A Princely Pioneer [pp. 38-46]

1886.] A Princely Pioneei. 39
Battle of Flodden three years before, was the Christian Scriptures ever offered to the
given the form of a trial, and beheaded on world was published this year by Erasmus,
the same day as his sentence was pronounced, containing the Greek, with a corrected Latin
the victim of the hatred of an archbishop. translation.
In Spain, Ferdinand the Catholic had just Leo x. was Pope of Rome, a man of re died, leaving his realms to the young Arch- fined taste, generous, talented, and still
duke Charles, and the regency to Cardinal young; to religion he made no pretensions
Ximenez. The Inquisition had been estab- whatever. He was a member of the family
lished in the country for many years, and of Medici, which had recently been restored
the Cardinal himself was Grand Inquisitor. to favor in Florence, amidst the plaudits of
He was as conscientious a man as the con- the fickle citizens.
fessor of medieval royalty could be, and as Luther, at the Augustine Church in Witbroad a statesman as a Franciscan monk tenberg, was this year defending his doctrine
might be. The stern Order of Minors was ofjustificationbyfaith. Withsomeofthemysspreading in this soil, more fruitful than Scot- tical and scholastic ideas still influencing his
land for monastic life; and it was to this mind, his thoughts were turning to a great and
branch of the great Franciscan family that general reform within the mother church.
the lost hero of the mission of i 5 i 6 belonged. The powerful mind, reverent towards authorIts name implied the place its followers had ity and modest in its strength, was fixing its
chosen, at least among the devotees of the eyes upon whatsoever things were true and
faith. The friars were bound by oaths of the whatsoever things were pure so earnestly,
most extraordinary strictness. They might that the great effort with which he cast aside
never ride on horseback, never possess prop- afterwards all his bonds was a fitting end
erty, never have any luxuries of living; they to the long thoughts of this thirty-third year
must keep a lenten diet all the year round, of his life.
must labor for their bread, and if labor failed, France at this time took a step backward
beg; and sufferance was the badge of all in religious history, for Francis I. obliged
their tribe. Its founder, Francis of Paolo, the French Parliament and University of
had been dead only nine years, yet this or- Paris to accede to Leo x.'s demand that the
der numbered four hundred and fifty houses Pragmatic Sanction which had relieved the
in the beginning of the sixteenth century. country from papal interference and papal
The University of Alcala was busy this year taxes, giving it a national church, should be
with the favorite scheme of its founder, the replaced by a so-called Concordat, which
Cardinal, which was the translation of the practically abolished this freedom. The king
Scriptures into Latin. The New Testament succeeded with difficulty, and the two bodies
was finished in I5I4, but its publication was entered a sorrowful and solemn protest.
held back until the whole Bible was ready, Religion all over Europe was at a low