1542-4]

The Council of Trent

661

after an interview between them at Lucca, Paul III at length again agreed to summon a Council. Accordingly on May 22, 1542, a Bull was published summoning a General Council to meet at Trent on November 1, 1542. Trent was selected as the place of assembly, with the hope of satisfying the German demand that the Council should meet on German territory. Though the population of Trent was mainly Italian, it was within the Empire and under the protection of Charles' brother Ferdinand. At the same time it was easy of access to the Italian Bishops, and was not so far distant as to be beyond the Pope's control. It was an ecclesiastical principality under its Bishop, Christofero Madruzzo, Cardinal of Trent.

In August, 1542, Parisio, Morone, and Pole, the Legates appointed to open the Council, started for Trent; and the Council was duly opened on November 1. There were, however, only a few Italian prelates present; and, as no more arrived, by a Bull of July 6, 1543, the Pope again adjourned the Council. The war between Charles and Francis I again made the Council impossible; and at the Diet of Speier in 1544 it was agreed that all proceedings against the Lutherans should be stayed until a free and general Council could be held in Germany. Charles also promised to hold a Diet in which the religious questions should again be discussed and if possible arranged. The Lutherans were privately assured that an endeavour should be made to frame a scheme of comprehension, and that the Pope should not be allowed to stand in the way.

The proceedings at Speier seriously alarmed the Pope; and on August 5, 1544, he addressed a strong letter of remonstrance to the Emperor. The sin of Eli would be his, he wrote, if he did not lift up his voice against the unwarranted interference in the affairs of religion. by the Emperor and the Diet. Toleration was pernicious, and the attempt to regulate the affairs of the Church in a national assembly largely composed of laymen unheard of. He was himself desirous of a reformation, and had declared this often by promising a Council; and it was the Emperor himself who, through the war, was hindering the one means which could restore the peace of Christendom. The Pope now saw that it was necessary for him to take active steps if the control of the situation was not to pass out of his hands. Unless something was done, Charles might be driven to follow the example of Henry VIII, and the German Church might fall away from the Holy See. The Council must be held in order to satisfy Charles, but it must be conducted with quite other objects than those contemplated by him. The formulation of doctrine should be its chief business. The old traditional doctrine of the Church must be laid down afresh so as to make all conciliation of the Protestants impossible. All discussion of the papal prerogatives must be avoided; and the reform of practical abuses must take quite a secondary place. Having enunciated the Church's doctrine, the Council might leave to the Holy Father the carrying out of such reforms as were necessary.

662

Negotiations with Charles V

[1544-5

The Council in fact was to be used as an agent of the Counter-Reformation and as another means to the defeat of Protestantism.

All the resources of a skilful and patient diplomacy were now devoted to this end. A Bull was published on September 17, 1544, summoning the Council to meet on March 14, 1545; and Cardinal Alessandro Farnese was sent to Germany to come, if possible, to an understanding with the Emperor. On September 18, 1544, the Treaty of Crépy was signed, and it was no longer so essential to Charles to keep on good terms with the Lutherans. The Emperor and the Papacy soon began to draw nearer to one another. Charles refused to confirm the rights of the Lutherans without regard to the proceedings of the Council, but at the same time he proceeded with the greatest caution. He did not feel strong enough as yet to provoke a general contest with German Protestantism. The Turkish danger was again imminent, and the Imperial treasury was empty. It thus came about that, when at length the Papacy was willing to proceed actively with the Council, the Emperor on the other hand wished to defer it for a time, as it seemed likely to drive the Lutherans to desperation. Charles accordingly at the Diet of Worms in 1545 allowed the religious question to be again discussed, and proposed another colloquy of the theologians. Until the Diet was concluded he requested the Pope to defer the opening of the Council. Paul III vigorously protested against what was nothing short of an insult to the Council; and the negotiations proceeded. Charles even went so far as to propose the transference of the Council to a really German town, from Trent which was only German in name, and the Pope replied by threatening to translate it to Rome or Bologna. Charles then saw that further concession was necessary, as he could not afford to risk the hostility of the whole of Germany, which this transfer would inevitably provoke. In October, 1545, accordingly, after the conclusion of the Diet of Worms, he requested the Pope to open the Council as quickly as possible at Trent; and informed him that the religious negotiations at the Diet were not seriously intended, and that their only purpose was to deceive the Protestants until his military preparations were ready and he should be able to crush them.

The negotiations that led up to the opening of the Council thus ended in a triumph for the Papacy; and the Protestants had little to expect from a Council which began under such auspices. Their only hope lay in a conflict of interests between the Emperor and the Pope, and these Powers now appeared in close alliance. Their agreement was not however so close as it appeared, and the Papacy felt that only the first step had been gained. Charles, even when in alliance with the Pope, never intended the Council to content itself with a solemn publication of Catholic dogmas to the world. A reform of the Church in head and members was necessary, even if the wishes of the Protestants were to be ignored. Charles never had any intention of merely playing the papal game. The

1545]

Legates for the Council appointed

663

exigencies of the political situation would determine the extent of the concessions he would make to the Papacy; and Paul III felt that it was no easy task which still lay before him.

Paul III deemed it unwise to preside in person at the Council. An old man of nearly eighty, the prospect of the journey and a lengthy sojourn at Trent was alone sufficient to deter him from the idea; besides which it was better for the Papacy to avoid being directly involved in the struggle of parties which was inevitable at the Council. He accordingly appointed three Legates to preside over its meetings and to conduct the business. They were to keep in close communication with Rome, and no important matter was to be decided until he had been consulted. His choice fell upon Giovanni Maria del Monte, Marcello Cervini, Cardinal of Santa Croce, and Reginald Pole. Del Monte and Cervini were entirely devoted to the papal interest. The former was hasty and impatient, a worldly Cardinal of the unreformed papal Court. Cervini represented the party of Caraffa and the new Catholicism, intolerant, narrow, and uncompromising, but keenly anxious for the removal of moral abuses in the Church. Cervini, moreover, was a diplomatist of the first order; and it was due to him that the numerous rocks and shoals on which the Papacy stood in danger of being wrecked during the Council were skilfully avoided. He prevented many a scene, which the haughtiness of del Monte had provoked, from becoming serious; and none knew better how to pour oil on troubled waters. Pole was little more than a cipher from the beginning. His academic mind was helpless amidst the play of living forces in which he found himself; and he had to acquiesce in the policy of his colleagues who had the Papacy behind them. His nomination as Legate was only intended to give the appearance of conciliation to the papal policy, and he felt himself helpless from the first. He spoke several times in favour of moderation, but soon lost heart. His ill health provided him with a convenient pretext to withdraw later from a scene in which he was doomed to be a failure. Great as was his intellectual ability, he had none of the qualities of a leader; and he was unequal to playing the part that Contarini might have played in the Council.

On March 13, 1545, the Legates made their solemn entry into Trent. They had the vaguest instructions, and could do nothing but wait, while the negotiations mentioned above went on between Charles and the Pope. At length, when a favourable juncture seemed to have arrived, the Pope ordered them to open the Council on December 13, 1545, and bade a number of Italian Bishops make their way to Trent. The attendance at the opening ceremony was but meagre. Besides the Legates and Cardinal Madruzzo, the Bishop of Trent, only four Archbishops, twenty Bishops, and five Generals of Orders, with a small number of theologians, were present. Of the Bishops, five were Spanish and two French; and Sweden, England, and Ireland were represented by one Bishop each.

664

Procedure of the Council

[1545-6

Cardinal Madruzzo was the only prelate who in any sense could be said to represent the Empire; and the rest were Italians.

The first three sessions were spent in making the necessary arrangements for the business of the Council. A division of opinion at once arose as to the exact title to be used. The proposal of the Legates, "Sacrosancta Tridentina synodus in Spiritu sancto legitime congregata in ea praesidentibus tribus apostolicae sedis legatis," was not satisfactory to a portion of the Council; and it was proposed to add the words "universalem ecclesiam representans." The intention of the amendment was to express the superiority of the Council even to the Pope, and to revive the memories of Constance and Basel. The Legates expressed their dislike of it to the Pope on these grounds, though in public they resisted it merely as being unnecessary; and they succeeded in obtaining the rejection of the proposal. A question of more practical importance followed as to the right of voting. At Constance voting had been by nations; and Abbots and theologians, as well as Bishops and Generals of Orders, were allowed to vote. The Bishops were, however, very jealous of their privileges; and it was decided to confine the power of voting to Bishops and heads of religious Orders. The claim of absent Bishops to vote by proxy was rejected by the Legates by order of the Pope. Only Bishops in partibus" might represent their diocesans. This was a great victory for the curial party. In the absence of voting by nations, it ensured a preponderant influence to the Italian Bishops, who were mostly blind adherents to the Papacy. Many of them were very poor and were in fact dependent upon the Legates for their daily bread. The papal pensions and the hope of being rewarded with lucrative offices kept them loyal to the Curia, the interests of which were largely their own. It was from the Spanish Bishops on the other hand that the Legates had most to fear. Charles had issued peremptory orders for them to attend the Council; and they became the backbone of the opposition to the pretensions of the Curia. The work of Ximenes had borne good fruit; and the Spanish Bishops were the most learned and the ablest among the members of the Council. Their orthodoxy was unimpeachable, they had no sympathy with the wishes of the moderate party for conciliation in doctrine, but equally with them they were determined to maintain the supremacy of the Council to the Pope, and to remove the abuses of the papal Court. So alarmed were the Legates by their arrival and by the prospects of an increase in their number, that they wrote to the Pope urgently requesting that ten or twelve capable Italian Bishops of proved fidelity might be sent to the Council to resist them.

The divergence between the interests of the Curia with its Italian supporters and the foreign Fathers was plainly revealed when the order of business came to be determined. In his instructions to the Legates Paul III clearly laid down that reform was only a secondary and less important cause of the convocation of the Council. Its principal work

1546]

Doctrine and reform

665

was to be the definition of dogma. It was for this latter purpose that Paul III had consented to summon the Council. By proclaiming anew the old dogmas reconciliation with the Protestants would be rendered impossible; and before any reforms hostile to the papal interests could be undertaken it would probably be possible to bring the Council to an end. The Emperor and the Spanish Bishops, together with the few moderate and independent men among the Italians, had however no intention of meekly submitting to the indefinite postponement of the consideration of reform. When the Church had been purified, then the time would come for the discussion of questions of doctrine. Led by Cardinal Madruzzo, who represented the imperial views, they insisted on reform being taken in hand at once. The Legates were placed in a very difficult position and were afraid of risking an open defeat. Feeling ran so high in the Council, that an open revolt was likely if they insisted on beginning with the discussion of doctrine alone. They accordingly, at the suggestion of Thomas Campeggio, the Bishop of Feltre, proposed a compromise, that doctrine and reform should be treated at the same time by the separate commissions, and should come before the Council in alternation; and for this proposal, in spite of the opposition of Cardinal Madruzzo, they obtained a majority on January 22, 1546. The compromise was a partial defeat to the curial party and revealed the strength of the opposition. The Pope was furious and called upon the Legates to get the decision rescinded. The Legates, however, pointed out that this was impossible; and the Pope accordingly acquiesced with a bad grace. He, however, prohibited the discussion of any plan for the reform of the Roman Court until it had been first referred to him. As a consolation the Legates reminded the Pope that they could always lengthen the discussion on the dogmas, so as to receive his opinion on the questions of reform that were under consideration at the same time.

The details of the procedure of the Council were arranged with less difficulty. The whole Synod was divided into three classes, and the work of preparation was distributed between them. A preliminary discussion of each question, after it had been prepared by the theologians and canonists, was to take place in the special congregation to which it was allotted. The matter was then to be further discussed in a General Congregation of the whole Synod; and if approved it was to be promulgated in a solemn session of the Council. The rules of procedure being thus settled, the dogmatic discussions were opened at the Fourth Session, which began on April 8, 1546.

The rule of Faith was first considered. The Nicene Creed including the filioque had been reaffirmed in the Third Session with the significant description "symbolum fidei quo sancta Romana ecclesia utitur." The sources of knowledge of religious truth were now examined; and Scripture and tradition were set side by side as having equal authority. Tradition was defined as "traditio Christi" and "traditio apostolorum (Spiritu Sancto