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READING HALLDOORS OF WISDOM |
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A HISTORY OF THE POPES FROM THE GREAT SCHISM TO THE SACK OF ROMEBOOK III
THE COUNCIL OF BASEL
CHAPTER II.
MARTIN V AND THE PAPAL RESTORATION. BEGINNINGS OF
EUGENIUS IV.
1425-1432.
As Martin V felt more sure of his position in Italy,
and saw the traces of the Schism disappear in the outward organization of the Church,
he was anxious also to wipe away the anti-papal legislation which in France and
England had followed on the confusion caused by the Schism of the Papacy.
In France Martin V easily succeeded in overthrowing
the attempt to establish the liberties of the national Church on the basis of
royal edicts. Charles VI had issued in 1418 ordinances forbidding money to be
exported from the kingdom for the payment of annates or other demands of the
Court of Rome, and had confirmed the ancient liberties of the Gallican Church
as regarded freedom of election to ecclesiastical offices. In February, 1422,
he had further forbidden appeals to Rome in contempt of the ordinances. But
before the end of the year Charles VI was dead, and the confusion in France was
still further increased by the English claims to the succession. The youthful
Charles VII was hard pressed, and wished to gain the Pope's support. In
February, 1425, he issued a decree re-establishing the Papal power, as regarded
the collation to benefices and all exercise of jurisdiction, on the same
footing as it had been in the days of Clement VII and Benedict XIII. The
Parliament, it is true, protested and refused to register the decree. The Pope,
on his part, granted an indemnity for what had been done in the past. All the
reforming efforts of the University of Paris and its followers were for the
time undone.
In England Martin V was not so successful. In 1421 he
wrote to Henry V and exhorted him to lose no time in abolishing the
prohibitions of his predecessors (the Statutes of Provisors and Praemunire) on
the due exercise of the Papal rights. Next year, on the accession of King Henry
VI, he wrote still more pressingly to the Council of Regency. When nothing was
done, he directed his anger against Henry Chichele, the Archbishop of
Canterbury. Chichele in 1423 proclaimed indulgences to all who in that year
made pilgrimage to Canterbury. Martin indignantly forbade this assumption of
Papal rights by a subordinate; as the fallen angels wished to set up in the
earth their seat against the Creator, so have these presumptuous men endeavored
to raise a false tabernacle of salvation against the apostolic seat and the
authority of the Roman Pontiff, to whom only has God granted this power. It was
long since an English archbishop had heard such language from a Pope; but
Chichele was not a man of sufficient courage to remonstrate. He withdrew his
proclamation, and Martin V had struck a decided blow against the independence
of the English episcopate.
The restored Papacy owed a debt of gratitude to Henry
of Winchester for his good offices as mediator at Constance, and immediately
after his election, Martin V nominated him Cardinal. Chichele protested against
this step as likely to lead to inconveniences; and Henry V, declaring that he
would rather see his uncle invested with the crown than with a cardinal’s hat,
forbade his acceptance of the proffered dignity. When the strong hand of
Henry V was gone, Beaufort was again nominated Cardinal on May 24, 1426,
no longer from motives of gratitude, but because the Pope needed his help. In
February, 1427, he was further appointed Papal legate for the purpose of
carrying on war against the Hussites. But the Pope still pursued his main
object, and in a letter to the Bishop of Winchester denounced still more
strongly the execrable statute of Praemunire by which the King of England
disposed of the affairs of the Church as though himself, and not the Pope, were
the divinely appointed Vicar of Christ. He bade him remember the glorious
example of S. Thomas of Canterbury, who did not hesitate to offer himself as a
sacrifice on behalf of the liberties of the Church. He bade him urge the
abolition of this statute on the Council, on Parliament, and on the clergy,
that they may preach about it to the people; and he asked to be informed what
steps were taken in compliance with his commands. He wrote also in the same
strain to the University of Oxford. Indeed, so deeply did Martin V resent the
ecclesiastical attitude of England that he said in a consistory, “Amongst
Christians no States have made ordinances contrary to the liberties of the
Church save England and Venice”. Martin’s instincts taught him truly, and he
did his utmost to blunt the edge of the weapon that a century later was to
sever the connection between the English Church and the Papacy.
Again Martin V wrote haughtily to Chichele, bidding
him and the Archbishop of York set aside the Statutes of Provisors and
recognize the Papal right to dispose benefices in England. Chichele humbly
replied 1427-28 that he was the only person in England who was willing to
broach the subject; and it was hard that he should be specially visited by the
Pope’s displeasure for what he could not help. Martin V retorted by issuing
letters to suspend Chichele from his office as legate—a blow against the
privileges and independence of the Archbishops of Canterbury, who since the
days of Stephen Langton had been recognized as the Pope’s ordinary legate (legatus
natus) in England. Chichele so far roused himself as to appeal to a future
Council against this encroachment. The Pope’s letters were seized by royal
authority, and the suspension did not take effect. But Chichele was a timid
man, and the condition of affairs in England made him shrink from a breach with
the Pope. The Lollards were suppressed but not subdued, and a strong
antihierarchical feeling simmered amongst the people. In the distracted state
of the kingdom, little help was to be gained from the royal power, and Chichele
feared the consequences of an interdict. He called to his help the bishops, the
University of Oxford, and several temporal lords, who addressed letters to the
Pope, bearing testimony to Chichele’s zeal for the Church, and begging the Pope
to be reconciled to him. To Chichele’s letters pleading his excuses, the Pope
still answered that the only excuse that he could make was active resistance to
the obnoxious statutes. At length Chichele, in 1428, appeared before the
Commons, accompanied by the Archbishop of York and other bishops, and with
tears in his eyes pointed out the dangers in which the Church and kingdom were
placed by their opposition to the Pope’s demands. Parliament was unmoved either
by Martin’s letters or by Chichele’s half-hearted pleadings. They only
petitioned the Pope to restore the Archbishop to his favor. The King wrote in
the same sense, and the matter was allowed to drop. Martin V might console
himself with the reflection that, if he had failed to carry his point and
abolish the hateful statutes, he had at least succeeded in humiliating the
English episcopate by treating them as creatures of his own.
In September, 1428, Beaufort made his first appearance
in England since his elevation to the Cardinalate, and a protest in the King's
name was issued against his exercise of any legatine authority within the
realm. Next year the question was raised whether Beaufort, being a Cardinal,
was justified in officiating as Bishop of Winchester and prelate of the Order
of the Garter: the King’s council advised Beaufort to waive his right. Meanwhile
Beaufort was allowed to gather troops for a crusade against the Hussites. But
the English statesman and the Papal councillor came into collision; and the
troops which Beaufort had gathered for a crusade in Bohemia were turned against
France. Beaufort pleaded to the Pope the lame excuse that he had not ventured
to disobey the King’s commands in this matter; nor would the soldiers have
obeyed him if he had done so. Though treacherous, the action of Beaufort was
popular. He was allowed, though a Cardinal, to take his seat at the King’s
council, except only when matters were under discussion which concerned the
Church of Rome. Really, Beaufort was too much absorbed in deadly personal
rivalry with Gloucester to be of any service to the Pope in furthering his attempt
to overthrow the liberties of the English Church.
But the Papacy has never in its history gained so much
by definite victories as it has by steady persistency. It was always prepared
to take advantage of the internal weakness of any kingdom, and to advance
pretensions at times when they were not likely to be resolutely disavowed. In
time they might be heard of again, and when reasserted could at least claim the
prestige of some antiquity. By his treatment of Archbishop Chichele, and by his
grant of legatine powers to Beaufort, Martin V exercised a more direct
authority over the machinery of the English Church than had been permitted to
any Pope since the days of Innocent III. The Church was weak in its hold on the
affections of the people, and when the kingly office was in abeyance, the
Church, robbed of its protector, was too feeble to offer any serious resistance
to the Papacy. Martin V used his opportunity dexterously, and his
successors had no reason to complain of the independent spirit of English
bishops.
But besides being an ecclesiastic, Martin V had the
sentiments of a Roman noble. He wished to restore his native city to some part
of her old glory, and labored so assiduously at the work of restoration that a
grateful people hailed him as “Father of his country”. He rebuilt the tottering
portico of S. Peter’s and proceeded to adorn and repair the ruined basilicas of
the city. In the Church of S. John Lateran, which had been destroyed by fire in
1308, and was slowly rising from its ruins, he laid down the mosaic pavement
which still exists, and built up the roof. He restored the Basilica of the SS.
Apostoli. His example told upon the Cardinals, and he urged on them to
undertake the care of the churches from which they took their titles. His pontificate
marks the beginning of an era of architectural adornment of the City of
Rome.
The only part of the work of the reformation of the
Church which Martin V showed any wish to carry into effect was that concerning
the Cardinals. The Papal absolutism over all bishops, which Martin V desired to
establish, aimed at the reduction of the power of the ecclesiastical
aristocracy which surrounded the Pope’s person, and the rules for the conduct
of the Cardinals issued in 1424 were not meant to be mere waste paper. Martin V
succeeded in reducing the power of the Cardinals; he paid little heed to their
advice, and they were so afraid of him that they stammered like awkward
children in his presence. Sometimes he even excluded them altogether. In 1429
he retired from Rome to Ferentino before a pestilence, and forbade any of the
Cardinals to follow him.
Yet all Martin V’s injunctions could not purge the
Curia from the charge of corruption. Money was necessary for the Pope; and
Martin, if he laid aside the grosser forms of extortion, still demanded money
on all fair pretexts. The ambassadors at the Papal Court found it necessary for
the conduct of the business to propitiate the Pope by handsome presents on the
great festivals of the Church. If any business was to be done, the attention of
the Pope and his officials had to be arrested by some valuable gift. Yet Martin
showed a care in making ecclesiastical appointments which had not been seen in
the Popes for the last half-century. He did not make his appointments rashly, but
inquired about the capacities of the different candidates and the special needs
of the districts which they aspired to serve. Even so, Martin V was not always
to be trusted. He seemed to delight in humbling bishops before him. He deposed
Bishop Anselm of Augsburg simply because the civic authorities quarreled with
him. In England he conferred on a nephew of his own, aged fourteen, the rich
archdeaconry of Canterbury. Yet Martin was never weary of uttering noble
sentiments to the Cardinals and those around him: no word was so often on his
lips as “justice”. He would often exclaim to his Cardinals, “Love justice, ye
who judge the earth”.
In these peaceful works of internal reform and
organization Martin V passed his last years, disturbed only by the thought that
the time was drawing near for summoning the promised Council at Basel.
Moreover, there was little hope of avoiding it, for the religious conflict in
Bohemia had waxed so fierce that it had long been the subject of greatest
interest in the politics of Europe. Army after army of the orthodox had been
routed by the Bohemian heretics. Papal legates had in vain raised troops and
conducted them to battle. Germany was hopelessly exhausted, and when force had
failed, men looked anxiously to see if deliberation could again avail. Martin V
ordered the legate in Bohemia, Giuliano Cesarini, to convoke a Council at Basel
in 1431. But he was not to see its beginning: he was suddenly struck by
apoplexy, and died on February 20, 1431. He was buried in the Church of S. John
Lateran, where his recumbent effigy in brass still adorns his tomb.
Martin V was a wise, cautious, and prudent Pope. He
received the Papacy discredited and homeless: he succeeded in establishing it
firmly in its old capital, recovering its lost possessions, and restoring some
of its old prestige in Europe. This he did by moderation and common sense,
combined with a genuine administrative capacity. He was not a brilliant man,
but the times did not require brilliancy. He was not personally popular, for he
did not much care for the regard or sympathy of those around him, but kept his
own counsel and went his own way. He was reserved, and had great self-command.
When the news of a brother’s unexpected death was brought to him early one
morning, he composed himself and said mass as usual. He did not care for men’s
good opinion, but devoted himself energetically to the details of business. He
did not care to do anything splendid, so much as to do all things securely. Yet
he rescued the Papacy from its fallen condition and laid the foundations for
its future power. His strong-willed and arbitrary dealings with other bishops
did much to break down the strength of national feeling in ecclesiastical
matters which had been displayed at Constance. He was resolved to make the
bishops feel their impotence before the Pope; and the political weakness of
European States enabled him to go far in breaking down the machinery of
the national Churches, and asserting for the Papacy a supreme control in
all ecclesiastical matters.
In this way he may be regarded as the founder of the
theory of Papal omnipotence which is embodied in modern Ultramontanism. Yet
Martin V succeeded rather through the weakness of Europe than through his own
strength. He did not awaken suspicion by large schemes, but pursued a quiet
policy which was dictated by the existing needs of the Papacy, and was capable
of great extension in the future. Without being a great man, he was an
extremely sagacious statesman. He had none of the noble and heroic qualities which
would have enabled him to set up the Papacy once more as the exponent of the
religious aspirations of Europe; but he brought it into accordance with the
politics of his time and made it again powerful and respected.
There were two opinions in his own days respecting the
character of Martin V. Those who had waited anxiously for a thorough
reformation of the Church looked sadly on Martin’s shortcomings and accused him
of avarice and self-seeking. Those who regarded his career as a temporal ruler,
extolled him for his practical virtues, and the epitaph on his tomb called him
with some truth, “Temporum suorum felicitas”, “the happiness of his times”. At
the present day we may be permitted to combine these two opposite judgments,
and may praise him for what he did while regretting that he lacked the
elevation of mind necessary to enable him to seize the splendid opportunity
offered him of doing more.
After the funeral of Martin V, the fourteen Cardinals
who were in Rome lost no time in entering into conclave in the Church of S.
Maria sopra Minerva. They were still smarting at the recollection of the hard
yoke of Martin V, and their one desire was to give themselves an easy master
and escape the indignities which they had so long endured. To secure this end
they had recourse to the method, which the Schism had introduced, of drawing up
rules for the conduct of the future Pope, which every Cardinal signed before
proceeding to the election. Each promised, if he were elected Pope, to issue a
Bull within three days of his coronation, declaring that he would reform the
Roman Curia, would further the work of the approaching Council, would appoint
Cardinals according to the decrees of Constance, would allow his Cardinals
freedom of speech, and would respect their advice, give them their accustomed
revenues, abstain from seizing their goods at death, and consult them about the
disposal of the government of the Papal States. We see from these provisions
how the Cardinals resented the insignificance to which Martin V had consigned
them. To reverse his treatment of themselves they were willing to reverse his
entire policy and bind the future Pope to accept in some form the Council and
the cause of ecclesiastical reform. They entered the Conclave on March 1, and
spent the next day in drawing up this instrument for their own protection. On
March 3 they proceeded to vote, and on the first scrutiny Gabriel Condulmier, a
Venetian, was unanimously elected. Others had been mentioned, such as Giuliano
Cesarini, the energetic legate in Bohemia, and Antonio Casino, Bishop of Siena.
But in their prevailing temper, the Cardinals determined that it was best to
have a harmless nonentity, and all were unanimous that Condulmier answered best
to that description.
Gabriel Condulmier, who took the name of Eugenius IV,
was a Venetian, sprung from a wealthy but not noble family. His father died
when he was young. And Gabriel, seized with religious enthusiasm, distributed
his wealth, 20,000 ducats, among the poor, and resolved to seek his riches in another
world. So great was his ardor that he infected with it his cousin, Antonio
Correr, and both entered the monastery of S. Giorgio d'Alga in Venice. There
the two friends remained simple brothers of the order, till Antonio’s uncle was
unexpectedly elected Pope Gregory XII. As usual, the Papal uncle wished to
promote his nephew; but Antonio refused to leave his monastery unless he were
accompanied by his friend Condulmier. Gregory XII made his nephew Bishop of
Bologna, and Condulmier Bishop of Siena. He afterwards prepared the way for his
own downfall by insisting on elevating both to the dignity of Cardinals. But
the diminution of Gregory’s obedience gave them small scope for their activity;
they both went to Constance and were ranked among the Cardinals of the united
Church. Their long friendship was at last interrupted by jealousy. Correr could
not endure his friend’s elevation to the Papacy; he left him, and at the
Council of Basel was one of his bitterest opponents. Martin V appointed
Condulmier to be legate in Bologna, where he showed his capacity by putting
down a rebellion of the city. When elected to the Papacy at the early age of
forty-seven he was regarded as a man of high religious character, without much
knowledge of the world or political capacity. The Cardinals considered him to
be an excellent appointment for their purpose. Tall and of a commanding figure
and pleasant face, he would be admirably suited for public appearances. His
reputation for piety would satisfy the reforming party; his known liberality to
the poor would make him popular in Rome; his assumed lack of strong character
and of personal ambition would assure to the Cardinals the freedom and
consideration after which they pined. He was in no way a distinguished
man, and in an age when learning was becoming more and more respected, he was
singularly uncultivated.
His early years were spent in the performance of
formal acts of piety, and his one literary achievement was that he wrote with
his own hand a breviary, which he always continued to use when he became Pope,
the absence of any decided qualities in Eugenius IV seems to have been so
marked that miraculous agency was called in to explain his unexpected
elevation. A story, which he himself was fond of telling in later years, found ready
credence. When he was a simple monk at Venice, he took his turn to act as
porter at the monastery gate. One day a hermit came and was kindly welcomed by
Condulmier, who accompanied him into the church and joined in his devotions. As
they returned, the hermit said, “You will be made Cardinal, and then Pope; in
your pontificate you will suffer much adversity”, Then he departed, and was
seen no more.
Eugenius IV was faithful to his promise before
election, and on the day of his coronation, March 11, confirmed the document
which he had signed in conclave. He also showed signs of a desire to reform the
abuses of the Papal Court. His first act was to cut off a source of exaction.
The customary letters announcing his election were given for transmission to the
ambassadors of the various states, instead of being sent by Papal nuncios, who
expected large donations for their service.
But the first steps of Eugenius IV in the conduct of
affairs showed an absence of wisdom and an unreasoning ferocity. Martin V had been
careful to secure the interests of his own relatives. His brother Lorenzo had
been made Count of Alba and Celano in the Abruzzi, and his brother Giordano
Duke of Amalfi and Venosa, Prince of Salerno. Both of them died before the
Pope, but their places were taken by the sons of Lorenzo—Antonio, who became
Prince of Salerno; Odoardo, who inherited Celano and Marsi; and Prospero, who
was Cardinal at the early age of twenty-two. Martin V had lived by the Church
of SS. Apostoli in a house of moderate pretensions, as the Vatican was too
ruinous for occupation; his nephews had a palace hard by. It was natural for a
new Pope to look with some suspicion on the favorites of his predecessor. But
at first all went well between the Colonna and Eugenius IV. The Castle of S.
Angelo was given up to the Pope and a considerable amount of treasure which
Martin V had left behind him. But Eugenius IV soon became suspicious. The towns
in the Papal States grew rebellious when they felt that Martin V’s strong hand
was relaxed, and Eugenius needed money and soldiers to reduce them to
obedience. He suspected that the Papal nephews had vast stores of treasure
secreted, and resolved by a bold stroke to seize it for himself. Stefano
Colonna, head of the Palestrina branch of the family and at variance with the
elder branch, was sent to seize the Bishop of Tivoli, Martin’s
Vice-Chamberlain, whom he dragged ignominiously through the streets. Eugenius
IV angrily rebuked him for his unnecessary violence, and so alienated his
wavering loyalty. At the same time Eugenius demanded of Antonio Colonna that he
should give up all the possessions in the Papal States with which his uncle had
endowed him, Genazano, Soriano, S. Marino, and other fortresses were Eugenius
imagined that the Papal treasures lay hid. Antonio loudly declared that this
was a plot of the Orsini in their hereditary hatred of the Colonna; he
denounced the Pope as lending himself to their schemes, and left Rome hastily
to raise forces. He was soon followed by Stefano Colonna, by the Cardinal
Prospero, and the other adherents of the family. Gathering their troops, the
Colonna attacked the possessions of the Orsini and laid waste the country up to
the walls of Rome.
Eugenius IV, like Urban VI, had been unexpectedly
raised to a position for which his narrowness and inexperience rendered him
unfit. Trusting to the general excellence of his intentions and exulting in the
plenitude of his new authority, he acted on the first impulse, and only grew
more determined when he met with opposition. He tortured the luckless Bishop of
Tivoli almost to death in his prison. He ordered the partisans of the Colonna
in Rome to be arrested, and over two hundred Roman citizens were put to death
on various charges. Stefano Colonna advanced against Rome, seized the Porta
Appia, on April 23, and fought his way through the streets as far as the Piazza
of S. Marco. But the people did not rise on his side as he had expected; the
Pope’s troops were still strong enough to drive back their assailants. Stefano
Colonna could not succeed in getting hold of the city; but he kept the Appian
gate, laid waste the Campagna, and threatened the city with famine. Eugenius IV
retaliated by ordering the destruction of the Colonna palaces, even that of
Martin V, and the houses of their adherents, and on May 18 issued a decree
depriving them of all their possessions. The old times of savage warfare
between the Roman nobles were again brought back.
The contest might long have raged, to the destruction
of the new-born prosperity of the Roman city, had not Florence, Venice, and
Naples sent troops to aid the Pope. But the Neapolitan forces under
Caldora proved a feeble help, for they took money from Antonio Colonna,
and assumed an ambiguous attitude. In Rome the confession of a conspiracy to
seize the Castle of S. Angelo and expel the Pope was extorted from a luckless
friar, and gave rise to fresh prosecutions and imprisonments. Amid these
agitations Eugenius IV was stricken by paralysis, which was put down to the
results of poison administered in the interests of the Colonna. Sickness
brought reflection; and the Colonnesi on their side saw that the chances of war
were going against them, since Venice and Florence were determined to support
Eugenius, whose help they needed against the growing power of the Duke of
Milan. Accordingly, on September 22 peace was made between the Pope and Antonio
Colonna, who paid 75,000 ducats and resigned the castles which he held in the
Papal States. Giovanna of Naples deprived him also of his principality of
Salerno. The relatives of Martin V fell back to their former position. But
Eugenius had gained by violence, disorder, bloodshed, and persecution an end
which might have been reached equally well by a little patience and tact.
The disturbances in the States of the Church gradually
settled down, and Eugenius in September was anxiously awaiting the coming of
Sigismund to Italy for the purpose of assuming the Imperial crown. On his
dealings with Sigismund depended his chance of freeing himself from the Council,
which had begun to assemble at Basel, and whose proceedings were such as to
cause him some anxiety.
CHAPTER III.BOHEMIA AND THE HUSSITE WARS.1418- 1431
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