Curiosities of Christian History Part 34

A BISHOP INVITING HIS OLD MASTER (A.D. 1420).

Master Alan, the celebrated doctor, but still poor, was invited to dinner by a former disciple already a bishop, who, seeing his poverty, said, "Master, I marvel not a little that your scholars are already become great men: one is an abbot, another is a bishop, another an archbishop, and you are left in ridiculous poverty." Alan, indeed, thinking otherwise--for he had a true and right judgment as to the gradations of merit--is said to have answered thus: "You do not know," quoth he, "what is the height of the most perfect dignity, and the true greatness of man? It is not to be a great bishop, but a good clerk. Everybody knows that by the voice of three rascally canons, to whom is given the power of election, a bishop is made; but if all the saints in Paradise and all the sensible men in the world said together in one voice before G.o.d, 'Martin is a good clergyman,'

Martin would not on that account be a good clergyman if he remained an ignoramus."

A SULTAN WHO ABDICATED TWICE (A.D. 1451).

Sultan Amurath II., who died in 1451, was the only sultan who has twice abdicated, being a great warrior as well as learned, merciful, religious, charitable, and a patron of merit. He was a zealous Mussulman; and though the scimitar was their usual instrument of converting unbelievers, his moderation was attested by the Christians. His most striking characteristic was that, in the plenitude of his power at the age of forty, he discerned the vanity of human greatness, resigned the crown, and retired to join a society of saints and hermits in Magnesia. He there submitted to fast and pray and rotate with the dervishes. In two years, owing to a sudden invasion of Hungarians, his son and successor, as well as his former subjects, implored him to return and take command of his janizaries; and, after fighting and conquering, he a second time resigned the crown and resumed his monkish life. A second time he was recalled by another danger of the State, and again resumed the crown. He had not another opportunity of becoming a dancing dervish, as he died as Sultan at the age of forty-nine.

POPE NICHOLAS V. A GREAT COLLECTOR OF Ma.n.u.sCRIPTS (A.D. 1447).

When Pope Nicholas V. was elected in 1447, he had had a reputation for universal knowledge, and within the short period of eighteen months became bishop, cardinal, and Pope. A little spare man, with a keen eye and overweening self-confidence, he soon made up his mind to proclaim a crusade against the antipope, and authorised the French King to seize his territories, though this became unnecessary, owing to the antipope's resignation. This Pope lived in an age of great intellectual progress, and he took pleasure in inviting men of letters and scholars. He soon gratified a long-standing desire to collect ma.n.u.scripts, and caused many monastic libraries to be ransacked for treasures. He added in eight years five thousand ma.n.u.scripts to the Vatican library, and kept a staff of copyists and translators, and even carried out in part a new translation of the Bible. It was under his patronage that Laurence Valla, the eminent scholar, produced a treatise on the donation of Constantine, exposing the impudent forgery which had so long been palmed off by preceding Popes for the foundation of their jurisdiction over the world in general. The author, however, was astute enough to withdraw from Rome before the effect of his researches became known, for he was soon arrested by the Inquisition, and would have been burned but for the intercession of King Alfonso. The literary men whom Nicholas encouraged were given to quarrels and jealousies, and even tended towards too great an admiration of Paganism. Nicholas was also bent on rebuilding the Vatican quarter of Rome, and proceeded to act on a design of a new structure in the form of a Greek cross with a cupola; but the execution of the work had only risen a few feet above ground when the Pope died, and a yet more magnificent structure was carried out in the following century. Though these great palatial schemes were not executed, he gave his contemporaries a taste for magnificence of every kind in the services of the Church, and for mitres, vestments, altar-coverings, and gold inwoven curtains. He patronised the saintly painter Angelico, and sculptors and architects. He also had a most successful jubilee in 1450, which recouped his great expenditure, though the occurrence of a plague acted adversely. It happened that Constantinople fell a prey in Nicholas's time to the Mohammedans, who despoiled and profaned the churches and dispersed the treasures of Greek literature. This disaster, which happened in 1453, caused much sympathy; for the Emperor Frederick was said to weep at the news and express a vague wish for a crusade, though he took no active step. At a great festival at Lille, a lady representing the Church appeared before the Duke of Burgundy seated on an elephant led by a giant, and in a versified speech invoked a.s.sistance, which led the Duke to register a vow to succour the Church; but the enthusiasm soon died away. The Pope, however, consoled the chiefs of Christendom by issuing a bull, in which he declared the founder of Islam to be the great red dragon of the Apocalypse, and invited the princes to buy indulgences in order to raise a fund to exterminate the infidels. It was maliciously insinuated, however, that the money thus raised only went to pay for needless fortifications at Rome, and nowise to influence affairs in the East. The Pope died in 1455 before any of these great enterprises were begun. It was said that Pope Nicholas's example stirred up the Florentine merchant Cosmo de Medicis to carry on similar researches for old ma.n.u.scripts, and his grandson Lorenzo de Medicis procured from the East a further treasure of two hundred writings. The Greek language came to be publicly taught in the University of Oxford towards the end of the fifteenth century.

A FOP ELECTED POPE PAUL II. (A.D. 1464).

In 1464 the choice of the cardinals for a new Pope fell on Peter Barbo, a Venetian of high descent. He had been made a cardinal at twenty-two by his uncle, and had always been noted for his elegant and foppish manners. The previous Pope, Pius II., used to call him _Maria pientissima_, on account of his soft and affected manner, coupled with a faculty of shedding tears at will when urging any request. He was so vain of his handsome appearance that he proposed to a.s.sume the name of Formosus, till some cardinals laughed him out of it. His love of display and theatrical show led him to spend large sums on jewels, precious stones, and millinery; and to provide means for this great end of his being, he took care to keep in his hands the income of vacant offices, and postpone the appointments. He not only clothed himself in gorgeous attire, but to heighten the dramatic effect he painted his face. One peculiarity of his was to transact all his business by night, probably owing to the artificial manner in which he presented himself, and to prevent cracks in his enamel being detected. He is said to have given an impulse to the festivities of the Roman carnival, and used to watch with congenial interest and enthusiasm the frolics of old and young during the races on the Corso, where Jews, horses, a.s.ses, and buffaloes were the performers. The cardinals, on appointing this Pope, bound him over to many urgent duties and stipulations, but he threw off these inc.u.mbrances as he would put off his cloak. He spent most of his energies in seeking and buying alliances in Germany and in selling offices. He also entertained the Emperor on a visit of seventeen days, and showed him all the jewels. One day Paul II. was found dead in his bed in 1471, the popular belief being that he had been killed by a devil, which he was said to carry locked up in a signet ring; and this solution was entirely satisfactory.

HOW POPE LEO X. WAS ELECTED (A.D. 1513).

John de Medicis was elected Pope in 1513, and took the t.i.tle of Leo X. He had been made cardinal at fourteen. He had been dissipated in his youth, and had undergone a serious surgical operation at the time of his predecessor's death, and was carried in a horse litter to join the conclave of cardinals who were busy in measures for the election. The Cardinal de Medicis made himself so busy in canva.s.sing that his ulcer broke, causing a noisome smell in all the cells he visited. While the cardinals obstinately supported the opposing candidates, and there appeared no hope of agreement, they were yet all satisfied that poor de Medicis had not a month to live. So it occurred to several of them that it would be as well to select him for the present, so as to stave off the discords raging, and give them a few weeks longer to complete their own arrangements and arrive at unanimity. This view led to John de Medicis being at once elected Pope, though only thirty-six years old. He soon recovered his health, and lived eight years longer, so that the old cardinals had occasion to repent of their credulity. The young Pope celebrated his coronation by lavish expenses. He insisted on being crowned on the same day that he lost the battle of Ravenna and was taken prisoner, and rode the same Turkish horse that bore him on that day. This horse was greatly valued, and carefully kept and pampered to an extreme old age. Leo X.'s head was full of the magnificence of ancient Rome, which he sought to perpetuate. His life was voluptuous; he gloried in the pleasures of the chase. He protected men of wit and learning, and kept a poet laureate to make verses and act as buffoon at the revels constantly going on. While he thundered anathemas against Luther, he did not cease in private to ridicule the whole Christian doctrine as a mere fable. It is said he died in a fit of extravagant merrymaking when he heard the news that the Emperor had defeated the French at Milan. Leo X. kept a table of extraordinary luxury. He tried experiments on the cookery of monkeys and crows and peac.o.c.k sausages. He kept poets and comedians to enliven the diversions. Card-playing for heavy stakes followed the banquet. He used to scatter gold among the spectators of a game.

THE POPE TURNING PAGAN INTO CHRISTIAN MONUMENTS (A.D. 1585).

Pope Sixtus V., elected in 1585, had a genius for architectural projects, and seemed anxious to make the Rome of his time rival the ancient city. He had a rage for destroying as well as for rebuilding. He was bent on turning Pagan into Christian monuments. He allowed a statue of Minerva to stand, but took away the spear of the G.o.ddess, and put a huge cross in her hand. He dedicated the column of Trajan to St. Peter, and the column of Antoninus to St. Paul. He set his heart also on erecting the obelisk before St. Peter's, the more because he wished to see the monuments of infidelity subjected to the cross on the very spot where the Christians once suffered crucifixion. The architect, Fontana, thought it impossible; but the Pope would not listen to objections. It was an extremely difficult task to upheave the obelisk from its basis by the sacristy of the old church of St. Peter, to let it down again, transport it to another site, and there finally set it up again. It was an attempt to earn renown throughout all ages. The workmen, nine hundred in number, began by hearing Ma.s.s, confessing, and receiving the Communion. The obelisk was sheathed in straw mats and planks riveted with iron rings. There were thirty-five windla.s.ses, each worked by two horses and ten men. The signal was given by sound of trumpet. The obelisk was raised from the site on which it had stood fifteen hundred years. A salvo was fired from the castle of St.

Angelo; all the bells of the city pealed; and the workmen carried their architect in triumph round the barrier with never-ending hurrahs. Seven days afterwards the obelisk was let down with no less dexterity, and then it was conveyed on rollers to its new site, and some months elapsed before its re-erection. A force of one hundred and forty horses was used to elevate it. At three great efforts the obelisk was moved, and it sank on the backs of the four bronze lions that served to support it. The people exulted. The Pope was immensely satisfied, and set it down in his diary that he had achieved the most difficult work which the human mind could conceive. He erected a cross upon the obelisk, in which was enclosed a piece of the supposed real cross. Sixtus V. also wanted to complete the cupola of St. Peter's, which, it was estimated, would take ten years to do; and his eyes were never wearied in watching its progress. He set six hundred men to work at once night and day, and in twenty-two months the cupola was completed. He did not, it was true, live to see the leaden casing placed on the roof. This Pope kept a memorandum book in which every detail of his daily life was recorded; and on succeeding to the Papal throne it was noticed that his skill in finance was displayed in a profusion of complexities. He ama.s.sed great sums, and also spent great sums. One of the great sources of his profit was the sale of offices. He created offices, and then sold the nominations at a great price. He also imposed new taxes on the most laborious callings, such as those on the men who towed vessels on the river; and he taxed heavily the necessaries of life, such as wine and firewood.

THE INQUISITION AS AN INSt.i.tUTION (A.D. 1232).

Pope Gregory IX., on the plea that the bishops were overtasked, transferred in 1232 the duty of inquiring into heretics to officers specially appointed by himself. In the rules by which these inquisitors should be guided every principle of natural equity was outraged. The accused were not to be confronted with the accusers--were not even to know their names. Persons of infamous character might be received as witnesses against them. Elaborate schemes for the treacherous entrapping of victims were part of the instructions with which an inquisitor was furnished. A large share of the goods of the condemned went to the judges who condemned them; the remainder, if sometimes to the Papal Exchequer, very often went to the temporal princes who should carry out the Church's sentence, whose cupidity it was thus sought to stimulate, and whose co-operation was thus rewarded. The guiltless children of the condemned were beggared. They could hold no office; the brand of lifelong dishonour clung to them. Even the very bones of the dead were burnt to dust and dispersed to the winds or the waves. In the latter half of the fifteenth century the Inquisition found its main occupation in the burning of Jews. Torquemada, in Spain, alone sent to the stake some eight or nine thousand.

SENTENCE OF EXECUTION BY THE INQUISITION.

Owing to the mode of execution under a sentence of the Inquisition, the populace were gratified with a view of the last agonies of the martyrs for heresy. The culprit was not, as in the later Spanish Inquisition, strangled before the lighting of the f.a.gots, nor had the invention of gunpowder suggested the expedient of hanging a bag of that explosive around his neck to shorten his torture. An eyewitness thus describes the execution of John Huss at Constance in 1415: "He was made to stand upon a couple of f.a.gots, and tightly bound to a thick post with ropes around the ankles, below the knee, above the knee, at the groin, the waist, and under the arms. A chain was also secured around the neck. Then it was observed that he faced the east, which was not fitting for a heretic, and he was s.h.i.+fted to the west. f.a.gots mixed with straw were piled around him to the chin. Then the Count Palatine Louis, who superintended the execution, approached with the Marshal of Constance, and asked him for the last time to recant. On his refusal they withdrew and clapped their hands, which was the signal for the executioners to light the pile. After it had burned away there followed the revolting process of utterly destroying the half-burned body, separating it in pieces, breaking up the bones, and throwing the fragments and the viscera on a fresh fire of logs." When, as in the case of Arnold of Brescia, some of the spiritual Franciscans, Huss, Savonarola, and others, it was feared that relics of the martyr would be preserved, especial care was taken after the fire to gather the ashes and cast them into a running stream.

THE PLEASURE OF BURNING HERETICS (A.D. 1239).

When the Inquisition was becoming popular, it was commonly taught that compa.s.sion for the sufferings of a heretic was not only a weakness but a sin. As well might one sympathise with Satan and his demons writhing in the endless torment of h.e.l.l. The stern moralists of the age held it to be a Christian duty to find pleasure in contemplating the anguish of the sinner. Gregory the Great, five centuries before, had argued that the bliss of the elect in heaven would not be perfect unless they were able to look across the abyss and enjoy the agonies of their brethren in eternal fire. Peter Lombard, the Master of Sentences, quotes St. Gregory with approbation, and enlarges upon the satisfaction which the just will feel in the ineffable misery of the d.a.m.ned. Even the mystic tenderness of Bonaventura does not prevent him from echoing the same terrible exultation. The schoolmen easily proved to their own satisfaction that persecution was a work of charity for the benefit of the persecuted. By a series of edicts from 1220 to 1239 a complete code of persecution was enacted. Heretics and favourers of heretics were outlawed; their property was confiscated, their heirs disinherited. Their houses were to be destroyed, never to be rebuilt. All rulers and magistrates were required to swear that they would exterminate all whom the Church might designate as heretics, under pain of forfeiture of office. All this fiendish legislation was hailed by the Church with acclamation. The Inquisition has sometimes been said to have been founded in 1233.

THE SPANISH INQUISITION AT WORK (A.D. 1481).

In 1481 two Dominican monks were appointed to proceed to Seville and carry on the work of the Inquisition, and the Jews were hunted up with vigour and burnt in the _autos-da-fe_ of that city. In 1483 the brutal Inquisitor-General Thomas de Torquemada added further horrors. The details of these brutalities are now of no interest; but Prescott, the historian, thus sums up the situation. The proceedings of the tribunal were plainly characterised throughout by the most flagrant injustice and inhumanity to the accused. Instead of presuming his innocence until his guilt had been established, it acted on exactly the opposite principle. Instead of affording him the protection accorded by every other judicature, and especially demanded in his forlorn situation, it used the most insidious arts to circ.u.mvent and crush him. He had no remedy against malice or misapprehension on the part of his accusers or the witnesses against him, who might be his bitterest enemies, since they were never revealed to nor confronted with the prisoner, nor subjected to a cross-examination which can best expose error or wilful collusion in the evidence. Even the poor forms of justice recognised in this court might be readily dispensed with, as its proceedings were impenetrably shrouded from the public eye by the appalling oath of secrecy imposed on all, whether functionaries, witnesses, or prisoners, who entered within its precincts. The last and not the least odious feature of the whole was the connection established between the condemnation of the accused and the interests of his judges, since the confiscations which were the uniform penalties of heresy were not permitted to flow into the royal exchequer until they had first discharged the expenses, whether in the shape of salaries or otherwise, incident to the Holy Office.

TORQUEMADA'S WORK AS INQUISITOR (A.D. 1483).

Torquemada, while at the head of the Inquisition in Spain, is said to have convicted about six thousand persons annually. The Roman See during his ministration made a painful traffic by the sale of dispensations, which those rich enough were willing to obtain. This monster, the author of incalculable miseries, was permitted to reach a very old age and to die quietly in his bed. Yet he lived in such constant apprehension of a.s.sa.s.sination that he is said to have kept a reputed unicorn's horn always on his table, which was imagined to have the power of detecting and neutralising poisons, while for the more complete protection of his person he was allowed an escort of fifty horse and two hundred foot in his progresses through the kingdom. Prescott says that this man's zeal was of such an extravagant character that it may almost shelter itself under the name of insanity. He waged war on freedom of thought in every form. In 1490 he caused several Hebrew Bibles to be publicly burnt, and some time after more than six thousand volumes of Oriental learning, on the imputation of Judaism, sorcery, or heresy, at the _autos-da-fe_ of Salamanca, the very nursery of science.

AN "AUTO-DA-Fe" IN SPAIN (A.D. 1483).

The last scene in the dismal tragedy of a so-called trial before the Inquisition, says Prescott, was the Act of Faith (_auto-da-fe_)--the most imposing spectacle, probably, which has been witnessed since the ancient Roman triumph, and which was intended, somewhat profanely, to represent the terrors of the Day of Judgment. The proudest grandees of the land, on this occasion, putting on the sable livery of familiars of the Holy Office and bearing aloft its banners, condescended to act as the escort of the ministers, while the ceremony was not unfrequently countenanced by the royal presence. It should be stated, however, that neither of these acts of condescension, or more properly humiliation, was witnessed until a period posterior to the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella. The effect was further heightened by the concourse of ecclesiastics in their sacerdotal robes, and the pompous ceremonial which the Church of Rome knows so well how to display on fitting occasions, and which was intended to consecrate, as it were, this b.l.o.o.d.y sacrifice. The most important actors in the scene were the unfortunate convicts, disgorged for the first time from the dungeons of the tribunal.

a.s.sa.s.sINATION OF A SPANISH INQUISITOR (A.D. 1486).

When Ferdinand and Isabella, in 1486, introduced the Inquisition into Arragon, the higher orders and the Cortes were greatly opposed to it, and sent a deputation to the Court of Rome and to Ferdinand to suspend an inst.i.tution so hateful and oppressive. Both Pope and King paid no regard to the remonstrance. The Arragonese thereupon, in self-defence, formed a conspiracy for the a.s.sa.s.sination of Arbues, and subscribed a large sum to defray the expenses. Arbues, being conscious of his unpopularity, wore under his monastic robes a suit of mail and a helmet under his hood, and his sleeping apartment was well guarded. But the conspirators managed to surprise him while at his devotions. Near midnight Arbues was on his knees before the great altar of the cathedral at Saragossa. They suddenly surrounded him; one of them wounded him in the arm with a dagger, while another dealt a fatal blow in the back of his neck. The priests, who were preparing to celebrate matins in the choir, hastened to the spot, but too late. They carried the bleeding body of the inquisitor to his apartment, but he survived only two days, and it is said he blessed the Lord that he had been permitted to seal so good a cause with his blood. This murder was soon avenged, and the bloodhounds of the tribunal tracked the murderers, after hundreds of victims were sacrificed, cut off their right hands, and hanged them; and Arbues was even honoured as a martyr, and after two centuries was, in 1664, canonised as a saint.

CARDINAL XIMENES AND QUEEN ISABELLA (A.D. 1495).

Cardinal Ximenes, who had acquired great reputation for the austere life he had led, was appointed confessor to Queen Isabella in 1492, and in 1495 was appointed by her Archbishop of Toledo. He maintained all his austerities in the new situation. Under his robes of silk or fur he wore the coa.r.s.e frock of St. Francis, which he used to mend with his own hands.

He used no linen about his person or his bed, and slept on a miserable pallet, which was concealed under a luxurious couch. He was a rigorous reformer of the monkish fraternities, and this excited violent complaints.

The general of the Franciscans, full of rage, demanded an audience of the Queen; and when challenged by her for his rudeness and for forgetting to whom he was speaking, he petulantly replied, "Yes; I know well whom I am speaking to--the Queen of Castile, a mere handful of dust, like myself!"

The Queen was not moved by this insolence, but supported Ximenes in his trenchant reforms. Ximenes vehemently urged the King and Queen in 1499 to extirpate the Mohammedan religion, and he did not scruple to bribe the Moors to accept baptism, and it was said he baptised three thousand in one day. In 1502 he procured a decree enforcing baptism or exile on all Moors above fourteen. Ximenes founded the University of Alcala, which was opened in 1508. He also carried out a scheme for publis.h.i.+ng a Bible, being the first successful attempt at a polyglot version of the Scriptures. This took fifteen years to prepare, and it was completed in 1517. Charles V.

wrote a cold-blooded letter, dispensing with Ximenes's services, and it so excited the cardinal that he was seized with fever and died at the age of eighty-one.

SOME SO-CALLED IRREPRESSIBLE HERETICS (A.D. 1080).

Among all the sects of the Middle Ages, by far the most important in numbers and radical antagonism to the Church were the Cathari or the Pure, as with characteristic sectarian satisfaction they styled themselves.

Albigenses they were called in Languedoc, Patarenes in North Italy, Good Men by themselves. Stretching through Central Europe to Thrace and Bulgaria, they joined hands with the Paulicians of the East, and shared in their views, which have been variously represented, and were somewhat mystical. It is difficult to understand the mighty attraction which these doctrines--partly Gnostic, partly Manichean--exercised for so long a time on the minds and hearts of many. Baxter's estimate of the Albigenses was--Manichees with some better persons mixed. First attracting notice in the latter half of the eleventh century, the Cathari multiplied with extraordinary rapidity, so that in many districts they were during the next century more numerous than the Catholics. St. Bernard, who undertook a mission among them in 1147, describes the churches of the Catholics as without people, and the people without priests. The Cathari disappeared at the close of the thirteenth century, and then the Beghards and Beguins become prominent, who were pietists a.s.sociated for works of Christian beneficence. Then some extreme Franciscans were mixed up with them, and called themselves Zealots, or Little Brethren, or Spirituals. These remonstrants drifted by degrees into open antagonists of the Church, and talked of the Pope as the mystical antichrist. Other less commendable mediaeval sects were the Brethren and Sisters of the Free Spirit. About this time all countries were hotbeds of various sects. Pope Innocent III.

tried to let loose a crusading army, under Simon de Montfort, against the Cathari, and great brutalities were perpetrated, and at length the still more brutal Inquisition carried on the purposeless warfare.

WALDENSES SEEKING THE SCRIPTURES (A.D. 1179).

The Waldenses may be described as representing the general craving of the better cla.s.s of Christians of their time for a fuller acquaintance with the Scriptures. Peter Waldo, a rich citizen of Lyons, obtained from two friends in the priesthood a copy of the Gospels and a collection of the sayings of the Fathers. He sold all his goods and a.s.sociated himself with others in search of a higher standard of living than was then met with.

They were called the Poor Men of Lyons on one side of the Alps, the Poor Men of Lombardy on the other side. They began on the stock of their acquired knowledge of the Scriptures to preach in the streets, thus diffusing this precious knowledge. They had no intention of opposing the Church; but the bishops of the day foresaw that dangerous knowledge was likely to spread and cause trouble. In 1178 the Archbishop of Lyons forbade their preaching. They tried to get the Pope's sanction to circulate a translation of the Scriptures. The Pope, after due inquiry, dismissed the deputation and condemned them to absolute silence. This sentence did not convince. There were German and Swiss reformers then rising up, seeking similar ends. The authorities, however, rather hunted them, sometimes as wild beasts, and always subjected them to persecution and outrage, both in France and Savoy. They retired into mountain fastnesses from their persecutors. Milton's sonnet well immortalises and avenges "these slaughtered saints, whose bones lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold."

A LAWYER FOR A POPE (A.D. 1605).

Pope Paul V. was elected in 1605. He had been a lawyer, and excelled in that profession, and then rose successively through all the grades of ecclesiastical dignity. It was noticed how skilfully he avoided making enemies, and this characteristic marked him out for the supreme dignity.

He was chosen Pope unexpectedly, but this only caused him to attribute his good fortune to a direct interposition of the Holy Ghost. He became at once exalted in his own estimation above himself and all his contemporaries as a heaven-born Vicar of Christ. He soon resolved to introduce into ecclesiastical polity the rigour, exact.i.tude, and severity of the civil code. Other Popes signalised their elevation by some act of clemency or grace. He began by striking terror into the bystanders by a severe sentence. A poor author had written a Life of a prior Pope, and compared him to the Emperor Tiberius; but the work was unpublished, and lay only as a ma.n.u.script in the author's desk. The matter came to the ears of this Pope, who, notwithstanding the intercession of amba.s.sadors and princes, ordered the writer to be beheaded one morning on the bridge of St. Angelo, the crime being treated as treason. The same Pope treated as a mortal sin the practice of non-residence in a bishop. He treated decretals as laws of G.o.d, and all who disobeyed them as blasphemers.

Excommunication was freely launched against petty misdemeanants. He claimed rights of sovereignty over Venice, which for centuries had been in abeyance. He a.s.serted indeed a universal sovereignty, and treated all mankind as sheep who had no business to criticise or question their shepherd. It has been said his overweening arrogance only made the Protestant reaction, then beginning, more prompt and decisive.

CHAPTER XII.