question which really came home to the fathers of the Church assembled
at Trent presented itself again when the sacrament of orders had in due
course to be debated. The imperial and French ambassadors still
cooperated as actively as ever, and the episcopal party, the Spanish
prelates in particular, entered upon the struggle with a full sense of
its critical importance. If the right divine of episcopacy could be
declared, with it would be established the divine obligation of
residence. Pius IV accordingly showed considerable shrewdness in
instructing the legates at once to formulate a decree on residence,
which, while leaving the question of divine obligation open, imposed
penalties on nonresidence--except for lawful reasons--sufficient to meet
practical requirements. But though such a decree was passed by the
council, the debates on the origin of the episcopal office, which
involved nothing less than the origin and nature of the papal supremacy,
continued (November); and the critical nature of the discussion was the
more apparent when in the midst of it there at last arrived nearly a
score of French bishops, headed by the Cardinal of Lorraine. Hitherto
France had been represented at the council by spokesmen of the French
court and of the Parliament of Paris; now the foremost among the
prelates of the monarchy, whose abilities, however, unfortunately fell
far short of his pretensions, announced in full conciliar assembly the
demands of his branch of the Church. The recent January edict proved the
strength of the Huguenots in France; and though the Cardinal's first
speech at Trent breathed nothing but condemnation of these heretics, it
suited him to pose as the advocate of as extensive a series of reforms
as had yet been urged upon the council.
Further additions were made in the "libel," which was shortly afterward
(January, 1563) presented by the French ambassador, and perfect harmony
existed between the French and the imperial policy at the council. What
decision, then, was to be expected on the crucial question as to the
relations between papal and episcopal authority? How could a recognition
of the Pope's claim to be regarded as _rector universalis ecclesiae_ be
expected from such a union of the ultramontane forces? The current was
not likely to be stopped by the papal court, which about this time Pius
IV announced on his own account at Rome; it seemed on the point of
rising higher than ever when (February, 1563) the Cardinal of Lorraine
and some other prelates waited upon the Emperor at Innsbruck. In truth,
however, a turning-point in the history of the council was close at
hand. The Cardinal of Lorraine had left Trent for Innsbruck with threats
of a Gallican synod on his lips. Ferdinand I had arrived there very
wroth with the council, and had received the Bishop of Zante
(Commendone), whom the legates sent to deprecate his vexation, with
marked coolness. The remedies proposed to the Emperor by the Cardinal
were drastic enough; the council was to be swamped by French, German,
and Spanish bishops, and the Emperor, by repairing to Trent in person,
was to awe the assembly into discussing the desired reforms, whether
with or without the approval of the legates. But Ferdinand I, by nature
moderate in action, and taught by the example of his brother, Charles V,
the danger of violent courses, preferred to resort to a series of direct
and by no means tame appeals to the Pope. The latter, indisposed as he
was to support a fresh proposition for the removal of the council to
some German town, urged by France, but resisted by Spain, which at the
same time persistently opposed the concession of the cup demanded by
both France and the Emperor, saw his opportunity for taking his
adversaries singly. The deaths about this time (March, 1563) of the
presiding legate, Cardinal Gonzaga, and of his colleague Cardinal
Seripando, both of whom had occasionally shown themselves inclined to
yield to the reforming party, were likewise in his favor. Their places
were filled by Cardinals Morone, formerly a prisoner indicted by the
Inquisition, now an eager champion of papal claims, and Navagero, a
Venetian by birth, but not in his political sentiments. Morone, though
he had left Rome almost despairing of any favorable issue of the
council, at once began to negotiate with the Emperor through the Jesuit
Canisius. The leverage employed may, in addition to the distrust between
Ferdinand and his Spanish nephew, and the ancient jealousy between
Austria and France, have included some reference to the heterodox
opinions and the consequently doubtful prospects of the Emperor's eldest
son, Maximilian.
In a word, the papal government about this time formed and carried out a
definite plan for inducing the Emperor to abandon his conciliar policy.
The consideration offered for his assenting to a speedy termination of
the council was the promise that, so soon as that event should have
taken place, the desired concession of the cup should be made to his
subjects. Ferdinand I, without becoming a thoroughgoing partisan of the
papal policy, accepted the bargain as seemingly the shortest road to the
end which, for the sake of the peace of the empire, he had at heart.
Thus, notwithstanding the continued opposition of the French bishops,
the decrees concerning the episcopate began to shape themselves more
easily, and the Pope of his own accord submitted to the council certain
canons of a stringent kind reforming in a similar way the discipline of
the cardinalate (June). And when, in the course of a violent quarrel
about precedence between the kings of France and Spain, the latter,
enraged at his demands not being enforced by the Pope, had threatened,
by insisting on the admission of Protestants to the council,
indefinitely to prolong it, the Emperor intervened against the proposal.
But the conflict between the papal and the episcopal authority seemed
still incapable of solution, and, though Lainez audaciously demanded
the reference of all questions of reform to the sole decision of the
Pope, and denounced the opposition of the French bishops as proceeding
from members of a schismatic church, this opposition steadily continued
in conjunction with that of the Spaniards, and still found a leader in
the Cardinal of Lorraine.
Yet at this very time a change began to be perceptible in the conduct of
this versatile and ambitious prelate. The Cardinal was supposed to have
himself aspired to the office of presiding legate, and, though he had
missed this place of honor and power, the condition of things in France
was such as naturally to incline him in the direction of Rome. The
assassination of his brother Francis, Duke of Guise (February, 1563),
deprived his family and interest of their natural chief, and inclined
Catherine de' Medici to transact with the Huguenots. The Cardinal
accordingly became anxious at the same time to return to France and
prevent the total eclipse of the influence he had hitherto exercised at
court, and to secure himself by an understanding with the Pope.
A letter which about this time arrived from Mary, Queen of Scots,
declaring her readiness to submit to the decrees of the council, and,
should she ascend the throne of England, to reduce that country to
obedience to the holy see, may perhaps be connected with these
overtures. Pius IV, delighted to meet the Cardinal half way, sent
instructions in this sense to the legates, whom the recent display of
Spanish arrogance had already disposed favorably toward France. Thus the
decree on the sacrament of orders was passed in the colorless condition
desired by the papal party, in a session held on July 15th, the Spanish
bishops angrily declaring themselves betrayed by the French Cardinal.
Other decrees were passed in this memorable session, among them one of
substantial importance for the establishment of diocesan seminaries for
priests. Clearly, the council had now become tractable and might
speedily be brought to an end. In this sense the Pope addressed urgent
letters to the three great Catholic monarchs, and found willing
listeners except in Spain.
Meanwhile the remaining decrees, both of doctrine and of discipline,
were eagerly pushed on. The sacrament of marriage gave rise to much
discussion; but the proposal that the marriage of priests should be
permitted, though formerly included in both the imperial and the French
libel, was now advocated only by the two prelates who spoke directly in
the name of the Emperor. But in the decree proposed on the all-important
subject of the reformation of the life and morals of the clergy, the
legates presumed too far on the yielding mood of the governments. It not
only contained many admirable reforms as to the conditions under which
spiritual offices, from the cardinalate downward, were to be held or
conferred, but the papacy had wisely and generously surrendered many
existing usages profitable to itself. At the same time, however, it was
proposed not only to deprive the royal authority in the several states
of a series of analogous profits, but to take away from it the
nomination of bishops and the right of citing ecclesiastics before a
secular tribunal. To the protest which the ambassadors of the powers
inevitably raised against these proposals, the legates replied by
raising a cry that the "reformation of the princes" should be
comprehended in the decrees. It became necessary to postpone the
objectionable article; but now the fears of the supporters of the
existing system began to be excited, both at Rome and at Trent, and it
was contrived to introduce so many modifications into the proposed
decree as seriously to impair its value. Then, though the Cardinal of
Lorraine himself, during a visit to Rome (September), showed his
readiness to support the papal policy, the French ambassadors at the
council carried their opposition to its encroachments upon the claims of
their sovereign so far as to withdraw to Venice. And above all, the
Spanish bishops, upheld by the persistency of their King, stood firmly
by the original form of the reformation decree, and finally obtained its
restoration to a very considerable extent. Thus the greater portion of
the decree was at last passed in the penultimate session of the council
(November 11th).
With the exception of Spain, all the powers now made known their consent
to winding up the business of the council without further loss of time.
But Count Luna still immovably resisted the closing of the council
before the express assent of King Philip should have been received; nor
was it till the news--authentic or not--arrived of a serious illness
having befallen the Pope that the fear of the complications which might
arise in the event of his death put an end to further delay.
Summoned in all haste, the fathers met on December 3d for their
five-and-twentieth session, and on this and the following day rapidly
discussed a series of decrees, some of which were by no means devoid of
intrinsic importance. In the doctrinal decrees concerning purgatory and
indulgences, as in those concerning the invocation of saints and the
respect due to their relics and images, it was sought to preclude a
reckless exaggeration or distortion of the doctrines of the Church on
these heads, and a corrupt perversion of the usages connected with them.
Of the disciplinary decrees, the most important and elaborate related to
the religious of both sexes. It contained a clause, inserted on the
motion of Lainez, which the Jesuits afterward interpreted as generally
exempting their society from the operation of this decree. Another
decree enjoined sobriety and moderation in the use of the ecclesiastical
penalty of excommunication. For the rest, all possible expedition was
used in gathering up the threads of the work done or attempted by the
council. The determination of the Index, as well as the revision of
missal, breviary, ritual, and catechism, was remitted to the Pope. Then
the decrees debated in the last session and at its adjourned meeting
were adopted, being subscribed by 234 (or 255?) ecclesiastics; and the
decrees passed in the sessions of the council before its reassembling
under Pope Pius IV were read over again, and thus its continuity
(1545-1563) was established without any use being made of the terms
"approbation" and "confirmation." A decree followed, composed by the
Cardinal of Lorraine and Cardinal Madruccio, solemnly commending the
ordinances of the council to the Church and to the princes of
Christendom, and remitting any difficulties concerning the execution of
the decrees to the Pope, who would provide for it either by summoning
another general council or as he might determine. A concluding decree
put an end to the council itself, which closed with a kind of general
thanksgiving intoned by the Cardinal of Lorraine.
The decrees of the council were shortly afterward (January 26, 1564)
ratified by Pius IV, against the wish of the more determined
Curialists, while others would have wished him to guard himself by
certain restrictions. These were, however, unnecessary, as he reserved
to himself the interpretation of doubtful or disputed decrees. This
reservation remained absolute as to decrees concerning dogma; for the
interpretation of those concerning discipline, Sixtus V afterward
appointed a special commission under the name of the "congregation of
the Council of Trent." While the former became _ipso facto_ binding on
the entire Church, the decrees on discipline and reformation could not
become valid in any particular state till after they had been published
in it with the consent of its government. This distinction is of the
greatest importance. The doctrinal system of the Church of Rome was now
enduringly fixed; the area which the Church had lost she could
henceforth only recover if she reconquered it.
Many attempts at reunion by compromise have since been made from the
Protestant side, and some of these have perhaps been met half way by the
generous wishes of not a few Catholics; but the Council of Trent has
doomed all these projects to inevitable sterility. The gain of the
Church of Rome from her acquisition at Trent of a clearly and sharply
defined "body of doctrine" is not open to dispute, except from a point
of view which her doctors have steadily repudiated. And it is difficult
to suppose but that, in her conflict with the spirit of criticism which
from the first in some measure animated the Protestant Reformation and
afterward urged it far beyond its original scope, the Church of Rome
must have proved an unequal combatant had not the Council of Trent
renewed the foundations of the authority claimed by herself and of that
claimed by her head on earth.
The effect of the disciplinary decrees of the council, though more
far-reaching and enduring than has been on all sides acknowledged, was
necessarily in the first instance dependent on the reception given to
them by the several Catholic powers. The representatives of the Emperor
at once signed the whole of the decrees of the council, though only on
behalf of his hereditary dominions; and he had his promised reward when,
a few months afterward (April), the German bishops were, under certain
restrictions, empowered to accord the cup in the eucharist to the
laity. But neither the Empire through its diet, nor Hungary, ever
accepted the Tridentine decrees, though several of the Catholic estates
of the Empire, both spiritual and temporal, individually accepted them
with modifications. The example of Ferdinand was followed by several
other powers; but in Poland the diet, to which the decrees were twice
(1564 and 1578) presented as having been accepted by King Sigismund
Augustus, refused to accord its own acceptance, maintaining that the
Polish Church, as such, had never been represented at the council.
In Portugal and in the Swiss Catholic cantons the decrees were received
without hesitation, as also by the Seigniory of Venice, whose
representatives at Trent had rarely departed from an attitude of studied
moderation, and who now merely safeguarded the rights of the republic.
True to the part recently played by him, the Cardinal of Lorraine, on
his own responsibility, subscribed to the decrees in the name of the
King of France. But the Parliament of Paris was on the alert, and on his
return home the Cardinal had to withdraw in disgrace to Rheims. Neither
the doctrinal decrees of the council nor the disciplinary, which in part
clashed with the customs of the kingdom and the privileges of the
Gallican Church, were ever published in France. The ambassador of Spain,
whose King and prelates had so consistently held out against the closing
of the council, refused his signature till he had received express
instructions. Yet as it was Spain which had hoped and toiled for the
achievement at the council of solid results, so it was here that the
decrees fell on the most grateful soil, when, after considerable
deliberation and delay, their publication at last took place,
accompanied by stringent safeguards as to the rights of the King and the
usages of his subjects (1565). The same course was adopted in the
Italian and Flemish dependencies of the Spanish monarchy.
The disciplinary decrees of the council, on the whole, fell short in
completeness of the doctrinal. But while they consistently maintained
the papal authority and confirmed its formal pretensions, the episcopal
authority, too, was strengthened by them, not only as against the
monastic orders, but in its own moral foundations. More than this, the
whole priesthood, from the Pope downward, benefited by the warnings
that had been administered, by the sacrifices that had been made, and by
the reforms that had been agreed upon. The Church became more united,
less worldly, and more dependent on herself. These results outlasted the
movement known as the Counter-reformation, and should be ignored by no
candid mind.
FOOTNOTES:
[54] Pole became archbishop of Canterbury (1556) and chief adviser to
Queen Mary, under whom he was largely responsible for the persecution of
English Protestants.
[55] The Farnese were an illustrious Italian family. Alessandro Farnese
was Pope Paul III.
[56] Count Carlo Borromeo, Italian cardinal, Archbishop of Milan, was
one of the most noted of the ecclesiastical reformers. He was canonized
in 1610.
PROTESTANT STRUGGLE AGAINST CHARLES V
THE SMALKALDIC WAR
A.D. 1546
EDWARD ARMSTRONG
In 1530 Charles V convened a diet at Augsburg for the
settlement of religious disputes in Germany and preparation
for war against the Turks, who were advancing into the
empire. The diet issued a decree condemning most of the
Protestant tenets. In consequence of this the Protestant
princes of Germany at once entered into a league, known as
the Smalkaldic League, from Smalkald, Germany, where it was
formed. They bound themselves to assist each other by arms
and money in defence of their faith against the Emperor, and
to act together in all religious matters. They concluded an
alliance with Francis I, King of France, and from Henry VIII
of England they received moral support and some material
assistance.
Charles was not yet ready to proceed to extremities. In 1531
terms of pacification were agreed upon, and the Emperor
received earnest support from Protestant Germany in his
preparations against the Turks, who after all withdrew
without a battle. During the next few years there was no
open hostility between the two religious parties, but all
attempts at reconciliation failed. In 1538 the Catholic
princes formed a counter-league, called the Holy League, and
violent disputes continued.
At last Charles determined to crush the Reformation in
Germany by military force. The German Protestants refused to
be bound by the decrees of the Council of Trent (1545),
because it was held in a foreign country and presided over
by the Pope. Their attitude confirmed the Emperor in his
resolve, and in 1546 began the conflict known as the
Smalkaldic War, of which Armstrong gives us a spirited and
impartial account.
War was actually opened neither by Emperor nor princes, but by the
Protestant towns. The capable _condottiere_ Sebastian Schartlin von
Burtenbach led the forces of Augsburg and Ulm briskly southward, seized
Fussen in the Bishop of Augsburg's territory on July 9th, and then
surprised the small force guarding the pass of Ehrenberg, which gave
access to the Inn valley. The religious character of the war was
emphasized by plunder of churches and ill usage of monks and clergy. Two
obvious courses were now open to the insurgent princes. Either they
could march direct on Regensburg, where a mere handful of troops
protected Charles from a strongly Protestant population, or in support
of Schartlin they could clear Tyrol of imperialists, close the passes to
Spanish and Italian reenforcements, and even pay a domiciliary visit to
the Council of Trent. This latter was Schartlin's programme; the
Tyrolese had Protestant sympathies and dreaded the advent of the foreign
troops; Charles averred that even their government was ill-affected.
Schartlin would even have persuaded the Venetians and Grisons to forbid
passage to the Emperor's troops, and have enlisted the services of
Ercole of Ferrara, the enemy of the Pope. But either of the two
strategic movements was too bold for the Smalkaldic council of war. The
first would have violated the neutrality of Bavaria, in which the league
still believed, while it had no quarrel with Ferdinand, who was
ostensibly conciliatory. The towns, moreover, wished to keep their
captain within hail, for they feared the possibility of attack either
from Regensburg or from Ferdinand's paltry forces in the Vorarlberg.
Schartlin retired on Augsburg, but on July 20th, reenforced by a
Wuertemberg contingent, occupied Donauworth, and was here joined on
August 4th by the Elector and Landgrave. The insurgent army now numbered
fifty thousand foot and seven thousand horse. The very size of this
force, by far the largest that Germany could remember, is a disproof of
the not uncommon assertion that Charles took the Lutherans by surprise.
On a rumor that the enemy were crossing the Danube to separate him from
the troops on the march from Italy, Charles moved on Landshut with some
six thousand men, not much more than a tenth of the opposing force. He
was determined, he wrote, to remain in Germany alive or dead, rejecting
as idle vanity the notion that it was beneath his dignity to lead a
small force. At Landshut he met papal auxiliaries under Ottavio Farnese
and Alessandro Vitelli, with detachments of light horse sent by the
Dukes of Florence and Ferrara. When the Spanish foot and Neapolitan
cavalry had joined, he could muster at Regensburg twenty-eight thousand
men, over whom he placed Alba in command. The Elector and Landgrave, in
renunciation of their fealty, had sent in a herald with a broken staff
addressed to Charles self-styled the Fifth and Roman Emperor. To him was
delivered the ban of the empire against his masters, condemning them,
not for heresy, but for acts of violence and rebellion, for the Pack
plot, the attack on Wuertemberg, and the seizure of Brunswick.
The campaign now began in earnest. While the Lutherans timidly wasted
their opportunities, Charles with his greatly inferior force made a
hazardous night march on Ingolstadt. The movement was executed with much
disorder, resembling a flight rather than an advance. The league
neglected the chance of making a flank attack on the hurrying,
straggling line as it followed the right bank of the Danube until it was
conveyed across the river at Neustadt. To add to the Emperor's danger,
his German troops were mostly Lutherans, hating the priests and the
Spanish and Italian regiments. Many had early deserted from their
general, the Marquis of Marignano; all cherished ill-feeling against
Charles' confessor as being the cause of the civil war. Even the
population of Bavaria, professedly a friendly territory, was in great
part a Lutheran.