan order, exchanging his
baptismal name, Gonsalvo, for that of the founder. He
plunged into a course of the severest austerities, and after a time withdrew to
a remote and lonely chestnut forest, where he built himself a little hut with
his own hands. From this retreat he was drawn forth by his monastic superiors;
and in 1492, through the recommendation of his old patron Mendoza, then
archbishop of Toledo, he was appointed confessor to the queen. The reluctance with
which he undertook this office appears to have been sincere, and he was yet
more unwilling to accept the archbishopric of Toledo after the death of
Mendoza, in 1495. The large revenues of his see were spent on ecclesiastical
and charitable objects; he even undertook at his own expense a crusade in
Africa; while his own habits were of the most rigidly simple kind. As
provincial of his order in Castile, he had carried out a reform of the
Franciscan convents, where discipline was greatly decayed; and under the
authority of papal privileges he had extended his reforms, with characteristic
resolution, to other monastic orders and to the secular clergy.
Arriving at Granada in 1499, while the king and queen
were visiting that city, Ximenes vehemently urged on them the duty of
extirpating the Mahometan religion from their dominions. The capitulations he
set aside with scorn, as a compromise with evil which could have no validity.
While Talavera was for awaiting the results of instruction, Ximenes held that
baptism should be administered at once, on the ground that, if the profession
of Christianity were insincere on the part of the recipient, it would become
real in the next generation. He was willing that there should be catechisms and
popular elementary books in the vernacular tongue, but held that, until
converts should have been brought by these to a love of the gospel, they were
not fit to receive the Scriptures, but were likely rather to dishonour them;
nor would he allow the sacred books to be in any other tongue than those of the
originals and of the Vulgate. He entered into conferences with Moorish doctors,
and discoursed with fiery vehemence on the doctrines of the faith. He even
burdened his see in order to find the means of bribing the Moors to embrace the
gospel, and his zeal is said to have been rewarded by vast numbers of
conversions, so that in a single day he baptized more than 3000 proselytes by
aspersion. Where the milder methods of persuasion were ineffectual, he did not
scruple to make use of chains and other forcible means. Although he was noted
for his munificent patronage of learning, his religious intolerance led him to
order the destruction of all Arabic books except such as related to medical
science; and it is said that 80,000 volumes—among them 5000 copies of the
Koran, of which many were enriched with splendid illuminations and with
precious ornaments—were committed to the flames. The exasperated people of
Granada broke out into insurrection and besieged the primate in the
archiepiscopal palace; and after having been rescued, chiefly through the
mediation of Talavera, he repaired to the court at Seville, where he pressed on
Ferdinand and Isabella the necessity of dealing with the Mahometans as they had dealt with the Jews.
On the 12th of February 1502, a decree was published
by which all male Moors above fourteen years of age, and all females above
twelve, were required either to receive baptism or to leave the kingdom before
the end of April. Like the Jews, they were forbidden to carry with them gold,
silver, or jewels, and they were charged not to betake themselves to the
dominions of the Grand Turk, or of any enemy of Spain.
In consequence of this edict multitudes left the
country. Some were imprisoned, and children under the ages named were forcibly
tom from their parents. But many submitted to baptism and remained; and these
new Christians, whose profession was justly suspected, were watched by all men
with jealousy, and continually furnished victims for the tyranny of the
inquisition.
As in former times, the inquisition concerned itself
not only with heresy, but with witchcraft—a thing which Gratian, in his ‘Decretum,’ had spoken of as a pagan delusion, but which had
come to be more and more a matter of popular belief. Witchcraft was regarded as
more detestable than heresy, because, in addition to impiety, it included
malignity and hurt to mankind; and for the same reason, as being a civil
offence, it was liable to prosecution by the secular magistrates, as well as by
the clergy. Many cases of such prosecution are found during this time in
Italy, Germany, France, and other countries; but the most remarkable was that
which occurred at Arras, in 1459. The first person who was brought to trial was
a woman of disreputable life; but gradually the victims were taken from higher
and higher stations, and were chosen with an evident regard to their wealth.
The offence imputed to them was styled Vauderie; yet,
although this word appeared to connect them with the Waldensian sectaries, the
charges and the evidence seem to relate wholly to the practice of sorcery;
indeed, their story is a proof how readily the imputation of heresy might run
into the yet more odious suspicion of witchcraft. Some of the accused, on being
put to the torture, confessed monstrous things—that they had been conveyed by
the devil to the meetings of the party, riding through the air on an anointed
stick, and that at those meetings they had practised obscene, revolting, and
absurd rites and abominations. On these avowals they were condemned, and were
made over to the secular arm; whereupon they burst out into loud complaints
against their counsel for having led them to suppose that, by confessing
whatever might be laid to their charge, they might save their lives; and they
steadfastly declared their confessions to be entirely false. It was in vain
that Giles Carlier, dean of Cambray, endeavoured to bring them off with a
slight penance; the bishop of Berytus, who was
suffragan of Arras and had been a papal penitentiary, urged on the trial with
rigour. Many were put to death by fire; some were sentenced to imprisonment for
life, or to the payment of heavy fines.
The excitement produced by these trials was immense,
and for a time general uneasiness and suspicion reigned throughout the north of
France. But some of those whom the inquisitors had ventured to accuse appealed
to the parliament of Paris, which in 1461 put a stop to the processes as
groundless. It was not, however, until thirty years later, when Artois had reverted
to the French crown, that the parliament of Paris gave its final decision, by
which the processes were declared to be abusive and null, and the heirs of the
duke of Burgundy, and of the chief persons concerned in them, were condemned to
make reparation to the representatives of the sufferers. The use of torture in
such cases was forbidden, and in consequence of the indignation excited by the
Arras trials, the inquisition disappeared in France.
In 1484 Innocent VIII addressed a letter to the
Germans, in which he set forth the rifeness of magical practices, and the
manifold dangers with which society was threatened by them. In order to check
these evils, he appointed two Dominicans, James Sprenger and Henry Kramer (in
Latin called Institor), inquisitors for Germany, and
invested them with powers which trenched on the province of the secular
magistracy. These learned personages, by way of warning, published at Cologne
in 1489 a book entitled ‘The Hammer of Witches’, which is a strange compendium
of the superstitions of the age. From this time prosecutions for witchcraft
became more frequent than before; and, after the pope’s formal acknowledgment
of the reality of the crime, any doubt as to its existence was regarded as
impious. The fifth Lateran council forbade all magical practices, whether by
clergy or by laity, under severe penalties.
REGINALD PECOCK
During this period we often meet with notices which
show that opinions, which had been the cause of serious commotions in earlier
ages, continued to exist, although more obscurely than before. Thus, about the
middle of the fifteenth century, we find mention of Manicheans or cathari in Bosnia, where the king’s father-in-law and many
other persons of high station were among the followers of the heresy. The
eloquence of John of Capistrano is said to have converted multitudes from this
form of error in Transylvania and the Danubian countries,—among
them the chief of the sect, whom he baptized. We read of fraticelli “of the opinion”, as they are sometimes styled, who lurked about Italy, and
even of attempts to spread the doctrines of the party in Ireland. We find turlupins put to death at Lille in 1465, and, while the
charges against them are mostly of the usual kind, one article relates to a
denial of the Holy Ghost. The Waldenses in the valleys of Dauphiny and northern Italy attract from time to time the notice of the ecclesiastical
authorities; and the same party appears in Bohemia as connected with the
Hussites. Prophecies continued to be circulated and to affect the minds of men.
Strange preachers appeared, with apocalyptic oracles and predictions of Antichrist,
whom some of them declared to be already born; and not uncommonly such
preachers, after a short career of success, ended their lives at the stake.
Some taught that all things were common, that the married state was unlawful
and inconsistent with salvation, or other such fantastical and mischievous
notions. And sometimes a great excitement was produced by the appearance of a
brilliant and mysterious adventurer, whose variety of learning and accomplishments
seemed inconsistent with his years, and suggested the suspicion that he might
be no other than the very Antichrist himself.
In England, during the earlier part of the fifteenth
century, charges of lollardism frequently occur, and
the persons accused of this offence are usually treated without mercy. This
severity may have arisen in part from the fact that the dangerous political
elements of lollardism became more and more
conspicuous; that members of the party advocated community of goods, that they
were busy in agitating against taxation, and vented doctrines hostile to all
civil government.
A general decay of discipline at this time pervaded
the English church. The bishops were commonly unpopular, and there was much
outcry against them for their neglect of the duties of preaching and residence.
Against such complaints their cause was strenuously maintained by Reginald Pecock, bishop of St. Asaph, in a sermon at St. Paul’s
Cross, and after wards in a long and elaborate treatise, entitled ‘The
Repressor of over-much Wyting [i.e. Blaming]
of the Clergy’.
Pecock was probably a native of the diocese of St. David’s, and is supposed to
have been born about the end of the fourteenth century. He studied at Oxford,
where he became a fellow of Oriel College, and in 1444 he was promoted to the
bishopric of St. Asaph. The merit of his honesty of intention was somewhat
marred by vanity and self-confidence, and by a tendency to a style of argument
rather subtle than solid; and these defects appeared in his sermon at St.
Paul’s Cross and in the ‘Repressor’. He maintained that bishops, as such, are
not bound to preach, and that for reasonable causes they may be non-resident.
He asserted that the pope, as successor of St. Peter, was head of the church.
He held that the pope was the universal pastor, and was entitled to the whole
revenues of the church, so that the sums paid by bishops, by way of
first-fruits and the like, were merely a partial restoration of that which was
his own—like the payments made by a steward to his lord. He not only maintained
the episcopal order and vindicated the right of church-property against the
attacks of the Wyclifites, but defended images and
relics (in behalf of which he alleged stories of miracles performed by them),
pilgrimages, the monastic system, the splendour of conventual buildings, the
adoration of the cross, and many questionable ceremonies of the church. The
excitement produced by his sermon was very great; instead of quelling the
popular odium of bishops, it further exasperated it. And in addition to this,
he was charged by adversaries of a different kind with setting reason above
Holy Scripture, with treating in the vernacular language subjects too deep for
the understanding of the multitude, and with disrespect to fathers, councils,
and the authority of the church.
Notwithstanding these circumstances, Pecock was translated in 1450 to the see of Chichester,
which had become vacant through the murder of the late bishop. For this
promotion he was indebted to the duke of Suffolk and to queen Margaret’s
confessor, the bishop of Norwich; but, when Suffolk had been overthrown, Pecock was left without powerful protectors. When he
appeared at the king’s council, in October 1457, with many spiritual and
temporal lords, there was an outburst of indignation against him, as having
vented novel doctrines and even as having incited the people to insurrection;
and he was compelled to leave the assembly. His books—of which he declared that
he would be answerable for such only as he had set forth within the last three
years—were, by order of the archbishop, Bourchier,
committed for examination to twenty-four doctors. Their report was that his
writings contained many errors and heresies, and, after several examinations,
the archbishop desired him to choose between retractation and delivery to the
secular arm, “as the food of fire, and fuel for the burning”. Utterly unmanned
by terror, Pecock submitted to make an abjuration,
which he publicly performed at St. Paul’s Cross—the same place in which his
obnoxious sermon had been preached—on the second Sunday in Advent, in the
presence of the primate, three bishops, and 20,000 people; with his own hands
he delivered his censured books to be thrown into the flames; and it was
believed that, if the multitude could have reached him, he would have shared
the fate of his writings. “He retracted errors which he had never uttered, and
he retracted utterances which he knew to be truths”. By a representation of
his case to the pope he obtained three bulls, ordering the archbishop to
restore him; but Bourchier refused to receive the
bulls, as being contrary to the statute of provisors. Whether Pecock resigned his see, or was deprived of it, is
uncertain; his last days were spent in rigorous seclusion at Thorney Abbey, and
the time of his death is unknown.
Although Pecock was so far
from agreeing with the Lollards that his main object was to confute them, and
that his ingenuity was exercised in defending points of the existing system
which were the objects of their attacks, he was popularly confounded with them,
so that the contemporary statutes of King’s College, Cambridge, require the
members to swear that they will not favour the opinions of Wyclif or of Pecock. The books of the two became together the objects of
a search and of a burning at Oxford in 1476, and many writers, both on the
Roman and on the Protestant side, have repeated the mistake of supposing their
doctrines to have been nearly akin. In some respects Pecock may be regarded as standing midway between the doctrines of Rome and those of
the English reformation. He was an advocate of toleration in an age when
intolerance was regarded as a duty to the truths In the endeavour to
distinguish between the provinces of reason and of Scripture—in maintaining
that the warrant of Scripture need not be sought where reason is sufficient—he
has been characterized as a forerunner of Hooker. Although ignorant of Greek,
and although he was deceived by forgeries such as the pseudo-Dionysian books,
he has the merit of having exposed the donation of Constantine by a clear
historical argument, independent of his contemporary Valla’s more famous
treatise. That he was led into error by an excess of confidence in his
judgment, is not to be denied; but of some of the opinions imputed to him he
was wholly or partly guiltless. As to the fallibility of the church, he said
nothing beyond what had before been said by Marsilius of Padua, by Nicolas of Clemanges, and others of the Paris academics; indeed it
would seem that the opinions for which he was accused under this head were
merely put forward by way of suppositions on which he was willing to argue. The
charge that he denied the Holy Ghost was false; and his omission of the Descent
into Hell from the creed was probably not a denial of the article as it is now
generally understood, but of the gross construction which was put on it by the
popular mind in the middle ages.
BOHEMIA
The religious ferment in Bohemia gave rise to some
extreme manifestations in addition to those already mentioned. John of Trittenheim tells us of a party who were styled fossarii, from their custom of meeting by night in
ditches and caves. He describes them as practising promiscuous intercourse of
the sexes, as despising the church and its ministers, as mocking at the sacraments,
and “full of errors without end”. Their numbers had increased rapidly, so that
in the year 1501 they were more than 19,000, and among those who had joined
them were many men of rank and influence. But perhaps we may question the
accuracy of a statement which in its worst features so closely resembles the
charges imputed to many denominations of heretics in one generation after
another.
On the death of George Podiebrad, the Bohemian estates
chose for their king a Polish prince, Ladislaus, who, as the see of Prague was
still vacant, was crowned by two Polish bishops. Although the pope, Sixtus IV,
refused to acknowledge any other king of Bohemia than Matthias Corvinus, of
Hungary, Ladislaus, by the aid of his father, king Casimir, was able to make
good his claims; and eventually he succeeded Matthias in the kingdom of Hungary
also. In 1478 the Roman party endeavoured to compel the utraquists to relinquish their peculiar usages; but in the following year a peace was
concluded, by which the utraquists obtained a
confirmation of the compactata, and an acknowledgment that it was
not heretical to receive the holy Eucharist under both kinds. Further troubles
ensued; the utraquists, not content with their late
gains, spoke of requiring the king to attend their churches, and to receive in
both kinds; and in other respects their violence was such that Ladislaus found
it necessary to banish some of their leaders, and even to put some of them to
death In 1485 a fresh treaty was concluded, by which each of the great parties
was to enjoy perfect freedom of religion. It was provided that, on a vacancy in
any parish, a new incumbent should be chosen from the same party to which his
predecessor had belonged; and the king consented that the utraquists should on their side elect an administrator for the archbishopric of Prague.
The peace thus established continued in force, although not without occasional
disturbances,11 throughout the reign of Ladislaus, who died in 1516.
JOHN OF GOCH
About the middle of the fifteenth century, some
divines appeared in Germany who may be said, in their views of nature and
grace, of justification and kindred subjects, to have anticipated the Saxon
reformation. Of these the most noted were John of Goch, John of Wesel, and John
Wessel.
John Pupper, who was
commonly named after his birthplace, Goch, near Cleves, was born in the
beginning of the century, and is supposed to have been educated at the
university of Paris; but nothing is known with certainty as to the history of
his early life. In 1451, when he was about fifty years old, he founded a
convent for canonesses at Mechlin, and entered into holy orders. The remainder
of his days was spent in the office of prior of this institution, and he died
in 1475. During his lifetime he was never molested on account of his opinions,
which seem to have been then known only to a narrow circle of persons who
agreed with him; nor can any distinct influence of them be traced in the
reformers of the following century.
The second of the teachers above named, John Richrath or Ruchrath, of Wesel,
was born at Oberwesel, on the Rhine, at some time
between the years 1400 and 1420. He studied, and afterwards taught, at Erfurt;
and the continuance of his influence in that university appears from Luther’s
speaking of himself as having prepared himself for the degree of master of arts
by the study of John of Wesel’s books. While at Erfurt, John was roused to
indignation by the preaching of indulgences in connexion with the jubilee of
1450. He wrote not only against the grosser abuses of the system, but against
the principle on which it was founded; yet he was allowed to proceed to the
degree of doctor of divinity in 1456, and was appointed preacher at Worms in
1461-2. In this office he gained great popularity; but he excited enmity by
attacking the faults of the clergy, and by inconsiderate language—as when he
declared that if St. Peter instituted fasting, it was probably with a view to
getting a better market for his fish; so that his friend Wessel, while admiring
his learning and ability, was compelled to lament his extravagance and
indiscretion.
In 1479 John was brought by the bishop of Worms before
a court at Mayence on a charge of heresy. He was
accused of intimacy with Jews and Hussites, and even of being secretly a
Hussite bishop; of denying the authority of the church as to the exposition of
Scripture; of denying the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son; of
denying original sin; of denying the powers of the Christian ministry, and the
distinction of presbyters from bishops and popes; of opposing many rites of the
church, the celibacy of the clergy, the use of ecclesiastical vestments, the
practice of fasting, and the sacrament of extreme unction. Archbishop Diether,
who felt himself obliged to take the matter up lest he should again lose his
see, requested the assistance of doctors from Cologne and Heidelberg for the
inquiry. The accused was old, was weak from illness, and was hard pressed by
the members of the court. He declared that he had said nothing against the
authority of the church, and disavowed some other things which were imputed to
him ; but he expressed a wish to retract all errors, and, on the sixth day of
the examination, he submitted to make a general retractation. His writings were
burnt, and he was committed to the convent of Augustinian friars at Mayence, where he soon after died. The reporter of the case
expresses an opinion that, except as to the procession of the Holy Spirit,
John, if time had been allowed him, might have defended himself with success;
that as a secular and a nominalist he suffered disadvantage from a tribunal of
monastic and realistic judges : and he mentions some divines of note as having
been disgusted by the unfairness of the process.
John Wessel, who was styled by his admirers “The light
of the world”, while his opponents styled him “The master of contradictions”,
was born at Groningen about 1429, and was educated for a time under the
Brethren of the Common Life at Zwolle, where it has been supposed that he was
known to Thomas of Kempten. From Zwolle he went to the university of Cologne,
where he studied theology, the oriental languages, and ancient philosophy. He
complained that the ordinary course of reading was confined to the works of
Thomas of Aquino and Albert the Great; and he preferred Plato to Aristotle.
For sixteen years he taught at Paris, where, from having been a realist, he
became a nominalist; and he afterwards visited Italy, where he renewed an
acquaintance formed in France with pope Sixtus IV. It is said that, on being desired
by Sixtus to choose a gift, he made choice of a Bible in the original tongues,
from the Vatican Library; and when the pope laughingly asked why he had not
rather desired a bishopric, he answered that he did not need such things. In
1477, Wessel was invited by Philip, elector-palatine, to Heidelberg; but the
theological faculty of the university refused to admit him as a member,
because he had not taken the degree of doctor, and declined to qualify himself
for it by receiving the tonsure. He therefore taught as a philosophical
lecturer, and was much engaged in disputes with the party whose opinions he had
abandoned. The prosecution of John of Wesel led him to expect a like attack on
himself; but this fear was needless, and his last years, during which most of
his extant works were written, were spent in quiet at his native town, where he
was sheltered from the malice of enemies by the favour of the archbishop of
Utrecht and the bishop of Munster. Wessel died in 1489. Luther said of him, “If
I had read his works earlier, my enemies might have thought that I derived
everything from him, so much does the spirit of the two agree”. Yet as to the
doctrine of the Eucharist, Wessel seems to have been a forerunner rather of the
Zwinglian than of the Lutheran reformation.
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