same only in this: that it has never varied in or lost sight of its object to make clerical power dominant in the world-an object that was abundantly beneficent in days when clerks were more fit than laymen to rule, but which has become still more largely noxious when the relative positions of clerk and layman in this respect were manifestly reversed. In all other points the Church has been by no means semper eadem. But although it is true that the character of the reigning Pope has often influenced to a very important degree the character, policies, and practices of the institution, as might be expected to be the case, yet the fact that the Church has been to a far more important degree influenced in all these respects by the general complexion of the times and the character of the age athwart which it was at the time passing, is curiously proved by a circumstance which must suggest itself to the observation of the most superficial reader of ecclesiastical history-the singular and marked divisibility of the long line of Popes into groups. Apostle Popes, warrior Popes, priest Popes, mundane Popes, pagan Popes, bigot Popes, fainéant Popes, easy-going Popes, respectable Popes, occur in the list not singly, but in groups! a certain degree this tendency may be perceived to have been assisted by the fact that the creatures* of each Pope are mostly they who, in their turn, create his successor. But the ruling cause of the phenomena will be found in the aspect and bearing of the time.

To

I use the word not in the common depreciatory sense, but according to the technical use of the word, as referring to the members of the Sacred College. The cardinals created by each Pope are said to be his

creatures.

Now Paul III. was in a very marked manner the last of a group of Popes. He was the last Pope whose nepotism soared to the height of making his descendants sovereign princes. Subsequent equally mundane Popes ambitioned the founding of princely Roman houses, and founded plenty such. Paul the Farnese was the last who sought to carve out of Italy a sovereign principality for those of his name. He was the last, too, for the nonce, of the thoroughly mundane and grand seigneur class of Popes; and is followed by a group of Popes of a very different and contrasted class-the earnest, zealous, bigot Popes, of which group I consider the Paul IV. as the first. For in fact the two intervening Papacies of Julius III., who reigned five years, and of Marcellus II., who reigned twenty-three days, were historically unimportant, and may be left out of the

account.

And we will make the story of the modern Papacy begin with Paul IV., and not with his successor Pius IV., notwithstanding that it was the latter who enacted the new constitutions for the regulation of the Conclaves, because Caraffa, Paul IV., was in a very marked and emphatic degree the beginner of a new epoch. In this case both the especial aspect of the times, and the strongly marked character of the man himself, contributed with a singular similarity and coincidence of tendency to bring about the change which at that time came over the spirit of the Papacy. The ruling cause, of course, is to be found in the growling of that Ultramontane tempest which, with so terrible a voice, was warning Rome to put her house in order. But Caraffa

was, if any dyke was to be erected to save a remnant of the Church from the advancing waves of heresy, eminently the right man in the right place! Not at all

the right man if the object were so to obey, and while obeying use, the tendencies of the time, as to avail himself of them, for such refitting of St. Peter's barque as should make it seaworthy for many a century to come; but eminently the right man to force it through the breakers with an unflinching eye and iron-strong hand on the helm, on the sint ut sunt, aut non sint principle. And Paul was, in accordance with the apparently historic law which I have indicated, the first of a group of such Popes.

These, then, are my reasons for considering the death of Paul III. as the closing event of an epoch in Papal history. And I will occupy the other chapters of this second book with such extant notices of the elections of the thirty-eight Popes who ruled the Church during the two hundred and seventy-three years which elapsed from the death of Gregory X. (ob. 1276) to that of Paul III. (ob. 1549) as may seem to have any interest in them. It will be observed that these thirty-eight Popes reigned a fraction more than seven years each on an average. will conclude this chapter by giving a list of them, which may be found useful.

I

A glance at this list will show that a small defalcation must be made from the average time of each Pope's reign on account of the time lost in the various interregnums, some of which, as the list shows, have been prolonged to a considerable duration.

G

CHAPTER II.

Election of Innocent V.-Anecdote of his Achievements as a Preacher.Election of Adrian V.-Popes in the Thirteenth Century elected without Conclave.-Conclave in which Nicholas IV. was elected.Mortality of Cardinals in Conclave.-Strange Inconsistency of the Anecdotist Cancellieri.-Superstition respecting the Duration of St. Peter's Reign.-Anecdote of the papal Physician Matthew Corte.— Election of Celestine V.-Modern Exception to the Rule requiring a Conclave to be held.-Modifications of the early Conclave Rules.— Boniface VIII.-Benedict IX.-Anecdote respecting his Death.— Conclave held at Perugia.-Grossly Simoniacal Election.-Monstrous Assertion of the Historian Spondanus.-Morone, Gregory XIV.'s Barber. The Babylonish Captivity of the Church.-Conclave at Avignon, in 1334.-And again in 1342.-And in 1352.—And in 1362.-Division between the Gascon Cardinals Subjects of England, and those subject to France.-Election of Urban V. not a Member of the College.-Tentatives for restoring the Papacy to Rome.Petrarch.-St. Bridget.-Conclave in 1370, the last at Avignon.— Gregory XI.-Difficulties of the Restoration of the See to Rome.Return of Gregory XI. to Rome.-His Death in 1378.

INNOCENT V., a Savoyard, the successor of Gregory X., was elected according to the rules laid down by his predecessor, with a regularity and celerity which seem to argue strongly in favour of the judiciousness of the Gregorian constitutions. Gregory died in the episcopal palace of Arezzo; and there the Cardinals entered into Conclave, and elected Pietro di Tarantasia*-as he was called, from the name of his native province-Pope by the name of Innocent V., on the 22nd January, 1276, the day after the cardinals went into Conclave, and in

* His family name was de' Champagni.