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

RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 223
were applicable to the whole Church were issued in the reign
of Pius V.i
Pius V. interested himself greatly in the religious instruction
of the people, and in their edification bj^ means of the worthy
celebration of divine worship. A custom had already grown
up by which, on Sundays and festivals, even pious laymen
gathered together the children of the poor in the churches
and instructed them in the fundamental truths of Christianity.
Now, in accordance with a recommendation of the Council
of Trent, 2 Pius V. exhorted the bishops to promote and
encourage this pious custom, and to set up confraternities
of Christian Doctrine, to the members of which he granted
an indulgence.^ Such confraternities had been formed at
Milan about 1560 by a simple hat-maker, Marco Sudi, and
had spread rapidly, as far as Rome, where they received a
great impetus from the protection extended to them by the
Pope.^ Even for the island of Corsica, which was in such
a low moral state, Pius V. urged with great insistence, as
one of the principal remedies to be adopted, the instruction
of the children and young people in the fundamental truths
of religion, Christian doctrine, and a catechism in the ver-
nacular.^ He addressed a similar exhortation to Avignon,
1 On August 30, 1567, Pius V. confirmed the ordinance of
Pius IV. of November 9, 1560, that all that a cleric might have
gained by illicit trading should pass to the Apostolic Camera
{Anal, iuris Pont., VIII., 1430, seq.). He declared null {ibid. 1799)
the wills made by clerics in favour of their natural children. Cf.
* B. Pia to the Duke of Mantua ; *Avvisi di Roma of January 31,
1568, and March 3, 1571, Urb. 1040, p. 481b ; 1042, p. 25b,
Vatican Library. According to the *Avviso of November 2,
1566 {ibid. 1040, p. 313) on that date a bull was issued on the
reform of priests in accordance with the Tridentine decrees.
- Sess. 24, de ref. c. 4.
'Bull of October 6, 1571, Bull. Rom., VII., 945 seq.
» Laderchi, 1571, n. 170 seq.
'•" " Omnibus viribus ac dihgentia eniti debes, ut instituendorum
in tua dioecesi puerorum . . . quam maxiraam curam suscipia§."
To the Bishop of Ajaccio, May 4, 1569, in Goubau, 178.