rtance, for in them the pope reaffirmed the scholastic doctrine
regarding the sacraments as a dogma of the Church, and he spoke as the
supreme head of all Christendom.

This claim to the supreme government of the Church was to be steadily
maintained. In the year 1512 Julius II. called together the fifth
Lateran general council, which expressly recognized the subjection of
the councils to the pope (Leo X.'s bull _Pastor Aeternum_, of the 19th
of December 1516), and also declared the constitution _Unam Sanctam_
(see above) valid in law.

But the papacy that sought to win back its old position was itself no
longer the same as of old. Eugenius IV.'s successor, Nicholas V.
(1447-1455), was the first of the Renaissance popes. Under his
successors the views which prevailed at the secular courts of the
Italian princes came likewise into play at the Curia: the papacy became
an Italian princedom. Innocent VIII., Alexander VI., Julius II. were in
many respects remarkable men, but they were scarcely affected by the
convictions of the Christian faith. The terrible tragedy which was
consummated on the 23rd of May 1498 before the Palazzo Vecchio, in
Florence, casts a lurid light upon the irreconcilable opposition in
which the wearers of the papal dignity stood to medieval piety; for
Girolamo Savonarola was in every fibre a loyal son of the medieval
Church.

Twenty years after Savonarola's death Martin Luther made public his
theses against indulgences. The Reformation which thus began brought the
disintegrating process of the middle ages to an end, and at the same
time divided Western Catholicism in two. Yet we may say that this was
its salvation; for the struggle against Luther drove the papacy back to
its ecclesiastical duties, and the council of Trent established medieval
dogma as the doctrine of modern Catholicism in contradistinction to
Protestantism. (See also PAPACY; RENAISSANCE; REFORMATION, and
biographies of popes, &c.)

AUTHORITIES.--For sources see U. Chevalier, _Repertoire des sources
historiques du moyen-age_ (Paris, 1903); A. Potthast, _Bibliotheca
historica medii aevi_ (Berlin, 1896); W. Wattenbach, _Deutschlands
Geschichtsquellen im Mittelalter_ (7th ed., Stuttgart, 1904); A.
Molinier, _Les Sources de l'histoire de la France_ (Paris, 1901).
General Treatises: Philip Schaff, _History of the Christian Church_
(12 yols., 5th ed., New York, 1889-1892), vol. iv. _Medieval
Christianity_; W. Moeller, _Leh