43
An Age of Blood 44
Barbarous Punishment for Crime 45
And not less for Heresy 46
Belief in Judicial Astrology 47
Predictions of Nostradamus 47
Reverence for Relics 49
For the Consecrated Wafer 50
Internal Condition of the Clergy 51
Number and Wealth of the Cardinals 51
Non-residence of Prelates 52
Revenues of the Clergy 52
Vice and Hypocrisy 53
Brantome's Account of the Clergy before the Concordat 54
Aversion to the Use of the French Language 56
Indecent Processions--"Processions Blanches" 59
The Monastic Orders held in Contempt 60
Protests against prevailing Corruption 61
The "Cathari," or Albigenses 61
Nicholas de Clemangis 63
John Gerson 64
Jean Bouchet's "Deploration of the Church" 65

* * * * *

Changes in the Boundaries of France during the 16th Century 66

CHAPTER II.

1512-1525.

THE REFORMATION IN MEAUX 67
Jacques Lefevre d'Etaples 67
Restores Letters to France 68
Wide Range of his Studies 68
Guillaume Farel, his Pupil 68
Devotion of Teacher and Scholar 69
Lefevre publishes a Latin Commentary on the Pauline Epistles (1512) 70
Enters into Controversy with Natalis Beda (1518) 71
The Sorbonne's Declaration (Nov. 9, 1521) 71
Briconnet, Bishop of Meaux 72
His First Reformatory Efforts