From the time of Martin V the Papacy became more and more
an Italian power. The popes neglected European politics and gave their chief
attention to the States of the Church. A number of the popes took much interest
in the Renaissance movement and became its enthusiastic patrons. They kept
up splendid courts, collected manuscripts, paintings, and statues, and erected
magnificent palaces and churches in Rome. Some European peoples, especially in
Germany, looked askance at such luxury and begrudged the heavy taxes which were
necessary to support it. This feeling against the papacy also helped to provoke
the Reformation.
COMPLAINTS AGAINST THE CLERGY
The worldliness of some of the popes was too often
reflected in the lives of the lesser clergy. Throughout the thirteenth,
fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries the Church encountered much criticism from
reformers. Thus, the famous humanist, Erasmus, wrote his Praise of Folly
to expose the vices and temporal ambitions of bishops and monks, the foolish
speculations of theologians, and the excessive reliance which common people had
on pilgrimages, festivals, relics, and other aids to devotion. So great was the
demand for this work that it went through twenty-seven large editions during
the author's lifetime. Erasmus and others like him were loyal sons of the
Church, but they believed they could best serve her interests by effecting her
reform. Some men went further, however, and demanded wholesale changes in Catholic
belief and worship. These men were the heretics.
