maintain that the virgin Mary was free from the stain of original sin; he even sent to prison all who denied the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.

Clement VII., always in fear of being sacrificed to his rival, Urban VI., and relying for support chiefly on the court of France, did not venture to make any further resistance. He issued a bull condemning John de Monçon, and all his adherents: he permitted the king to institute a new festival in honor of the Immaculate Conception. The whole order of St. Dominic was degraded to the lowest rank of monastics, and it was ordained that no one of their body should, in future, hold the office of confessor to the king.

Urban VI. paid little regard to theological controversies; he was more anxious to re-establish his authority over southern Italy. But as he marched toward Naples, his troops mutinied for want of pay, and he was forced to return to Rome. The citizens proved to be as discontented as the soldiers; to stifle their murmurs he published a bull for the celebration of a jubilee the following year at Rome, and ordered that this solemnity should be repeated every thirty-three years, according to the number of years that Christ remained upon earth. He hoped that this festival would enrich the Romans and himself, but he died before the time for its celebration (A. D. 1389). It is supposed that his end was hastened by poison, for his most ardent supporters were weary of his tyranny.

A few days after the death of Urban, the cardinals at Rome chose a new pontiff, who took the title of Boniface IX., and commenced his reign by an interchange of anathemas and excommunications with his rival at Avignon. More prudent than his predecessor, Boniface hasted to make terms with the family of Durazzo at Naples; he recognised young Ladislaus as a legitimate 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 counsel was not favorably received by the king, it gave great alarm to Clement, and agitation of mind is supposed to have produced the apopletic 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 idiotcy; 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 meantime, 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: Ladisiaus 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 jndged 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 burnt 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 lisputes, 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 labors 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 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 chymistry, 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” (î. 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 o 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 linenrags, 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. When the Arabs conquered Bokhara (A. D. 704), they are said to have found a large manufactory of cottonpaper 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, can not be ascertained. 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 toward 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 a high degree of perfection. Owing to this invention, modern paintings excel the ancients both in finish of execution and permanence.

More important than either of these was the invention of printing, which seems to have been at least partially derived from the East. Solid blocks of wood, graven with pictures and legends, were used in China from a very remote period. The great improvement of having separate types for each letter, was made by John Gutenberg, a citizen of Mayence (A. D. 1436); he used small blocks of wood, but the matrix for casting metal types was soon after devised by Peter Schoeffer, of Gemheim. Gutenberg established the first printing-press known in Europe, at Strasburg; thence he removed to Mayence, where he entered into partnership with John Fust, or Faustus, whose ingenuity greatly contributed to perfect the invention. Gutenberg did not put his name to any of the books he printed; Faustus, more ambitious of fame, placed his name and that of his partner to his celebrated Psalter, and thus received no small share of the glory that properly belonged to the first discoverer. The art of engraving on copper, was discovered about the same time as the use of moveable types, but its history is very obscure..

Scarcely less important than printing was the manufacture and use of gunpowder. The explosive power of saltpetre was probably known in the east from a very remote age. With less certainty we may conjecture that the process of compounding saltpetre with other ingredients, was brought from the remote east by the Saracens. Friar Bacon, the first European writer who describes the composition of gun powder, derived his knowledge of chymistry chiefly from the Arabian writers who were the originators of that science. The employment of