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Authors: William Manchester
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wealth was passed up to the ecclesiastical hierarchy, where it accumulated and led to dissipation, debauchery,
and—because spendthrifts are always running out of funds—demands for still more money. Here a dangerous solution presented
itself, one which, when it was adopted, almost guaranteed future abuse. Ancient German custom offered convicted criminals
a choice; they could be punished or, if they were wealthy, pay fines (
Wehrgeld
). Buying salvation was new to the Church. It was also sacrilegious. Early Christians had atoned for their sins by confession,
absolution, and penance. Now it became possible to erase transgressions by buying indulgences. The papacy, searching for a
scriptural precedent, settled on Matthew 16:19, in which Jesus tells Peter: “I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom
of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall
be loosed in heaven.”
On this shakiest of foundations the Holy See built a bureaucracy in which Peter’s power, appropriated by pontiffs, was delegated
to bishops, who passed it on to priests, who sent out friars in pursuit of sinners, empowered to judge the price to be paid
for the sin, from which he deducted his commission. In Rome the contributions were welcomed and, in the beginning, used to
finance hospitals, cathedrals, and crusades. Then other, less admirable causes appeared. Holy Fathers permitted those who
had violated God’s commandments to buy release from purgatory, thus encroaching on the sacrament of penance.
At the same time, the lawlessness and disorders of the Dark Ages—particularly after the papacy had fallen under the dominance
of feudal aristocrats in the ninth century—had led churchmen first to collaborate with secular rulers, and then to seek
their subjugation. Pontiffs began by regulating the behavior of despots. Then they erected awesome cathedrals as symbols of
their secular power, became enmeshed in political manipulations, and, finally, made war on their enemies.
I N THE VERY BEGINNING the first Vicars of Christ had withdrawn from the world and its temptations. Now they became indistinguishable from the nobility.
Once they had held the blessings of austerity to be inviolate, even renouncing marriage and cohabitation. Now celibacy yielded
to widespread clerical concubinage and, in the convents, to promiscuity and homes for fatherless children born to women who
had pledged their virtue as brides of Christ.
The precept that men of God should sleep alone, established by the Lateran Councils of 1123 and 1139 after nine hundred years
of hemming and hawing, had begun to fray well before the dawn of the sixteenth century. Now it was a thing of shreds and patches.
The last pontiff to take it seriously had died in 1471, and even he, during his youthful days as a bishop of Trieste, had
slept with a succession of mistresses. A generation later the occupants of Saint Peter’s chair were openly acknowledging their
bantlings, endowing their sons with titles and their daughters with dowries.
In the Vatican nepotism ran amok. Sixtus IV (r. 1471–1484), upon donning the miter, appointed two of his nephews—both dissolute
youths—to the sacred College of Cardinals. Later he put red hats on three more nephews and a grandnephew. He also named
an eight-year-old boy archbishop of Lisbon and an eleven-year-old archbishop of Milan, though, quite apart from the fact that
both were children, neither had received any religious instruction. Innocent VIII, who succeeded Sixtus in 1484, doted on
Franceschetto Cibò, his son by a nameless courtesan. Innocent couldn’t make a cardinal of Franceschetto. Standards had not
deteriorated that far—yet—and the youth didn’t seem interested. What excited him was roaming city streets each night with
a pack of Roman hoodlums, gang-raping young women, some of them nuns; sodomizing them and then leaving them unconscious,
and—because spendthrifts are always running out of funds—demands for still more money. Here a dangerous solution presented
itself, one which, when it was adopted, almost guaranteed future abuse. Ancient German custom offered convicted criminals
a choice; they could be punished or, if they were wealthy, pay fines (
Wehrgeld
). Buying salvation was new to the Church. It was also sacrilegious. Early Christians had atoned for their sins by confession,
absolution, and penance. Now it became possible to erase transgressions by buying indulgences. The papacy, searching for a
scriptural precedent, settled on Matthew 16:19, in which Jesus tells Peter: “I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom
of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall
be loosed in heaven.”
On this shakiest of foundations the Holy See built a bureaucracy in which Peter’s power, appropriated by pontiffs, was delegated
to bishops, who passed it on to priests, who sent out friars in pursuit of sinners, empowered to judge the price to be paid
for the sin, from which he deducted his commission. In Rome the contributions were welcomed and, in the beginning, used to
finance hospitals, cathedrals, and crusades. Then other, less admirable causes appeared. Holy Fathers permitted those who
had violated God’s commandments to buy release from purgatory, thus encroaching on the sacrament of penance.
At the same time, the lawlessness and disorders of the Dark Ages—particularly after the papacy had fallen under the dominance
of feudal aristocrats in the ninth century—had led churchmen first to collaborate with secular rulers, and then to seek
their subjugation. Pontiffs began by regulating the behavior of despots. Then they erected awesome cathedrals as symbols of
their secular power, became enmeshed in political manipulations, and, finally, made war on their enemies.
I N THE VERY BEGINNING the first Vicars of Christ had withdrawn from the world and its temptations. Now they became indistinguishable from the nobility.
Once they had held the blessings of austerity to be inviolate, even renouncing marriage and cohabitation. Now celibacy yielded
to widespread clerical concubinage and, in the convents, to promiscuity and homes for fatherless children born to women who
had pledged their virtue as brides of Christ.
The precept that men of God should sleep alone, established by the Lateran Councils of 1123 and 1139 after nine hundred years
of hemming and hawing, had begun to fray well before the dawn of the sixteenth century. Now it was a thing of shreds and patches.
The last pontiff to take it seriously had died in 1471, and even he, during his youthful days as a bishop of Trieste, had
slept with a succession of mistresses. A generation later the occupants of Saint Peter’s chair were openly acknowledging their
bantlings, endowing their sons with titles and their daughters with dowries.
In the Vatican nepotism ran amok. Sixtus IV (r. 1471–1484), upon donning the miter, appointed two of his nephews—both dissolute
youths—to the sacred College of Cardinals. Later he put red hats on three more nephews and a grandnephew. He also named
an eight-year-old boy archbishop of Lisbon and an eleven-year-old archbishop of Milan, though, quite apart from the fact that
both were children, neither had received any religious instruction. Innocent VIII, who succeeded Sixtus in 1484, doted on
Franceschetto Cibò, his son by a nameless courtesan. Innocent couldn’t make a cardinal of Franceschetto. Standards had not
deteriorated that far—yet—and the youth didn’t seem interested. What excited him was roaming city streets each night with
a pack of Roman hoodlums, gang-raping young women, some of them nuns; sodomizing them and then leaving them unconscious,
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