like Luther, bold enough to clothe in words the convictions which thousands were secretly nursing.[1]
Signs, indeed, were not wanting in the fifteenth century of the inevitable rupture of the sixteenth. Prominent among those who boldly defied the power of Rome was Gregory of Heimburg, whom Ullman well designates as the citizen-Luther of the fifteenth century. He first comes into view at the Council of Basle, in the service of Æneas Sylvius, who was then one of the foremost advo- cates of the reforming party, and he remained steadfast to the principles which his patron bartered for the papacy. A forerun- ner of the Humanists, he labored to diffuse classical culture, and with his admiration for the ancients he had, like Marsiglio of Padua, imbibed the imperial theory of the relations between Church and State. With tongue and pen inspired by dauntless courage he was indefatigable to the last in maintaining the rights of the empire and the supremacy of general councils. The power of the keys, he taught, had been granted to the apostles collectively; these were represented by general councils, and the monopoly in the hands of the pope was a usurpation. His free expression of opin- ion infallibly brought him into collision with his early patron, and the antagonism was sharpened when Pius II. convoked the assem- bly of princes at Mantua to provide for a new crusade. Gregory, who was there as counsellor of the princes, boldly declared that this was only a scheme to augment the papal power and drain all Germany of money. When Nicholas of Cusa, a time-server like Pius, was appointed Bishop of Brixen and claimed property and rights regarded by Sigismund of Austria as belonging to himself, Sigismund, under Gregory's advice, arrested the bishop. There- upon Pius, in June, 1460, laid Sigismund's territories under inter- dict, and induced the Swiss to attack him. Gregory drew up an appeal to a general council, which Sigismund issued, although Pius had forbidden such appeals, and he further had the hardihood to prove by Scripture, the fathers, and history, that the Church was subject to the State. It was no wonder that Gregory shared his master's excommunication. In October, 1460, he was declared
a heretic, and all the faithful were ordered to seize his property
- ↑ Hist. Persecut. Eccles. Bohem. pp. 71-2 (s. 1. 1648).—Camerarii Hist. Frat. Orthodox. pp. 116-17 (Heidelbergæ, 1605).—Ripoll III. 577.
