760 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1617.
demned the papal assumption in granting full indulgence for the crusade of Henry de Spenser. Priests, he asserted, have no authority to give absolution without proper works of satisfaction and all papal absolution is of no avail, where the offenders are not of good and worthy life. If the pope has power to absolve unconditionally, he should exercise his power to excuse the sins of all men. The English Reformer further declared that, to the Christian priest it was given, to do no more than announce the forgiveness of sins just as the old priests pronounced a man a leper or cured of leprosy, but it was not possible for him to effect a cure. He spoke of " the fond fantasy of spiritual treasure in heaven, that each pope is made dispenser of the treasure at his own will, a thing dreamed of without ground." ^ Such power would make the pope master of the saints and Christ himself. He condemned the idea that the pope could " clear men of pain and sin both in this world and the other, so that, when they die, they flee to heaven without pain. This is for blind men to lead blind men and both to fall into the lake." As for the pardoning of sin for money, that would imply that righteousness may be bought and sold. Wyclif gave it as a report, that Urban VI. had granted an indulgence for 2,000 years. ^
Indulgences found an assailant in Erasmus, howbeit a genial assailant. In his Praise of Folly ^ he spoke of the " cheat of pardons and indulgences." These lead the priests to compute the time of each soul's residence in purgatory and to assign them a longer or shorter continuance according as the people purchase more or fewer of these salable exemptions. By this easy way of purchasing pardon any notorious highwayman, any plundering bandit or any bribe-taking judge ma}^ for a part of their unjust gains secure atonement for perjuries, lusts, bloodsheds, debaucheries and other gross impieties and, having paid off arrears, begin upon a new score. The popular idea was no doubt stated by Tyndale in answer to Sir Thomas More when he said, that " men might quench almost the terrible fire of hell for three halfpence."^
1 De schis. pontif., Engl. Works, ed. by Arnold, III. 1202.
2 Engl. Works, Arnold's ed., I. 210, 354 ; De eccles., p. 601. 8 See Gasquet, Eve of the Beformation, p. 384.
§ 80. THE SALE OF INDULGENCES. 761
It is fair to say that, while the last popes of the Middle Ages granted a great number of indulgences, the exact expression, "from guilt and penalty," does not occur in any of the extant papal copies ^ although some of their expressions seem fully to imply the exemption from guilt. Likewise, it must be said that they also contain the usual expressions for penitence as a condition of receiving the grace — " being truly penitent and confessing their sins " — vere poenitentibus et confessis.
Indulgences in the last century of the Middle Ages were given for all sorts of benevolent purposes, crusades against the Turks, the building of churches and hospitals, in connection with relics, for the rebuilding of a town desolated by fire, as Briix, for bridges and for the repair of dikes, such an indulgence being asked by Charles V. The benefits were received by the payment of money and a portion of the receipts, from 33 % to 50 %, was expected to go to Rome. The territory chiefly, we may say almost exclusively, worked for such enterprises was confined to the Germanic peoples of the Continent — from Switzerland and Austria to Norway and Sweden. England, France and Spain were hardly touched by the traffic. Cardinal Ximenes set forth the damage done to ecclesiastical discipline by the practice and, as a rule, it was under other pretexts that papal moneys were received from England.^
In the transmission of the papal portions of the indulgencemoneys, the house of the Fuggers figures conspicuously. Sometimes it charged 5%, sometimes it appropriated amounts not reckoned strictly on the basis of a fixed per cent. The powerful banking-firm, also responding cheerfully to any request made to them, often secured the grant of indulgences in Rome. The custodianship of the chests, into which the indulgencemoneys were cast, was also a matter of much importance and here also the Fuggers figured prominently. Keys to such
1 James of Jiiterbock in his Tract, de indulg. about 1451 says he did not recollect to have seen or read a single papal brief promising indulgence a poena et culpa. Kohler, p. 48.
2 For the details which follow, the treatment by Schulte, in his work on the Fuggers, is the chief authority. This book contains a remarkable array of figures and facts based on studies among the sources.