council, before its adjournment, was to appoint the place of meeting for the next, in concurrence with the pope, or, in default of his action, by its own decision.

Provision seemed thus to be made for a regular succession of councils representing the whole church, and exercising in its name the supreme authority in doctrine and discipline which the popes had claimed for themselves. The Council of Basel (1431-'49) reaffirmed the decrees of Constance concerning the independence and authority of general councils, and replied to an attempt of the pope to dissolve it by denying his power to do so without its consent. Having no schism to claim its first attention, it was free to devote its undivided efforts to projects of reform. The council re-established the ancient rights of episcopal election against papal reservations, which it expressly prohibited, abolished some of the most obnoxious of the papal taxes altogether and greatly limited others. Indeed, it allowed its repugnance to taxation and its hostility toward the reigning pope to carry it so far in this direction as to deprive the curia of a revenue adequate to its legitimate needs, and the longer it sat the greater extremities it seemed inclined to go to.

A favourable opportunity for a diversion was given the pope by the overtures of the Greeks. The Byzantine emperor John VII, Palæologus, hard pressed by the Turks, was willing to do almost anything to gain the support of the West, and the pope conceived that the moment was opportune for the reunion of the Eastern and Western churches. He accordingly directed the council to remove to Ferrara to meet the emperor and a great train of Greek bishops who had come to Italy for the purpose. The majority of the council refused to obey this order, and continued its sessions at Basel. The pope's council was, however, opened at Ferrara, whence it was shortly transferred to Florence. After long discussions on the ancient points of controversy between the East and the West—the filioque in

the creed,1 the doctrine of purgatory, the sacrifice of the Mass, unleavened bread in the Eucharist, and the supremacy of the pope-a formal basis of union was given out in the form of a bull of Eugenius IV, "with the approval of the General Council of Florence." The Greeks yielded on all the disputed points, but with an explanation of the filioque which they could take in an orthodox sense. When the terms of this plan of union were known in the East, the indignation of the Greeks against their representatives at Florence knew no bounds. The great majority, living under Moslem dominion and therefore free to speak their whole mind, denounced the surrender to the Latins, and many of the bishops who had subscribed retracted. The West did nothing to help the Greeks against the Turks; in 1453 Constantinople fell, and nothing more was heard of the plan of union.

While the negotiations were going on at Florence, the rump of the council at Basel forfeited the remnant of respect and influence that was left it by pronouncing the deposition of Pope Eugenius and electing Felix V, thus creating a new but fortunately short-lived schism. With it the age of the reforming councils came to an end, and the attempt to substitute conciliar parliamentarism for papal monarchy.

In the second half of the fifteenth century a succession of able popes, favoured by European political conditions, restored the power and prestige of the papacy, which had been so sadly shaken by the Avignonese captivity, the great schism, and the arrogation of the councils. Under them, also, Rome succeeded Florence as the centre of the Renaissance culture in art, architecture, and letters. Nicholas V, founder of the Vatican Library, Pius II (1458-'64), Sixtus IV (1471-'84), and at the beginning of the following century,

1 In the Latin creeds the Spirit is said to proceed "from the Father and the Son. As the creed said in the Mass purported to be the creed of the Council of Nicæa, the Greeks denounced this addition as the falsification of an œcumenical symbol, and rejected it as a plain contradiction of the Gospel, which spoke only of the Spirit proceeding from the Father.

Julius II (1503-'13), and Leo X (1513-'21) are famous in the history of the Renaissance as well as in that of the papacy. They proved strong enough to reaffirm the supremacy of the pope over the whole church, and over councils, which derived their right from the pope alone. The Fifth Lateran Council under Leo X unqualifiedly asserted this doctrine, and renewed the declaration of the bull "Unam Sanctam" that it is necessary to their salvation that all Christians be subject to the Roman pontiff.1 1 Bull, Pastor æternus, 1516.

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CHAPTER X

CHRISTIANITY

THE LATER MIDDLE AGES

Rise of Universities-The Schoolmen-Thomas Aquinas-Duns Scotus -Systematisation of Theology; Aristotelianism-Nominalism— Mysticism-Hugh of St. Victor, Bernard of Clairvaux-Eckhart and His Disciples-Monastic Reforms-Military Orders-Franciscans and Dominicans Sects: Waldensians, Albigenses, Brethren of the Free Spirit-Joachim of Fiori and the Eternal Gospel-Situation in England-Wycliffe and the Lollards-John Hus and the Bohemians-The Italian Renaissance-Humanism in Other Lands.

THE new stirring of intellectual life which began in the eleventh century manifested itself in a greatly quickened interest in theological questions and the introduction of new methods in the treatment of them. In Berengar's discussion of the Eucharist, Lanfranc not only condemned the doctrine, but gave vent to his indignation that Berengar defended his position by reasoning rather than traditionas if logic had anything to do with such matters! But Lanfranc's pupil, Anselm (d. 1109), was convinced that it was possible by reason alone, without bringing in revelation or the authority of the church, to demonstrate the existence of God, the doctrine of the Trinity, the necessity of the incarnation-in short, all the principal doctrines of Christianity. In Abelard (d. 1142) the dialectic method took a more critical turn. His "Sic et Non," proved that there is no consensus of tradition to which appeal can be made as a final authority. Following a method inaugurated by the canonists, he brought the conflicting dicta of the Fathers into categorical opposition, not to overthrow the principle of authority, but to show that where doctors disagree, the contradictions can only be resolved by dialectic and critical

methods. Employing the same methods constructively, he was the first Western theologian to endeavour to cover the wide field of systematic theology. What was original in his system found little of favour in his own day or afterward, but his method was generally adopted by his successors.

It was in this age that the first universities began to grow out of the old cathedral schools and supersede them. The transition was so gradual that exact dates are arbitrary. Abelard studied and lectured in the cathedral school in Paris, but not long after his death the community of recognised scholars who held from the chancellor of the cathedral the licentia docendi developed into the University of Paris. Oxford followed at no long interval, and in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries universities were founded in most of the chief cities of western Europe. To the most famous of these, especially to Paris, students resorted by thousands from far and wide.

The loose organisation-or, rather, lack of organisation— of the universities favoured the independence of the teachers and the variety of the teaching. There were no professors appointed by a superior authority; every master who possessed the license to teach might establish himself in a university and lecture to such students as his reputation drew to hear him. Teachings which diverged too widely or too noisily from orthodox opinion were subject to ecclesiastical censure, but short of open conflict with the accepted doctrines of the church there was large liberty, and the teachers made liberal use of it.

In the universities scholastic theology, which is the greatest intellectual achievement of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, was developed. Abelard is usually taken to mark the beginning of the movement, Thomas Aquinas its culmination; in the fourteenth century its decadence began. The first stage was the application to theological questions of the "modern dialectic," derived chiefly from the logical treatises of Aristotle, of which the early schoolmen possessed only incomplete translations; and the first theoretical question