The history of the popes, from the close of the middle ages : drawn ...

148 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
presented to the Pope their ideas as to the manner of life
of the Cardinals, suggesting that it was not seemly that they
should use silver plate at their tables, that their households
ought to wear clerical dress, and that they should maintain
a chaplain to administer the sacraments every month to their
households.^ It was certainly not the fault of the Pope if
these proposals were not made matters of strict precept,
for he would even have liked to have simplified, as having
somewhat too worldly an appearance, the terms in which the
matter was laid before the Cardinals.^
Even in the case of the most exalted princes of the Church,
Pius V. did not always restrict himself to exhortations and
prayers, but spoke to them with all the authority of the Vicar
of Christ, and reminded them of the strictness of the Church's
laws. At the beginning of his pontificate he very plainly
brought home to the bishops who were numbered among the
senate of the Church their duty of taking up their permanent
residence in their sees and among their own flocks.^ Many
^ " *Si dice anco che li reformatori [i.e. Ormaneto and Bin-
arini] hanno detto al Papa che sarebbe bene riformare li cardenali
et le case lore, et non lasciare che magnassero in argento et che
facessero andare le lore famiglie vestite di longo et tenessero un
confessore in casa che ogni mese confessasse et comunicasse tutta
la famiglia loro " (Aurelio Zibramonti to the Duke of Mantua,
January 13, 1571, Gonzaga Archives, Mantua). For Alfonso
Binarini, the companion of Ormaneto, who died Bishop of Cam-
erino, cf. Ughelli, I., 612.
^ Cusano (*report of January 20, 1571, State Archives, Vienna),
claims to have heard " da buona fonte " of a strict reforming
regulation for the houses of the Cardinals, which was very shortly
to be issued. On February 12, 1571, *B. Pia knew of a consistory
concerning the reform of the Cardinals and their households.
On February 9. 1572, he *announces that the Pope had exhorted
the Cardinals in consistory to live piously together with their
households, especially during the time of the carnival, which
was then going on. Gonzaga Archives, Mantua.
^ They were only to be called Reverendissimi, and no longer
Ilhistrissimi. *Arco, December 24, 1569, State Archives, Vienna.
* Arco, January 26, 1566, ibid,