The Great Age of Catholic Restoration

In France, ever since the reconciliation of Henry IV. with the Church, the Catholic revival had made great progress, as also in Germany, Switzerland, Poland and the Spanish Netherlands. In the latter country there was at the same time a great artistic revival, and Rubens and Van Dyck helped by their works to im prove the understanding of the Catholic faith. In other countries also, religious art received a new impetus. The baroque style, which is full of vigorous religious feeling, gave expression to the revivified life of Catholicism by the building of wonderful new churches.

The position of the pope with regard to the empire was a difficult one owing to the madness of Rudolf II. and the dispute between the Habsburg brothers. He made every endeavour to prevent war breaking out between the Catholics and Protestants in Germany. The course of events, however, compelled him to intervene, and the victory of the Weisse Berg (162o) resulted in the overthrow of the "Calvinist Monarchy" of Prague and the predominance of Catholicism in the Habsburg lands and the Empire.

In England fresh legislation against the Catholics was adopted as a result of the Gunpowder Plot (1605), which was regarded as being due to Catholic teaching. The Catholics were required to take an oath which stigmatized the Catholic Church a sect inimical to the State and to civilization ; this oath, which was banned by Paul V., provided James I., who himself entered the lists of theo logical controversy, with a potent weapon against what remained of Catholicism in England.

Gregory XV., 1621-23.

Gregory XV., who was a member of the Ludovisi family, was exceedingly zealous in his endeavours to promote the victory of the Catholic cause in the war in Germany which followed the Bohemian revolution. The real conduct of affairs was in the hands of his young nephew Lodovico Ludovisi, who did not neglect the temporal interests of his own family. It was he who built the Villa Ludovisi, which became a repository of art treasures. His main energies were, however, devoted to increasing and extending the power of the Church. Subsidies were sent to the emperor and to the League, and the pope supported the transfer of the office of elector of the Palatinate to the Duke of Bavaria, in return for which the latter presented the pope with the valuable Heidelberg library. The Catholic revival was initiated in the Palatinate on the right bank of the Rhine after its con quest ; and indeed the revival of the Church everywhere made astonishing progress, and almost reached its zenith, under this energetic pope, whose pontificate in many respects resembled that of Gregory XIII.

The foundation of the Congregatio de propaganda fide (1622) focussed the Catholic missionary movement round one centre and enormously increased its strength. Gregory also laid down new

rules for the papal elections. He carried on negotiations with the king of England for the marriage of the prince of Wales to a Spanish Infanta, but this attempt at a union between Anglicanism and Catholicism was unsuccessful. He was however able to avert war between France and Spain on the Valtelline question. Urban VIII., 1623-44.—The long reign of the Barberini Pope Urban VIII. occupied two-thirds of the period of the Thirty Years' War. Urban tried to make peace between the houses of Bourbon and Habsburg so that their combined strength might be used against the Turks and the Protestants. But Richelieu worked against this policy; as the statesman who guided the des tinies of France, he made it his principal aim to make France the chief power in Europe in place of the Habsburgs, and to break the power of Spain and Austria by a combined attack. The un scrupulous and Macchiavellian cardinal made alliances with Prot estant powers, and even encouraged the Turks to attack the emperor. He succeeded in hoodwinking the pope as to his real aims, and in inducing him to assist the policy of France. Urban was anxious to maintain the papal territories, which had at that time attained their greatest extent by the inclusion of the duchy of Urbino, and thus to secure the independence of the apostolic see. For this reason he felt the territorial predominance of Spain in Italy, and the possibility of any further extension of the power of the Habsburgs there, as intolerable. He therefore tried to find some counterpoise, and, as was shown in connection with the suc cession question in Mantua, he thus played into the hands of France. He nevertheless protested against the alliance between France and Sweden, which seriously threatened Catholic interests in Germany, and he rejoiced at every success of the imperial forces. He gave financial help to the emperor and the League, although somewhat cautiously and inadequately. He encouraged the alliance between Bavaria and France because he hoped by this means to detach Richelieu from his alliance with the German Protestants. The purely secular policy of Richelieu, which took no account of religious considerations, completed the destruction of the power of the papacy in international politics, which had al ready severely from the religious schism. From that time onwards the other Catholic Powers also based their policy on purely secular considerations, and the Holy See ceased to be a centre of unity among nations as it had been in the middle ages.