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HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH FROM THE RENAISSANCE TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
1
HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC
CHURCH FROM THE RENAISSANCE
TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION,
VOLUME I
By Rev. JAMES MacCAFFREY
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HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH FROM THE RENAISSANCE TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
2
HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
FROM THE RENAISSANCE TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
VOLUME I
BY
Rev. JAMES MacCAFFREY
Lic. Theol. (Maynooth), Ph.D. (Freiburg i. B.)
Professor of Ecclesiastical History, St. Patrick's College, Maynooth
Nihil Obstat:
Thomas O'Donnell, C.M.
Censor Theol. Deput.
Imprimi Potest:
Guilielmus,
Archiep. Dublinen.,
Hiberniae Primas.
Dublini, 16 Decembris, 1914.
PREFACE
The fifteenth century may be regarded as a period of transition from
the ideals of the Middle Ages to those of modern times. The world was
fast becoming more secular in its tendencies, and, as a necessary
result, theories and principles that had met till then with almost
universal acceptance in literature, in art, in education, and in
government, were challenged by many as untenable.
Scholasticism, which had monopolised the attention of both schools and
scholars since the days of St. Anselm and Abelard, was called upon to
defend its claims against the advocates of classical culture; the
theocratico-imperial conception of Christian society as expounded by
the canonists and lawyers of an earlier period was forced into the
background by the appearance of nationalism and individualism, which
by this time had become factors to be reckoned with by the
ecclesiastical and civil rulers; the Feudal System, which had received
a mortal blow by the intermingling of the classes and the masses in
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HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH FROM THE RENAISSANCE TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
3
the era of the Crusades, was threatened, from above, by the movement
towards centralisation and absolutism, and from below, by the growing
discontent of the peasantry and artisans, who had begun to realise,
but as yet only in a vague way, their own strength. In every
department the battle for supremacy was being waged between the old
and the new, and the printing-press was at hand to enable the patrons
of both to mould the thoughts and opinions of the Christian world.
It was, therefore, an age of unrest and of great intellectual
activity, and at all such times the claims of the Church as the
guardian and expounder of Divine Revelation are sure to be questioned.
Not that the Church has need to fear inquiry, or that the claims of
faith and reason are incompatible, but because some daring spirits are
always to be reckoned with, who, by mistaking hypotheses for facts,
succeed in convincing themselves and their followers that those in
authority are unprogressive, and as such, to be despised.
This was particularly true of some of the Humanists. At first sight,
indeed, it is difficult to understand why the revival of classical
learning should lead to the danger of the rejection of Christian
Revelation, seeing that the appreciation of the great literary
products of Greece and Rome, and that, even in the days of the
Renaissance, the Popes and the bishops were reckoned amongst the most
generous patrons of the classical movement. Yet the violence of
extreme partisans on both sides rendered a conflict almost
unavoidable.
On the one hand, many of the classical enthusiasts, not content with
winning for their favourite studies a most important place on the
programmes of the schools, were determined to force on the Christian
body the ideals, the culture, and the outlook on the world, which
found their best expression in the masterpieces of pagan literature;
while, on the other, not a few of the champions of Scholastic
Philosophy seemed to have convinced themselves that Scholasticism and
Christianity were identified so closely that rejection or criticism of
the former must imply disloyalty to the latter. The Humanists mocked
at the Scholastics and dubbed them obscurantists on account of their
barbarous Latinity, their uncritical methods, and their pointless
wranglings; the Scholastics retorted by denouncing their opponents as
pagans, or, at least, heretics. In this way the claims of religion
were drawn into the arena, and, as neither the extreme Scholastics nor
the extreme Humanists had learned to distinguish between dogmas and
systems, between what was essential and what was tentative, there was
grave danger that religion would suffer in the eyes of educated men on
account of the crude methods of those who claimed to be its authorised
exponents.
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HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH FROM THE RENAISSANCE TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
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Undoubtedly, at such a period of unrest, the Church could hardly
expect to escape attack. Never since the days when she was called upon
to defend her position against the combined forces of the Pagan world
had she been confronted with such a serious crisis, and seldom, if
ever, was she so badly prepared to withstand the onslaughts of her
enemies. The residence at Avignon, the Great Western Schism, and the
conciliar theories to which the Schism gave rise, had weakened the
power of the Papacy at the very time when the bonds of religious unity
were being strained almost to the snapping point by the growth of
national jealousy. Partly owing to the general downward tendency of
the age, but mainly on account of the interference of the secular
authorities with ecclesiastical appointments, the gravest abuses had
manifested themselves in nearly every department of clerical life, and
the cry for reform rose unbidden to the lips of thousands who
entertained no thought of revolution. But the distinction between the
divine and the human element in the Church was not appreciated by all,
with the result that a great body of Christians, disgusted with the
unworthiness of some of their pastors, were quite ready to rise in
revolt whenever a leader should appear to sound the trumpet-call of
war.
Nor had they long to wait till a man arose, in Germany, to marshal the
forces of discontent and to lead them against the Church of Rome.
Though in his personal conduct Luther fell far short of what people
might reasonably look for in a self-constituted reformer, yet in many
respects he had exceptional qualifications for the part that he was
called upon to play. Endowed with great physical strength, gifted with
a marvellous memory and a complete mastery of the German language, as
inspiring in the pulpit or on the platform as he was with his pen,
regardless of nice limitations or even of truth when he wished to
strike down an opponent or to arouse the enthusiasm of a mob, equally
at home with princes in the drawing-room as with peasants in a tavern
--Luther was an ideal demagogue to head a semi-religious, semi-social
revolt. He had a keen appreciation of the tendencies of the age, and
of the thoughts that were coursing through men's minds, and he had
sufficient powers of organisation to know how to direct the different
forces at work into the same channel. Though fundamentally the issue
raised by him was a religious one, yet it is remarkable what a small
part religion played in deciding the result of the struggle. The
world-wide jealousy of the House of Habsburg, the danger of a Turkish
invasion, the long-drawn-out struggle between France and the Empire
for supremacy in Europe and for the provinces on the left bank of the
Rhine, and the selfish policy of the German princes, contributed much
more to his success than the question of justification or the
principle of private judgment. Without doubt, in Germany, in
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HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH FROM THE RENAISSANCE TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
5
Switzerland, in England, in the Netherlands, and in the Scandinavian
countries, the Reformation was much more a political than a religious
movement.
The fundamental principle of the new religion was the principle of
private judgment, and yet such a principle found no place in the
issues raised by Luther in the beginning. It was only when he was
confronted with the decrees of previous councils, with the tradition
of the Church as contained in the writings of the Fathers, and with
the authoritative pronouncements of the Holy See, all of which were in
direct contradiction to his theories, that he felt himself obliged,
reluctantly, to abandon the principle of authority in favour of the
principle of private judgment. In truth it was the only possible way
in which he could hope to defend his novelties, and besides, it had
the additional advantage of catering for the rising spirit of
individualism, which was so characteristic of the age.
His second great innovation, so far as the divine constitution of the
Church was concerned, and the one which secured ultimately whatever
degree of success his revolution attained, was the theory of royal
supremacy, or the recognition of the temporal ruler as the source of
spiritual jurisdiction. But even this was more or less of an after-
thought. Keen student of contemporary politics that Luther was, he
perceived two great influences at work, one, patronised by the
sovereigns in favour of absolute rule, the other, supported by the
masses in favour of unrestricted liberty. He realised from the
beginning that it was only by combining his religious programme with
one or other of these two movements that he could have any hope of
success. At first, impressed by the strength of the popular party as
manifested in the net-work of secret societies then spread throughout
Germany, and by the revolutionary attitude of the landless nobles, who
were prepared to lead the peasants, he determined to raise the cry of
civil and religious liberty, and to rouse the masses against the
princes and kings, as well as against their bishops and the Pope. But
soon the success of the German princes in the Peasants' War made it
clear to him that an alliance between the religious and the social
revolution was fraught with dangerous consequences; and, at once, he
went to the other extreme.
The gradual weakening of the Feudal System, which acted as a check
upon the authority of the rulers, and the awakening of the national
consciousness, prepared the way for the policy of centralisation.
France, which consisted formerly of a collection of almost independent
provinces, was welded together into one united kingdom; a similar
change took place in Spain after the union of Castile and Aragon and
the fall of the Moorish power at Granada. In England the disappearance
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