as to require from a prince, a bishop, or a grand-master, who
bad a cause pending in the court, a present of a golden cup filled
with ducats. Such necessities also gave origin to jubilees. Sixtus IV.
established whole colleges, and sold the places at three or four hundred
ducats. Innocent VIII. pawned the papal tiara. Of Leo X. it was said
that he squandered the revenues of three popes, he wasted the savings
of his predecessor, he spent his own income, he anticipated that of his
successor, he created twenty-one hundred and fifty new offices and sold
them; they were considered to be a good investment, as they produced
twelve per cent. The interest was extorted from Catholic countries.
Nowhere in Europe could capital be so well invested as at Rome. Large
sums were raised by the foreclosing of mortgages, and not only by the
sale but the resale of offices. Men were promoted, for the purpose of
selling their offices again.

Though against the papal theory, which denounced usurious practices,
an immense papal banking system had sprung up, in connection with the
Curia, and sums at usurious interest were advanced to prelates, place.
hunters, and litigants. The papal bankers were privileged; all others
were under the ban. The Curia had discovered that it was for their
interest to have ecelesiastics all over Europe in their debt. They could
make them pliant, and excommunicate them for non-payment of interest.
In 1327 it was reckoned that half the Christian world was under
excommunication: bishops were excommunicated because they could not
meet the extortions of legates; and persons were excommunicated,
under various pretenses, to compel them to purchase absolution at an
exorbitant price. The ecclesiastical revenues of all Europe were flowing
into Rome, a sink of corruption, simony, usury, bribery, extortion. The
popes, since 1066, when the great centralizing movement began, had no
time to pay attention to the internal affairs of their own special
flock in the city of Rome. There were thousands of foreign cases, each
bringing in money. "Whenever," says the Bishop Alvaro Pelayo, "I entered
the apartments of the Roman court clergy, I found them occupied in
counting up the gold-coin, which lay about the rooms in heaps." Every
opportunity of extending the jurisdiction of the Curia was welcome.
Exemptions were so managed that fresh grants were constantly necessary.
Bishops were privileged against cathedral chapters, chapters against
t