I. The Great Schism

It was in Bohemia that the earliest successful movement of the Reformation occurred; it was there that heretical communism found the first opportunity of clearly differentiating itself from the other heretical sects. The Bohemian movement was of great importance to the German communism of the Reformation as it was the forerunner of the latter. Hence our attention must be first directed to the Hussites.

How was it that the Reformation movement was first successful in Bohemia?

German historians maintain that only Germanic nations possess the inward fervour, the true sense of religion, necessary to produce an urgent desire for reform.

As a matter of fact, however, we find that the first Reformation movement took place among the Latin nations in Italy and the South of France. We need only mention Arnold of Brescia, and the Albigenses. If these movements were not equally successful with that of Wycliffe, it must be attributed to other circumstances than the lack of religious fervour.

It is not within our province to explain how necessary the Papacy was for a long time to the nations of Christendom, and how many were the important functions which it fulfilled in their political life. These functions, however, became more and more superfluous from the beginning of the twelfth century, while, on the other hand, the Church of Rome was gaining more and more experience as to the ways and means by which it could tax the Christian nations, and render them contributors to its treasury.

The Church had become the largest landowner in all Western Christendom, nearly one third of all the land in Germany, France, and England belonging to her. But she did not derive her revenues from landed property only. She knew how to prey upon the faithful in every way. In proportion to the Church’s growth in wealth, her centralisation and dependence on the Pope had increased. The greater the treasure she amassed, the larger was the portion which found its way to Rome.

But the opposition which raised its head in various Christian countries against the Papacy grew stronger, not only in the ranks of the working-classes producing the treasures the Romish Church attracted to itself, but also among all grades of the ruling classes, who looked covetously at the wealth which they would have liked to pocket themselves. Under these circumstances the desire for Church reform became more pronounced; i.e., the desire for the abolition of Papal domination and the Church’s power of taxation, and also for the secularisation of Church property. But it did not everywhere lead to a violent breach with Rome, or to the foundation of a separate Church. It was not to the interest of the ruling classes in every country to countenance so revolutionary an act against existing powers; a proceeding which might perhaps have endangered their own authority.

In Italy, no opposition to the Church arose. The large sums which the Popes extorted from Christendom flowed into that country, and became a means of advancing its commerce and industry. The Papal power was looked upon as a rampart against the enemies of the nation, preventing its neighbours, France and Germany, from making plundering raids; for these nations eagerly coveted its wealth. Thus the decline of Papal power portended the beginning of foreign rule. How could Italy, therefore, be expected to throw off the Papal yoke?

The kings of France were likewise not interested in such a movement. They had become much more powerful than the Pope himself, and were able to make tools of their former masters. To such an extent did the power of the French monarchs transcend that of the Popes, that in the fourteenth century they were able to force the latter to transfer their residence from Rome to Avignon.

Scarcely, however, had the Papacy fallen under French domination, when France was drawn into the great Hundred Years’ War with England. In the latter country the King and Parliament had about this time become strong enough to resist Papal presumption; and the fact that the Pope allowed himself to be made the tool of her national enemy was another reason which strengthened the anti-papal feelings in England. A fruitful soil was thus prepared for Wycliffe, who was constantly striving for the separation of England from the Roman Church, and for the secularisation of Church property.

Matters, however, did not reach this point, a compromise being effected between the Pope and the English upper classes. These became alarmed at the rising of the peasantry in 1381, and at the gradual strengthening of the Lollard movement, which contained in itself numerous communistic elements. With such a rebellious population threatening them, it appeared rather dangerous to both king and nobility to enter on any revolutionary action with the intention of rendering themselves independent of the Pope, and confiscating Church property. A compromise with the Papal See was all the more easily arrived at, as the latter was just then ceasing to be the tool of French policy; having been warned by the rise of Wycliffeism that a continuance of its present subservience would inevitably jeopardise its position throughout Europe. Hence the longing of the Papal Court for a return to Rome, where it would be further removed from French influence.

The Wycliffe movement also showed the Papal authorities the danger threatening their position as Princes of the Church. It pointed out to them the necessity of seeking a firm support in their secular estates. The continued loss to the Papacy of its dominance and powers of exploitation in England, France, and the provinces of Castile and Aragon, reduced it to greater dependence upon the power and wealth of the Princes. All the more important, therefore, became the control of its own territories in conjunction with its spiritual dominion of the world at large, and all the more imperative the necessity of a return to its native soil.

If the Papal Court had every reason to yearn for Rome, the Italians had equal cause for desiring its return. The “Babylonian Captivity” (as it was called) of the Pope in Avignon had clearly proved how essential to their country was the presence in Rome of the Head of the Church, the city of Rome itself being the chief sufferer.

This passionate desire for the return of the Pope found its grandest exponent in Petrarch. In his letters and poems he paints in vivid colours the misery and filth to which the palaces and altars of the saints in Rome had sunk since the removal of the Holy See, and how the Eternal City was falling to ruin, like a wife abandoned by her spouse. The presence of the righteous ruler would disperse the cloud hanging over the seven hills. It would redound to the everlasting fame of the Papal power, to the prosperity of Rome, and to the peace of Italy, if a Pope had the courage to cut himself loose from the enthralment of France. In Avignon the Papacy must, from the very nature of things, be stifled in luxury and vice, and incur the hatred and contempt of the whole world. No one has more sharply criticised the Papal power than Petrarch; but his object in doing so was not to weaken or destroy it, but to lure it back to Italy. In his opinion the depravity of the Curia did not lie in its shameless spoliation, but in the fact that it spent the proceeds of its cupidity in Avignon instead of Rome. The climate of the former was destructive to the moral health of the Papacy. Once back in Rome its recovery would be immediate.

In addition to the economic reasons which influenced the Italians there were others of a political character.

The awakening of a feeling of nationality is most intimately connected with the development of industry. If industry has attained to the level of capitalisation, its interests, and above all the interests of capitalists, demand a national, centralised government with a monarch at its head; a government which can secure to capitalists the home market and give them sufficient scope and freedom of movement in the markets of the world. This was first clearly shown in the seventeenth century; but the first germs of the modern feelings of nationality can be traced back to the fourteenth century, when it had its rise under peculiar conditions, and did not for a long period acquire the strength of a self-evident instinct.

This feeling first manifested itself in the highly developed nation of Italy, which, in the fourteenth century, had, more than any other nation, the most pressing need of a union of its powers under one government. Such a union was absolutely necessary, if an end was to be put to the ceaseless internecine wars among its petty states, if quiet and order were to be restored, and if the country was not to remain a prey to foreigners, as in fact it had then become and continued to be until the second half of this century.

The only power seemingly in a position to give unity to Italy and to acquire ascendency over its different sovereigns was the Papacy, and hence on the first appearance of Wycliffeism the Pope began seriously to meditate a return to Rome. The time was opportune for such a step, as the war with England had terminated fatally for France, making her opposition appear less dangerous.

The first attempt to fly from Avignon was made by Urban V. In spite of the protest of Charles V. of France and the cardinals (for the most part creatures of the French throne), this Pope embarked at Marseilles and went via Genoa to Rome, where he was received with acclamations. But soon after, in 1370, the French cardinals, who had found more to amuse them in France, again became paramount, and Urban returned to Avignon. (Gibbon maintains that it was chiefly a question of Burgundy wine, which could not be procured in Italy.)

The second attempt was made in 1376, by Gregory XI, who remained in Rome until his death (1378). Fearing that the French cardinals would again elect a Pope friendly to France, the people of Rome rose in arms, surrounded the Conclave, and with a cry “Death, or an Italian Pope!” forced the cardinals to elect an Italian, Urban VI. As soon as they were able, however, the French cardinals withdrew from Rome, declared the election extorted and invalid, and chose another Pope, Clement VII.

This was the origin of the great schism in the Church; and we have dealt thus fully with its causes, on account of its importance both in the history of the Papacy and of the heretical sects.

Two co-existent Popes were not an unheard-of thing, but it was a novelty that each Pope should exhibit a distinct national character. One was supported by France and Spain, the other by Italy, Germany, and England. A third subsequently appeared upon the scene, who was acknowledged almost solely by the Spaniards. Hence the disruption of Catholic Christendom at a later date into separate national Churches, found its prelude in this ecclesiastical schism. This was not a case of dogma, nor of purely personal effort, but of national and political antagonism.

A furious conflict ensued between the several Popes, in which neither of them, nor of their respective adherents, gained the upper hand. The whole Church was out of joint, and society bade fair to share the same fate. Society was indeed menaced by the bitterest antagonisms, as had been shown by the Jacquerie in France and the revolt of the peasantry in England. Hence it became a question of putting an end to this dislocation and of re-organising the Church, or as was said, of “reforming it in its head and in its limbs.” As the Papacy was wholly incapable of such a task, it had to be carried out by other powers. A series of international Congresses were convened – Councils of the Church – at which, however, the delegates of the secular princes had quite as much to say as those of the ecclesiastical organisations.

The Papacy resulting from these Councils stood far below that which had once vanquished the Hohenstaufens. It is true that thenceforward the Popes were less under the influence of an individual nation than those of Avignon, but national churches had been formed virtually subject to the respective sovereigns. The Pope was thereafter compelled to share his rule and spoils, if he would not lose them altogether, and his share was limited and strictly defined by special treaties (concordats or pragmatic sanctions).

This was the condition of things in France, England, and Spain. In Italy the Romish Church was from the outset the national one.

Germany was the only country in which no national Church was formed at the period of the Councils. It was too much disrupted to be able to control and limit the spoliation and government of the German Church by the Pope. From that time Germany became the primary object of the Papal greed for power and wealth.

One member of the German Empire, however, formed an exception – the kingdom of Bohemia.