History of the Catholic Church, vol 1 | Page 3

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HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH FROM THE
RENAISSANCE TO THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
VOLUME I
BY
Rev. JAMES MacCAFFREY Lic. Theol. (Maynooth), Ph.D. (Freiburg
i. B.) Professor of Ecclesiastical History, St. Patrick's College,
Maynooth

Nihil Obstat: Thomas O'Donnell, C.M. Censor Theol. Deput.
Imprimi Potest: Guilielmus, Archiep. Dublinen., Hiberniae Primas.
Dublini, 16 Decembris, 1914.

PREFACE
The fifteenth century may be regarded as a period of transition from the
ideals of the Middle Ages to those of modern times. The world was fast
becoming more secular in its tendencies, and, as a necessary result,
theories and principles that had met till then with almost universal
acceptance in literature, in art, in education, and in government, were
challenged by many as untenable.
Scholasticism, which had monopolised the attention of both schools
and scholars since the days of St. Anselm and Abelard, was called upon
to defend its claims against the advocates of classical culture; the
theocratico-imperial conception of Christian society as expounded by
the canonists and lawyers of an earlier period was forced into the
background by the appearance of nationalism and individualism, which
by this time had become factors to be reckoned with by the
ecclesiastical and civil rulers; the Feudal System, which had received a

mortal blow by the intermingling of the classes and the masses in the
era of the Crusades, was threatened, from above, by the movement
towards centralisation and absolutism, and from below, by the growing
discontent of the peasantry and artisans, who had begun to realise, but
as yet only in a vague way, their own strength. In every department the
battle for supremacy was being waged between the old and the new,
and the printing-press was at hand to enable the patrons of both to
mould the thoughts and opinions of the Christian world.
It was, therefore, an age of unrest and of great intellectual activity, and
at all such times the claims of the Church as the guardian and
expounder of Divine Revelation are sure to be questioned. Not that the
Church has need to fear inquiry, or that the claims of faith and reason
are incompatible, but because some daring spirits are always to be
reckoned with, who, by mistaking hypotheses for facts, succeed in
convincing themselves and their followers that those in authority are
unprogressive, and as such, to be despised.
This was particularly true of some of the Humanists. At first sight,
indeed, it is difficult to understand why the revival of classical learning
should lead to the danger of the rejection of Christian Revelation,
seeing that the appreciation of the great literary products of Greece and
Rome, and that, even in the days of the Renaissance, the Popes and the
bishops were