350 (printed at Venice in 1560), and by
Agostino Trionfi, in his _Summa de potestate ecclesiastica_,
Augsburg, 1473, an excessively rare book, of which there is a
copy in the British Museum. These writers maintained that the
popes were suzerains of the whole earth and had absolute power
to dispose not only of all Christian kingdoms, but also of all
heathen lands and powers. It was upon this theory that Eugenius
IV. seems to have acted with reference to Portugal and
Alexander VI. with reference to Spain. Of course there was
never a time when such claims for the papacy were not denied by
a large party within the Church. The Spanish sovereigns in
appealing to Alexander VI. took care to hint that some of their
advisers regarded them as already entitled to enjoy the fruits
of their discoveries, even before obtaining the papal
permission, but they did not choose to act upon that opinion
(Herrera, decad. i. lib. ii. cap. 4). The kings of Portugal
were less reserved in their submission. In _Valasci Ferdinandi
ad Innocentium octauum de obedientia oratio_, a small quarto
printed at Rome about 1488, John II. did homage to the pope for
the countries just discovered by Bartholomew Dias. His
successor Emanuel did the same after the voyages of Gama and
Vespucius. In a small quarto, _Obedientia potentissimi
Emanuelis Lusitaniae regis &c. per clarissimum juris consultum
Dieghum Pacett[=u] oratorem ad Iuli[=u] Pont. Max._, Rome,
1505, all the newly found lands are laid at the feet of Julius
II. in a passage that ends with words worth noting: "Accipe
tandem orbem ipsum terrarum, Deus enim noster es," i. e.
"Accept in fine the earth itself, for thou art our God."
Similar homage was rendered to Leo X. in 1513, on account of
Albuquerque's conquests in Asia.--We may suspect that if the
papacy had retained, at the end of the fifteenth century,
anything like the overshadowing power which it possessed at the
end of the twelfth, the kings of Portugal would not have been
quite so unstinted in their homage. As it came to be less of a
reality and more of a flourish of words, it cost less to offer
it. Among some modern Catholics I have observe