Henry M. Baird · 276 of 379

CHAPTER XI · A word for the down-trodden people.

In the midst of this tirade against the inroads of Calvinism, the prudent doctor of canon law did not, however, altogether lose sight of the temporal concerns of the priesthood. He proffered an urgent request for the restoration of canonical elections, laying the growth of heresy altogether to the account of the abrogation of the Pragmatic Sanction by the Concordat in 1517. The sanction being re-established, "the detestable and damnable sects, the execrable and accursed heresies of to-day" would incontinently flee from the church. If he painted the portrait of the prelate elected by the suffrages of his diocese in somewhat too nattering colors, he certainly gave a vivid picture of the sad straits to which the clergy were reduced by the imposition of the repeated tithes on their revenues, now become customary. Masses were unsaid, churches had been stripped of their ornaments. Missals and chalices even had, in some places, been sold at auction to meet the exorbitant demands of royal officers. It was to be feared that, if Christian kings continued to lay sacerdotal possessions under contribution, the Queen of the South would rise up in judgment with this generation, and would condemn it. Lest, however, this commination should not prove terrible enough, the examples of Belshazzar and others were judiciously subjoined. On the other hand, Charles was urged to acquire a glory superior to that of Charlemagne, and to earn the surname of Clerophilus, or Maximus, by freeing the clergy of its burdens. By a very remarkable condescension, after this lofty flight of eloquence, the clerical advocate deigned to utter a short sentence or two in the interest of the "noblesse," and even of the poor, down-trodden people—begging the king to lighten the burdens which that so good, so obedient people had long borne patiently, and not to suffer this third foot of the throne to be crushed or broken. When the crown had returned to this course of just action, the Church would pray very devoutly in its behalf, the nobility fight valiantly, the people obey humbly. It would be paradise begun on earth.