While Clement VII lived, of whom Sadolet said that he did not renounce
his good intention of reforming society, but only postponed it, the
idealists who aspired after a regenerated Catholicism never found
their opportunity. In 1534 he was succeeded by Paul III, Farnese, a
stronger if not a better man, and the change was quickly felt. The
new pontiff offered a red hat to Erasmus, to Reginald Pole, who was
admired by the Italians, and was supposed to have a future before him
in England, being sprung from a royal stock; to Sadolet and Cortese,
and to Contarini, the finest character of them all. He appointed a
Commission, chiefly consisting of these men, to advise as to things
that wanted mending; and besides their report, he received from
Contarini himself private communications on the same engrossing topic.
In 1541 Paul sent Contarini as his Legate to Ratisbon, where he held
the famous Peace Conference with Melanchthon. The reformers of the
Renaissance seemed about to prevail, and to possess the ear of the
Pontiff. Their common policy was reduction of prerogative, concession
in discipline, conciliation in doctrine; and it involved the reversal
of an established system. As they became powerful, and their purpose
clear, another group detached itself from them, under the flag of No
Surrender, and the division of opinion which had been already apparent
between Cajetan and Miltitz, between the friends of Erasmus and
Reuchlin, and their detractors, burst into open conflict. To men
trained in the thought of the Middle Ages, with the clergy above the
laity and the Pope above the king, the party that aimed at internal
improvement by means the exact opposite of those which had preserved
the Church in the past, were feckless enthusiasts. They reverted to
the old tradition of indefeasible authority wielding irresistible
force; and in the person of Caraffa, Bishop of Chieti, afterwards
Archbishop of Naples, cardinal, and Pope, under the name of Paul IV,
they now came to the front. It was reported from Ratisbon that the
Catholic negotiation, with the Legate Contarini at their head, had
accepted the Lutheran doctrine of justification. Pole wrote, in his
enthusiasm, that it was a truth long suppressed by the Church, now at
length brought to light by his friend. Another friend of Pole,
Flaminio, helped to write a book in its defence, which appeared in
1542, and of which 60,000 copies were sold immediately--indicating a
popula