XV.

and provinces. The council of Basil continued CENT. its deliberations, and went on enacting laws, and PART II, publishing edicts, until the year 1443, notwithstanding the efforts of EUGENIUS and his adherents to put a stop to their proceedings. And, though in that year the members of the council retired to their respective places of abode, yet they declared publicly that the council was not dissolved, but would resume its deliberations at Basil, Lyons, or Lausanne, as soon as a proper opportunity was offered.

In the mean time, the council of Florence, with EUGENIUS at its head, was chiefly employed in reconciling the differences between the Greeks and Latins; which weighty business was committed to the prudence, zeal, and piety, of a select number of eminent men on both sides. The most distinguished among those whom the Greeks chose for this purpose was the learned BESSARION, who was afterwards raised to the dignity of cardinal in the Roman church. This great man, engaged and seduced by the splendid presents and promises of the Latin pontif, employed the whole extent of his authority, and the power of his eloquence, nay, he had recourse even to promises and threatenings, to persuade the Greeks to accept the conditions of peace that were proposed by EUGENIUS. These conditions required their consent to the following points:-"That the holy Spirit proceeded from the Son, as well as from the "Father; that departed souls were purified in the "infernal regions, by a certain kind of fire, before "their admission to the presence and vision of the "Deity ;--that unleavened bread might be used in "the administration of the Lord's supper;"--and lastly, which was the main and principal thing insisted upon by the Latins, that the Roman pontif was the supreme judge,the true head of the universal church. Such were the terms of peace to which the Greeks were

86

obliged

PART II.

CENT obliged to submit, all except MARK of Ephesus, XV. whom neither entreaties nor rewards could move from his purpose, or engage to submit to a reconciliation founded upon such conditions. And indeed this reconciliation, which had been brought about by various stratagems, was much more specious than solid, and had by no means stability sufficient to assure its duration. We find accordingly, that the Grecian deputies were no sooner returned to Constantinople, than they declared publicly, that all things had been carried on at Florence by artifice and fraud, and renewed the schism, which had been so imperfectly healed a little time before. The council of Florence put an end to its deliberations on the 26th of April, in the year 1442 [k], without having executed any of the designs that were proposed by it, in a satisfactory manner. For, besides the affair of the Greeks, they proposed bringing the Armenians, Jacobites, and more particularly the Abyssinians, into the bosom of the Roman church; but this prospect was attended with as little success as the other.

Which is

XV. EUGENIUS IV. who had been the occahealed un- sion of the new schism in the see of Rome, died in

der the

pontificate the month of February 1447, and was succeeded, in a few weeks, by THOMAS DE SARZANO, bishop

of Nicholas V.

of

[k] The History of this council, and of the frauds and stratagems that were practised in it, was composed by that learned Grecian SYLVESTER SGYROPULUS, whose work was published at the Hague in the year 1660, with a Latin translation, a preli minary discourse, and ample notes, by the learned ROBERT CREIGHTON, a native of Great Britain. This History was refuted by LEO ALLATIUS, in 2 work entitled, Exercitationes in Creightoni Apparatum, Versionem et Notas ad Historiam Concilii Florentini scriptam a Sguropolo, Romæ, 1674, 4to. See the same author's Perpetua Consensio Ecclesia Oriental. et Occi dent. p. 875. as also MABILLON, Museum Italicum, tom. i. p. 243-SPANHIMIUS, De perpetua dissensione Eccles. Orient. et Occident. tom. ii. opp. p. 491.-HERMANN. Historia concertat. de pane axymo, part II. cap. v. p. 124.

XV.

of Bologna, who filled the pontificate under the CENT. denomination of NICHOLAS V. This eminent pre- PART II. late had, in point of merit, the best pretensions possible to the papal throne. He was distinguished by his erudition and genius; he was a zealous patron and protector of learned men; and, what was still more laudable, he was remarkable for his moderation, and for the meek and pacific spirit that discovered itself in all his conduct and actions. Under this pontificate the European princes, and more especially the king of France, exerted their warmest endeavours to restore tranquillity and union in the Latin church, and their efforts were crowned with the desired success. For, in the year 1449, FELIX V. resigned the papal chair, and returned to his delicious hermitage at Ripaille, while the fathers of the council of Basil assembled at Lausanne [!], ratified his voluntary abdication, and, by a solemn decree, ordered the universal church to submit to the jurisdiction of NICHOLAS as their lawful pontif. On the other hand, NICHOLAS proclaimed this treaty of peace with great pomp on the 18th of June, in the same year, and set the seal of his approbation and authority to the acts and decrees of the council of Basil. This pontif distinguished himself in a very extraordinary manner, by his love of learning, and by his ardent zeal for the propagation of the liberal arts and sciences, which he promoted in Italy, with great success, by the encouragement he granted to the learned Greeks, who came from Constantinople into that country [m]. The principle occasion of his death

was

[/] The abdication of FELIX V. was made on the 9th of April 1449, and it was ratified the 16th day of the month, by the assembled fathers at Lausanne.

[m] See DoM. GEORGII vita Nicolai V. ad fidem veterum Monumentorum: to which is added, a treatise, entitled, Disquisitio de Nicolai V. erga literas et litteratos viros patrocinio. published in 4to at Rome, in the year 1742.

XV.

CEN T.was the fatal revolution that threw this capital of PART II. the Grecian empire into the hands of the Turks; this melancholy event preyed upon his spirits, and at length ended his days on the 24th of March, in the year 1455.

XVI. His successor ALPHONSUS BORGIA, who was a native of Spain, and is known in the papal list by the denomination of CALIXTUS Ill. was remarkable for nothing but his zeal in animating the Christian princes to make war upon the Turks; his reign also was short, for he died in Pius II. the year 1458. ENEAS SYLVIUS PICCOLOMINI, who succeeded him in the pontificate that same year, under the title of Prus II. rendered his name much more illustrious, not only by his extensive genius, and the important transactions that were carried on during his administration, but also by the various and useful productions with which he enriched the republic of letters. The lustre of his fame was, indeed, tarnished by a scandalous proof which he gave of his fickleness and inconstancy, or rather perhaps of his bad faith; for after having vigorously defended, against the pontifs, the dignity and prerogatives of general councils, and maintained with peculiar boldness and obstinacy the cause of the council of Basil against EUGENIUS IV. he ignominiously renounced these generous principles upon his accession to the pontificate, and acted in directopposition to them during the whole course of his administration. Thus, in the year 1460, he denied publicly that the pope was subordinate to a general council, and even prohibited all appeals to such a council under the severest penalties. The year following, he obtained from LEWIS XI, king of France, the abrogation of the Pragmatic Sanction, which favoured, in a particular manner, the pretensions of the general councils to supre

macy

macy in the church [n]. But the most egregious C E N T. instance of impudence and perfidy that he exhi-, PART II.

bited

[n] There was a famous edict entitled, The Pragmatic Sanction, issued out by LEWIS IX. who, though he is honoured with a place in the Kalendar, was yet a zealous assertor of the liberty and privileges of the Gallican church, against the despotic encroachments and pretensions of the Roman pontifs. It was against their tyrannical proceedings, and intolerable extortions, that this edict was chiefly levelled; and though some creatures of the court of Rome have thrown out insinuations of its being a spurious production, yet the contrary is evident from its having been registered, as the authentic edict of that pious monarch, by the parliament of Paris, in the year 1461, by the states of the kingdom assembled at Tours in the year 1483, and by the university of Paris 1491.-See, for a farther account of this edict, the excellent History of France (begun by the Abbé VELLY, and continued by M. VILLARET, vol. vi. p. 57.

The edict which Dr MOSHEIM has in view here, is the Pragmatic Sanction that was drawn up at Bourges, in the year 1438, by CHARLES VII. king of France, with the consent of the most eminent prelates and grandees of the nation, who were assembled at that place. This edict, which was absolutely necessary in order to deliver the French clergy from the vexations they suffered from the encroachments of the popes, ever since the latter had fixed their residence at Avignon) consisted of twenty-three articles, in which, among other salutary regulations, the elections to vacant benefices were restored to their ancient purity and freedom; the Annates and other pecuniary pretensions and encroachments of the pontifs abolished, and the authority of a general council declared superior to that of the pope. This edict was drawn up in concert with the fathers of the council of Basil, and the twenty-three articles it contains were taken from the decrees of that council; though they were admitted by the Gallican church with certain modifications, which the nature of the times, and the manners of the nation rendered expedient. Such then was the Pragmatic Sanction, which Pope Pius II. engaged LEWIS XI. (who received upon that occasion, for him

and

That is to say, that these elections were wrested out of the hands of the popes, who had usurped them, and that by the Pragmatic Sanction, every church had the privilege of chusing its bishop, and every monastery its abbot or prior. By the Concordate, or agreement, between Francis I. and Leo X. (which was substituted in the place of the Pragmatic sanction) the nomination to the bishoprics in France, and the collation of certain be nefices of the higher class, were vested in the kings of France An amp e and satisfactory account of this convention may be seen in bishop Burnet's excellent History of the Reformation, vol. III. p. 3. and in a book entitled, Histoire du Droit public Ecclesiastique Francois, published in 8yo in 1737 and 4t0 in 1752.

XV.