even these poor spoils were a motive sufficient to prove a powerful
aid to the conquering party in the struggle. And yet, amid all the
miserable ambitions of the Erskines and Murrays, the Huntleys and
Bothwells, who occupied the prominent places in the court and camp,
we should do grievous wrong to the spirit which triumphed at last
over the force and fraud of the Guises, if we attributed to temporal
motives alone the movement which expelled licentious prelates and drove
Queen Mary to the fateful refuge of Fotheringay. The selfish aims of
the nobles would have been fruitless but for the zealous earnestness
of the people, led by men of iron nature, who doubted themselves as
little as they doubted their God, and who, in the death-struggle with
Antichrist, were as ready to suffer as they were ruthless to inflict.
Nor can the disorders of the Catholic clergy be rightly imputed to the
temperament of the race, for the Reformers, who carried with them so
large a portion of the middle and lower classes, preached a system of
rigid morality to which the world had been a stranger since the virtues
of the Germanic tribes had been lost in the overthrow of the Empire;
and they not merely preached it, but obtained its embodiment in a code
of repressive laws, which their vigilant authority strictly enforced.
I have said above that the question of celibacy appears but rarely
in the course of the contest, yet, notwithstanding the causes which
rendered it a less prominent subject of debate than elsewhere, it
occasionally rises to view. The first instance of clerical marriage
that I find recorded occurred in 1538, when Thomas Coklaw, parish
priest of Tillibodie, married a widow of the same village named
Margaret Jameson. This, however, was not done openly and defiantly, as
in Germany, but in secret, and the married couple continued to dwell
apart. That the infraction of the canons was not without danger was
shown by the result, for, when it became known, Coklaw was tried by the
Bishop of Dumblane and condemned to perpetual imprisonment; but his
relatives broke open his dungeon and he escaped to England. When, early
in the following year, a group of reformers, including Dean Thomas
Forret, Friar John Killore, Friar John Beverege, and others, were put
on trial, their presence at this wedding was one of the crimes for
which they were executed upon Castle Hill at Edinburgh.[1312] In fact,
the abrogation of the rule of celibacy, in Scotland as elsewhere, was
necessarily one of the leading points at issue between the Reformers
and the Catholics. Thus, when George Wishart, one of the early heretics
who ventured openly to preach the Lord Jesus, was seized, in spite
of powerful protectors, and after a prolonged captivity was brought
for trial before Cardinal Beatoun in 1545, in the accusation against
him article 14th asserted, “Thou false Hereticke hast taught plainly
against the Vows of Monks, Friers, Nuns, and Priests, saying, That
whosoever was bound to such like Vows, they vowed themselves to the
state of damnation. Moreover, That it was lawfull for Priests to marry
wives and not to live sole.” Wishart tacitly confessed the truth of
this impeachment by rejoining—“But as many as have not the gift of
chastity, nor yet for the Gospel have overcome the concupiscence of
the flesh, and have vowed chastity; ye have experience, although
I should hold my tongue, to what inconveniences they have exposed
themselves.”[1313] He was accordingly condemned as an incorrigible
heretic, and promptly burnt. Yet when, in 1547, John Knox held his
disputation with Dean Wynrame and Friar Arbuckle, though the nine
articles drawn up for discussion ranged from the supremacy of the pope
and the existence of purgatory to the payment of tithes, the subject of
vows of chastity was not even mentioned.[1314]
Still, even as late as 1558 the trial of Walter Mill shows that the
question was even yet agitated in the controversies between the
polemics of the two parties. Mill had been a priest and had married,
and the first of the articles of accusation against him was that he
asserted the lawfulness of sacerdotal marriage. To this he boldly
assented, declaring that he regarded matrimony as a blessed bond,
open for all men to enter, find that it were better for priests to
marry than to vow chastity and not preserve it, as they were wont to
do. Condemned to the stake, the unfortunate old man commanded the
sympathies of the people, even in the archiepiscopal town of St.
Andrews. No one could be found to act as executioner, until at length
one of the servants of the archbishop consented to fill the abhorrent
office; but when a rope was sought with which to bind the wretched
sufferer to the stake, no one would furnish it, and the tragedy was
necessarily postponed. Equally unsuccessful was the next day’s search,
until the archbishop, fearing to lose his victim, gave the cords of his
own pavilion, and the sentence was carried into effect. Even after the
sacrifice, the popular feeling was manifested raising a pile of stones
as a monument on the place of torture, and as often as these were
cast aside by the priests they were replaced by the people, until the
followers of the archbishop carried them off by night, and used them
for building.[1315]
These incidents show us that the question received its share of
attention in the controversy by which each side endeavored to secure
the support of the nation, but it makes no appearance in public
negotiations and declarations. Thus, in 1558, when the growing
strength of the Lords of the Congregation led the Catholics to
offer concessions, which were rejected by the conscious power of
the Reformers, there was no allusion to celibacy on either side.
In fact, between the respective leaders, the questions were almost
purely personal and political; while among the conscientiously
religious supporters of either party, opinions were too rigidly
defined for argument. Convictions were too divergent and too firm for
compromise or concession to be possible, and Catholic and Calvinist
grimly recognized, as by a tacit understanding, the alternative of
extermination. When the English alliance at last drove the Catholics to
the wall, and in July, 1560, there assembled the parliament to which by
the Articles of Leith was referred the duty of effecting a settlement
of the kingdom, the vanquished party made no struggle against their
fate. Such Catholic prelates and lords as took their seats refrained
from all debate, and allowed the victors to arrange the temporal and
spiritual affairs of the kingdom at their pleasure.
In this settlement, our subject affords a curious comparison between
the English and Scotch churches. In the former, at a period even later
than this, it was considered necessary to embody a renunciation of
celibacy in the organic law, which has been maintained to the present
day. In the latter, ecclesiastical marriage had become already so
firmly established in the minds of the Reformers that it was accepted
as a matter of course, which needed no special confirmation. Although
laws were passed prohibiting the Mass and abolishing the supremacy
of the pope, none were thought necessary to legalize the marriages
of the clergy. Even in Knox’s Confession of Faith, adopted by the
parliament on the 17th of July, there is no direct allusion to the
matter. The only passage which can be construed as having any bearing
upon it occurs in Chapter XIV., when considering “What works are
reputed good before God”—“And evill works we affirme not onely those
that are expressly done against God’s commandment, but those also that
in matters of religion and worshipping of God have no assurance, but
the invention and opinion of man, which God from the beginning hath
ever rejected, as by the prophet Isaiah and by our Master Christ Jesus
we are taught in these words—_In vain do they worship me, teaching
doctrines which are precepts of Men._”[1316]
Nothing more, in fact, was needed when the triumph of the new ideas was
so complete that Knox could exultingly exclaim, “For what Adulterer,
what Fornicator, what known Masse-monger or pestilent Papist durst have
been seen in publike within any Reformed Town within this Realme before
that the Queen arrived?... For while the Papists were so confounded
that none within the Realme durst avow the hearing or saying of Masse
then the thieves of Tiddisdale durst avow their stouth or stealing
in the presence of any upright judge.”[1317] When persecution thus
had changed sides, no minister could feel that his nuptials required
special authorization. How thoroughly, indeed, they were legitimated is
shown by a curious little incident occurring in 1563. A minister named
Baron made complaint to the General Assembly that his wife, an English
woman named Anne Goodacre, “after great rebellions by her committed,”
had left him and taken refuge in England, whereupon he requested the
Assembly to have her brought back to him. Spotswood, the Superintendent
of Lothian, with Knox and Craig, actually wrote to Archbishop Parker
officially asking him to have the woman sought for and sent to
Scotland; but Parker, considering it to be an international question
and beyond his sphere, prudently referred the request to Secretary
Cecil.[1318]
It were foreign to our object to enter into the dark details of Mary’s
short and disastrous reign. The intrigues of the camarilla, the boyish
weakness of Darnley, the subtlety of Rizzio, and the coarse ambition
of Huntley and Bothwell, were alike harmless against the earnest
reverence of the people for the new faith; and the expiring struggles
of Catholicism were too feeble to give any practical importance to the
vain attempts at reaction.
XXVIII.
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT.
It has already been observed that the dissolute and unchristian life of
the priesthood was one of the efficient causes which led to the success
of the Reformation. At an early period in the movement, the Catholic
church felt the necessity of purifying itself, if it was to retain the
veneration of the people; and the veneration of the people was now not
merely a source of revenue, but a condition of the very existence of
the stupendous structure reared upon the credulity of ages. As soon as
it became clearly apparent that Lutheranism was not to be suppressed by
the ordinary machinery, and that it was spreading with a rapidity which
portended the worst results, an effort was made to remove the reproach
which incorrigible immorality had entailed upon the church. Allusion
has been made above to the stringent measures of reform proclaimed by
the legate Campeggi at Ratisbon, in 1524, in which he acknowledged
that the new heresy had no little excuse in the detestable morals
and abandoned lives of the clergy—a truth repeatedly admitted by the
ecclesiastical authorities.[1319] His well-meant endeavors had little
result, and we have seen that, some years later, Erasmus still urged
the abolition of the rule of celibacy as the only practicable mode of
removing the scandal.
Not long afterwards the Gallican church made a strenuous effort of the
same nature to check the spread of Lutheranism. In 1521, before it
had to encounter a hostile heresy, the council of Paris had deplored
the pervading corruptions with exceeding candor. The condition of
conventual discipline was such as to threaten the very existence of the
system, and the customary denunciations of ineradicable abuses were
freely published.[1320] In 1528 the Cardinal-legate Duprat, Chancellor
of France, held a council in Paris, where he condemned, seriatim, the
new doctrines as heresies, and elevated the rule of celibacy to the
dignity of a point of faith.[1321] He also caused the adoption of
a series of canons designed to remove from the church the disgrace
caused by the laxity of clerical morals and manners. The bishops were
instructed to enforce the decrees of the councils and of the fathers
until concubinage and incontinence should be completely exterminated,
and a rule was laid down which would have been eventually effectual
if conscientiously carried out. No one was thereafter to be admitted
to holy orders without written testimony as to his age and moral
character from his parish priest, substantiated by the oaths of two
or three approved witnesses.[1322] At the same time similar councils
were held at Bourges by the Cardinal Archbishop Tournon, and at Lyons
by Claude, Bishop of Macon. To what extent these excellent rules were
put in force may be guessed by a description of the French clergy in
1560, as portrayed by Monluc, Bishop of Valence, in a speech before
the royal council. The parish priests were for the most part engrossed
in worldly pursuits, and had obtained their preferment by illicit
means, nor did there seem much prospect of an improvement so long
as the prelates were in the habit of bestowing the benefices within
their gift on their lackeys, barbers, cooks, and other serving men,
rendering the ecclesiastics as a body an object of contempt to the
people.[1323] We need, therefore, not be surprised to find in the
councils of the period a repetition of all the old injunctions, showing
that the maintenance of improper consorts and the disgrace of priestly
families were undiminished evils.[1324] This description of the French
clergy is most emphatically extended to the whole church in the project
for reformation drawn up by order of Paul III. in 1538, and to these
evils are attributed the innumerable scandals which afflicted the
faithful, as well as the contempt in which the ecclesiastical body was
held and the virtual extinction of all reverence for the services of
religion.[1325]
In 1530 Clement VII. addressed himself vigorously to the task of
putting an end to the scandalous practice of hereditary transmission
of benefices, which he describes as almost universal. A special Bull
was issued, prohibiting the children of priests or monks from enjoying
any preferment in their father’s benefices, and, recognizing that the
Roman curia was one of the chief obstacles to all reform, he provided
that if he or his successors should grant dispensations permitting
such infraction of the canons, they should be considered as issued
unwittingly, and be held null and void.[1326] Like so many others,
this Bull seems to have been forgotten almost as soon as issued, and
the pecuniary needs of the Roman court rendered it unable to abandon
so lucrative a source of revenue. Even as soon as 1538 the cardinals
to whom Paul III. committed the task of drawing up the project of
reformation cautiously intimate that they hear of such dispensations
being granted, and to this they attribute a large share of the troubles
of the church and the enmity felt towards the Holy See.[1327] This
warning passed unheeded, and, as we have seen, in 1559 a Scottish
council prayed the queen-regent to use her influence with the pope to
prevent dispensations being granted to enable illegitimate children
to hold preferment in their father’s benefices,[1328] while in 1562
the frequency and readiness with which such dispensations were still
obtained are enumerated in a list of abuses laid before the council of
Trent by Sebastian King, of Portugal, as one of the matters requiring
reformation by the supreme power of the council.[1329] To this and
other similar appeals the papal legates loftily replied that laws were
not to be prescribed to the Holy See;[1330] and the motive for the
refusal is easily comprehended when we see that in the “Taxes of the
Penitentiary” the price for a dispensation admitting the bastard of a
priest to holy orders was a ducat and a carlino.[1331]
In Spain, the most dangerous opponent of the Reformation, Ignatius
Loyola, succeeded to some extent in repressing the public and
unblushing manifestation of concubinage. His biographer states that the
female companions of the Peninsular clergy were accustomed to pledge
their faith to their consorts, as if united by the marriage-tie, and
that they wore the distinguishing costume of married women, as though
glorying in their shame.[1332] Scandalized by this, on his return to
his native land, in 1535, Ignatius exerted himself to abolish it,
together with other priestly peccadilloes, and his influence was
sufficient to procure the enactment and enforcement by the temporal
authorities of sundry laws which relieved the Spanish church from
so great an opprobrium.[1333] Yet, though this semi-authorized
cohabitation may have been checked, the custom of notorious concubinage
continued to flourish. Bernardino Diaz de Luco, a Spanish jurist, not
long afterwards, deplores the frequency of the vice, but warns judges
that they should not be over-severe in repressing it, since so few are
found guiltless, and there is danger that those who are restrained from
it may be forced into darker sins.[1334]
About the same time, Hermann von Wied, Archbishop of Cologne, undertook
the reformation of his extensive diocese. He assembled a council which
issued a series of 275 canons, prescribing minutely the functions,
duties, and obligations of all grades of the clergy. As regards the
delicate subject of concubinage, he contented himself with quoting the
Nicene canon prohibiting the residence of women not nearly connected
by blood, and added that if the degeneracy of the times prevented the
enforcement of a regulation so strict, at all events he forbade the
companionship of females obnoxious to suspicion.[1335] The good bishop
himself could hardly have expected that so mild an allocution would
have much effect upon a perverse and hardened generation.
In 1537, Matthew, Archbishop of Salzburg, assembled his provincial
synod, which, recognizing the urgent necessity of preserving the church
and protecting the people, adopted a series of reformatory canons.
Apparently afraid of promulgating them, however, it was resolved to
suppress them for the present under the pretext that the approaching
general council would regulate the discipline of the church at
large, and the archbishop contented himself with a pastoral letter
addressed to his suffragans, in which he urged upon them to consider
the contamination to which the laity were exposed through the vices
of their pastors, and timidly suggested that, if the clergy could
not restrain their passions, they should at all events indulge them
secretly, so that scandal might be avoided and the punishment of their
transgressions be left to an avenging God.[1336]
Even in the council of Trent itself, the Bishop of St. Mark, in opening
its proceedings with a speech, January 6th, 1546, drew a fearful
picture of the corruption of the world, which had reached a degree
that posterity might possibly equal but not exceed. This he assured
the assembled fathers was attributable solely to the wickedness of
the pastors, who drew their flocks with them into the abyss of sin.
The Lutheran heresy had been provoked by their own guilt, and its
suppression was only to be hoped for by their own reformation.[1337]
At a later session, the Bavarian orator, August Baumgartner, told
the assembled fathers that the progress of the Reformation was
attributable to the scandalous lives of the clergy, whose excesses he
could not describe without offending the chaste ears of his auditory.
He even asserted that out of a hundred priests there were not more than
three or four who were not either married or concubinarians[1338]—a
statement repeated in a consultation on the subject of ecclesiastical
reform drawn up in 1562 by order of the Emperor Ferdinand, with the
addition that the clergy would rather see the whole structure of the
church destroyed than submit to even the most moderate measure of
reform.[1339]
* * * * *
It is not to be wondered therefore that the Christian world had long
and earnestly demanded the convocation of an œcumenic council which
should represent all parties, should have full powers to reconcile all
differences, and should give to the ancient church the purification
thus recognized as the only efficient means of healing the schism.
This was a remedy to the last degree distasteful to the Holy See. The
recollections of Constance and Bâle were full of pregnant warnings as
to the almost inevitable antagonism between the Vicegerent of Christ
and an independent representative body, believing itself to act under
the direct inspiration of the Holy Ghost, claiming autocratic supremacy
in the church, and convoked for the special purpose of reforming
abuses, the most of which were fruitful sources of revenue to the
papal court. Such a body, if assembled in Germany, would be the pope’s
master; if in Italy, his tool; and it behooved him to act warily if he
desired to meet the unanimous demand of Christendom without risking
the sacrifice of his most cherished prerogatives. Had the council been
called in the early days of the Reformation, it could hardly have
prevented the separation of the churches; yet, in the temper which then
existed, it would probably have effected as thorough a purification
of the ecclesiastical establishment as was possible in so corrupt an
age. By delaying it until the reactionary movement had fairly set
in, the chances of troublesome puritans gaining the ascendency were
greatly diminished, and the papal court exposed itself to little danger
when, under the urgent pressure of the emperor, it at length, in 1536,
proposed to convoke the long desired assembly at Mantua.[1340]
A place so completely under papal influence was not likely to meet
the views of the opposition, and it is not surprising that both the
Lutherans and Henry VIII. refused to connect themselves with such
a council. The latter, indeed, in his epistle of April 8, 1538, to
Charles V., expressed himself more forcibly than elegantly:—“Nowe, if
he [the pope] calle us to one of his owne townes, we be afraid to be at
suche an hostes table. We saye, Better to ryse a hungred, then to goo
thense with oure bellyes fulle.”[1341] The formality of its opening,
May 17th, 1537, was therefore an empty ceremony; its transfer to
Vicenza was little more; and, as no delegates presented themselves up
to the 1st of May, 1538, it was prorogued until Easter, 1539, with the
promise of selecting a satisfactory place for the meeting. The pressure
still continued until, in May, 1542, Paul finally convoked it to
assemble at Trent. The Reformers were no better satisfied than before.
They had so long professed their readiness to submit all the questions
in dispute to a free and unbiased general council, that they could not
refuse absolutely to countenance it; but they were now so completely
established as a separate organization, that they had little to hope
and everything to fear from the appeal which they had themselves
provoked, and nothing which Rome could now offer would have brought
them into willing attendance upon such a body.[1342] They accordingly
kept aloof, and on the assembling of the council, November 22d, 1542,
its numbers were so scanty that it could accomplish nothing, and it was
accordingly suspended in July, 1543. When again convoked, March 15th,
1545, but twenty bishops and a few ambassadors were present; these
waited with what patience they might command for accessions, which were
so tardy in arriving that when at length the assembly was formally
opened, on the 13th of December, the number had increased by only five.
For fifteen months the council continued its sessions, completely under
the control of the pope, and occupied solely with measures designed
to draw the line between the Catholic and the Reformed churches more
sharply than ever.
The appeals of the German bishops and of the imperial ambassadors for
some effective efforts at reform became at length too pressing, and to
evade them, in March, 1547, the council was transferred to Bologna,
against the earnest protest of the emperor and the Spaniards, who
refused to follow.[1343] At Bologna little was done except to dispute
over the sharp protests of the emperor and to adjourn the council
from time to time, until, after falling into universal contempt, it
was suspended in 1549. Julius III., who received the tiara on the 22d
of February, 1550, signalized his accession by convoking it again at
Trent; and there it once more assembled on the 1st of May, 1551.