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

268 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
of Pius IV., who had taken the veil at Milan, in order to overcome
their opposition to the law of enclosure.
Pius V. was also responsible for the first Papal law of
universal obligation forbidding women to enter the monasteries
of men,^ and abolishing all contrary privileges which
had hitherto been granted. This law was issued in response
to a request of the Carthusians, and later on was published in
greater detail by Pius V. at the request of the Benedictine con-
gregation of Monte Vergine.2 In Germany, however, it was found
difficult to carry the law into effect immediately or everywhere.^
Before long various objections and disagreements made
themselves felt with regard to some of the Tridentine decrees.
The Council had based the reform of the Church principally
upon the authority of the bishops,^ who were to have full
power in their own dioceses, and in ordinary circumstances
had all matters in their own hands. But the whole organization
of the great Orders, which extended, under their own
superiors, over many dioceses, rested upon the principle that
in some respects they nmst form an exception to this rule ;
to such reUgious bodies as the Dominicans, the Franciscans,
and the Jesuits it would have been fatal if they were to be
broken up into as many divisions as there were dioceses, and
if each of these divisions were to be placed under independent
superiors. Differences of opinion were therefore both possible
and even probable, nor in practice were they wanting. Even
a man like Cardinal Borromeo thought that he was acting
entirely in accordance with the spirit of the Council when he
disposed of the regular clergy of Milan with a greater freedom
than even a Philip Neri was willing to allow, and for that
reason he himself founded a special congregation of priests,
the Oblates of St. Ambrose, who were to be absolutely under
obedience to the Archbishop of Milan. ^ The so-called " men-
373-
1 Brief of October 24, 1566, Bull. Rom., VII., 4S7.
^ Brief of July 16, 1570, ibid. 488.
* Braunsberger, Pius V., 73 seq.; cf. 100.
* Cf. Vol. XV. of this work, p. 337.
^ San Carlo, 76. Van ORXROvin ^mo/. Bolland., XXIX. (1910),