. The age of Hildebrand. he Donation of Constan-tine. These rights, it was claimed, w^ere conferredby the contents of the collection, which contains fifty-nine spurious letters of popes and thirty-five spuriousdecretals. Down to the fifteenth century their genu-ineness was not openly assailed. The fraud was fullyexposed by the Magdeburg Centuriators^ (i559-74)-Their spuriousness is now generally admitted even byRoman Catholic historians and Theseforgeries, which hitherto had operated only in thesphere of the French Clugniacs, were now made byLeo IX. the groundwork of his whole ad
. The age of Hildebrand. he Donation of Constan-tine. These rights, it was claimed, w^ere conferredby the contents of the collection, which contains fifty-nine spurious letters of popes and thirty-five spuriousdecretals. Down to the fifteenth century their genu-ineness was not openly assailed. The fraud was fullyexposed by the Magdeburg Centuriators^ (i559-74)-Their spuriousness is now generally admitted even byRoman Catholic historians and Theseforgeries, which hitherto had operated only in thesphere of the French Clugniacs, were now made byLeo IX. the groundwork of his whole administration,and were persistently cited in his official deliverances. 1 Compilers of the first great Protestant work on church history,which bore the name of Centuries Magdeburgenses. The thir-teenth volume appeared in 1574. It enlisted all the Protestant learn-ing of the age. 2 As Bellarmine and Baronius. For details and literature, seeGieseler, Ecclesiastical History, Amer. ed., by Dr. H. B. Smith,vol. ii., p. 109 CHAPTER III. SIMONY—CLERICAL CELIBACY—TRANSUBSTAN-TIATION. EO was committed to the work of clericalreform; but his task was a gigantic was confronted with a veritable Au-gean stable in the life and habits of theclergy. The picture of the clerical moralsof that age cannot be ascribed to Protestant prejudiceor slander. It is drawn by contemporaries and byRomanists, especially by Peter Damiani, the friend ofHildebrand and the leader of the strict monastic partyof which Clugny was the centre.^ Fornication, incest,adultery, infanticide, unnatural vice, polluted themonastic life. The title of Damianis book, * Gom-orrhianus, is as suggestive as a description, and itspages will not bear translation. Added to theseenormities was the widely spread evil of simony. Simony, according to canon law, is the gravest ofecclesiastical crimes. The name was derived from theNew Testament story, in the eighth chapter of Acts,of Simon Magus, who offered the apostles money
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