t to your
own judgement whether it becomes your dignity to court young women, to
send fruit and wine to her you love, and to have no thought for anything
but pleasure. We are censured on your account; the blessed memory of
your uncle Calixtus is vituperated, since in the judgement of many
he was wrong to have conferred so many honours upon you. If you seek
excuses in your youth, you are no longer so young that you cannot
understand what duties are imposed upon you by your dignity. A cardinal
should be irreproachable, a model of moral conduct to all. And what just
cause have we for resentment when temporal princes bestow upon us titles
that are little honourable, dispute with us our possessions, and attempt
to bend us to their will? In truth it is we who inflict these wounds
upon ourselves, and it is we who occasion ourselves these troubles,
undermining more and more each day by our deeds the authority of the
Church. Our guerdon is shame in this world and condign punishment in the
next. May your prudence therefore set a restraint upon these vanities
and keep you mindful of your dignity, and prevent that you be known for
a gallant among married and unmarried women. But should similar facts
recur, we shall be compelled to signify that they have happened against
our will and to our sorrow, and our censure must be attended by your
shame. We have always loved you, and we have held you worthy of our
favour as a man of upright and honest nature. Act therefore in such
a manner that we may maintain such an opinion of you, and nothing can
better conduce to this than that you should lead a well-ordered life.
Your age, which is such as still to promise improvement, admits that we
should admonish you paternally."

"PETRIOLO, June 11, 1460."

Such a letter is calculated to shock us in our modern notions of a
churchman. To us this conduct on the part of a prelate is scandalous
beyond words; that it was scandalous even then is obvious from the
Pontiff's letter; but that it was scandalous in an infinitely lesser
degree is no less obvious from the very fact that the Pontiff wrote
that letter (and in such terms) instead of incontinently unfrocking the
offender.

In considering Roderigo's conduct, you are to consider--as has been
urged already--the age in which he lived. You are to remember that it
was an age in which the passions and the emotions wore no such masks as
they wear to-day, but went naked and knew no shame of their nudity;