The history of the popes, from the close of the middle ages

VOLUME II-BOOK 1

THE JUBILEE OF 1450 AND THE LABOURS OF CARDINAL NICHOLAS OF CUSA IN THE CAUSE OF REFORM IN GERMANY AND THE NETHERLANDS, 1451-1452.

 

The restoration of peace to the Church, after so protracted a period of conflict and confusion, was deemed by Nicholas V a fitting occasion for the proclamation of a Universal Jubilee. A pilgrimage of the faithful of every country to the center of ecclesiastical unity seemed to be the most splendid and appropriate celebration of the termination of the Schism and of the victory gained over the party of the Council, while it was also well calculated to give fresh vigor to the conservative element throughout Christendom.

The obstacles presented by the war in Italy and the pestilence which followed, were not sufficient to deter the Pope from his project, and, on the 19th January, 1449, in presence of the assembled Cardinals, he solemnly imparted his benediction, after which a French Archbishop read aloud the list of all the Jubilees ever celebrated in the Church, and then proclaimed the new one. All who, during a given time, should daily visit the four principal churches of Rome—St. Peter’s, St. Paul’s, the Lateran Basilica, and Sta. Maria Maggiore—and confess their sins with contrition, were to gain a plenary indulgence, that is to say, remission of the temporal punishments due for those sins from whose guilt and eternal punishment they had been absolved.

Throughout the whole of Christendom the Pope’s proclamation was received with rejoicing, and the joy was intensified by the fact that the discord which had for so long weighed heavily on the hearts of all who loved the Church was at an end, and that Nicholas V was universally acknowledged as the true Vicar of Christ. The feelings of the faithful were eloquently expressed by Dr. Felix Hemmerlin, Provost of the Ursus Monastery at Soleure, who, at the conclusion of his work on the approaching holy year, adopts the words of Simeon, and says : “Now dost Thou dismiss Thy servant, O Lord, according to Thy word, in peace, because my eyes have seen the glorious advent of salvation. Now I know in truth that this Is the desired time, this is the day of salvation : for the glorious days of Thy Jubilee surpass all earthly beauty and salvation. O, the depth of the riches, of the wisdom, and of the knowledge of God! How in­comprehensible are His judgments, and how unsearchable His ways! O Lord, whose mercy is unbounded, perfect Thy grace in us that, as Thou didst fulfill the expectation of Simeon, and he did not see death until it had been granted to him to see Christ the Lord, so we may not taste death until we have enjoyed the benefits of Thy salutary and most happy year of Jubilee!”

The “golden year” opened on the Christmas Day of 1449. The concourse was immense. Then began a pilgrimage of the nations to the Eternal City, like that which had taken place a century before. All the miseries of recent years, the bereavements which war and plague had wrought, the manifest tokens of Divine wrath, were a call to serious reflection and self-examination. Some deemed a pilgrimage to be the best means of averting further chastisements and obtaining future benefits. Others undertook it in order to show forth their gratitude for preservation from dangers, and to implore a continuance of the favors they had enjoyed. All hailed it as an opportunity of becoming-partakers of the rich spiritual treasures opened by the Church to those who should visit the tombs of the Apostles.

The pilgrims flocked from every country in Europe; there were Italians and “Ultramontanes”, men and women, rich and poor, young and old, healthy and sick. As Augustinus Dathus says in his history of Siena, “Countless multitudes of Frenchmen, Germans, Spaniards, Portuguese, Greeks, Armenians, Dalmatians, and Italians were to be seen hastening to Rome as to the refuge of all the nations of the earth, full of devotion, and chanting hymns in their different languages”. The terrible calamities through which they had just passed had touched the hearts of many, and turned them from earthly to heavenly things, and awakened a spirit of devotion. Moreover, the personal affability of the Pope may have induced many to undertake the long and difficult journey.

An eye-witness likens the thronging multitudes of pilgrims to a flight of starlings or a swarm of ants. The Pope did everything in his power to render their passage through Italy easy and safe; in Rome itself he made the most extensive preparations, and especially sought to secure an adequate supply of provisions. But the pilgrims arrived in such overwhelming masses that all his efforts proved insufficient. Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini estimates at forty thousand the number of strangers who daily arrived in the city. Even allowing for considerable exaggeration in this estimate, there can be no doubt that the crowds were enormous. The chroniclers and historians of the period seem to be at a loss for words to describe the concourse. Cristoforo a Soldo, chronicler of the city of Brescia, says, “A greater crowd of Christians was never known to hasten to any Jubilee; kings, dukes, marquesses, counts, and knights, in short, people of all ranks in Christendom, daily arrived in such multitudes in Rome that there were millions in the city. And this continued for the whole year, excepting in the summer, on account of the plague, which carried off innumerable victims. But almost as soon as it abated at the beginning of the cold season the influx again commenced”.

One of the special attractions of this Jubilee was the Canonization of St. Bernardine of Siena, the most popular saint who had for centuries appeared in the Italian Peninsula, and the founder of a religious order which had increased so rapidly that it sent more than three thousand delegates to the General Chapter held at this time in the convent of Araceli.

The process for his canonization had been introduced in the time of Eugenius IV, at the instance of the Sienese, of the inhabitants of Aquila, amongst whom St. Bernardine had found his last resting-place, and of King Alfonso of Naples. St. John Capistran, who afterwards became so celebrated as a preacher, labored most energetically in the matter, and the Pope entrusted the examination into the life, death, and miracles of the holy man to Cardinals Niccolo Acciapacci, Guillaume d'Estouteville, Alberto de AIbertis,and on his death to Pietro Barbo.f These cardinals in their turn employed two bishops, who, having made careful inquiries, presented a detailed report, which was considered in Consistory; but the illness and death of the Pope, at this point, brought the proceedings to a standstill. The delay, however, was not of long duration, for immediately after his accession Nicholas V took the matter in hand. On the 17th June he charged Cardinals Tagliacozzo, Guiflaume d'Estouteville, and Pietro Barbo to examine St. Bernardine’s miracles. The bishops, to whom they delegated the task, found more miracles than had been mentioned in the first Process. On the death of the Cardinal Tagliacozzo, Bessarion was nominated in his stead, and Angelo Capranica, Bishop of Rieti, was sent to Aquila, Siena, and many cities in which St. Bernardine had laboured. The slow and cautious procedure of Rome was little to the taste of the cities which cherished the great preacher's memory and eagerly longed for his canonization. Notwithstanding supplications and importunities from various quarters, Rome refused to be unduly hurried, and it was not till the 26th February, 1450, that sufficient progress had been made to enable the Pope to promise the Sienese ambassadors that the canonization should take place at Whitsuntide. A substitute for Cardinal Bessarion, who was about to proceed to Bologna, had been appointed in the person of the Vice-Chancellor. There was, therefore, nothing further to delay the ceremony, and the Pope, whose family subsequently entertained a special devotion to St. Bernardine, had preparations made on a magnificent scale.

St. Peter’s was beautifully decorated on Whit-Sunday, the 24th of May; a lofty throne was erected in the middle of the church for the Pope, who was surrounded by all the cardinals then in Rome, as well as by many bishops and archbishops. Every detail of the rite of canonization was carried out with the greatest exactness, solemnity, and splendor, the Pope himself pronouncing the panegyric. Two hundred wax-lights burned in the church; the cost of the vestments worn by the Pope and the cardinals, and of other things used on this occasion, was estimated at seven thousand ducats, and was borne by the inhabitants of Siena and Aquila.

During these days of festal solemnity crowds of pilgrims went up to the Convent of Araceli, now transformed into a hospital, where eight hundred monks devoted themselves to the service of the sick of their own and other lands. The sight was one well calculated to awaken in the dullest soul some zeal for self-sacrifice and prayer. The Spaniard, Didacus, who was afterwards canonized, here distinguished himself by his heroic charity in tending the sick.

Throughout all Italy an outburst of joy and of devotion was elicited by the canonization of St. Bernardine; churches sprung up under his invocation, preachers everywhere praised his holy life; solemn functions in his honor took place even in the smallest towns; those which took place in Perugia, Bologna, Ferrara, Aquila, and Siena were particularly magnificent, and in the last-named city his canonization was represented in a series of pictures.

While the Pope remained in Rome he frequently took part in the solemnities of the Jubilee, and was seen to walk barefoot to visit the stations. The Roman chronicler Paolo di Benedetto di Cola dello Mastro has left us a description of the Jubilee, written with little literary skill, but full of life and fidelity. “I recollect”, he says, “that even in the beginning of the Christmas month a great many people came to Rome for the Jubilee. The pilgrims had to visit the four principal churches, the Romans for a whole month, the Italians for fourteen days, and the ‘Ultramontanes’ for eight. Such a crowd of pilgrims came all at once to Rome that the mills and bakeries were quite insufficient to provide bread for them. And the number of pilgrims daily increased, wherefore the Pope ordered the handkerchief of St. Veronica to be exposed every Sunday, and the heads of the Apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul every Saturday; the other relics in all the Roman churches were always exposed. The Pope solemnly gave his benediction at St. Peter’s every Sunday. As the unceasing influx of the faithful made the want of the most necessary means of subsistence to be more and more pressing, the Pope granted a plenary indulgence to each pilgrim on condition of contrite confession and of visits to the churches on three days. This great concourse of pilgrims continued from Christmas through the whole month of January, and then diminished so considerably that the innkeepers were discontented, and everyone thought it was at an end, when, in the middle of Lent, such a great multitude of pilgrims again appeared, that in the fine weather all the vineyards were filled with them, and they could not find sleeping-place elsewhere. In Holy Week the throngs coming from St. Peter’s, or going there, were so enormous that they were crossing the bridge over the Tiber until the second and third hour of the night. The crowd was here so great that the soldiers of St. Angelo, together with other young men—I was often there myself,—had often to hasten to the spot and separate the masses with sticks in order to prevent serious accidents. At night many of the poor pilgrims were to be seen sleeping beneath the porticos, while others wandered about in search of missing fathers, sons, or companions; it was pitiful to see them. And this went on until the Feast of the Ascension, when the multitude of pilgrims again diminished because the plague came to Rome. Many people then died, especially many of these pilgrims; all the hospitals and churches were full of the sick and dying, and they were to be seen in the infected streets falling down like dogs. Of those who with great difficulty, scorched with heat and covered with dust, departed from Rome, a countless number fell a sacrifice to the terrible pestilence, and graves were to be seen all along the roads even in Tuscany and Lombardy”.

The chronicler, as he pursues his narration, vainly endeavors to find language sufficiently forcible to depict the horrors of the plague and the terror which had seized upon him and all who were in Rome. The general panic surpassed any which had been experienced on previous occasions. “The Court of Rome”, writes the envoy of the Teutonic Order, “is sadly scattered and put to flight; in fact, there is no Court left. One man embarks for Catalonia, another for Spain, everyone is looking for a place where he may take refuge. Cardinals, bishops, abbots, monks, and all sorts of people, without exception, flee from Rome as the apostles fled from our Lord on Good Friday. Our Holy Father also left Rome on the 15th July, retreating from the pestilence, which, alas!—God have mercy!—is so great and terrible that no one knows where to dwell and preserve himself. His Holiness goes from one castle to another, with a little court and very few attendants, trying if he can find a healthy place anywhere. He has now moved to a castle called Fabriano, in which he spent some time last year, and has, it is said, forbidden, under pain of excommunication, loss of preferment and of Papal favor, that anyone who has been in Rome, whatever his rank, should come within seven miles of him, save only the cardinals, a few of whom, with four servants, have gone to the said castle and are living there”.

Even in the previous year the Pope had, on the outbreak of the plague, fled from Rome with some few members of the Court and gone first to the neighbourhood of Rieti, and then to the castle of Spoleto, whence he was driven by the malady. In August he was at Fabriano, where the air seemed to be particularly pure. No one was admitted within the city without necessity; the aged Aurispa was the only one of the secretaries whom the Pope retained about him; business was mostly suspended, so that there was but little to be done; many members of the Court succumbed to the pestilence. Poggio mockingly declared that the Pope wandered about after the manner of the Scythians. The same thing happened when the plague revisited the Eternal City in the summer months of 1451 and 1452.

It has been suggested that Nicholas V’s extreme fear of death was due to an excessive love of life, but another explanation seems more probable. In the year 1399, when the plague was raging in Lucca and the physicians had forsaken the city, the Pope’s father was appointed physician by the remaining citizens. He accepted the perilous post, but soon afterwards died, most likely stricken down by the terrible malady in the exercise of his calling. May not this circumstance account for the apprehensions of Nicholas, who was timid by nature, and at the time in indifferent health? It must also be observed that at this period the idea of contagion was gaining ground among the doctors. The black death and subsequent epidemics had afforded but too ample opportunities for the study of the subject, and the plague was much better understood than it had been. Natural science had made considerable progress, and enlightened physicians in the fifteenth century took little account of the influence of the stars, and directed their chief attention to the laws of contagion. Isolation consequently came to be regarded as the most essential of preventive measures, and it is impossible to estimate the number of human lives that may have been thus preserved during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, even though it was very imperfectly carried out.

When the pestilence ceased with the first cold of winter the Pope returned to Rome. Pilgrims again began to pour in, their journeys being facilitated by the peaceful condition of Italy. “So many people came to Rome”, according to an eye-witness, “that the city could not contain the strangers, although every house became an inn. Pilgrims begged, for the love of God, to be taken in on payment of a good price, but it was not possible. They had to spend the nights out of doors. Many perished from cold; it was dreadful to see. Still such multitudes thronged together that the city was actually famished. Every Sunday numerous pilgrims left Rome, but by the following Saturday all the houses were again fully occupied. If you wanted to go to St. Peter’s it was impossible, on account of the masses of men that filled the streets. St. Paul’s, St. John Lateran, and Sta. Maria Maggiore were filled with worshippers. All Rome was filled, so that one could not go through the streets. When the Pope gave his solemn blessing, all spaces in the neighbourhood of St. Peter’s, even the surrounding vineyards, from which the Loggia of the benediction could be seen, were thick with pilgrims, but those who could not see him were more numerous than those who could, and this continued until Christmas”.

Among the strangers of note who visited Rome during the Jubilee of 1450 we must give the first place to an artist —the celebrated painter, Roger van der Weyden, or Ruggiero da Bruggia, as the Italians call him. Many of his works had already been purchased by Italian princes and patrons of art, and were greatly esteemed. It was probably as he passed through Florence on his way to Rome that this great master received from the Medici the commission to paint the picture of the Madonna with the Holy Apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul, and the physicians. Saints Cosmas and Damian, which is now one of the treasures of the Stadel Gallery of Frankfort-on-Maine. The influence of Italy is evident in this beautiful work, and in others from the hand of the same master, especially in a charming picture representing St. Luke taking the portrait of the Blessed Virgin while she suckles the Divine Infant (formerly in the Boisseree Collection, and now in the Munich Pinakothek), and again in the Middelburg Tryptick, now at Berlin. A modern writer on art is probably correct in his idea that the journey of 1450, although undertaken solely from motives of devotion, was an artistic revelation to the Flemish painter, who, by a comparison with foreign schools, learned to form a more correct estimate of his own talents and needs, and of those of his country. From this time he gave up painting life-sized figures and violent effects and gold backgrounds. He still chose striking and dramatic subjects, but the surroundings of his figures are now real, and they stand forth from an architectural perspective or a sunlit landscape full of graceful details. This was an approach to the manner of his predecessor, Van Eyck, and, moreover, a return to that of his own earlier days and to the mild harmonious tone most congenial to the piety and artistic sense common to himself and his fellow-countrymen. His best works were produced at this period, and he initiated a school, which, as compared with that of Van Eyck, manifests marked progress. It would be impossible to say how many of the other painters, artists, and scholars, who went as pilgrims to the capital of Christendom in 1450, were touched by the like influence.

Jakob von Sirk, Archbishop of Treves, once the most ardent partisan of the Council, was amongst the princes of the Church who were seen at Rome in the Jubilee year. He came, accompanied by a hundred and forty knights, to make his peace with the Holy See. Cardinal Peter von Schaumburg, Bishop of Augsburg, and the Bishops of Metz and Strasburg were also there, with other German prelates. Many saintly personages, too, were pilgrims, as, for example, St. Jacopo della Marca, St. Didacus, and the celebrated St. John Capistran. It was, moreover, at this time that Jacopo Ammannati Piccolomini, afterwards the famous Cardinal, turned his steps to the Eternal City, where he subsequently entered the service of Cardinal Capranica, the friend of all learned men.

Numerous princes made the pilgrimage in 1450; the Pope welcomed the Duke Albert of Austria, gave him at Christmas a blessed sword, and granted him many spiritual favors in token of his affection for the House of Austria. It is probable that many Austrian nobles accompanied the Duke; the aged Count Frederick of Cilli was certainly in Rome this year. We must also mention the Margravine Catherine of Baden, Landgrave Louis of Hesse, and Duke John of Cleves, who visited the seven principal churches on foot, and was received with great honor by the Pope, Johannes Dlugoss, “the first Polish historian who wrote in the grand style”, and Nicodemus de Pontremoli, the trusted Ambassador of the Duke of Milan.

This would seem the fitting place to remark that the Jubilee year gave birth to a little literature of its own, a portion of which has since been printed, while a good deal more exists only in manuscript.  We have the two editions of a treatise by the Canonist, Giovanni d'Anagni, a man distinguished by the love of God and of his neighbor. Jakob von Jüterbogk and the Dominican, Heinrich Kalteisen, dealt with the subject of indulgences from the ecclesiastical point of view, and Johann von Wesel wrote against them. St. Antoninus, Archbishop of Florence, wrote concerning the pardon of the “golden year”, at a date later than 1450. Provost Felix Hemmerlin, of Soleure, in Switzerland, composed a dialogue between the Jubilee year and the Cantor Felix, in which the former successfully answers all doubts and prejudices regarding the validity of the Jubilee indulgence, and explains the conditions on which it may be gained by sinners of every position and degree. Hemmerlin’s tone is grave and devout, and the dialogue contains many interesting passages which throw a vivid light on evils existing in the ecclesiastical life of Switzerland. He is unsparing in his denunciation of the Beguines, of mendicant friars who hunt after benefices and money, and of ecclesiastics neglectful of their duty. “Canons”, he says, “who are not present in choir and yet receive remuneration for fulfilling this duty, are no better than thieves and robbers, and must, even if they be prelates, make restitution of their revenues, or they will not be partakers of the graces of the Jubilee year”. Hemmerlin also speaks at length, and with great force, against concubinage.

A description of Rome, written by Giovanni Rucellai, a florentine merchant, who made the pilgrimage in 1450, has lately been published, and is full of interesting matter. Amongst other things, he speaks of the catacomb beneath the church of St. Sebastian as always open, and constantly visited by the pilgrims.

“Perhaps”, says the chronicle of Forli, “it may have been in order to moderate the Pope’s joy at the unwonted and extraordinary concourse of pilgrims, and to preserve him from pride, that an event was fated to occur which caused him the deepest sorrow”. A very beautiful German lady of rank, who had undertaken the pilgrimage to Rome, was, in the district of Verona, set upon and carried away by soldiers. Sigismondo Malatesta of Rimini was generally looked upon as the instigator of this crime, which caused great excitement in Italy, but notwithstanding the careful inquiries at once set on foot by the Venetians, the mystery was never cleared up. The disaster was all the more distressing to the Pope, inasmuch as it was calculated to deter many rich and distinguished personages from setting forth on a journey which was already deemed in itself most perilous.

Nicholas V was yet more deeply affected by a terrible calamity in the Holy City itself. On the 19th December a greater crowd than ever had assembled in St. Peter’s to venerate the holy handkerchief and receive the Papal benediction. At about four o'clock in the afternoon the Pope sent word that, in consequence of the lateness of the hour, the benediction would not be given that day, and all the people hurried home by the bridge of St. Angelo, which was encumbered with shopkeepers’ booths. On the bridge the crowd unfortunately came in contact with some horses and mules, which had taken fright, and a block ensued. A great many of the pilgrims were in a moment thrown down and trodden under foot by the advancing masses, or else pushed into the Tiber. Meanwhile, the multitudes, who filled all the streets leading from St. Peter’s, pressed onward in utter ignorance of what had taken place, and, but for the presence of mind of the Castellan of St. Angelo, the catastrophe might have been yet more appalling in its extent. He caused the bridge to be closed, and brave citizens held back the advancing throng, but the fatal crush on the bridge continued for a whole hour. Then the citizens began to carry the dead into the neighboring Church of San. Celso. “I myself carried twelve dead bodies”, writes the chronicler, Paolo dello Mastro. More than a hundred and seventy corpses were laid out in the church, and this number, of course, does not include such as had fallen into the river. According to most of the contemporary accounts the victims exceeded two hundred, and this estimate cannot be far from the truth. Some horses and a mule also perished.

People who escaped with their lives had their clothes torn to pieces in the crowd. “Some were to be seen”, says an eye-witness, “running about in their doublets, some in shirts, and others almost naked. In the terrible confusion all had lost their companions, and the cries of those who sought missing friends were mingled with the wailing of those who mourned for the dead. As night came on, the most heartrending scenes were witnessed in the Church of San Celso, which was full of people up to 11 o'clock; one found a father, another a mother, one a brother, and another a son among the dead. An eye-witness says that men who had gone through the Turkish war had seen no more ghastly sight”. “Truly”, writes the worthy Paolo dello Mastro, “it was misery to see the poor people with candles in their hands looking through the rows of corpses, and as they recognized their dear ones their sorrow and weeping were redoubled”. The dead were for the most part Italians from the neighbourhood of Rome, chiefly strong youths and women; there were but few old people or children among them, and scarcely any persons of high rank. At midnight, by command of the Pope, a hundred and twenty-eight were carried to the Campo Santo, near St. Peter’s, where they were left all the Sunday for identification. The rest of the bodies were either brought to Sta. Maria della Minerva or buried in San Celso. Their garments were laid together in one part of the church. “My father”, says Paolo dello Mastro, “was appointed to take charge of them : many persons, who did not know if they had to mourn for one belonging to them, hastened there, and were assured of their loss”.

This terrible event inflicted a deep wound on the paternal heart of the Pope. He could not, indeed, attribute any blame to himself, for he had done all that was possible to maintain order in Rome, and had caused its narrow streets to be widened—yet the tragedy took such hold upon him that he fell into a kind of melancholy.

In order to guard against the possible recurrence of such an accident, Nicholas V had a row of houses in front of the bridge cleared away, so as to form an open space before the Church of San Celso. In the following year two chapels, dedicated to St. Mary Magdalen and the Holy Innocents, were erected at the entrance of the bridge, and mass was daily offered for the souls of the victims. These chapels remained until the time of Clement VII, who replaced them by the statues of the Apostles, which now stand there.

The Pope’s rejoicing in the glories of the Jubilee year was marred by yet another circumstance; the French ambassador demanded that a General Council should be summoned to meet in France; Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, who was at the time in Rome to obtain the Pope’s permission for the coronation of Frederick III, soon afterwards, in a solemn consistory, made request in the name of his King that it should be held in Germany, inasmuch as Frederick did not mean to consent to its meeting in any other country. This silenced the French and delivered Nicholas V from a serious difficulty.

Immense sums of money poured into Rome during the Jubilee Year, especially at its beginning and at its close, when the concourse of pilgrims was greatest. A chronicler mentions four classes as chiefly benefited : First, the money­changers; secondly, the apothecaries; thirdly, the artists, who painted copies of the holy handkerchief; and fourthly, the innkeepers, particularly those in the large streets and in the neighbourhood of St. Peter’s and of the Lateran.

On this occasion, as in previous Jubilees, the pilgrims brought an immense number of offerings. Manetti, the Pope’s biographer, says that an exceedingly large quantity of silver and gold found its way into the treasury of the Church, and Vespasiano da Bisticci tells us that Nicholas V was able to deposit a hundred thousand golden florins in the bank of the Medici alone. From the Chronicle of Perugia we learn that money was dear at this time, and could only with difficulty be obtained, because “it all flowed into Rome for the Jubilee”.

The Pope thus became possessed of the resources necessary for his great schemes, the promotion of art and learning; the poor also had a share of the wealth.

The moral effect of the Jubilee, in its bearing on the Papacy, was even more important than its material advantages.

The experience of all Christian ages has shown that pilgrimages of clergy and laity to the tombs of the Apostles at Rome are a most effectual means of elevating and strengthening the Catholic life of nations, and of uniting them more closely to the Holy See; and, moreover, that every movement of the kind is in many ways fraught with blessings. The great pilgrimage to Rome, the perennial fountain of truth, had a peculiar value in an age still suffering from the consequences of the schism. Faith seemed to gain new life, and the world saw that the Vatican, whose authority had been so violently assailed, was still the center of Christendom, and the Pope its common Head.

“It was striking”, says Augustinus Dathus, “to see pilgrims come joyfully from all lands, most of them with bundles on their backs, despising the comforts of their own country and fearing neither heat nor cold, that they might gain the treasures of grace. The remembrance of those days still rejoices my heart, for they made manifest the magnificence and glory of the Christian religion. From the most distant places many journeyed to Rome in the year 1450 to visit the Head of the Catholic Church and the tombs of the Princes of the Apostles. Truly this Jubilee year is worthy to be remembered throughout all ages”.

The Jubilee was the first great triumph of the ecclesiastical restoration, and it was the Pope’s desire that its renovating influence should be felt in every part of Christendom. The idea was in itself a fresh evidence of the right understanding and goodwill of Nicholas V and in order to carry it into effect he decided to send special Legates to the nations which had been most affected by the troubles of the last decade. These Legates were to labor for the establishment of a closer union with Rome, and for the removal of ecclesiastical abuses, and to open the spiritual treasures of the Jubilee to the faithful who were unable to visit the Eternal City. The Jubilee Indulgence was also extended by the Pope to those countries for which no Legate was appointed. A visit to the Cathedral of their Diocese, and an alms to be offered there, were generally the conditions substituted for the pilgrimage, which to many was an impossibility.

“In all countries and in every direction” as one of Cusa’s biographers justly observes, “men had been for a long time sinning much and grievously. It was fitting then that the reconciliation should be general. The awakening of a sense of sin was to be for all classes—for clergy as well as laity—for high and low, a solemn recall to duty, and a means of moral restoration; and when hearts were thus changed, there was room to hope that the reformation of ecclesiastical life, which had been so long desired and so solemnly guaranteed, might at last become a reality”.'

In August, 1451, the Pope sent Cardinal d'Estouteville to France, with a special mission to undertake the reform of the Cathedral Chapters, and of the Schools and Universities. The edicts issued by him on this occasion for the University of Paris manifest the skill and zeal with which he fulfilled his trust.

D'Estouteville remained in France until the end of 1452, without, however, accomplishing the principal end of his mission, which was the restoration of peace with England; to his honor it must be recorded, that he initiated the proceedings by which justice was done to the memory of the Maid of Orleans.

Before the end of December, 1450, Nicholas V had sent, as Legate to Germany, Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, a prelate renowned for learning and purity of life, who had already done much to promote the general peace of the Church, and the reconciliation of Germany with the Holy See. He was now commissioned to publish the Indulgence of the Jubilee, and to labor for the pacification of the kingdom, especially for the conclusion of the contest between the Archbishop of Cologne and the Duke of Cleves, and for the reunion of the Bohemians. The chief object of his mission, however, was to raise the tone of ecclesiastical life and thoroughly to reform moral abuses in Germany, where the Council of Basle had found so many partisans, and where the years of neutrality had produced great confusion in the affairs of the Church, and allowed religious indifferentism to assume serious proportions. The Pope granted the most ample powers to the German Cardinal, and even authorized him to hold Provincial Councils.

Little attention has been paid to the remarkable fact, that Cusa’s appointment encountered violent opposition from certain parties in Germany, who, untaught by the events of the previous ten years, still adhered to the un-Catholic principles of the Council of Basle. Although the assembly had given convincing proofs of its absolute incapacity to correct ecclesiastical abuses, there were still pedants who would accept reform only from a Council, and to whom any measure of the kind, proceeding from the Pope, appeared utterly obnoxious, even if carried out by so eminent and distinguished a man as Cusa. Others were anti-Roman to such a degree, that the dignity enjoyed by the Legate as a member of the Sacred College created a feeling of distrust in their minds. Yet all might have been proud to welcome the zealous and sagacious Cardinal who came speaking their own tongue, and was thoroughly acquainted with all the concerns and the needs of the Fatherland; and, as time went on, it became evident that Cusa discharged the duties of his important office in the spirit of a genuine reformer, and for the good of his country.

He looked on the work of ecclesiastical reform as one “of purification and renovation, not of ruin and destruction, and believed that man must not deform what is holy, but rather be himself transformed thereby”. And, therefore, first of all and above all, he was a reformer in his own person. His life was a mirror of every Christian and sacerdotal virtue. Justly persuaded that it is the duty of those, who hold the chief places in the Church, to exercise the office of preachers, he everywhere proclaimed the Word of God to both clergy and laity, and his practice accorded with his preaching. His example was even more powerful than his sermons. Detesting all vanity, he journeyed modestly on his mule, accompanied only by a few Romans, and scarcely to be recognized, save by the silver cross which the Pope had given him, and which was mounted on a staff and carried before him. On arriving in any town his first visit was to the church, where he fervently implored the blessing of heaven on the work he had taken in hand. Many princes and rich men brought him splendid presents, but he kept his hands pure from all gifts. Amongst his companions was the holy and learned Carthusian, Dionysius van Leewis, a man filled with the most ardent zeal for the renovation of monastic life.

Nicholas of Cusa, who left Rome on the last day of the year 1450, began his arduous labors, in February 1451, by holding a Provincial Synod at Salzburg. We have, unfortunately, but scanty details regarding this assembly; it is, however, evident that a renewal and strengthening of communion with Rome and a restoration of the relaxed discipline of religious houses were, together with the proclamation of the Jubilee Indulgence, its principal objects. The Cardinal thoroughly understood the root of the malady with which the Church in Germany was afflicted. A real change for the better could only be accomplished by a strengthening of the slackened bonds which bound Northern and Southern Germany to Pope Nicholas V, whose general recognition was but of recent date, and by a thorough reform of the relaxed religious orders. The decrees of the Synod over which Cusa presided are framed with these purposes. “Every Sunday henceforth”, it was ordained, “all priests are at Holy Mass to use a prayer for the Pope, the Bishop of the Diocese, and the Church”. By this rule, not only each bishop, but each individual priest, was obliged weekly to renew his solemn profession of communion with the Pope, and the consciousness of ecclesiastical unity was thus rendered more vivid. The decree was, within a month, to be published in every Diocese of the Province of Salzburg, and thenceforth to be binding on all priests. An indulgence of fifty days was granted for its exact observance.

It is hardly necessary to dwell on the great importance of this opening act of Cusa’s career as Legate in Germany. It bound the clergy of this vast ecclesiastical province by the closest ties to the Holy See, and formed a powerful check against any schismatical movement. The need which existed in Southern Germany for measures of this character was amply proved by the opposition of the Brixen Chapter, when the Pope appointed Cusa bishop of that Diocese.

The subject of monastic reform, which next engaged the attention of the Synod of Salzburg, was equally urgent. The springtime of monastic institutions was past. In many convents the spirit of strict observance and the cultivation of learning had sunk very low. At Salzburg the cardinal had only time to sketch out the plan of his future work in this field, for he was anxious to proceed on his journey so as to meet the King of the Romans at Vienna. Frederick III granted him the official investiture of the See of Brixen, with all the customary formalities, and confirmed, by a special diploma, his episcopal privileges and immunities in the beginning of March, at Wiener-Neustadt.

On the 3rd March Cusa issued a circular letter from Vienna to all Benedictine abbots and abbesses of the province of Salzburg, informing them, that, in virtue of the Papal commission, he had appointed Martin, abbot of the Scotch Foundation in Vienna; Lorenz, abbot of Maria-Zell; and Stephan, prior of Melk, apostolic visitors of their order. Having God before their eyes, and without regard to any other consideration, they were carefully and exactly to investigate and report upon the condition of the convents. In the event of resistance they were to invoke the aid of the secular arm, and to apprise the Legate, so that he might take all proper proceedings. They were, above all things, to insist on the strict observance of the three essential vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Dispensations accorded in former visitations were, without exception, revoked as contrary to the rule. A plenary indulgence, on condition of the performance of an appointed penance, was to be granted to those religious who, by their lives, showed themselves worthy of it. The document concludes by exhorting all concerned to receive the visitors with honor, and unreservedly to make known everything to them. All, without distinction of rank, were to be regarded as excommunicate, and their monasteries as under an interdict, in cases of disobedience, after the lapse of the three days following the service of the monition, required by the canons. The apostolic visitors at once set about their difficult, and in many cases thankless, task. Stephan von Spangberg, the Prior of Melk, being shortly promoted to a bishopric, was replaced by Johann Slitpacher, a monk from the same house, and King Frederick III granted letters of safe-conduct to the visitors, each of whom was accompanied by a chaplain and a servant. Abbot Martin generally made the opening address; Abbot Lorenz questioned the religious individually, examined churches, abbeys, cells, farm buildings, etc., and drew up the instrument of reform; and Slitpacher acquainted the monastic chapter with its several clauses.

The Archduchy of Austria, Styria, Carinthia, the Province of Salzburg, and a part of Bavaria were visited, and about fifty houses of both sexes reformed.

Much about the same time the Cardinal turned his attention to the reform of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine, entrusting the visitation of their houses to Provost Nicholas of St. Dorothy’s, in Vienna, Peter zu Ror, and Wolfgang Reschpeck.

The negotiations with the Chapter of Brixen in regard to Cusa’s appointment having been, by the mediation of Archbishop Frederick of Salzburg, brought to a satisfactory conclusion, the Legate proceeded byway of Munich, Freising, Ratisbon, and Nuremberg to Bamberg, where he held a Diocesan Synod in the Cathedral. His labors were directed in the first place to the reform of the religious orders. A deplorable contest prevailed at this time in the Diocese of Bamberg between the Mendicant Friars and the Secular Clergy, and, with the full consent of the Synod, he decided to bring the discord to an end by the publication of a canon of the Lateran Council of 1215. Everyone, whether exempt or non-exempt, who failed to worship in his parish church on Sundays and festivals, was to be deprived of communion and refused admission to the church. And, on the other hand, inasmuch as Mendicant Friars, lawfully admitted by the Bishop to the cure of souls, could give valid absolution, even in cases reserved to the Pope, similar punishments were to be inflicted on those who disputed their powers. Furthermore, the Bishop of Bamberg was required to publish in the principal places in his diocese, on the first Sunday in Lent, for the information of the people, the names of the Friars entrusted with the cure of souls, and a list of the cases reserved to the Bishop or the Pope. All controversy on the subject was to be discontinued, and any differences were to be referred to the decision of competent judges.

Regulations for the reform of houses and various ordinances concerning processions, confraternities, and the Jews, were also promulgated by the Bamberg Synod, and the Salzburg decree, prescribing the prayer for the Pope and for the Bishop of the Diocese at mass, was reiterated.

In the latter part of the month of May, Nicholas of Cusa, together with four abbots, presided at the fourteenth Provincial Chapter of the Benedictines, which was held in the convent of St. Stephen at Wurzburg. On this occasion he commanded that the rule of St. Benedict should be observed in all its original strictness, approved the Bursfeld reform, and strongly recommended it to all the abbots. This Chapter was very numerously attended; seventy abbots from the Dioceses of Mayence, Bamberg, Wurzburg, Halberstadt, Hildesheim, Eichstadt, Spire, Constance, Strasburg, and Augsburg were present, and amongst them Abbot Johann Hagen, the worthy founder of the celebrated congregation of Bursfeld. The Cardinal himself celebrated solemn High Mass, and each abbot individually came up to the altar and bound himself by vow to carry out the reform within the space of a year. To ensure the success of the good work, the disused custom of annual Provincial Chapters was re-established, and Abbot Hagen was appointed visitor, together with the Abbot of St. Stephen at Wurzburg. Thus was the good seed widely sown by the Cardinal Legate, for the seventy abbots bore back to their several houses the impulse received at Wurzburg; no mere passing emotion, such as is wont to touch the heart for a moment, and then leave it unchanged, but a steadfast, earnest purpose of reform. It is possible, indeed, that, through human weakness, or on account of insurmountable obstacles, some of the abbots may have failed to fulfill their promise within the appointed time, but there can be no doubt that the Wurzburg Synod brought forth excellent fruit.

From Wurzburg the Cardinal-Legate, riding on a mule, proceeded through Thuringia to Erfurt, which, on account of its numerous churches, chapels, and convents, was called Little Rome. Of the eleven religious houses in this city, three only were reformed, and in one of these, the Benedictine Abbey of St. Peter, Cusa took up his abode. St. Peter’s was at the time one of the most important monasteries of the Bursfeld congregation, and subsequently became its chief centre. On the very day after his arrival (30th May), the Legate began to preach. Hartung Kammermeister, in his Annals, gives the following description of his labors as a preacher, and of his sojourn at Erfurt: “On the Saturday after Cantate (4th Sunday after Easter), anno Dom. 1451, Nicholas of Cusa, the Cardinal sent by Pope Nicholas, came to Erfurt, when the Council decided that its chief man, Count Henry of Glichen, with some of its servants, friends, and citizens, should ride to meet him and receive him. They had also arranged that the monks from the monastery, and also the university, with the students, in procession, should await his arrival at the outer gate towards Tabirstete, there receive him and escort him to the toll bridge. On the aforesaid bridge the Canons of both Chapters met him, and the Cardinal dismounted from his horse and followed them on foot, in procession, to the Church of Our Lady, and both there and at St. Severin there was grand music in the choir and on the organ. Afterwards the Cardinal again mounted his horse and rode to the Petersberg, where the Canons met him with their relics, and he got off his horse at the steps, and gave the kiss of peace, and followed them on foot, in procession, to the monastery, and those who had ridden forth to meet him followed him on their horses, and afterwards everyone rode home again.

“Now at midday of Vocem jucunditatis (5th Sunday after Easter), the same Cardinal made a good and beautiful sermon from the pulpit of St. Peter’s, where a great multitude came together, and he informed the people why and in what manner our Holy Father the Pope had sent him, and he did the same in presence of all. Again on the Day of the Ascen­sion of our Lord, the Cardinal preached from the stone pulpit at the Kaffate, and a great crowd came, for the people heard him gladly.

“Furthermore, on Exaudi Sunday the same Cardinal preached from the pulpit of St. Peter’s, and very many came from the country into the town, wishing to hear his discourse, and the throng was so great that some men were crushed and many fainted, and it was supposed that more than two thousand persons were present”.

Nicholas of Cusa also visited all the religious houses of Erfurt, and appointed a special commission, with ample powers of reform. Among its members was the excellent Provost of the Augustinians, Johannes Busch, whose labors have been brought to light by recent researches. Cusa’s solicitude also extended to many Benedictine monasteries in Thuringia, and not being able to visit them all personally, he deputed Abbot Christian of St. Peter to act as his substitute, and the Abbot, in his turn, sought the aid of Provost Busch.

In the beginning of June the Cardinal went to Magdeburg, where monastic reform as well as renovation of life among clergy and laity were making the happiest progress under the auspices of the admirable Archbishop Frederick. It is worthy of note that Cusa deviated from the direct road to Magdeburg, in order to pass through Halle and make acquaintance with Johannes Busch, the principal promoter of monastic reform in Northern Germany, with whom he desired to confer regarding the great work in hand.

He entered Magdeburg on Whit-Sunday (June 13) in the morning, and remained there until the twenty-eighth of June, devoting the first week of his stay to preaching and the visitation of religious houses, and the second to holding a Provincial Synod. “This same Cardinal”, to quote the Municipal Chronicle of Magdeburg, “granted to all people in our Lord of Magdeburg’s Cathedral, in that year of graces, or golden year, the same Indulgences that were granted in Rome in the fiftieth year. The Canons had caused a new pulpit to be made, and when he wished to preach, the pulpit was ornamented with golden hangings. Many came to the sermon. There, on the Sunday after Corpus Christi, the Cardinal went with our Lord of Magdeburg in the procession, which every year is wont to be made with the Holy Sacrament, and the Cardinal himself bore It. It never before had been heard that a Cardinal from Rome had gone in procession here. Two Counts of Anhalt accompanied the Cardinal, and the canopy over the Sacrament was borne by the two Counts and other distinguished persons. Our Lord of Magdeburg bore the Holy Cross, and the Abbot of Berge and the Provost of Our Lady’s Church also carried relics. At this time so many people came to Magdeburg that all the streets were thronged. In the afternoon, when it is customary every year to show the relics, the Cardinal and our Lord of Magdeburg went up the aisle and stood beside the priest who showed them, as long as this was going on. Then the Cardinal gave the Benediction to the people”.

The Provincial Synod, in which the Bishops of Brandenburg and Merseburg, as well as the zealous Archbishop Frederick, took part, was held by the Cardinal in the choir of the magnificent Cathedral of Magdeburg. The Jubilee Indulgence and the reform of the religious orders were the principal subjects which occupied its attention, and Cusa appointed for the several towns and monasteries special confessors, who were empowered to absolve from all sins and ecclesiastical censures, even in cases reserved to the Bishops or to the Pope. The measures resolved upon for the reform of the monasteries were stringent. On the 25th June he issued a Bull, requiring, under pain of deprivation of all privileges and of the right of electing superiors, that, within the space of a year, all religious houses in the whole ecclesiastical province should be reformed, and charging all Bishops to publish these decisions as soon as possible, and to aid in their execution. Special attention was next devoted to the reform of the Augustinians, and, in this re­spect, the Magdeburg Synod was the counterpart to that of Wurzburg, which dealt in like manner with the Benedictines. The excellent Provost Busch was honored as he deserved to be. The Cardinal declared that Pope Nicholas V had, in his solicitude for the Order of St. Augustine, given him a commission to visit all its convents within the limits of his Legation. Being unable to accomplish this in person, he intended to nominate deputies, who, in their character of visitors and Legates of the Holy See, were to enjoy all the dignities and rights of an Apostolic Legate, and whose commands were in all particulars to be obeyed by the houses. Provost Johann Busch was appointed in the first place as visitor by Cusa, and with him was associated Provost Doctor Paulus Busse, and all Augustinian convents of the province of Magdeburg, and of the dioceses of Halberstadt, Hildesheim, and Verdun, its suffragans, were to be subject to their jurisdiction. Cusa charged the visitors to begin with the superior of each house, and to go through all its members to the very lowest, and then to give an accurate account in writing of the result of their inquiries. They were to correct everything found to be at variance with the rule of the Order and the Hildesheim Statutes, approved by Pope Martin V at the Council of Constance. In case of grave transgressions, and towards incorrigible offenders, they were to use strong measures, and even to invoke the aid of the secular arm for the eradication of crimes and scandals. Finally, all houses that accepted the reform were to participate in the benefit of the Indulgence. Both the visitors were fully empowered to give absolution in reserved cases and from ecclesiastical censures, and to grant dispensations for all irregularities. They were, moreover, authorized to remove the interdict, and in cases where they were worthy, to confirm provosts and priors who had obtained their prelacies by simony, and to set them free from the obligation of restitution in regard to revenues which they had unjustly enjoyed. Any convent refusing to admit the visitors incurred interdict, and its inmates fell under the greater excommunication, both of which censures were reserved to the Cardinal Legate and the Apostolic See. By the grant of these powers the work of reformation, which had hitherto depended only on the goodwill of the religious houses and the efforts of the bishops, received Papal authorization.

The labors of the Provincial Synod of Magdeburg were not yet at an end; a long list of resolutions for the reform of ecclesiastical affairs was drawn up; regulations were made regarding the carrying of the Blessed Sacrament, the office in choir, and the Jews, and finally a severe edict against concubinage was published. The decree requiring prayers for the Pope and for the Bishop of the Diocese to be said during Holy Mass, issued for the Province of Salzburg at the beginning of Cusa’s Legation, was now enacted at Magdeburg, and is a fresh example of the great Cardinal’s care for the promotion of ecclesiastical unity.

A cheering token of the revival of piety in Northern Germany appears in the zeal, with which the Bishop and the secular authorities promulgated and carried out the decisions of the Magdeburg Synod. The visitors of the religious houses spared no trouble in the accomplishment of their difficult task, and the fact that they devoted nearly seven weeks to Erfurt bears witness to the thoroughness of their labors in the cause of monastic reform. The convents of St. Thomas at Leipzig and St. John, at Halberstadt were also visited and reformed this year.

To this period belongs the Cardinal’s well-known prohibition of the veneration of bleeding Hosts, a matter regarding which the result of recent investigations is by no means unanimous. From Halberstadt, whence this order was issued, the Cardinal went to Wolfenbüttel and Brunswick, and then turned his steps towards Hildesheim. In this town he at once deposed the Abbot of St. Michael’s, who had obtained his dignity by means of simony and was averse to the reform, putting in his place a monk from Bursfeld, and thus ensuring the strict observance of the rule.  Here, as elsewhere, Cusa made the religious instruction of the people his care. An interesting memorial of his solicitude is preserved in the Hildesheim Museum in the form of a wooden tablet, bearing the paternoster and the ten commandments, which he caused to be hung up in St. Lambert’s, the parish church of Neustadt, as an aid to catechetical instruction.

The Cardinal left Hildesheim about the 20th July, probably spent some days in the ancient and celebrated convent of Corbie, and then remained in Minden uninterruptedly from the 30th July until the 9th August, laboring with great zeal at the arrangement of ecclesiastical affairs. His activity is shown by the list of rules by which he sought to amend the deplorable condition of the diocese. The convents of the city of Minden were subjected to a searching visitation, especially the Benedictine Abbey of St. Simon, where discipline had become very relaxed. Here, as in other places, he preached and said Mass in the Cathedral. He also inquired minutely into the condition of the Secular Clergy and the laity, and published ordinances for the better celebration of Divine Service and a severe edict against concubinage among the clergy. As this edict did not at once produce the desired effect, he caused a decree to be affixed to the church doors, threatening any beneficed ecclesiastic, who took back his concubine or kept her elsewhere, with the loss of his income and exclusion from public worship. Should the priest of any church permit an ecclesiastic, reasonably suspected of this sin, to enter his church or take part in the worship of God, the whole city of Minden was to incur an interdict which could only be removed by the Cardinal himself, or by the Apostolic See. The erection of new confraternities or congregations was prohibited, lest the laity should be encouraged to trust in a fallacious piety, consisting solely in externals and nominal membership in many brotherhoods.

While Nicholas of Cusa was thus laboring in Northern Germany to reform the Church from within, the celebrated Minorite, St. John Capistran, was energetically prosecuting the same work in the southern and eastern parts of the kingdom. King Frederick III had, through the intervention of Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, induced the Pope to send this great preacher to Germany, charged with the double duty of reforming his own order, and of combating the religious indifference, the sensuality and the spirit of insubordination, which had long prevailed among the people.

The Papal mandate, desiring St. John Capistran to proceed to the north, found him at Venice, where he was preaching the Lent.

He immediately started on his journey to Wiener-Neustadt, passing through Carinthia and Styria, where the mountaineers welcomed him with the greatest enthusiasm. “Wherever he arrived”, says Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini in his History of Frederick III, “priests and people met him with the holy relics, received him as ambassador of the Pope and preacher of truth, as a great prophet and messenger from heaven. The people flocked down from the mountains as if St. Peter or St. Paul, or some other of the Apostles were passing by, desiring to touch even the hem of his garment, and bearing their sick, many of whom are said to have returned healed. He was about sixty-five years old, small of stature, thin, withered and worn, mere skin and bone, but always cheerful, powerful in intellect, unwearied in work, very learned and eloquent. He preached every day, treating of high and important matters to the joy and delight of learned and unlearned; to all he gave satisfaction, and persuaded them as he would. From twenty to thirty thousand people came every day to his sermons, and although they did not understand what he said, listened to him with more attention than to the interpreter, for it was his custom first to pronounce his whole discourse in Latin, and afterwards he let the interpreter repeat it. It was long before he could reach Vienna, and when at the prayer of the Viennese he at last came to their city, they thronged to him in such crowds that the streets were too narrow to hold them. Men and women pressed one upon another, and when they saw him they shed tears of joy, raised up their hands to heaven and praised him, and those who could come near him kissed his garments, and greeted him as a messenger from heaven. He took up his abode with the Minorites, his brethren in religion, and was supported at the expense of the city. The rule of life which, together with his brethren, he observed was the following: he slept in his habit, rose at daybreak, and after much prayer said holy Mass. He then preached publicly to the people in Latin, from a high platform erected for him near the Carmelite Church on the Square, because elsewhere there was not room. A few hours later, when the interpreter also had finished, he returned to his convent, and after spending some time in prayer, went to visit the sick, laying hands on some, and touching others with the biretta of St. Bernardine, and the blood which had flowed from his nose after death. These visits occupied a long time, inasmuch as the sick were seldom fewer than five hundred, and the Saint prayed devoutly for them all. Towards evening he took food, gave audiences, said vespers, and returned to the sick and engaged in devotional exercises with them until after night had set in. After more prayer he at last allowed his body some repose, but his sleep was very short, for he stole from it time for the study of Holy Scripture. Thus did this man lead on earth what may be called a heavenly life, spotless, blameless, and sinless;  boldly say sinless although people were not wanting who accused him of vain ambition”.

Preaching penance wherever he went, St. John Capistran proceeded from Vienna through a great part of Germany. At Ratisbon, Augsburg, Nuremberg, Weimar, Jena, Leipzig, Dresden, Halle, Magdeburg, Erfurt, Breslau and many other places, he was unwearied in proclaiming the Word of God, and won thousands to a better life. In Moravia he battled with the Hussite heresy and reconciled many to the Church, but the hostility of Podiebrad closed Bohemia to him. The Cardinal of Cracow and King Casimir invited him to Poland, where he continued his labors.

His own order derived great benefits from his untiring energy. He knew how to arouse the zeal of the German Princes and cities. In most of the places where he preached he either founded a new convent, or obtained for his Observantines possession of one which required reform. It was his special care to fill these houses with learned novices who had been won, by his preaching, from among the undergraduates and students in the university towns. He strove earnestly in his innumerable discourses to awaken among the people a spirit of true penance and moral reformation. Success crowned his efforts, and in many places men and women brought their dice, cards, false hair, paint, and such like to the public market place and there burned them. “In the year 1454”, says an Augsburg chronicle, “Brother John Capistran, of the bare-footed Order, preached here in the church of our Lady, after Mass in the morning about the sixth hour, from the pulpit which had been erected for him, and he did this for eight days together. The men all had to sit on one side and the women on the other, and after dinner, towards evening, he touched all sick people in the court with the Relic of St. Bernardine. Many tresses of false hair and a pile of gambling tables and cards were burnt in the market place”.

In many places St. John’s preaching produced effects which, though supported by ample testimony, appear almost incredible. In Leipzig, for example, after he had preached on death with a skull in his hand, nearly a hundred and twenty students sought admission into different Religious Orders, about half the number being clothed by the preacher himself with the habit of St. Francis. Fifty young men were won for his Order in Vienna, and a hundred and thirty in Cracow, and many of these were students. The Pope showed his esteem for this marvelous preacher by bestowing on him special faculties and granting indulgences to all who should attend his sermons. He was popularly known as the “holy man” or “ghostly father”.

Meanwhile the zealous Nicholas of Cusa had in the brief space of six months traversed the most important districts of his native land, leaving everywhere traces of his presence in beneficent regulations which encouraged the good and were a terror to the evil. He now turned his steps to the spot whence monastic reform in Northern Germany had, in the first instance, proceeded, and where many of the happy days of his youth had been spent. Amid general rejoicings he entered Deventer on the 12th August, and took up his abode with his beloved brethren in religion. It was his delight to share the common life of those virtuous religious; he ate with them, though occupying a special seat in conformity with his dignity, and observed the monastic rule in every particular. In the afternoon, when the brethren were assembled in choir, he delighted them with an edifying discourse. While here the Cardinal also visited Windesheim, where he first delivered a striking sermon, and then proceeded to the church, solemnly celebrated Pontifical High Mass, and imparted to all present the Indulgences of the Jubilee. Cusa spent more than two months in the Low Countries, visiting Deventer, Zwolle, Utrecht, Haarlem, Leyden, Arnheim, Nyniwegen, Ruremonde, Mastricht, Liege, Brussels, and most other places of importance. His attention was everywhere devoted not only to monastic reform, but also to that of the people. Van Heilo, his contemporary and assistant, writes : “He not only everywhere admonished and punished ecclesiastics, and required them to amend, but also in his sermons instructed the other members of Christian society in all things necessary, so that many, of high as well as of low estate,, laity as well as clergy, were greatly moved in spirit by his words”.

Cusa then passed through Luxembourg to enjoy, at his own beautiful home, and among his own people, a short period of well-earned repose. It is related that when his sister Clara came to welcome him at Treves, at the end of October, in festal array, he would not receive her until she had resumed her simple ordinary dress.

A foundation, whose origin dates from the Cardinal’s sojourn with his family, still keeps alive the memory of his charity and of his affection for his home. He entered into an agreement with his brother John, the parish priest of Bernkastel, and his sister Clara for the establishment at Cues of a hospital where, in honor of the thirty-three years of our Lord's life, thirty-three poor people were to be provided for. The means required for the foundation were to be derived from the property of the family and from the Cardinal’s revenues. “Perhaps”, says one of Cusa’s biographers, “this was the noblest of the fruits brought forth by the Church’s summons to penance and satisfaction. The offering of this Christian family at Cues, with the preacher of the Jubilee in its midst, is in the genuine spirit of Christianity, and has been richly blessed by God”.

The conclusion of Cusa’s labors in Germany is marked by the great Provincial Councils of Mayence and Cologne, which brought the blessings of reform within the immediate reach of his own home.

The Provincial Council of Mayence was opened in the middle of November, 1451, and lasted for several weeks. The resolutions which it framed may be summed up as follows:—The edict of the Council of Basle regarding the holding of Provincial and Diocesan Synods was adopted. In these Synods the treatise of St. Thomas Aquinas, on “the Articles of Faith and the Holy Sacraments” was to be explained to those entrusted with the cure of souls and to be recommended as a useful handbook. A decree was passed dealing with the usurious practices of the Jews, and another regarding concubinage amongst the clergy, who were to be made subject to the penal laws passed at Basle. The holding of markets on Sundays and festivals and the abuse of Indulgences were forbidden, as also the erection of fresh confraternities to the prejudice of the public worship in the parish churches. The sentence of interdict was limited by a very wise resolution. In order to keep up respect for the most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, It was to be exposed only on the festival of Corpus Christi and during its octave. Other decrees had reference to abuses in nomination to posts in cathedrals and collegiate churches, and others again prescribed monastic reforms.

An important mission now removed Cusa for a time from the scene of his labor. Bulls from Rome commanded him in August, 1451 to proceed to England, and also to visit the territories of the Duke of Burgundy, and there, as well as in the adjacent countries, to endeavor to establish that peace which the ever-increasing danger of Turkish invasion rendered so necessary to Christendom,

In one of these Bulls, Nicholas V expresses his confidence that Cusa will, by the exercise of that circumspection and prudence which God has bestowed on him, bring about the much desired peace and become worthy to receive the palm of glory by which God rewards peacemakers. But national animosity was too powerful, and a truce was the utmost that could be obtained.* Having returned to Germany he resumed his work by summoning a Provincial Synod to meet at Cologne. This assembly sat from the 24th February until the 8th March. Its decisions were substantially the same with those of the Synod of Mayence, tand Cusa joined to their publication the following beautiful words, “By the influence of Divine love and the power of the Apostolic Spirit, which, according to the testimony of St. Jerome, never forsakes the chair of St. Peter, and at the present time devotes itself with special solicitude to feeding the flock of Christ, it has come to pass that our Holy Father, Pope Nicholas V, has cast his eyes on this great province of Cologne, and has sent us, although the least of all the Cardinals of the Sacred College, here, to see how you, brethren, his beloved sons, advance in the way of the Lord. Let us, therefore, thank God, who has collected us together for the promotion of holiness, and in order that by mutual consultation things may take a better direction. And as you are here assembled, most worthy Archbishop Dietrich, together with the honorable chapter and the representatives of the Suffragans, the worthy Abbots, Provosts, Deans, Canons, and other religious learned Priests and Masters in great number, it appears to me that the moment has come when from deliberate, ample, and common consultation a profitable result may ensue. For the sake of a better understanding, I think it well to premise that by these resolutions we do not in any way prejudice any apostolic ordinances published by ourselves or other Legates, nor repeal any provincial or diocesan decrees and laudable customs whatever they may be (in so far as they shall not be amended or limited by the decisions we are now about to publish) nor allow the authority of the Holy See or its Legate, or of the Metropolitan and his Suffragans, or any rights, liberties, privileges, and immunities to be in any way impaired. We shall study to maintain the proved right of each one. Moreover, for the sake of carrying some measure of reform into the affairs of the Church, until God grants us more fitting time for more careful consultation, we, Nicholas, Cardinal and Legate, etc., in virtue of our ample power presiding over this Holy Provincial Council, according to the express consent of the worthy Lord and Father in Christ, Lord Dietrich, Archbishop of Cologne, presiding conjointly with us, of his reverend Chapter and his Suffragans, and the unanimous approval of the whole Synod conclude and ordain as follows”, etc.

The work done by Cardinal Cusa as Legate in Germany and the Low Countries may be looked upon as the most glorious of his well-spent life, and all honor is due to the Holy See for the selection of an instrument so well-fitted to accomplish a task of rare difficulty. Truly to use the wordb of Abbot Trithemius, “Nicholas of Cusa appeared in Germany as an angel of light and peace, amidst darkness and confusion, restored the unity of the Church, strengthened the authority of her Supreme Head, and sowed a precious seed of new life. Some of this, on account of the hardheartedness of men, has not grown up, some has brought forth blossoms which from sloth and negligence have quickly disappeared, but a good part has borne fruit in which we still rejoice. Cusa was a man of faith and of love, an apostle of devotion and knowledge. His mind embraced all provinces of human knowledge, but all his knowledge was from God, and its sole object was the glory of God and the edification and amendment of men”.