The Pope and the Council (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1870 Excerpt: ...and, perhaps, with the co-operation of a good emperor, consisting essentially in a thorough reform of the system of Church law.3 1 Opus Tert. ed. Brewer, 1859, p. 84. 2 Paradiso ix. 136-8. 3 Rog, Bacon, Compend. Stud. ed. Brewer, pp. 339-403. "Totus clerus vacat superbise, luiuriae, avaritiae," etc. Here, too, he dwells on the decay of all learning for forty years past, attributing it principally to the corruption of Church law. XIII.--The College of Cardinals. The two main pillars of the new Papacy, and, at the same time, the two institutions which knew how to fetter the Popes themselves, and make them subservient to their own interests, were the College of Cardinals and the Curia. In proportion as the rupture, partly conscious, partly unconscious, between the Papacy and the old Church order and legislation was consummated, the College or Senate of Cardinals took shape, and in 1059, when the right of papal election was transferred to it, became a body of electors.1 Through the Legations, and their share in the administration of what had become an unlimited sovereignty, the cardinals rapidly rose to a height from which they looked down on the bishops, who, as late as the eleventh century, took precedence of them in Councils. While the new system of Papalism was yet in its birththroes, in 1054, ne cardinal bishops claimed prece 1 Before 1059, the right of election resided in the whole body of Roman clergy, down to the acolytes, with the concurrence of the magistrates and the citizens. Nicolas II., acting under Hildebrand's advice, issued a Bull conferring the elective franchise exclusively on the College of Cardinals, reserving, however, to the German Emperor the right of confirmation. By a Bull of Alexander III., in the third Lateran Counci...