The Historians' History of the World 08

The author of this new pontifical schism, Eugenius IV, died in the month of February, 1447, and was succeeded in the month of March by Nicholas V, who was previously Tommaso Parentucelli of Sarzana, bishop of Bologna, a man of learning himself and a great patron of learning, and likewise moderate in temper and disposed for peace. Under him, by means of the persevering labours and efforts of the kings and princes of Europe, especially of the king of France, tranquillity was restored to the Latin church. For Felix V, on the 9th of April, 1449, himself resigned the supremacy of the church, and retired to his former quiet at Ripaille; and the Basilian fathers, being assembled on the 16th of April at Lausanne, ratified his voluntary abdication, and by a solemn decree directed the whole church to obey Nicholas only. On the 18th of June Nicholas promulgated this pacification; and, at the same time, confirmed by his sanction the acts and decrees of the Council of Bâle. This Nicholas was particularly distinguished for his love of literature and the arts, which he laudably exerted himself to advance and encourage in Italy, especially by means of the Greeks that came from Constantinople. He died on the 24th of March, 1455, principally from grief, occasioned by the capture of Constantinople by the Turks.c

At this date Milman closes his splendid work on The History of Latin Christianity. It will be profitable to quote his summing up of the point reached by Nicholas V, eight and a half centuries after Gregory the Great.a

MILMAN ON NICHOLAS V AND THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE

[1447-1458 A.D.]

The pontificate of Nicholas V is the culminating point of Latin Christianity. The papal power indeed had long reached its zenith. From Innocent III to Boniface VIII it had begun its decline. But Latin Christianity was alike the religion of the popes and of the councils which contested their supremacy. It was as yet no more than a sacerdotal strife whether the pope should maintain an irresponsible autocracy, or be limited and controlled by an ubiquitous, aristocratic senate. The most ardent reformers looked no further than to strengthen the hierarchy. The prelates were determined to emancipate themselves from the usurpations of the pope, as to their elections, their arbitrary taxation by Rome, the undermining of their authority by perpetual appeals; but they had no notion of relaxing in the least the ecclesiastical domination. It was not that Christendom might govern itself, but that themselves might have a more equal share in the government. They were as jealously attached as the pope to the creed of Latin Christianity. The council, not the pope, burned John Huss. Their concessions to the Bohemians were extorted from their fears, not granted by their liberality. The Vulgate was their Bible, the Latin service their exclusive liturgy, the Canon Law their code of jurisprudence.

Latin Christianity had yet to discharge some part of its mission. It had to enlighten the world with letters, to adorn it with arts. It had hospitably to receive (a gift fatal in the end to its own dominion) and to promulgate to mankind the poets, historians, philosophers of Greece. It had to break down its own idols, the schoolmen, and substitute a new idolatry, that of classical literature. It had to perfect Christian art. Already Christian architecture had achieved some of its wonders. The venerable Lateran and St. Paul’s without the Walls, the old St. Peter’s, St. Mark’s at Venice and Pisa, Strasburg and Cologne, Rheims and Bourges, York and Lincoln, stood in their majesty. Christian painting, and even Christian sculpture, were to rise to their untranscended excellence.

The choice of Nicholas V was one of such singular felicity for his time that it cannot be wondered if his admirers looked on it as overruled by the Holy Spirit. “Who would have thought in Florence,” so said Nicholas to his biographer Vespasiano,e “that a priest who rang the bells should become supreme pontiff?” Yet it seems to have been a happy accident. In Nicholas V, in three short years, the pope had become again a great Italian potentate. The pilgrims carried back throughout Europe accounts of the resuscitated majesty of the Roman pontificate, the unsullied personal dignity of the pope, the re-enthronement of religion in the splendid edifices, which were either building or under restoration. Nicholas V was to behold, as it were, the final act of homage to the popedom, from the majesty of the empire. He was to be the last pontiff who was to crown at Rome the successor of Charlemagne; Frederick III the last emperor who was so to receive his crown from the hands of the pope.

[1452-1455 A.D.]