This excess of daring arrogance brought on a fatal collapse. As in England the nobility and commons had extorted from their cowardly king the Magna Charta as a bulwark against royal and popish presump- tion, so in France the Assembly of Estates derided the papal excommunication; and when Boniface himself was imprisoned, and his successors compelled to reside at Avignon in slavish dependence upon the French kings, the papal authority received in the public esti- mation a staggering blow from which it has never re- covered. The residence of the popes at Avignon, or, as it was called even before the times of Luther, the Baby- lonian exile of the popes, was followed by the great Schism (1378-1409), when Christendom was scandal- ized by the rival claims of two or, at times, of three vicars of God, who hurled against each other frightful anathemas. Tlie papal theory that the papal see shall not be judged of by any one was thus most completely exploded, for the secular governments, the schools, the clergy, and the laity all had to make their choice be- tween the rival claimants. The clamor for a radical reformation of the Church in its head and members met with the heartiest responses from all sections of the Church, and led to the convocation of the general councils of Pisa (1409), Constance (1414-1418), and Basle (1431-1433), which asserted the superiority of oecumenical councils over the popes, and did not hesi- tate to depose popes and elect new ones. The principles which guided these councils were radically and irrecon- cilably at variance with the theories of papal absolut- ism which Gregory VII and his successors had so bold- ly proclaimed. How general the acquiescence of the leading men in the reformatory attempts of these coun- cils was may be inferred from the fact that when the Council of Pisa was called both the rival popes were abandoned by their cardinals, who united with two hundred bishops, three hundred abbots of monastic in- stitutions, many hundred doctors of theology and canon laws, and the envoys of the secular governments in the deposition of the popes. If the central idea of these councils, the superiority of the oecumenical councils over the popes, could have been carried through, the develop- ment of the lioman Catholic Church would have taken a radically different turn. But unfortunately the cunning of pope Martin V (1417-1431), who had been elected by the Council of Constance, knew how to thwart the general demands for a reformation by separate treaties with the principal Christian nations ; and his successor,
Eugenius IV (1431-1447), gained a complete victory over the Council of Basle, which, after being gradually abandoned by the Church, by the very pope whom it had opposed to Eugenius, and finally by its own mem- bers, closed its sessions after 1443 without a formal ad- journment. The power of the papacy was now grad- ually restored, and at the close of the 15th century In- nocent VIII (1484-1492) and Alexander VI (1492-1503) once more attained the highest climax of depravity which has ever disgraced any episcopal see.
HI. The Papaci) since the Reformation. — By the Ref- ormation of the IGth century a considerable portion of Christian Europe totally broke off its connection, not only with the papacy, but with the entire Church sys- tem, over which the popes, in the course of the last thousand years, had gradually obtained an absolute power. Though arising from a theological controversy of so small dimensions that pope Leo X regarded it as a monkish quarrel, the Reformation at once gathered a gigantic strength from the latent contempt of the papacy which animated millions of minds. The efforts of Leo X and his immediate successors to crush the spreading secession by the secular arm were unsuccess- ful ; and although the new order of the Jesuits succeed- ed in arresting its progress in some of the European countries, the Scandinavian kingdoms. Great Britain, Holland, Switzerland, and many of the German states were permanently lost. The fear of further losses led, however, to the removal of some of the grossest abuses in the Church; and characters like Innocent VIII and Alexander VI have not occupied the papal chair since the beginning of the Reformation. With great reluc- tance the popes consented to the convocation of a gen- eral council, which had long been called for by the na- tions of Europe, to restore peace to the Church, and to reform the existing abuses in a manner sanctioned by ecclesiastical traditions. The Council of Trent (1545- 15G3) did not succeed in reconciling the Protestants with the papacy, but it adopted some salutary rules for the government and the discipline of the Church. It had not, however, the courage to assume, with regard to the papal power, the position of the councils of Pisa, Constance, and Basle, and after its adjournment the popes again claimed and exercised the dangerous pre- rogative of explaining its decrees. Within the Church the order of the Jesuits, in consequence of its admirable organization, obtained an influence which had never before been possessed by any monastic order or other association. What the popes themselves, in default of their former power, could no longer obtain from secular governments b}' threats of excommunication, the Jes- uits endeavored to achieve by means of education and by court influence. But while accommodating to the wishes, and sometimes even the vices of powerful princes, from whom they expected a furtherance of the interests of the Church and their own order, they tried with the most uncompromising consistency to make the popes the absolute rulers of the Catholic hierarchy in matters of faith as well as of ecclesiastical adminis- tration. Everywhere they stand forth as the advo- cates of an unconditional submission to papal decisions in doctrinal controversies, and of the abolition of all the independent rights formerly possessed by the bishops, who were more and more to be converted into subaltern offices of a papal monarchy. The great popes of the Middle Ages, Gregory VII, Alexander III, Innocent HI and IV, and Boniface YIII, had clearly and boldly traced the boundary-lines of the papal theocracj' to wliich the entire human race was to be subjected; but the Jesuits have done more than all popes and bishops for develop- ing the principles according to which the administra- tion of such an empire must be carried on, in order to be consistent and effective. It was to be expected that an organization like the Jesuits should obtain an all- powerful influence at Rome. The other religious orders naturally felt jealous at the new-comer, by whom they were totally eclipsed ; not a few of the bishops rebelled