titious value for good cash, the boldest and
baldest gold-bricking that mankind has heen [tr. note: sic] subjected
to?

The sale of indulgences which was started in Luther's days was a
particularly offensive enterprise. "It was not so much the theory of the
Church that excited Luther's indignation as it was the practises of some
of her agents. They encouraged the common man to believe that the
purchase of a papal pardon would assure him impunity without any real
repentance on his part. Moreover, whatever the theoretical worth of
indulgences, the motive of their sale was notoriously the greed of
unscrupulous ecclesiastics. The 'holy trade' as it was called had become
so thoroughly commercialized by 1500 that a banking house, the Fuggers
of Augsburg, were the direct agents of the Curia in Germany. In return
for their services in forwarding the Pope's bulls, and in hiring
sellers of pardons, this wealthy house made a secret agreement in 1507
by which it received one-third of the total profits of the trade, and in
1514 formally took over the whole management of the business in return
for the modest commission of one-half the net receipts. Naturally not a
word was said by the preachers to the people as to the destination of so
large a portion of their money, but enough was known to make many men
regard indulgences as an open scandal.

"The history of the particular trade attacked by Luther is one of
special infamy. Albert of Brandenburg, a prince of the enterprising
house of Hohenzollern, was bred to the Church and rapidly rose by
political influence to the highest ecclesiastical position in Germany.
In 1513, he was elected, at the age of twenty-three, Archbishop of
Magdeburg and administrator of the bishopric of Halberstadt,--an
uncanonical accumulation of sees confirmed by the Pope in return for a
large payment. Hardly had Albert paid this before he was elected
Archbishop and Elector of Mayence and Primate of Germany (March 9,
1514). As he was not yet of canonical age to possess even one bishopric,
not to mention three of the greatest in the empire, the Pope refused to
confirm his nomination except for an enormous sum. The Curia at first
demanded twelve thousand ducats for the twelve apostles. Albert offered
seven for the seven deadly sins. The average between apostles and sins
was struck at ten thousand ducats, or fifty thousand dollars, a sum
equal in purchasing power to near a million to-day. Albert borrowed
this, too