cent, the Medici Leo X.
Having taken the tonsure at the age of seven, and received the red hat
six years later, he donned the tiara at the early age of thirty-eight.
His words, as reported by the Venetian ambassador at Rome, "Let us
enjoy the papacy, since God has given it to us," exactly express his
program. To make life one long carnival, to hunt game and to witness
comedies and the antics of buffoons, to hear marvellous tales of the
new world and voluptuous verses of the humanists and of the great
Ariosto, to enjoy music and to consume the most delicate viands and the
most delicious wines--this was what he lived for. Free and generous
with money, he prodigally wasted the revenues of three pontificates.
Spending no less than 6000 ducats a month on cards and gratuities, he
was soon forced to borrow to the limit of his credit. Little recked he
that Germany was being {20} reft from the church by a poor friar. His
irresolute policy was incapable of pursuing any public end
consistently, save that he employed the best Latinists of the time to
give elegance to his state papers. His method of governing was the
purely personal one, to pay his friends and flatterers at the expense
of the common good. One of his most characteristic letters expresses
his intention of rewarding with high office a certain gentleman who had
given him a dinner of lampreys.

SECTION 3. CAUSES OF THE REFORMATION

[Sidenote: Corruption of the church not a main cause of the Reformation]

In the eyes of the early Protestants the Reformation was a return to
primitive Christianity and its principal cause was the corruption of the
church. That there was great depravity in the church as elsewhere cannot
be doubted, but there are several reasons for thinking that it could not
have been an important cause for the loss of so many of her sons. In the
first place there is no good ground for believing that the moral
condition of the priesthood was worse in 1500 than it had been for a long
time; indeed, there is good evidence to the contrary, that things were
tending to improve, if not at Rome yet in many parts of Christendom. If
objectionable practices of the priests had been a sufficient cause for
the secession of whole nations, the Reformation would have come long
before it actually did. Again, there is good reason to doubt that the
mere abuse of an institution has ever led to its complete overthrow; as
long as the institution is regarded as necess