Cardinal Madruzzo was the only prelate who in any sense could be said to represent the Empire; and the rest were Italians.
The first three sessions were spent in making the necessary arrangements for the business of the Council. A division of opinion at once arose as to the exact title to be used. The proposal of the Legates " Sacrosancta Tridentina synodus in Spiritu sancto legitime congregata in ea praesidentibus tribus apostolicae sedis legatis" was not satisfactory to a portion of the Council; and it was proposed to add the words " universalem ecclesiam representans." The intention of the amendment was to express the superiority of the Council even to the Pope, and to revive the memories of Constance and Basel. The Legates expressed their dislike of it to the Pope on these grounds, though in public they resisted it merely as being unnecessary; and they succeeded in obtaining the rejection of the proposal. A question of more practical importance followed as to the right of voting. At Constance voting had been by nations; and Abbots and theologians, as well as Bishops and Generals of Orders, were allowed to vote. The Bishops were, however, very jealous of their privileges; and it was decided to confine the power of voting to Bishops and heads of religious Orders. The claim of absent Bishops to vote by proxy was rejected by the Legates by order of the Pope. Only Bishops "inpartibus" might represent their diocesans. This was a great victory for the curial party. In the absence of voting by nations, it ensured a preponderant influence to the Italian Bishops, who were mostly blind adherents to the Papacy. Many of them were very poor and were in fact dependent upon the Legates for their daily bread. The papal pensions and the hope of being rewarded with lucrative offices kept them loyal to the Curia, the interests of which were largely their own.
It was from the Spanish Bishops on the other hand that the Legates had most to fear. Charles had issued peremptory orders for them to attend the Council; and they became the backbone of the opposition to the pretensions of the Curia. The work of Ximenes had borne good fruit; and the Spanish Bishops were the most learned and the ablest among the members of the Council. Their orthodoxy was unimpeachable, they had no sympathy with the wishes of the moderate party for conciliation in doctrine, but equally with them they were determined to maintain the supremacy of the Council to the Pope, and to remove the abuses of the papal Court. So alarmed were the Legates by their arrival and by the prospects of an increase in their number, that they wrote to the Pope urgently requesting that ten or twelve capable Italian Bishops of proved fidelity might be sent to the Council to resist them.
The divergence between the interests of the Curia with its Italian supporters and the foreign Fathers was plainly revealed when the order of business came to be determined. In his instructions to the Legates Paul III clearly laid down that reform was only a secondary and less important cause of the convocation of the Council. Its principal work
