22  INTRODUCTION

were  then,  in  their  turn,  laid  under  excommunication  ;  but  they  never
would  acknowledge  its  validity  ;  they  refused  to  accept  absolution  when
it  was  offered  them.1

Thus  it  happened  that  in  the  present  instance  the  pope  could  not  carry
the  election  of  his  candidate,  Charles  of  Luxemburg  ;  nobles  and  commons
adhered  almost  unanimously  to  Louis  of  Bavaria  :  nor  was  it  till  after
his  death,  and  then  only  after  repeated  election  and  coronation,  that
Charles  IV.  was  gradually  recognised.
Whatever  he  might  previously  have  promised  the  pope,  that  sovereign
could  not  make  concessions  injurious  to  the  interests  of  his  princes  :  on
the  contrary,  he  solemnly  and  firmly  established  the  rights  of  the  electors,
even  to  the  long-disputed  vicariate  (at  least  in  all  German  states).  A
germ  of  resistance  was  thus  formed.
This  was  fostered  and  developed  by  the  disorders  of  the  great  schism,
and  by  the  dispositions  evinced  by  the  general  councils.
It  was  now,  for  the  first  time,  evident  that  the  actual  church  no  longer
corresponded  with  the  ideal  that  existed  in  men's  minds.  Nations  assumed
the  attitude  of  independent  members  of  it ;  popes  were  brought  to  trial
and  deposed  ;  the  aristocratico-republican  spirit,  which  played  so  great
a  part  in  the  temporal  states  of  Europe,  extended  even  to  the  papacy  (the
nature  of  which  is  so  completely  monarchical),  and  threatened  to  change
its  form  and  character.
