History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French Revolution: Volume 1 — Causes of the Reformation, Part 2

That there was no opposition between the study of the classics and the teaching of Christianity is evidenced by the friendly attitude adopted by the Papacy towards the Humanist movement.

The Avignon Popes, Benedict XII.

(1334-42) and Clement VI.

(1342-52), heaped honours and emoluments upon Petrarch and provided him with the means of acquiring manuscripts and of meeting scholars likely to assist him.

A similar attitude towards the movement was adopted by Urban V. (1362-70).

The leading classical scholars such as Coluccio, Salutati, Francesco Bruni, Lionardo d'Aretino, etc. , were employed at the Papal court, and the apostolic college of secretaries became one of the greatest centres for the propagation of Humanism.

The troubles that fell upon the Church during the Great Western Schism diverted the attention of the rival Popes from literary pursuits; but as soon as peace had been restored by the Council of Constance Martin V. (1417-31) assembled around him in Rome many of the ablest classical scholars, and vied with his cardinals in his protection of the Humanist movement.

Eugene IV.

(1431-47) was, if anything, more favourable, but yet his sympathies did not blind him to the dangerous tendencies of the revival as manifested in the books of men like Beccadelli.

[7] With the election of Nicholas V. (1447-55)[8] the triumph of Humanism at Rome seemed secure.

The new Pope was himself one of the party.

As a tutor in Florence he had been brought into contact with the great literary men of the time and had become an ardent student of the classics, nor did his enthusiasm lose any of its ardour when he ascended the Papal throne.

His aim was to make Rome the intellectual as well as the religious capital of the world, and with this object in view he invited to his court the most distinguished scholars of the age, and bestowed upon not a few of them, such as Albergati, Capranica, and Caesarini the rank of cardinal.

That he fully recognised the advantages which religion might derive from the revival of letters, and that he aimed at employing the services of the Humanists in defence of Christianity is evident from the works to which he directed the attention of scholars.

The texts of the Scripture, the translations of the Greek Fathers, and the preparation of critical studies on the Lives of the Saints were amongst the works recommended to his literary friends.

At the same time he did not proclaim war upon the less orthodox of the Humanist school.

Men like Valla, Poggio, Filelfo, and Marsuppini were treated with friendliness and even with favour.

Whether such a line of conduct was dictated by prudence and by the hope of winning over these scholars to a better understanding, or whether his anxiety for the success of his own literary schemes blinded him to the serious excesses of such leaders it is difficult to say; but, at any rate, it serves to show the great liberty enjoyed by literary men at this period even in the very city of the Popes.

As a means of ensuring to Rome the most prominent place in the revival, agents were dispatched to Greece, Turkey, Germany, France, and even to Sweden and Norway, to hunt for manuscripts.

No expense was spared to secure everything that could be purchased or to have copies made where purchase was impossible.

In order to preserve these treasures and make them available for scholars the Vatican Library was undertaken by orders of the Pope.

Though long before this time the library of the Popes was of considerable importance, yet on account of the immense number of volumes produced by Nicholas V. he is generally regarded as the founder of the Vatican Library.

The number of volumes which it contained at the time of his death is variously estimated at from one to nine thousand.

The works of the Fathers of the Church, and the Scholastics and Canonists were well represented.

[9] After the death of Nicholas V. the Pagan side of the Humanist movement became more and more apparent.

Pius II.

(1458-64), who, as Aeneas Sylvius, was well known as a clever writer of the Humanist school, seems as Pope to have been decidedly suspicious of his former friends.

His own private library was filled with Christian authors, and care was taken to show favour only to those classical scholars whose writings were above reproach.

Yet the cares of his office and the promotion of the crusade on which he had set his heart prevented him from taking the necessary steps for the purification of his court, and, as a result, many of the members of the College of Abbreviators were allowed to remain in office though they were really Pagan at heart.

Paul II.

could not tolerate such a state of affairs.

He promptly abolished the College of Abbreviators, suppressed the Roman Academy, and arrested its two prominent leaders, Pomponius Laetus and Platina.

If Paul II.

erred on the side of severity some of his successors went to the other extreme of laxity.

The period of the political Popes, from Sixtus IV.

to Julius II.

(1471-1513), was marked by a serious decline in the religious spirit, nor can it be said that the policy of the Popes was calculated to check the downward tendency.

Their attention was occupied too much by the politics of the petty Italian States to permit them to fulfil the duties of their high office; and, as a consequence, the interests of religion were neglected.

Sixtus IV.

adopted the friendly attitude of Nicholas V. towards the Renaissance.

The College of Abbreviators was restored, the Roman Academy was recognised, and Platina was appointed librarian.

The manuscripts in the Vatican Library were increased, more ample accommodation was provided, and every facility was given to scholars to consult the papal collection.

Hence it is that Sixtus IV.

is regarded generally as the second founder of the Vatican Library.

The revolutions and wars, caused by the invasion of Italy by the French and the Spaniards during the closing years of the fifteenth century and the early portion of the sixteenth, dealt a serious blow to Humanism in Florence, Milan, Venice, and other Italian centres.

But the misfortunes of those cities served to strengthen the movement at Rome.

Julius II.

(1503-13) proved himself a generous patron of literature and in a special manner of art.

Men like Giuliano da Sangello, Sansovino, Bramante, Michael Angelo, and Raphael were invited to Rome and induced to devote their genius to the service of religion and the glory of the Papacy.

On the death of Julius II.

in 1513 the complete triumph of the Humanist movement in Rome was assured by the election of Giovanni de' Medici who took the name of Leo X. (1513-21).

[10] As the son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, to whom Florence owes its literary renown, and as the pupil of the celebrated Humanists, Poliziano and Marsilio Ficino, he was committed almost of necessity to the Humanist movement.

Scholars and artists flocked to Rome from all sides to greet the new Pope and to assure themselves of his favour and protection.

Under the new regime literary merit was the principal qualification sought for in candidates aspiring to the highest ecclesiastical honours.

The Roman University was reorganised;

the search for manuscripts was renewed with vigour; a new college for the promotion of Greek studies in Rome was founded, and the services of Lascaris and Musuro were secured; and artists like Raphael and Bramante received every encouragement.

Humanism was at last triumphant in Rome, but, unfortunately, its triumph was secured at the expense of religion.

Nor was Humanism destined to enjoy the fruits of the victory for a lengthened period.

The outbreak of the Reformation and the capture of Rome by the soldiers of Charles V. turned the attention of the Popes to more pressing concerns.

The Renaissance movement in Germany is due largely to the influence of Italian scholars and to the teaching of the Brothers of the Common Life in their school at Deventer.

[11] The close political relations existing between the German States and the cities of Northern Italy, the mission of Petrarch to the court of Charles IV.

, the intermingling of German and Italian scholars at the councils of Constance, Florence, and Basle, and the exertions of Aeneas Sylvius, afterwards Pius II.

, during his term of office as Chancellor of Frederick III.

, helped largely to promote the study of the classics in Germany, especially when the invention and development of the art of printing had solved the difficulty of procuring manuscripts.

As in Italy, Humanism owes much of its success to the generosity of powerful patrons such as the Emperor Maximilian I. , Frederick Elector of Saxony and his kinsman, Duke George, Joachim I. of Brandenburg, and Philip of the Palatinate, Bishop John von Dalberg of Worms, and Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz;

and as in Italy the academies were the most powerful means of disseminating classical culture, so also in Germany learned societies like the /Rhenana/, founded by Bishop Dalberg, and the /Danubiana/ in Vienna, were most successful in promoting the literary propaganda.

But, unlike the Italian, the German revival was assisted largely by the universities.

Basle, Erfurt, Heidelburg, and Leipzig showed unmistakably their sympathy towards the movement, and in a short time the programmes of university studies in nearly all the leading centres were modified in accordance with the new ideas of education.

Scholasticism was obliged to make way for the classics and natural science.

Cologne, alone in Germany, refused to abandon its old system, and, though not unfriendly to the classics, as is evident by the presence of Ortwin Gratius on its list of professors, still it showed itself highly distrustful of the tendencies of some of the Humanist leaders.

Yet German Humanism had little, if anything, in common with the flagrant irreligion and immorality of the Italian school.

With one or two exceptions German Humanists never assailed revealed religion as such, but attacked instead the prevailing educational system, which they held to be responsible for the widespread ignorance and general decline of the religious spirit.

Many of the leading German scholars were exemplary in their moral character and in their loyalty to the Church, and few, even of those who were regarded as hostile, showed any sympathy with Luther once they understood that he aimed at revolt rather than reform.

Some of the greatest of the German Humanists differed from their Italian contemporaries also in the fact that they turned the intellectual revival into scientific channels, and made the study of the classics subservient to mathematical and astronomical research.

Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa (1400-64), George Peurbach of Vienna (d. 1461), John Muller of Konigsberg (1436-76), better known by his Latin name Regiomontanus, and the great churchman and astronomer Copernicus (1473-1543) belonged to this section, which prepared the way for modern scientific developments.

With these men religion and science went hand in hand.

On the purely literary side the most famous of the German Humanists were Conrad Celtes (1459-1508) the most active of the promoters of the classical revival beyond the Alps and one of the earliest of the German poets; Pirkeimer (1470-1528), who hoped for great things from the Lutheran movement at first, but having realised its real nature remained loyal to the Church; Mutianus Rufus (1471-1526), a canon of Gotha and at the same time a well-known free-thinker; Grotus Rubeanus (1480-1504), who at first favoured Luther; Jakob Wimpheling (1450- 1528), and Johannes Trithemius (1462-1516), the learned historian and abbot of Sponheim; Ulrich von Hutten (1488-1523), and Johann Reuchlin (1455-1522).

Of these the most important from the point of view of ecclesiastical history are von Hutten[12] and Reuchlin.

The former was born in the year 1488 and was sent for his education to the monastery of Fulda, from which he fled with very little mental equipment except a lasting hatred and distrust for all monks and ecclesiastics.

As a wandering student he visited the leading centres of learning in Germany and Northern Italy, where he was particularly remarkable for his dissolute life, his ungovernable temper, and his biting sarcasm.

Taking advantage of the rising spirit of unfriendliness between the Teuton and the Latin countries, he posed as a patriot burning with love for Germany and the Germans, and despising the French, the Italians, and in particular the Pope.

Against the monks and theologians he directed his bitterest satires, to the delight of many, who did not foresee the dangers of such attacks at a time when the German nation generally was growing less friendly to the Papacy.

A dispute, which broke out about the destruction or suppression of Jewish books, afforded him a splendid opportunity of venting his spleen against the Church.

A converted Jew of Cologne named Pfefferkorn advocated the suppression of all Jewish religious books except the Old Testament, as the best means of converting his former co-religionists.

The Emperor, Maximilian, was not unwilling to listen to such advice supported as it was by the universities of Cologne, Mainz, and Erfut.

Reuchlin, a professor of Heidelberg and himself a well-known Hebrew scholar, opposed such a policy as bad in itself and as injurious to the proper understanding of the Old Testament.

A warm controversy thereupon ensued.

The Dominicans of Cologne espoused the cause of Pfefferkorn, while the Humanists, scenting in the attack upon Jewish literature an onslaught directed against the entire literary revival, supported the contentions of Reuchlin.

It was a war between two opposing schools--the Theologians and the Humanists; and, unfortunately for the Theologians, they had selected their ground badly, and were but poorly equipped for a battle in which victory was to be decided by popular opinion.

Reuchlin was summoned to appear before the Inquisitor to answer for the views put forward in his /Augenspeigel/ (1511), and was condemned.

He appealed to Rome, and the Bishop of Speier was ordered to investigate the case.

The result was the acquittal of Reuchlin (1514), but his adversaries, having objected to the mode of trial, the case was transferred once more to the Roman courts.

Meanwhile the controversy was carried on in Germany with great bitterness.

Reuchlin published a volume of sympathetic letters[13] received by him from the leading scholars of Germany, and Erasmus issued a new edition (1515) of his /Praise of Folly (Encomium Moriae)/ in which he ridiculed especially the monks and theologians.

But the book which was most damaging to the opponents of Humanism was beyond doubt the /Epistolae virorum obscurorum/.

It was a work consisting of two volumes, the first brought out by Grotus Rubeanus in 1514, and the second mostly from the pen of Urich von Hutten (1517).

Like Reuchlin's work it purported to be a collection of letters addressed by the theologians to Ortwin Gratius, the champion of Cologne university and, indeed, of the whole Scholastic party.

It was full of bitterness and vulgarity, but, as a humorous caricature of the theologians, their arguments and modes of expression, it was calculated to make them ridiculous especially in the eyes of the university students.

Against an attack of this kind serious arguments were unavailing, and, unfortunately, there was no apologist of theology capable of producing a reply couched in a strain similar to that of the /Epistolae/.

Gratius himself did undertake the task in his /Lamentationes obscurorum virorum/, but without success, and undoubtedly in the eyes of the general public the victory rested with the Humanists.

The whole controversy was extremely unfortunate, because it helped to blind many to the real issues at stake when the Lutheran movement began.

By it the Theologians and Humanists were divided into two hostile camps, with the result that the latter were inclined to support Luther against their own former opponents and in vindication of the liberal policy which they had advocated; while the Theologian, having been discredited as narrow-minded obscurantists in the eyes of a large body of university men, were handicapped seriously in a struggle with Luther even though their struggle was for fundamental religious principles.

[14] The most remarkable of the men, who, though not Germans, were closely identified with German Humanists, was Desiderius Erasmus (1466- 1535).

[15] He was born at Rotterdam, was sent to school with the Brothers of the Common Life at Deventer, entered a monastery of the Canons Regular attracted by its library rather than by its rule, and left it after two years to become secretary to the Bishop of Cambrai.

He studied classics at the University of Paris, and after his ordination as priest by the Bishop of Utrecht he became a tutor to an English nobleman.

Later on he paid a visit to England, where he received a warm welcome from scholars like Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, Colet, Dean of St. Paul's, and Sir Thomas More, and where he was honoured by an appointment as Professor of Greek in Oxford.

But the fever of travel was upon him.

He returned to Paris, made a brief stay at Louvain, and started out to visit the leading literary centres of Italy, notably Bologna, Venice, and Rome, in the latter of which he was well received by Julius II.

On the accession of Henry VIII.

he returned to England and lectured for some time at Cambridge.

Later on he removed to Basle and settled down to the work of preparing editions of the New Testament and of the Fathers.

The triumph of the Reformation party in Basle drove him for a time to seek a refuge in Freiburg, but he returned to die at Basle in 1536. In his wanderings Erasmus was brought into contact with the leading scholars of France, England, Germany, and Italy, and was thoroughly acquainted with the lights and shadows of the Renaissance movement.

In his knowledge of Greek he was surpassed by few of his contemporaries, and in the purity and ease of his Latin style he stood without a serious rival.

Like many others of the Humanist school he delighted in attacking the ignorance of the monks and Scholastics, and in denouncing the abuses of the age, though, as was the case with most of the literary reformers of the time, his own life as an ecclesiastic was far from exemplary.

Yet Erasmus himself was never an enemy of Christianity, nor did he desire the overthrow of ecclesiastical authority.

He did, indeed, advocate reform, and in his advocacy of reform he may have been carried too far at times, but in his heart Erasmus had little sympathy with doctrinal changes.

Ignorance he believed to be at the root of the decline of religion, and hence he would have welcomed a complete change in the educational system of the Church.

Instead of Scholasticism he advocated study of the Scriptures and of the early Fathers, and in order to prepare the way for such a policy he devoted himself at Basle to the task of preparing an edition of the New Testament and of the Greek Fathers.

He was on terms of the closest intimacy with the leading Humanists of Germany, and shared all their contempt for scholastic theologians and much of their distrust of the Pope and the Roman Curia.

Hence the sympathy and encouragement of Erasmus were not wanting to Luther during the early days of his revolt and before the true object of the movement was rightly understood; but once Erasmus realised that union with Luther meant separation from the Church he became more reserved in his approval, and finally took the field against him.

In his work, /De Libero Arbitrio/, he opposed the teaching of Luther on free will, and before his death he received a benefice from Paul III.

which he accepted, and an offer of a cardinal's hat which he declined.

His life as an ecclesiastic was certainly not edifying, and his hatred of ignorance, antiquated educational methods, and abuses may have led him into excesses, but his theology was still the theology of the Middle Ages rather than that of the German Reformers.

In France the earliest of the Humanists were Nicholas of Clemanges and Gerson, both rectors of Paris University, and both well-known theologians.

They were specially active in putting an end to the Great Western Schism, but in doing so they laid down certain principles that led almost inevitably to Gallicanism.

The influence of these two men did not, however, change the policy of Paris University.

For years France lagged behind in the classical movement, and it was only in the early portion of the sixteenth century that French Humanism made itself felt.

The movement gained ground by the exertions of individuals and of literary societies, by the results of the activity of the printing press, and the protection of influential patrons at the Court of Francis I. (1515-47).

Paris University became more friendly to the classics, and eminent scholars like Lascaris and Aleandro were invited to lecture on Greek.

The College of St. Barbe became a great classical stronghold within the university, and the movement began to develop so rapidly as to excite the jealousy and suspicions of the theologians.

This unfortunate division was rendered more acute by the foundation of the College de France in 1529. It was handed over entirely to the Humanistic party in spite of the opposition of the more conservative school, and served as a centre for all kinds of literary, philological, and antiquarian researches.