[Footnote 298: Dr. Pastor (viii., 81) is here less candid than usual. He says that "Giovio passes over the whole truth of the accusations brought against the moral conduct of Leo X.," whereas the Bishop of Nocera devotes several very curious pages to the subject (lib. iv., pp. 96-99 in the 1551 edition of the _Vita Leonis X._) and ends with a reminder that we can never be quite sure about the secrets of the chamber and an assurance that Leo was at all events less guilty than other Italian princes. The courtly writer seems to me convinced that Leo was addicted to unnatural vice. Vaughan, on the other hand, is wrong in saying that Giovio alone mentioned these vices. Guicciardini (lib. xvi., c.v., p. 254, in the 1832 edition of the _Storia d'Italia_), in the course of a sober characterization of Leo, says that he was generally believed to be chaste before his election, but he was "afterwards found to be excessively devoted to pleasures which cannot be called decent."] [Footnote 299: It is sometimes pointed out, rather in the way of merit, that Leo received less than some of his predecessors by the issue of indulgences. It was not from want of will on his part.] [Footnote 300: _In Coena Domini_, March 28th.] [Footnote 301: The situation in England does not call for consideration in this chapter. Henry VIII. wrote against Luther and, in presenting his book to the Pope, requested a title analogous to that of "the most Catholic King." By a Bull of October 26, 1521, Henry received the title of "Defender of the Faith," which his successors retain.] CHAPTER XV PAUL III. AND THE COUNTER-REFORMATION The period immediately following the death of Leo X. is known as that of the Counter-Reformation. The name which has clung to the great religious schism of the sixteenth century still indicates how essentially it was, in its origin, a protest against the corruption of the mediæval Church. The reform of dogma was an afterthought; and the Reformation would probably have proved one more futile and academic criticism of the mediæval growth of doctrine if it had not primarily appealed to the very general resentment against the practices of the Curia and contempt for the unworthy lives of so large a proportion of the clergy and regulars. The situation, indeed, offers a romantic aspect to the historian. If a strong and entirely religious man, like Cardinal Carafa, had succeeded Leo X., it might have been possible, by a notable improvement in practice, to disarm a very effective proportion of the followers of the Reformers and thus to put back for a century or two the doctrinal revision. Unhappily for the Papacy, Leo X. had filled the Sacred College with men of his own disposition, and thirty years were wasted in fruitless efforts at compromise. In those thirty years, the hesitating criticisms of Luther crystallized into a settled creed which no persuasion could dissolve and no persecution could obliterate.