CARDINAL JULIAN.*
IT is one of the moral retributions of history that the leaders of a dominant party not unfrequently pay the penalty of their ephemeral renown in the almost complete oblivion of their names in succeeding generations, and that the only lasting result of their triumphs during their lifetime is the creation of a halo of fame around the memory of those who were their despised victims or their defeated rivals. In this point of view it is better to be a forlorn heretic than a dignified in- quisitor, for the chances are that the name of the individual sufferer will survive while that of his persecutor is merged in the reputation of the body of which he is an executive official. Cardinal Julian had claims to a lasting reputation beyond his zealous exertions to suppress the Bohemian heresy, yet of those who are familiar with the names of Huss and Zisca, how many are there who have ever heard of the great Cardinal ? Mr. Jenkins has, therefore, undertaken rather a bold task in endeavourini„.. to create again some degree of intelligent interest in connexion with the singular career of his ec- clesiastical hero, and is probably conscious himself that his audience must be a more limited one than would be commanded by a narrative of the fortunes of the great Bohemian heresiarchs. Cardinal Julian, however, was a man who played in his time so important and leading a part in European history that no excuse seems needed on the part of our author for claiming for him a niche in the gallery of historical notabilities. Mr. Jenkins has done his work with creditable care and good taste. His colouring is not brilliant, and his delineation of character not beyond the average of respectable writers, but there is an absence of all pretence in his narrative, and a quiet good sense in his accompanying remarks which fully entitle his book to a respectful reception. Cardinal Julian was born in. the year 1398, an epoch in European thought and feeling which requires much more attentive considera- tion than it has yet received. From the middle of the fourteenth to the middle of the fifteenth century, Europe was agitated by re- ligious movements which were the premonitory writing on the wall to the more successful achievements of Luther, Calvin, and Zuingle, in the succeeding century. The Lollard and the Hussite movements had, it is true, each their social and political, as well as their religious aspects, but the connexion between these aspects was in that age so intimate, that the warning to the Court and Church of Rome which they held forth was not less significant than if they had been based more exclusively on points of theological belief. Rome itself was at the era of Julian's birth in a state of anarchial disorganization. The allegiance due from Christendom to the chair of St. Peter was claimed by two, and even three, rival popes. The Cesarini family were an offshoot of the great Roman mediteval family of the Montanan. "Giuliano" Cesarini entered at an early age as a student of the Uni- versity of Perugia, residing while in that city in the house of the Buontempi family, "where, by his literary talents and early promise, he soon -became known to the governor of the city, Bindaccio da Riccasoli, a 'literary man, and a lover of men of letters." To Riccasoli young Julian dedicated some poetical essays, with the composition of which he relieved his more severe study of the Roman law. His proficiency in the latter branch of learning soon raised him from a student to a lecturer, and among his audience were numbered some of the greatest of his contemporaries. This study had at least the merit of saving him from becoming a mere priest—and was doubtless the foundation of the more statesmanlike qualities by which he in after years rose above the herd of vulgar churchmen. From Perugia Julian returned to Rome, where he was received into the House of Brands. di Castiglione, Cardinal of Piacenza. The Connell of Constance had just restored unity to the Church by the election of Pope Martin V., one of the chiefs of the House of Colonna, and it now only remained for the council to acComplish the other desideratum for the Church, its thorough reformation under the auspices of ecclesiastical authority. In this council Cardinal Branda, the new patron of Julian, had taken a prominent part—and it was thus that the young civilian was introduced to the ecclesiastical phenomena of his age which were assuming more and more of a social and political character. The efforts at reformation proved wholly abortive. The majority of the cardinals present at the council first evaded the question by a succession of specious delays, and at last dropped it altogether by proceeding to the election of a Pope. The treatment which Jerome of Prague and John Huss met with at their hands needs no recapitulation. The Bohemian nation had regarded the proceedings of the council in sullen silence; but so aiginficant was this ominous lull that the Emperor Sigismund had thought it expedient to write an apologetic letter, palliating his share in the death of Huss. A fiery ecclesiastic, however, Cardinal Domi- mci,. who was despatched from Rome, precipitated the storm by causing an ecclesiastic and a layman who had offended him to be burnt alive. The legate fled to Hungary from the consequences of his own indiscreet cruelty; and on his death there, in the year 1419, the mission to Germany. and Bohemia was offered to Cardinal Branda, the patron of Julian. The Cardinal is said to have once exclaimed that "if the whole Church were to fall into ruin, Julian would have been equal to the task of rebuilding it ;" and now accompanied by this young and trusted adviser, he set about the work of stemming the tide of heretical rebellion. But the movement had gained too great head to be controlled by a couple of ecclesiastics, however talented. "The legation into Bohemia was utterly powerless ; and the only person who can be said to have profited by it was the young Cesarini," to whom it must have afforded a rich fund of diplomatic experience. He also unhappily took his first lesson in that religious inquisition which • The Last Cnisader • or the Life and Times of Cardinal Julian, of the Bowe of Ceaarini : an Ristoricil Sketch. By Robert C. Jenkins, MA., Trinity College, Cam- bridge, Rector and Vicar of Lyming. Bentley. had formed the powerful engine of his predecessors. Having in com- pany with two others failed to convince a priest and bachelor of laws of his errors in fair argument :—" Let him be bound," they said secretly to the bishop's official, "more tightly, fastened to a stake, and tied with thongs, and spending a night in this state, he will find himself, perhaps, alittle troubled in his intellect." In the morning, when they returned, the poor tortured victim exclaimed, "Prithee, burn me, for I am ready ! Why do you vex my soul any longer P" Again they argued with him, and again left him bound in torture as before. On the next day, "they found the good man inspired by the divine light." On the return of Julian with his patron from this unsuccessful legation, he was elevated to the auditor- ship of the Rota—his first step on the ladder of ecclesiastical preferment. A new legation, of an armed character, was en- trusted to the celebrated Cardinal Beaufort, but success still attend- ing the arms of the Hussites, the emperor summoned a diet at Nurem- berg, and to this Julian, now nominated a cardinal-deacon with the title of St. Angelo, was accredited by Pope Martin V. as his repre- sentative, "combining the offices of legate in Bohemia, and president of the general council which was shortly to assemble at Basle." Scarcely had he arrived at the scene of his labours when he received the news of the death of Pope Martin and the election of Cardinal Condolmieri as his successor under the name of Eugenius IV. It is characteristic of Julian that the warlike legation to Bohemia from the first seized on his fancy, while he vainly solicited a release from the ecclesiastical function of presiding over the Council of Basle. On being confirmed by the new Pope, Julian opened the Diet of Nuremberg by publishing Martin's bull authorizing a crusade against the Hussites, and at the same time brought forward a skilful plan for the campaign which the Diet adopted. The Bohemians had been treating with the emperor when these warlike counsels were adopted, but on receiving the news of them they broke off all negotiation, re- sisting an earnest appeal made to them at the last moment by Julian, whose warlike ardour had thus provoked them. The cardinal then took the field at the head of a great army. at the crusaders, though numerous, were a many-headed, tumultuous body, and on the approach of the Bohemians under their great general Procopius, a panic seized the papal host, and notwithstanding all Julian's efforts they fled in confusion, a helpless prey to the swords of the incensed Hussites. Eleven thousand crusaders perished on the field, and Julian only escaped by flight, leaving in the bands of the enemy the papal bull authorizing the crusade, his cardinal's hat and mantle, together with the cross and other insignia of his office. Julian repaired. to Nurem- berg, and there denounced in bitter terms to the emperor the divisions and cowardice of the German princes, to which he attributed his defeat. He then proceeded to open the Council of Basle, to which the Bohemian rebels were invited to send representatives. Meanwhile at Rome a great change had taken place in the face of affairs. Eugenius, the new Pope, had been elected by the influence of the Orsini family, the rivals of the Colonnas, to which latter family the late Pope belonged; and he inaugurated his Papacy by an attack on the relatives of his predecessor, thus commencing a contest which reduced the new Pope to great extremities, and undid all that Martin had effected towards the unity of the Church. Julian had again roused the ardour of the nobles of Germany, and they only asked for a subsidy from Rome to volunteer in large numbers for a new crusade. Julian wrote to Eugenius urging the importance of this aid ; but the Pope had already spent all his predecessor's hoards, and was himself bent on the idea of reuniting the Eastern Church under the supremacy of Rome. He accordingly sent a bull to Julian authorizing him to dissolve the Council of Basle, and summon another at Bologna, over which the Pope might himself preside. The emperor remonstrated at this abandonment of German interests, and Julian expostulated at great length and with most vigorous arguments, meanwhile suppress- ing the bull. The news of the intended dissolution, however, oozed out, and caused a great outburst of indignation against Euganius throughout Europe, the Kings of France and England themselves seconding the remonstrances of the emperor. A negotiation which pro- mised success had been again opened with the Bohemians, and deputies from them had arrived at the council. Julian again wrote, therefore, in earnest terms to the Pope, urging the withdrawal of his bull. Cardinal Brands, who had arrived at Basle, ably seconded Julian's policy, both there and at Rome, and the envoys of the Pope, who at- tended the council to vindicate his conduct, found it necessary to trim and moderate their language to the storm which their presence provoked. They offered that the work of reformation as well as of union should be proceeded with at Bologna if the prelates would only consent to the dissolution. But it was in vain. The council, in their synodical reply, took the ground that "though the Pope is the ministerial head of the Church, he is not greater than the whole Church ; otherwise, if the pontiff should err, as has often happened, and may yet happen, the whole Church would err, which is impossible. And though he be the head and chief prelate of this mystical body, he is, nevertheless, within the body, and would not, in such a case, remain the head of it. The body, therefore, contains the entirety, both him who is called the head, and all the other members." In the later stages of its existence, the council even declared that the popes are vicars of the Church, not of Christ, and that a public scandal gives a right to the Church, represented by the council, to depose a pope. The city of Avignon seconded this position by refusing to admit a legate of the Pope, and receiving another one from the council. After a prolonged struggle the Pope, deserte,d, after much vacillation, by the emperor, found it necessary, in 1434, to give way to the council, and a bull of reconciliation was made the symbol of a hollow truce. The Bohemian deputies had arrived, argued
and been argued with, and returned to Bohemia confirmed in their own opinions. The council then proceeded to the work of reforma- tion. At a single blow they abolished Annates, the year and a half's income paid by every ecclesiastical benefice to the chancery of Rome. But the primates of France and Germany had derived large incomes from similar exactions, and they loudly protested against this decision of the council. Eugenius also sent an envoy to protest against it ; Julian, on the other hand, defended the measure, and talked only of some compensation to the Pope. But the latter had made so many enemies among the princes of Italy as well as his own Roman sub- jects, that a popular rising at this very time drove him from Rome, and scattered in confusion the whole Orsini faction. A turn in the wheel of fortune, however, very unexpectedly took place. The Eastern question had raised the point of the place of meeting for the council, which was to accomplish the union of the Eastern and Western Churches. The majority of the Council of Basle voted for either Avignon, Basle, or Savoy. The minority, backed by the Pope and by the Easterns themselves, advocated Florence. After some wavering, Julian deserted the majority on this point, and though he kept his seat as president, refused to affix his seal to the decrees of the council, and the seal was at length put in commission. The cardinal was now guilty of an act of gross outrage. His secretary broke open the chest in which the seal was kept, and gave its impress to the decree of the minority in favour of Florence. At this crisis took place the death of the Emperor Sigismund, to whom both parties had looked as a moderator of the contest. Julian almost immediately set out from Basle for Venice to meet the Greek envoys, and eventually joined them and the Pope at Ferrara. From this time Julian laid aside his idea of the reformation of the Church, and took up as eagerly that of its union. Our author seems to us on the point of this change in his hero's opinions somewhat indistinct and feeble in his vindication. It may be that Julian's di- plomatic mind saw the danger of a continued schism of authority between the Council and the Pope, and therefore sought for the first pretext to escape back to his old position as a supporter of Papal in- fallibility; but the actual occasion of his change is quite inadequate to its importance. His change was substantially one from an advo- cate of the ecclesiastical supremacy of councils to that of a supporter of the claims of the Papal party, and, however disinterested may have been his conduct in thus acting, the reality and importance of his conversion seem to admit of no doubt.
The Council of Florence, in which Julian took a prominent part, effected a "specious but hollow" union between the two Churches, and the Council was transferred to Rome in the year 1412. The Council still sat on at Basle, and Amadeus, Duke of Savoy, was now called from the hermitage to which he had retired, to assume the office of anti-Pope, as Felix V.; but death, the desertion of its leading lay supporters, and the mere weariness of its proceedings on the part of the general public, had by this time reduced that assembly to the shadow of its former greatness.
Julian was, however, now called to another scene of action—the closing one, as it proved to be, of his career. The affairs of Hun- gary demanded the presence of a legate, and the mission harmonized With julian's old and cherished political aspirations, which had been for so long superseded by the exigencies of his position in the Councils of Basle and Florence. The premature death of Albert, Archduke of Austria, seemed to create a vacancy in the throne of Hungary, to which he had not long succeeded. The Hungarians, without awaiting the possible birth of a posthumous heir, hastened to avail themselves of the opportunity of breaking through the bond which bound them to Austria and Germany, and elected Ladislaus, King of Poland—a prince in the flower of his youth, and already distinguished by his martial ardour. Soon after this Albert's widow gave birth to a son, called also Ladislaus, and as the emperor sup. ported the claims of his grandson, a civil war seemed imminent. Julian, on his arrival in the country, gave all his care to effecting a reconciliation between the two parties on the basis of a marriage of the King of Poland with the widowed queen, and his appointment as regent in the name of the infant prince. But some of the Hungarians object- ing to cessions of territory which accompanied this agreement, and the Emperor resisting, some years were consumed, during which the great object at which Julian was aiming in his work of conciliation was necessarily suspended. This was a new crusade against the Turks, in which Ladislaus, accompanied by the renowned Hungarian warrior, John Hunyades, should take the lead. At length affairs were sufficiently arranged to enable Ladislaus to take the field, and after a successful campaign, which carried him to the foot of Mount Hiemus, the king, only yielding to the want of provisions, returned to Buda in triumph. But the Cardinal was not satisfied with this partial suc- cess. His ardent, and we must add very unscrupulous mind, carried him forward to a reconquest of the Holy Land from the infidels. Ladislaus had meanwhile consented to a peace of ten years, which the Sultan Amurath, terrified at the idea of renewed hostilities, had earnestly solicited. The Christian sacrament itself was employed on this occasion to confirm the new treaty. But hardly was it entered into, than news arrived of the accession of new and powerful allies to the enterprise among the princes of Europe. Ladislaus hesitated; but his sense of honour withheld him until, to his shame be it spoken, the silver tongue of the tempter instilled the subtle poison of the worst casuistry into his too willing ears. This tempter was Cardinal Julian, who told the king that his oath only bound him so lona as he undertook the crusade in his single and unassisted quality as ?tiler of Hungary, but could not bind him as one of a body of allied sovereigns. A Polish prelate, more true to honour and religion, vainly protested against this doctrine, and prophesied that God would never prosper
a war commenced with perjury. Ladislaus yielded to the tempter. The truce was broken, a new campaign entered upon, and at last on the field of Varna the Christian confederates experienced a bloody defeat. Ladislaus himself fell on the field of battle. The despot of Servia and Cardinal Julian retreated to the dense forests in the neighbourhood, followed by hundreds of fugitives. Here the curtain drops on the life of Julian. Nothing more was seen of him until he was found, naked and wounded to death, in a wild mountain pan, which he had entered on that fatal night. His character will have been pretty well portrayed in our outline of the events of his life. He was a great man in so far as the ardour of an enthusiast, tempered but lowered in its aim by the tact of the diplomatist, may entitle any one to that epithet. He was a good man according to the scale of ecclesiastical rather than Christian ex- cellence. He was gentle and unassuming in his private life, un- feignedly pious, with a true and unselfish zeal for the Church to whose services he had devoted himself. But he was a relentless per- secutor where her interests seemed to him to call for cruelty ; he was an ambiguous and unscrupulous politician where her security seemed to call for the sacrifice of his convictions or his friends ; and as we have seen in his advice to Ladislaus, he was an immoral casuist where truth and justice seemed antagonistic to his cherished schemes on her behalf.
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