222 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
bold utterance and forms an important part of that body of literature wliich so powerfully moulded opinion at the time of the Reformatory councils.
The loud complaints against the state of morals at the papal court and beyond during the Avignon period increased, if possible, in strength during the time of the schism. The list of abuses to be corrected which the Council of Constance issued, Oct. 30, 1417, includes the official offences of the curia, such as reservations, annates, the sale of indulgences and the unrestricted right of appeals to the papal court. The subject of chastity it remained for individual writers to press. In describing the third Babylon, Petrarch was even more severe than Clamanges who wrote of conditions as they existed nearly a century later and accused the papal household of practising adultery, rape and all manners of fornication.^ Clamanges declared that many parishes insisted upon the priests keeping concubines as a precaution in defence of their own families. Against all canonical rules John XXIII. gave a dispensation to the illegitimate son of Henry IV. of England, who was only ten years old, to enter orders. ^ The case of John XXIII. was an extreme one, but it must be remembered, that in Bologna where he was sent as cardinal-legate, his biographer, Dietrich of Nieheira, says that two hundred matrons and maidens, including some nuns, fell victims to the future pontiff's amours. Dietrich Vrie in his History of the Council of Constance said: " The supreme pontiffs, as I know, are elected through avarice and simony and likewise the other bishops are ordained for
ruina and Clamanges' other writings and takes the view that, while the tract was written in 1401 or 1402, it was not published till 1409.
^ Mitto stuprum, raptus, incestus, adulteria, qui jam pontificalis lasciviae Indi sunt, quoted by Lea. Sacerd. Celibacy, 1. 426. Gillis li Muisis, abbot of St. Martin di Tournai, d. 13r)2, in the Recollections of his Life written a year before his death, speaks of good wines, a good table, fine attire and above all holidays as in his day the cliief occupations of monks. Cur^s and chaplains had girls and women as valets, a troublesome habit over which there was murmuring, and it had to be kept quiet. See C. V. Langlois, La vie en France au moyen age d'aprcs quelques moralistes du temps, Paris, 1908, pp. 320, 336, etc.
•^ Jan. 15, 1412. Under the name of E. Leboorde. For the document, see English Historical Review, 1904, p. 96 sq.
§ 25. NICOLAS OF CUSA. 223
gold. The old proverb ' Freely give, for freely ye have received ' is now most vilely perverted and runs ' Freely I have not received and freely I will not give, for I have bought my bishopric with a great price and must indemnify myself impiously for my outlay.' . . . If Simon Magus were now alive he might buy with money not only the Holy Ghost but God the Father and Me, God the Son." i But bad as was the moral condition of the hierarchy and papacy at the time of the schism, it was not so bad as during the last half century of the Middle Ages. The Reformatory councils are the best, though by no means the only, proof that a deep moral vitality existed in the Church. Their very summons and assembling were a protest against clerical corruption and hypocrisy "in head and members," — from the pope down to the most obscure priest, — and at the same time a most hopeful sign of future betterment.
§ 25. Nicolas of Cusa, Scholar and Churchman.
Of the theologians of the generation following Gerson and D'Ailly none occupies a more conspicuous place than the German Nicolas of Cusa, 14Q1-146J:. After taking a^prominent part in the Basel council in its earlier history, he went into tlie service of Eugenius IV. and distinguished himself bypracti^alefforts at Church reform and by writings in tjieplogy and other departments of human learning.
Bornat^Cuesji^jaaLXxfi^fiS, the son of a boatman, he left the parental home on account of harsh treatment. Coming under the patronage of the count of Manderscheid, he went to Deventer, where he I'eceived training in the school conducted by the Brothers of the Common Life. He studied law in Padi^a, and reached the doctorate, but exchanged lawjorjheology because, to follow the statement of his opponent, George of Heimburg, he had failed in his first case. At Padua he had for one of his teachers Cesarini, afterwards cardinal and a prominent figure in the Council of Basel.
In 1432 he appeared in Basel as the representative of Ulrich of Manderscheid, archbishop-elect of Treves, to advocate Ulrich's
1 Hardt, I. 104 sqq. The lament is put into the mouth of Christ.