The disturbances produced by the schism, and the interference of the state in episcopal elections helped to secure the appointment of many unworthy bishops. Even in the worst days of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries a large proportion of the bishops in the different countries of Europe were excellent men, but a large percentage also, especially in Germany, were thoroughly worldly. They were more anxious about their position as secular princes or proprietors than about the fulfilment of their sacred duties. Very often they were sprung from the nobility, and were appointed on account of their family influence without any regard to their qualifications, and, as a rule, the duties of visitation, of holding synods, and even of residing in their dioceses, were neglected. Besides, even when they were anxious to do their best, the claims of the lay patrons and the papal reservation of benefices made it difficult for them to exercise proper disciplinary control over their clergy. In many cases, too, the cathedral chapters were utterly demoralised, mainly owing to outside influence in the appointment of the canons. The clergy as a body were very far from being as bad as they have been painted by fanatical reformers or by the followers of Luther. The collections of sermons that have come down to us, the prayer books for the instruction of the faithful, the catechisms, the compilations from the Holy Scriptures, the hymns, theological works, and especially the compendiums prepared for the use of those engaged in hearing confessions, give the lie to the charge of wholesale neglect[8]; but, at the same time the want of sufficient control, the interference of lay patrons in the appointments to benefices, the absence of seminaries, and the failure of the universities to give a proper ecclesiastical training, produced their natural effect on a large body of the clergy. Grave charges of ignorance, indifference, concubinage, and simony were not wholly groundless, as the decrees of various councils sufficiently testify.
Many causes contributed to bring about a relaxation of discipline in many of the religious orders. The uncanonical appointment of abbots, the union of various abbacies in the hands of a single individual, the custom of holding abbacies /in commendam/, and the wholesale exemption from episcopal authority for which many of the religious orders contended, are sufficient to account for this general relaxation. The state of the various houses and provinces even belonging to the same order depended largely on the character of the superiors, and hence it is not fair to judge one country or one province, or even one house, by what happened in other countries, provinces, or houses. Hence arises the difficulty of arriving at any general conclusion about the religious houses. It is safe, however, to say that with the exception of the Carthusians all the older orders required reform. From the beginning of the fifteenth century attempts were made to restore the old discipline in the Benedictine communities and with considerable success. The Carmelites were divided into two main branches, the Calced and the Discalced; the Franciscans were divided into three main bodies, the Conventuals, the Observants, and the Capuchins; the Dominicans made various efforts to restore the ancient discipline especially from about the beginning of the fifteenth century; while many of the Augustinians who were determined on reform established new congregations, as for example, the Discalced Augustinian Hermits, who spread themselves over France, Spain, and Portugal. In addition, various new congregations, amongst them the Oblates founded in 1433 by St. Francisca Romana, and the Hermit Brothers in 1435 by St. Francis of Paula, were established to meet the necessities of the age.[9]
Unfortunately the endless disputes between the religious and secular clergy[10] at this period tended to distract the attention of both from their spiritual work, and to give rise to considerable disorder and discontent. On the one side, men like the Paris professor, John Poilly and Richard Fitzralph, Archbishop of Armagh, were too extreme and seemed inclined to leave to the religious orders no place in the ministration of the Church, while on the other, some of the religious, such as the Franciscan, John von Gorrel, wished to assert for themselves complete independence of episcopal control. Various attempts were made by Boniface VIII., Benedict XI., Alexander V., John XXII., Calixtus III., Sixtus IV., and by the Councils of Constance and Basle to settle these disputes, but without much permanent result. It was only in the eleventh session of the Fifth Lateran Council (1516)that Leo X. promulgated the decrees, which in substance hold good at the present time, fixing the relation between the bishops and the regular clergy.[11]
Many of the fanatical preachers anxious for reform were guilty of undoubted exaggeration in the pictures which they painted of clerical life at the time, as were also not a few of the Humanists, anxious to cast ridicule on their opponents. But even when all due allowance has been made for these exaggerations in such works as the /Onus Ecclesiae/[12] of Bishop Berthold, the rhymed sermons of one of the great Franciscan opponents of Luther, Thomas Murner (1475-1537), which became popular in Germany under the titles of the /Narrenbeschworung/and the /Schelmenzunft/, Faber's /Tractatus de Ruinae Ecclesiae Planctu/, the /Encomium Moriae/ of Erasmus, the Dialogues of St.
German in England, the /Narrenschiff/ of Sebastian Brant, and the petitions of the Spanish Cortes, enough remains to convince any reasonable man that a reform of the clergy was an urgent necessity.