AH EXAMINATION INDULGENCES WITH REFERENCE TO THEIR INFLUENCE

AS A CAUSE OF THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION

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A ThesisPresented to the Department of History

University of Southern California

In partial fulfillment of the

Requirements for the\Degree of Master of Arts

ByDonald Gordon Davis

July 26, 1931

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UMI Number: EP59152

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This thesis, written under the direction of the / 4 candidate's Faculty Committee and approved by

a l l its members, has been presented to and ac

cepted by the Council on Graduate Study and

Research in part ia l fu lf illm ent of the require

ments fo r the degree of

. ter ...of. .Ar.tt s.

Secretary

D ean

Date January. .28> 1.932.

Faculty Committee

Professor Gilliland.Chairman

Professor Douglas

Professor Early

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ToMY MOTHER

whose love and prayer have been a never-failing source

of inspiration and encouragement

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PREFACE

The author wishes to thank those who have made possible the present work--a work which has proved profitable to himself* To the chairman of the author*s committee,Dr* Clarence V. Gilliland, for his criticism of this study and his heartening personal stimulation, both in class and out sincere appreciation* The other members of the committee, Mrs. Della T. Early and Dr* G. C. Douglas, are deserving of thanks for their patience in reading this paper* The splendid cooperation of the library of the University of Southern California, the Los Angeles Public Library, and the Los Angeles Roman Catholic Junior Theological Seminary merits recognition* The author is especially grateful to Dr. William P.White, president of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, for placing at his disposal a study room adjoining the Los Angeles Public Library.

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CONTENTS

CHAPTERINTRODUCTION

I. THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDULGENCES TO THE TWELFTHCENTURY...................... ...........Confession in the apostolic church.....Development of sacrament of Penance..... Catholic claims of early indulgences.... The first genuine indulgences Moderation in the early use of indulgences ....... ........................

II. THE DEVELOPMENT'OF INDULGENCES FROM THE-TWELFTH CENTURY TO THE REFORMATION.....New uses for plenary indulgences........The Treasury of Merit theory. The origin of the Roman Jubilee...The financial traffic in indulgences....Application of indulgences to the dead*.

III. OPPOSITION'TO INDULGENCES PRIOR TO THEREFORMATION..............................The Waldenses and the Flagellants.......John Wycliff .......... .

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41 41 44

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John Hus....... ........ 48John of Wesel..................... .... 51John Wessel of GrBningen............. 53

THE INDULGENCE FOR THE CATHEDRAL OF ST.PETER !S ......... ...................... 5 VThe ambition of Albert of Brandenburg. 57 Bargaining for the St. Peter!s Indulgence.. ..... 59The activities of John Tetzel......... 61

LUTHER AND THE INDULGENCE CONTROVERSY..... 65The Ninety-five Theses .... 68The evolution of Luther!s position.... 74The turning-point: the Leipzigdebate.... 76

SUMMARY, WITH CONCLUSIONS--------- .. 80APPENDIX....... 82BIBLIOGRAPHY..................... 90

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INTRODUCTION

The attention of Europe was monopolized almost exclusively for a period of one hundred fifty years b:y the Protestant Reformation and the subsequent wars of religion which closed with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. The significant connection of indulgences with the beginning of the movement is recognized by Catholic and non-Catholic alike* This v/ork proposes to trace the practice of granting indulgences by the Church from its inception in the early penitential discipline, which found its roots in the New Testament, itself, to the posting of Luther1s Theses in 1517 and the subsequent decline of interest in the controversial aspect of the indulgence dispute* The development of the theory of indulgences, including the evolution of the Treasury of Merit conception and the practice of granting indulgences for the dead, will be examined concomitantly with the growth of abuses in order to bring increased financial revenues to the Church. The study shows that the abuse of indulgences for financial gain in its cumulative effect upon the minds of right-thinking men provided the immediate cause of the Reformation, the contributing or underlying causes of which must be sought elsewhere.

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CHAPTER ITHE DEVELOPMENT OF INDULGENCES TO THE TWELFTH CENTURY

Tli Roman Catholic practice of granting indulgences to the communicants of the Church was not instituted in a day. While the earliest genuine indulgences, in the accepted sense of the term, date from the latter part of the eleventh century, the roots of the system extend back to the Apostolic Church and to Christ himself. It is impossible to correctly estimate the influence of indulgences and the abuses involved in their distribution as a cause of the Protestant Reformation without carefully tracing the evolution of the practice from its first uncertain sources to the culmination of opposition against it in 1517. The opening chapters, therefore, summarize the history of indulgences to the period of the Reformation.

According to the definition given in tfThe New Code of Canon Lav;,An indulgence is the remission before God of the penalty due to sins already forgiven as to their guilt, which the ecclesiastical authority grants out of the treasury of the Church, to the living by way of absolution, to the dead by way of suffrage.-*-Bishop Hedley of Newport quotes three definitions of indulgences from Catholic catechisms in use in three differ-

H.A. Ayrinhac, Legislation on the Sacraments in the New Code of Canon Lav/" p. ...... ...

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ent countries, the United States, Scotland, and Germany. The catechism used in American Catholic schools contains this definition of the termsAn indulgence is the remission of the temporal punishment which often remains due to sin after its guilt has been forgiven.^The following statement is taken from the catechism used in Scotland*An indulgence is the remission in whole or part of the temporal punishment due to sin after its guilt has beenforgivenA German work, The Catechism Explained, gives still another definition of indulgence. The English translation follows*The remission of the temporal punishment due to us on account of our sins is called an Indulgence.3

indulgence is thus seen to be in no sense forgiveness of sin, far from being a permission to sin without guilt. After sin ha^been confessed to the priest and absolution pronounced, the confessor imposes penance, one of many types of works, as temporal satisfaction to be met by the absolved sinner for the sins just forgiven as to eternal guilt. An indulgence commutes part or the whole of this penance into some different type of works. This has been the Roman Catholic doctrine of indulgences from the middle ages to the present, but the sources of the doctrine must

!j. C. Hedley, ffThe Roman Catholic Doctrine of Indulgences, n nineteenth Century, XLIX (1901), p. 160.

^Ibid., loc. cit.

^Xbid., Loc. cit

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be sought almost a thousand years earlier.Purity of personal living was considered highly es

sential to Christian profession in the early days of the Church, and a rigorous watch was maintained over the morals of each congregation by its local minister or lower officers. The apostolic instruction toConfess therefore your sins one to another: and pray one for another, that you may be saved^-was earnestly followed by these first century Christians. Baptism, it was agreed, carried with it full forgiveness for all past sins; but sins committed after baptism required confession.And many of them that believed, came confessing and declaring their deeds. And many of them who had followed curious arts, brought together their books, and burnt them before all;^All who were found guilty of open sin or disobedience v ere excluded from participation in communion services or were excommunicated. In many cases those who had been excluded or excommunicated soon returned seeking readmission to their former church privileges. The apostle Paul ordered the Church of Corinth to restore unconditionally the sinner upon their satisfaction of his sincere repentence.And if any one have caused grief . . . . . To him who is such a one, this rebuke is sufficient, which is given by many: So that on the contrary, you should rather forgivehim and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow. Wherefore I beseech you, that r

James 5:16.

2Acts 19s18-19

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you would confirm your charity towards him* ' . . . And to whom you have pardoned any thing, I also* For, what I have pardoned, if I have pardoned anything, for your sakes have I done it in the person of Christ.-*Dionysius of Corinth wrote to the Church of Amastis enjoining them frto receive all that return from any sort of apostasy, from sin, or from heretical e r r o r . T h e confessors of Vienna and Lyons claimed to have loosed all and bound none. Bishop Creighton of London describes this early confessional practice as follows2The element of sin against God, which was forgiven through penitence, was distinguished from the wrong done to man, which required punishment before it could be remitted.The requirements of divine and human justice mere both satisfied by the same temper of mind on the part of the penitent*^

Christians became more numerous as time went on, and it became impossible to continue this simple community method of dealing with the sinner. A new criterion of a manfs penitence began to replace the old method of simply noting his conduct and demeanor. If the outward evidence of the erring ones repentence and contrition satisfied the local minister of his earnestness, the excluded one submitted to a long and wearisome penitential discipline, after which, by taking certain actions, he was allowed to

^11 Corinthians 2 2 6-8, 10.

H.. M. Gwatkin, Early Church History to A.D. 313,I, p. 230.

3M . Creighton, A History of the Papacy from the Great Schism to the Sack of kome, Vi, p. 68.

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resume full church fellowship. The penitential disciplinei

was made up of mortifications, abstinences, and good works of every description, such as giving' alms, making pilgrim-' ages to distant churches, fasting, and praying. The whole process of application for readmission to fellowship, penitential discipline, andreinstatement to good standing gradually developed into the sacrament of penance, consisting of confession, prescription of penance, and absolution pronounced by the priest or a higher ecclesiastical official. The forgiveness of sin by the priest finds its authority in the Roman Catholic interpretation of the statement of Jesus:Thou art Feter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth,it shall be loosed in heaven.1According to the Roman Church, Peter here received from Jesus his commission as Head of the Church and Vicar of Christ on earth; the power here delegated to him to remit sins descends to all future popes and loiter officials appointed by them. With the gradual development of the pen itential discipline a new conception arose -- that while the priest cancels the etdrnal guilt of confessed sin through the power of the keys (absolution), there still remains a temporal punishment or earthly satisfaction for

^Matthew 16:18-19.

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sin which must he met personally by the penitent hims Briefly summarized, the system which developed ,?orked thus: there were two supplementary factors in penance;absolution pronounced by the priest released the soul from the eternal guilt and condemnation of sin; by doing penance the individual meets the temporal satisfaction re- quired of his sin. Edward J. Hanna, a modern Catholic authority, thus defines penancesPenance is a sacrament of the New Law instituted by Christ in which forgiveness of sins committed after baptism is granted through the priestfs absolution to those who with true sorrow confess their sins and promise to satisfy for. the same.-**

The early penitential discipline, or canonical penance as it came to be known, was extremely heavy in its requirements, and it became the custom to substitute some lighter form of works when the penitent exhibited unusually deep contrition. Only bishops were at first empowered to thus commute one form of penance into another, but in the course of time this authority descended to the ordinary priest. As Thurston suggests, ffthe practice of Indulgences in the medieval Church arose out of the authoritative remission, in exceptional cases, of a certain proportion of this canonical penance.11

The eminent medieval historian, Henry Charles Lea,calls attention to the fact that Homan Catholic theologi- -----

J.. Hanna, 11 Penance,11 The Catholic Encyclopaedia, XI, p. 618.

^H. Thurston, The Holy Year of Jubilee, p. 315.

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ans prior to the Council of Trent (1545-1565) freely admitted that indulgences were unknown by the Church Fathers, and that nthe protagonists in the conflict with Lutheranism conceded that there was no point of Catholic doctrine so difficult to defend and so impossible to justify with proof n 3- as the early use of indulgences. Catholic theologians of the middle ages admitted the ignorance of the Church Fathers on many subjects, such as purgatory, transubstantiation, the procession of the Holy Ghost, and indulgences, and justified the later introduction of these doctrines by the Churchls authority to pronounce upon her own doctrine through her supreme head, the bishop of Home. Guided as was the pope by Christ his new pronouncements in doctrine carried the authority of Christ, himself, although the fundamental bases of the doctrines were always held to be found in the Bible. In its last session (1563), the Council of Trent was obliged to make some statement concerning indulgences, and declared that Christ while still upon earth had given the Church through St.Peter the power of granting indulgences and affirmed their continuous use from the very beginning of the Christian Church. The opening statement of the decree follows:Whereas the power of conferring indulgences was granted by Christ to the Church; and she has, even in the most ancient times, used the said power, delivered unto her of------ T

H. C. Lea, A History of Auricular Confession and Indulgences in the Latin Church, III, p. 4.

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God; the sacred and holy synod teaches and enjoins, that the use of indulgences, most salutary for the Christian people, and approved of by the authority of sacred'* councils, is to be retained in the Church; and it condemns with anathema those who either assert that they are useless, or whydeny that there-is in the Church the power of granting them.Since this dogmatic pronouncement at Trent, the Catholic Church has bent every effort toward building up a convincing array of uindulgences stretching from the days of the apostles to the tenth and eleventh centuries. After such a decree, this was the only possible procedure open to the church which claimed infallibility.

After the Council of Trent, the desire to prove the existence of indulgences in the early church resulted in the minutest search of all ecclesiastical writings from apostolic days through the early middle ages for any suggestions which might be presented as evidence for the veracity of the decree. Dr. Lea does not hesitate to assign as a second reason for the early dating of indulgences by Catholic theologians and historians the material furnished . . . by the incurable tendency of unscroupulous ecclesiastics to manufacture evidence in support of any claims which interest may lead them to advance.2 A number of simple absolutions have been advanced as early instances of indulgences. Perhaps the most conspicuous of these is inferred from one of the three hundred extant TThe Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent,p. 252.

2H. G. Lea, op. cit., Ill, p. 131.

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letters of Pope John VIII, in reply to certain Frankish bishops who had enquired concerning the pardoning of the sins of the fallen in battle against the heathen Northmen. This letter, written in 879, granting absolution to the men in question and commending them to God cannot be construed as an indulgence; because the issue involved is neither therrelease from temporal punishment for forgiven sin nor release from purgatorial fires, but simply the pardon of sin, or salvation.

After these absolutions follows a long list of alleged indulgences which are nothing more than commutations of canonical penance. Canonical penance, as has been noted, was extremely heavy and irksome,including periods of anything up to twenty years, or even more, during which the penitent wore a special dress, sat apart in church, abstained from holy communion, and fasted a large proportion of the year on bread and waters . those who had done penance could not, in the early days, ever be admitted to the clerical militia.Milman speaks of the ffmany hours of fasting . manyblows of the scourge . . many prayers . . . many piouse jaculations, ^ and it is not surprising that by theninth or tenth century a Penitential prefaces a list ofcommutations of Penance with an apology stating thatin these times we are unable to persuade penitents to undergo the long terms prescribed in the canons, wherefore they should be induced to wash out their sins by other

-j.IvT. Deane sly, A. History of the Medieval Church, pp.ll'4f

Ii. H. Milman, History of Latin Christianity, I, p. 553

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pious works prayers and psalmody, and vigils and almsgiving and lamentations, standing at the cross, often bending the knee, showing hospitality to the poor and to pilgrims and fasting.-1-These commutations of penance were made upon the basis of petition to the Holy See at Rome, and pilgrimages were sometimes made in person for this purpose. An example of early commutations of canonical penance alleged to be indulgences is the commutation in the ninth century of one day of penance a year granted those attending the vigil of the Feast of the 1480 Martyrs.

A great many assumptions have been made as to early indulgences which involve nothing more than the Latin word indulgentia used in its ordinary sense of ,fto yield, favor, or humor,u and not at all in the highly technical meaning which developed in later centuries. A case in point, often referred to by Catholic historians, is that of Ulric of Augsburg,, who in his old age, about 970, made a pilgrimage to Rome for the salvation of his soul; after making his .vows he returned to his own country with many gifts of emoluments and indulgences. The term here cannot signify anything beyond Hpriviliges.11

Many early Hindulgences11 have been conclusively proved to have been forgeries. Two grants, one of ten years and the other of twelve, said to have been granted to St. Patrick and the Irish in the sixth century are no/ gener-

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ally recognized as spurious. An indulgence of seven years and seven quarantines granted by Gregory the Great to visitants to Roman churches has been persistently exhibited as evidence for early indulgences despite the protests of such Catholic scholars as Father Papenbroek and Father Pagi, who readily admit its true fraudulent character. Father Morin has proved the spuriousness of those indulgences claimed to have been granted by Leo III in the early ninth century when consecrating churches, - chapels, and altars for Charlemagne, internal evidence showing them to have been executed three hundred years later.

The negative argument against the early granting of indulgences seems well nigh overwhelming. An incredibly vast literature remains of Latin Christianity during the first millenium after Christ, and the Innumerable omissions of any mention of indulgences upon occasions which a few centuries later could not be thought of without indulgences is ample indication of their nonexistence.A case more provocative of an Indulgence, had the practice been customary at that time, could not be found than the occasion of the visit of Leo IX to Germany in 1049 at the request of Herimar, Abbot of S. Remi, against the wishes of Henry I, to dedicate the abbatial church of S. Remi.S. Remi had baptized Clovis and his men; the dedication took place on the day of S. Remi, when yearly great crOY?ds thronged Rheims in veneration of the saint; here, indeed,

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was a. great occasion. During the procession to the newchurch, Leo, himself, carried the coffin of the Apostleof Prance for a time, interring with his own hands theremains of the saint in the splendid new sepulchre.Wilman gives a picture of the city in festive array:It was a time singularly well chosen for the papal visit. Such was vast multitudes thronged from all sides (at the council there were representatives of England, no doubt many English among the zealous votaries) that the Pope was obliged to address them from the roof of a house. The church was with the utmost difficulty cleared for the performance of the ceremony; the pious spectators trampled each other under foot.3-The bull which Leo issued on this memorable occasion, while it granted special privileges to the church and imposed careful restrictions upon those who should in the future minister at its specially consecrated altar, gives not the slightest hint of an indulgence of any sort. In the same century, the dedication of the basilica of San Lorenzo by Nicholar II in which he confirmed its possessions and took it'under papal protection and the consecration by Urban II of the church of St. Mary of Monte Cassi- no carried with the accompanying bulls no mention of indulgences. A century or two later, dedications and consecrations such as these would not have been thought of apart from indulgence grants. The negative argument covering this lengthy period is formidable.

The actual beginning of the practice of granting in-T'H. H. Milman, op. cit., Ill, p. 250.

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dulgences was simultaneous with the beginning of the First Crusade. Gruel treatment of Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem from the West by the Turks and interference by the latter with trade between the West and the Orient combined to arouse intense antagonism between the Christians and the infidels, as they were termed, of the east; this antagonism resulted in the decision of Urban II to recover Jerusalemj*and its holy relics of the founder of the Church from the domination of the Arabs. At'the close of the regular business of the Council of Clermont, held in November, 1095, Urban made the celebrated address in which he announced the First Crusade. Frenchman as he was, Urban knew the power of an emotional appeal, and he dropped his staid ecclesiastical Latin for his native fiery French as he called upon his countrymen to assume the burden ofavenging these wrongs and of recovering this territory . .Let the deeds of your ancestors encourage you and incite your minds to manly achievements . . Let the holy sepulchre of our Lord^and Saviour, which is possessed by the unclean nations, especially arouse you, and the holy places which are now treated with ignominy and Irreverently polluted with the filth of the unclean. Oh most valiant soldiers and descendants of invincible ancestors, do not degenerate, but recall the valor of your ancestors.!The climax of Urbans appeal for soldiers of the cross came

Iwhen he. offered, i-so far as is known,^ the first genuine indulgence known to history;Whoever, out of pure devotion and not for the sake of gaining honour or money, shall go to Jerusalem to liberate the* rF. A. Ogg, A Source Book of Mediaeval History, p. 285.

2H. C. Lea, op. cit., III, pp. 9f. and pp. I42f;.'

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Church of God, may count that journey in lieu of all penance*1This act of Urban II constituted a tri^Jndu^^^ that is, the remission, in whole or in part, of temporal punishment for sin; in addition, this was a plenary indulgence for it provided uremission of all punishment that has thus far been incurred by the contrite offender.**2 Besides providing the genesis of true indulgences, the crusades had a profound effect upon their development, as will appear later.

A few months after the Council of Clermont, in Febru- J ary, 1096, Urban II granted a second indulgence. This grant took place at the dedication of the Church of St. Nicholas In Angers when a perpetual indulgence was Instituted for the dedication and all subsequent anriual celebrations; this decree carried remission of one-seventh of enjoined penance. Here is seen the origin of partial indulgences -- those which remitted only part of the individuals penance. Thus in two consecutive years, 1095 and 1096, Urban II established two distinct types of indulgences. The first was the plenary or full indulgence remitting all penance for the man who served the pope and the Church In conflict vtfith the Saracens, in Palestine. The second was the partial indulgence granted at the dedication of a church which remitted a specified ^ ^

Anonymous, 11 Indulgence,The hncvclopaedia Britannica,XII, p. 275.

2E. M. Hulme, The Renaissance, the Protestant Revolution, and the Catholic Reformation in Continental Europe,p. 225. "

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fraction of penance. These two types of indulgences havebeen dispensed by the Church ever since. Hedley!s statementof the Catholic position on the two forms is as follows:What the Catholic Church teaches is, first, that she can make plenary remission of punishment; and, secondly, that the partial Indulgences, although we do not know what they exactly avail to remit, do most usefully and mercifully remit in some degree those chastisements which are deserved.^The practice of granting indulgences for fractional parts ofenjoined penance such as one-seventh, one-tenth, or one-twentieth gradually was abandoned for indulgences grantingthe remission of penance in chronological terms such asten days, forty days, two years, or twenty years. Catholictheologians ^admit the uncertainty of these chronologicalvalues. Father Thurston, an eminent Catholic authority,admits that nothinghas ever been defined as to the precise meaning of an Indulgence of so many days or years. . . there can be no certainty even about the theory most commonly propounded, that the gaining of an Indulgence of seven years would benefit the sinner to the same extent as the performance of seven years of the old canonical penance,2ThurstonTs explanation makes clear the reason for Hedleyfs uncertainty as to the exact value of partial indulgences. This much is certain, that in the beginning plenary indulgences v/ere considered the greatest boon obtainable by humanity and were conferred only in return for the highest service to the Church, serving in her cause in Palestine

"*M. C. Hedley, ,fThe Roman Catholic Doctrine of Indulgences,H Nineteenth Century, XLIX ( 1901), p'. 163

2H. Thurston, The Holy Year of Jubilee, p. 317.

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against the Saracens; partial indulgences, while highly valued, were given for more modest services and devotions.In justice to Catholic doctrine, it should be noted that sincere confession and absolution of sin was the prime prerequisite for obtaining an indulgence. If an individual secured an indulgence without meeting this requirement, the temporal penalty held against him remained undiminished. The Church, officially, never wavered upon this important point, although her emissaries in the late middle ages often placed a minimum of emphasis upon deep contrition for sin in their haste to gather in alms. Indulgences satisfied only the temporal punishment due sin and were valueless Hin so far as they work for holiness and make men stronger in the struggle against evil,*11 except insofar as they im-. press upon one the graciousness of Godrs mercy.

''- 'n n ii.B 'iw * m W - n n iii- i ,

For a period of two hundred years, from the beginning of the twelfth century to the beginning of the fourteenth, par tial indulgences were granted with the greatest moderation, although there is evidence of an everwidening use of them in new situations and under different conditions as the ecclesiastical officials began to realize the eagerness of the people to^thus purchase immunity from the penalty of Indulgence grants of less than ten days were enthusiastically sought after. There were occasional grants of forty days and a few for a year and forty days. Occasions for issuing

N. Paulus, Indulgences as a Social Factor in the Middle Ages, p. 16.

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