king, and sent a legate to perform the ceremony of his coronation. Ladislaus, in return, took an oath of fidelity and homage, binding himself never to recognise the antipope at Avignon.

Clement VII. strengthened himself by a closer union with the king of France, whom he induced to visit Avignon, and to witness the ceremony of the coronation of Louis II. of Anjou, as king of Naples. The imbecile Charles was so gratified by his reception, that he projected a crusade against Rome, but he was soon induced to abandon his purpose, and he gave very feeble aid to his cousin of Anjou, when he prepared an armament to invade the Neapolitan territories. The doctors of the Sorbonne became eager to terminate the schism; and, encouraged by their success in the controversy of the Immaculate Conception, they presented to the king a project for restoring the peace of the Church, by compelling the rival popes to resign, and submit the choice of a new pontiff to a general council (A.D. 1394). Though this council was not favourably received by the king, it gave great alarm to Clement, and agitation of mind is supposed to have produced the apoplectic fit which occasioned his death.

The French ministers wrote to the cardinals at Avignon, urging them to embrace the opportunity of terminating the schism; but these prelates hasted to conclude a new election without opening the letter, with the contents of which they were acquainted. Peter de Luna, cardinal of Aragon, was nominated pope; he took the name of Benedict XIII., and the schism became wider than ever. When the news of the election reached Paris, Charles, instead of recognising the pope of Avignon, convoked the clergy of his kingdom to deliberate on the means of restoring peace to the Church. After some delay the convocation met, and came to the inconsistent resolution of recognising Benedict, and proposing that the schism should be terminated by the abdication of the two popes. Ambassadors were sent with this proposal to Avignon, but a ridiculous though insuperable difficulty prevented the success of their negotiations. The plenipotentiaries on both sides preached long sermons to each other, until the French princes who were joined in the legation, completely fatigued, and seeing no probable termination of the conference, returned home indignant and disappointed. The king of England and the emperor of Germany joined the French monarch in recommending the double application; Boniface declared his readiness to resign, if Benedict would set the example, but the latter pontiff absolutely refused submission. An army was sent to compel him to obedience; Avignon was taken, and Benedict besieged in his palace, but his obstinacy continued unshaken, and the party feuds which

the weakness of the king encouraged in France, gave him hopes of final triumph.

The state of the western governments tended to protract the schism of the Church; the king of France fell into idiocy; Richard II. was deposed in England by his cousin Henry IV.; the duke of Anjou was driven from Naples; the Byzantine emperor and the king of Hungary were harassed by the Turks, whose increasing power threatened ruin to both; the Spanish peninsula was distracted by the Moorish wars; and the Emperor Wenceslaus was forced to abdicate by the German electors. Boniface took advantage of these circumstances to establish the papal claim to the first-fruits of all ecclesiastical benefices, and to render himself absolute master of Rome, by fortifying the citadel and castle of St. Angelo. The Roman citizens were deprived of the last shadow of their former franchises; the readiness with which they submitted is, however, a sufficient proof that they were unworthy of freedom. The pope did not long survive this triumph; the Roman cardinals elected Innocent VII. to supply his place; but he died about twelve months after his elevation, and was succeeded by Gregory XII. (A.D. 1406). Benedict, having in the mean time recovered his freedom, protested against the Roman elections, but offered to hold a personal conference with Gregory for reconciling all their differences. The cardinals, weary of these controversies, deserted the rivals, and, having assembled a general council at Pisa, elected a third pope, who took the title of Alexander V.

There were now three heads to the Christian church; Ladislaus and some of the Italian cities supported Gregory; the kings of Scotland and Spain adhered to Benedict; while Alexander was recognised in the rest of Christendom. The disputes of these hostile pontiffs had greatly tended to enfranchise the human mind, and weaken the hold of superstition; Wickliffe's doctrines spread in England, and in Germany they were advocated by John Huss, who eloquently denounced the corruptions that debased the pure doctrines of Christianity. Pope Alexander was preparing to resist the progress of the courageous reformer, when his death threw the affairs of the Church into fresh confusion.

The presence of an armed force induced the cardinals to elect John XXIII., whose promotion gave great scandal, as he was more remarkable for his military than his religious qualifications (A.D. 1411). John soon compelled Ladislaus to abandon Gregory's party; he then assembled a general council at Rome, where sentence of condemnation was pronounced on the doctrines of Huss and Wickliffe. But Ladislaus soon grew weary of peace; he led an army against Rome, plundered the city, and compelled

the pope to seek protection from Sigismond, emperor of Germany. John consented very reluctantly to the imperial demand, that the schism should finally be terminated by a general council; he made an ineffectual effort to have the assembly held in one of his own cities, but Sigismond insisted that it should meet in Constance. John then attempted to interpose delays, but the general voice of Christendom was against him; he judged his situation accurately, when, pointing to Constance from the summit of the Alps, he exclaimed, 'What a fine trap for catching foxes!'

The attention of all Christendom was fixed upon the deliberations of the council of Constance, whither bishops, ambassadors, and theologians flocked from every part of Europe (A.D. 1415). John Huss, having obtained the emperor's safe-conduct, appeared before the council to defend his doctrines, but Sigismond was persuaded to forfeit his pledge, and deliver the courageous reformer to his enemies, to be tried for heresy. Pope John was not treated better; a unanimous vote of the council demanded his abdication; he fled to Austria, but he was overtaken and detained in the same prison with Huss, until he ratified the sentence of his own deposition. Gregory XII. soon after abdicated the pontificate, but Benedict still continued obstinate; his means of resistance, however, were so trifling, that the council paid little attention to his refusal. John Huss, and his friend Jerome of Prague, were sentenced to be burned at the stake as obstinate heretics, but their persecutors could not stop the progress of the truth; the Hussites in Bohemia had recourse to arms for the defence of their liberties, and, under the command of the heroic Zisca, maintained the cause of civil and religious liberty in many glorious fields.

The emperor, the princes of Germany, and the English deputies, strenuously urged the council to examine the abuses of the Church, and form some plan for its thorough reformation; but the prelates, fearing that some proposals might be made injurious to their interests, steadily resisted these efforts; declaring that the election of a pope, ought to have precedence of all other business. After long disputes, the choice of the electors fell on Otho Colonna, a Roman noble, who took the title of Martin V. The new pontiff combined with the cardinals to strangle all the plans of reform, and the council, from whose deliberations so much had been expected, terminated its sittings without having applied any effectual remedy to the evils which had produced the schism. A promise, indeed, was made, that another council would be convened, for the reform of the Church, at Pavia, but no one cared to claim its performance; the conduct of those who met at Constance convinced the world that no effectual redress of grievances could be expected from such assemblies.

The projects of reform, begun at Constance, were revived at the council of Basle (A.D. 1431); but Eugenius IV., the successor of Martin, soon felt that the proposed innovations would be fatal to the papal authority, and dissolved the council. This precipitancy caused another schism, which lasted ten years; but at length the ex-duke of Savoy, who had been chosen pope by the partisans of the council, under the name of Felix V., gave in his submission; and the council, from whose labours so much had been expected, ended by doing nothing. Still the convocations of the prelates of Christendom at Constance and Basle struck a fatal blow against the despotism of the popes. Henceforth monarchs had, or seemed to have, a court of appeal,-one so dreaded by the pontiffs, that the mere dread of its convocation procured from them liberal concessions. But a new and more formidable enemy to the despotism of the pontiffs than the resistance of kings or of councils, was the progress of literature and knowledge, which brought the extravagant claims of spiritual and temporal rulers to be investigated on their real merits, not according to their asserted claims.

SECTION II. First Revival of Literature, and Inventions
in Science.

In the controversy between Philip the Fair and Boniface VIII., literary talent was for the first time employed against the Church by John of Paris, a celebrated Dominican, who advocated the royal independence with great zeal and considerable ability. The celebrated poet Dante Alighieri, who may be regarded as the founder of Italian literature, and almost of the Italian language, followed the same course, advocating strenuously the cause of the emperor Louis of Bavaria. Their example was a model for many other writers who laid aside the shackles of authority, and supported the independence of states. But literature itself was subject to trammels which checked the progress of improvement. Aristotle's system of philosophy, not as originally formed by that great man, but modified in Arabian translations, and cumbered by scholastic refinements, was the only subject deemed worthy of attention. It was deemed a crime scarcely less than heresy, to doubt of any explanation given by the schoolmen of physical, mental, or moral phenomena. Roger Bacon, a Franciscan monk, was the first who revived experimental science; he made several important discoveries in mechanics and chemistry, but his great merit is to be found, not so much in his various inventions and projects, as in the bold appeal which he made to experiment and the observation of nature. His lectures at Oxford, published under the title of 'Opus Majus' (A. D. 1266), raised against him a host of enemies; he was prohibited

from giving instructions in the university, and was subjected to confinement in his convent. His scientific discoveries were deemed a species of magic in that age of ignorance; he was the first of the long list of victims of ecclesiastical persecution, and the leader of a long line of patriots who supported the cause of intellectual and moral liberty against the odious encroachments of spiritual despotism. The emancipation of literature accompanied that of science; the impulse which Dante had given to the cultivation of Italian poetry was long felt; he was followed by Petrarch and Boccacio, whose writings at once elevated the character and formed the language of their countrymen.

Several new inventions, or perhaps importations from the remote East, accelerated the progress of men in learning and the arts. Of these we may mention more particularly the art of forming paper from linen rags, painting in oil, the art of printing, the use of gunpowder, and of the mariner's compass.

Before the invention of linen-paper, parchment was generally used in Europe, both for copying books and preserving public records. This material was scarce and dear; in consequence of its scarcity, the writing was often effaced from ancient manuscripts, and new matter written on the parchments. Some of the most valuable classical works were thus sacrificed to make room for idle legends of saints and trifling theological dissertations. In some of these, called palimpsests, the old writing is faintly legible under that of the monks, and some important fragments have thus been recovered. When the Arabs conquered Bokhara (A.D. 704), they are said to have found a large manufactory of cotton-paper at Samarcand, which is not improbable, as the fabric was known in China before the Christian era. They brought the knowledge of the art into their western territories, but the scarcity of the materials long impeded its progress. At length, in the thirteenth century, it was discovered that linen would answer all the purposes of cotton; but when, where, or by whom, this valuable discovery was made cannot be ascertained. As flax and hemp are chiefly the growth of northern countries, the claim of the Germans to the invention seems better founded than that of the Italians; the first great factory of linen-paper of which we have any certain accounts was established at Nuremberg (A. D. 1390), but there is reason to believe that paper was manufactured in Western Europe a century earlier.

The invention of painting in oils is usually attributed to two brothers, Van Eyck, of whom the younger, called John of Bruges, flourished towards the close of the thirteenth century. The invention, however, is of much earlier date, but the brothers deserve the merit of having brought it into practical use, and carried it to

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