PART II. versy between the realists VII. The realists and nominalists continued their CENT. XV. disputes in France and Germany with more vigour and animosity than ever, and finding reason and The contro argument but feeble weapons, they had recourse to and nominal mutual invectives and accusations, penal laws, and ists continued. even to the force of arms; a strange method surely, of deciding a metaphysical question. The contest was not only warm, but also universal in its extent; for it infected, almost without exception, all the French and German academies. In most places however the realists maintained a manifest superiority over the nominalists, to whom they also gave the appellation of terminists. While the famous Gerson and the most eminent of his disciples were living, the nominalists were in high esteem and credit in the university of Paris. But, upon the death of these powerful and respectable patrons, the face of things was entirely changed, and that much to their disadvantage. In the year 1473, Lewis XI. by the instigation of his confessor, the bishop of Avranches, issued out a severe edict against the doctrines of the nominalists, and ordered all their writings to be seized, and secured in a sort of imprisonment, that they might not be perused by the people. But the same monarch mitigated this edict the year following, and permitted some of the books of that sect to be delivered from their confinement. In the year 1481, he went much farther; and not only granted a full liberty to the nominalists and their writings, See Brucker's Historia Critica Philosophiæ, tom. iii. p. 904. Jo. Salaberti Philosophia Nominalium Vindicata, cap. i. Baluzii Miscellan. tom. iv. p. 531. Argentre, Collectio documentor. de novis erroribus, tom. i. p. 220. • Naude's Additions a l'Histoire de Louis XI. p. 203. Du Boulay, Hist. Acad. Paris. tom. v. p. 678, 705, 708. Launoy's Histor. Gymnas Navarr. tom. iv. opp. pars i, p. 201, 378. Boulay, loc. cit. tom. v. p. 710. CENT. XV. but also restored that philosophical sect to its former authority and lustre in the university.< PART II. CHAPTER II. CONCERNING THE DOCTORS AND MINISTERS OF THE CHURCH, AND The vices of the clergy. L. THE most eminent writers of this century unanimously lament the miserable condition to which the christian church was reduced by the corruption of its ministers, and which seemed to portend nothing less than its total ruin, if Providence did not interpose, by extraordinary means, for its deliverance and preservation. The vices that reigned among the Roman pontiffs, and indeed among all the ecclesiastical order, were so flagrant, that the complaints of these good men did not appear at all exaggerated, or their apprehensions ill founded; nor had any of the corrupt advocates of the clergy the courage to call them to an account for the sharpness of their censures and of their complaints. Nay, the more eminent rulers of the church, who lived in a luxurious indolence, and the infamous practice of all kinds of vice, were obliged to hear with a placid countenance, and even to commend, these bold censors, who declaimed against the degeneracy of the church, declared that there was almost nothing sound, either in its visible head, or in its members, and demanded the aid of the secular arm, and the destroying sword, to lop off the parts that were infected with 8 The proofs of this we find in Salabert's Philosophia Nominal, Vindicata cap, i. p. 104. See also Boulay, loc. cit. tom. v. p. 739, 747. PART II. this grievous and deplorable contagion. Things, CENT. XV. in short, were brought to such a pass, that they were deemed the best christians, and the most useful members of society, who, braving the terrors of persecution, and triumphing over the fear of man, inveighed with the greatest freedom and fervor against the court of Rome, its lordly pontiff, and the whole tribe of his followers and votaries. II. tern schism continued. At the commencement of this century, the The great wes Latin church was divided into two great factions, fomented and and was governed by two contending pontiffs, Boniface IX. who remained at Rome, and Benedict XIII. who resided at Avignon. Upon the death of the former, the cardinals of his party raised to the pontificate, in the year 1404, Cosbat de Meliorati, who assumed the name of Innocent VII.h and held that high dignity during the short space of two years only. After his decease, Angeli Corrario, a Venetian cardinal, was chosen in his room, and ruled the Roman faction under the title of Gregory XII. A plan of reconciliation was however formed, and the contending pontiffs bound themselves, each by an oath, to make a voluntary renunciation of the papal chair, if that step were necessary to promote the peace and welfare of the church; but they both violated this solemn obligation in a scandalous manner. Benedict XIII. besieged in Avignon by the king of France, in the year 1408, saved himself by flight, retiring first into Catalonia, his native country, and afterward to Perpignan. Hence eight or nine of the cardinals, b Beside the ordinary writers, who have given us an account of the transactions that happened under the pontificate of Innocent VII. see Leon. Aretin. Epistol. lib. i. ep. iv. v. p. 6, 19, 21, lib. ii. p. 30, et Colluc. Salutat. Epistol. lib. ii. ep. i. p. 1, 18, edit. Florent. We have also an account of the pontificate of Gregory, in the Epistles of the same Aretin, lib. ii. iii. p. 32, ep. vii. p. 30, 41, 51, lib. ii. ep. xvii. p. 54, 56, 59. Jo. Lami Delicia Eruditorum, tom. x. p. 494. PART II. CENT. XV. who adhered to his cause, seeing themselves deserted by their pope, went over to the other side, and joining publicly with the cardinals of Gregory XII. they agreed together to assemble a council at Pisa on the 25th. of March, 1409, in order to heal the divisions and factions that had so long rent the papal empire. This council however which was designed to close the wounds of the church, had an effect quite contrary to that which was universally expected, and only served to open a new breach, and to excite new divisions. Its proceedings indeed were vigorous, and its measures were accompanied with a just severity. A heavy sentence of condemnation was pronounced the 5th. day of June, against the contending pontiffs, who were both declared guilty of heresy, perjury, and contumacy, unworthy of the smallest tokens of honour or respect, and separated ipso facto from the communion of the church. This step was followed by the election of one pontiff in their place. The election was made on the 25th. of June, and fell upon Peter of Candia, known in the papal list by the name of Alexander V. but all the decrees and proceedings of this famous council were treated with contempt by the condemned pontiffs, who continued to enjoy the privileges and to perform the functions of the papacy, as if no attempts had been made to remove them from that dignity. Benedict assembled a council at Perpignan; and Gregory another at Austria, near Aquileia, in the district of Friuli. The latter however, apprehending the resentment of the Venetians, made his escape in a clandestine manner from the territory iSee Lenfant's Histoire du Concile de Pise, published in 4to. at Amsterdam, in the year 1724. Franc. Pagi Breviar. Pontif Romanor. tom. iv. p. 350. Bossuet, Defensio Decreti Gallicani de Potestate Ecclesiastica, tom. ii. p. 17, &c. He had offended the Venetians by deposing their patriarch Antony Panciarini, and putting Antony du Pont, the bishop of Concordia, in his place. 393 PART 11. of Aquileia, arrived at Caieta, where he threw him- CENT. XV. self upon the protection of Ladislaus, king of Naples, and in the year 1412, fled from thence to Rimini. Constance as the emperor III. Thus was the christian church divided into The council of three great factions, and its government violently sembled by carried on by three contending chiefs, who loaded Sigismund. each other with reciprocal maledictions, calumnies, and excommunications. Alexander V. who had been elected pontiff at the council of Pisa, died at Bologna in the year 1410; and the sixteen cardinals, who attended him in that city, immediately filled up the vacancy, by choosing as his successor Balthasar Cossa, a Neapolitan, who was destitute of all principles, both of religion and probity, and who assumed the title of John XXIII. The duration of this schism in the papacy was a source of many calamities, and became daily more detrimental both to the civil and religious interests of those nations where the flame raged. Hence it was, that the emperor Sigismund, the king of France, and several other European princes, employed all their zeal and activity, and spared neither labour nor expense, in restoring the tranquillity of the church, and uniting it again under one spiritual head. On the other hand, the pontiffs could not be persuaded by any means to prefer the peace of the church to the gratification of their ambition; so that no other possible method of accommodating this weighty matter remained, than the assembling of a general council, in which the controversy might be examined, and terminated by the judgment and decision of the universal church. This council was accordingly summoned to meet at Constance, in the year 1414, by John XXIII. who was engaged in this measure by the entreaties of Sigismund, and also from an expectation, that the decrees of this grand assembly would be favourable to his interests. He appeared in person, attended with a great number of cardinals and |