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

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HISTORY OF THE POPES.
were ambitious and greedy of power had under all manner of
pretexts suggested to the Popes that it was more advantageous
to the Church that certain cities, territories and fortresses
in the Papal States should be held either permanently or
temporarily in fief. Several Popes had consented to this,
but since the inviolable loyalty towards the Holy See of the
cities and territories of the Papal States was of great import-
ance in these days, he intended to put an end to such ahena-
tions ; this was his definite intention for the period of his
reign, and he wished at any rate to prove to his successors
that he could not consider it right to look upon such things as
lawful, and he hoped that they would remember that the
Popes must render an account of their administration before
the tribunal of Jesus Christ. He wished also, as far as possible,
to remove even the occasion of such alienations, and he accord-
ingly declared that all the territories of the Papal States,
including those which had hitherto been held in fief, were
now, in virtue of this his present declaration, incorporated in
the Apostolic See and restored to it, and he ordered that in
future no one must even propose to make a fief of any city
or territory in the Papal States under pain of excommunication
and treason. Gregory XHI., Sixtus V., Innocent IX. and
Clement VIII. confirmed and amplified these prescriptions.
It was in virtue of this constitution that the Duchy of Ferrara
was restored to the ApostoUc See under Clement VIII., and
that of Urbino under Urban VIII.
As had been the case with Church property, so several of
the preceding Popes had proved themselves too easy-going
with other ecclesiastical rights. Specially harmful had been
the concession to the civil princes of the right of presentation
to several bishoprics and important benefices. In the election
capitulation drawn up after the death of Paul IV., the decision
that the future Pope should only grant such rights with the
consent of two-thirds of the Cardinals had been expressly
accepted and sworn to by all the Cardinals, but Pius IV. had
thought himself at liberty to dispense himself from the oath
in a number of cases. Pius V. thought very differently. At
^ Laderchi, 1567, n. 12.