EMSER
410
EMSER
based their demands, which may be summarized as
follows: all direct appeals to Rome must be discon-
tinued; all exempt monasteries must become subject
to the bishops in whose districts the monasteries are
situated ; no German monasteries m\jst have generals,
provincials, or other superiors who do not reside in
Germany; the bishops need not obtain quinquennial
faculties from Rome, because by virtue of their office
they can dispense from abstinence, from matrimonial
impediments, including the second degree of con-
sanguinity and the second and first degrees of affinity,
from solemn religious vows and the obligations result-
ing from Holy orders; papal Bulls and ordinances of
the Roman Curia are binding in each diocese only
after the respective bishop has given his placet; all
Apostolic nunciatures must be abolished; the manner
of conferring benefices and the procedure in ecclesias-
tical lawsuits must be changed in favour of the bishops;
the episcopal oath must be changed so that it shall not
appear to be the oath of a vassal, etc.
It may easily be seen that the articles of the " Punc- tation" lower the papal primacy to a merely honorary one and advocate an independence of the archbishops in regard to the pope which is entirely incompatible with the Unity and Catholicity of the Church of Christ. Still the " Punctation" was immediatelj' rati- fied by the four archbishops and sent to Emperor Joseph II with an humble request for his support. The emperor was pleased with the articles and would have pledged his unqualified support if his councillors, especially Kaunitz, had not for political reasons ad- vised him otherwise. In his reply of 16 Nov., 1786, the emperor wisely makes his support dependent on the condition that the archbishops gain the consent of their suffragan bishops, the superiors of the exempt monasteries, and the estates into whose districts their spiritual jurisdiction extends. The suffragan bishops, especially the pious and learned prince-bishops .\u- gust'von StjTum of Speierand Franz Ludwig von Erthal of Wiirzburg-Bamberg (a brother of the Archbi-shop of Mainz), protested against the schismatic tendencj- of the "Punctation" and saw in the anti-papal pro- cediu'e of the archbishops merely an attempt to in- crease their own power to the detriment of their suffra- gans. The Elector of Bavaria likewise remained a zealous defender of the pope and his nuncio at Mu- nich, and even the Protestant King Frederick II of Prussia was an opponent of the "Punctation" and favoured the nuncio Pacca at Cologne.
Still the archbishops insisted on their demands. When the nuncio at Cologne by authority of the pope granted a matrimonial dispensation from the second degree of consanguinity to Prince von Hohenlohe- Bartenstein and Coimtess Blankenheim, Archbishop Maximilian Franz of Cologne addressed to him a strong protest forbidding him for the future the exercise of aU jurisdiction in the Archdiocese of Cologne. The archbishops themselves now began to grant dispensations from such degrees of relationship as were not contained in their ordinary quinquennial faculties, just as if the "Punctation of Ems" were in full force. When the nuncio at Cologne, by order of the pope, informed the pastors that all marriages con- tracted by \'irtue of such dispensations were invalid, the archbishops ordered their pastors to retiu'n the circular to the nuncio and to obtain all future dispen- sations directly from their ordinary, the archbishop. The Church in Germany was now near to a schism. Fortunately, von Erthal of Mainz needed the ser\ncesof Rome. He desired Karl Theodor von Dalberg as co- adjutor, and, to obtain the consent of Rome, he with- drew, at least apparently, from the "Punctation" and obtained a renewal of his quinquennial faculties from Rome on 9 Aug., 1787. Similarly the Archbi.shop of Trier asked for quinquennial faculties as Bishop of Augsburg, but not as Archbishop of Trier. VonErthal's submission to Rome was only a pretended one. He
continued his opposition and on 2 June, 1788, re-
quested Emperor Joseph II, in the name of himself
and the three other archbishops, to bring the affair
concerning the German nuncios before a diet. But
soon the archbishops discovered that all the estates
were opposed to the "Punctation" and that a diet
would rather retard than accelerate the fulfilment of
their wishes. For this reason they addressed a letter
to Rome (1 Dec, 1788) asking the pope to put an end
to the unedifying ecclesiastical dissensions in Germany
by withdrawing the faculties from the nuncios and by
sending representatives to the Cierman estates with
authority to come to an amicable agreement regarding
the other demands of the archbishops. In answer to
this request appeared the publication of a memorable
document composed by order of the pope and en-
titled: "Sanctissimi Dom. nostri Pii Papie VI respon-
sio ad Metropolitanos Moguntinum, Trevirensem,
Coloniensem et Salisburgensera super Nunciaturis
Apostolicis" fRonie, 17S9). It was a masterpiece in
form and contents of Apostolic firmness and paternal
reproof. After presenting a dispassionate and objec-
tive view of the whole litigation, the document refutes
all the arguments of the archbishops against papal
nunciatures, shows how WTong it was for the arch-
bishops to rebel against papal authority, explains that
the pope cannot send representatives to worldly
estates who have no right to pass judgment on eccle-
siastical affairs, and admonishes the archbishops to
give up their untenable position towards the Holy
See.
The papal writing was not without effect. Arch- bishop Wenceslaus of Trier, who had long desired an amicable settlement of the odious affair, into which, it appears, he was drawn against his will, publicly with- drew from the "Pimctation" on 20 Feb., 1790, and admonished his colleagues to follow his example. They, however, continued their opposition and on occasion of the imperial capitulation of Leopold II (1790) and that of Francis II (1792) obtained the promise that their complaints concerning the nuncia- tures would be attended to as soon as po.ssible bj' a decree of the diet. The threatening progress of the French Revolution finally changed the attitude of the Archbishops of Cologne and Salzburg, but the Arch- bishop of Mainz clung to the "Punctation" until the victorious French army invaded his electorate, and he was deprived of all his possessions west of the Rhine, at the Peace of Campo Formio, in 1797.
Stigloher, Die Erriclitung der papstl. XuntiahiT in Munchen und der Emser Congress (Ratisbon, 1S67): Brick, Die raiiona- lislischen Bestrcbiingen im kath. Deutsehland bes. in den drei rhein. Erzbisth. in der zweitcn Halfte des IS. Jahrh. (Alainz, 1865); Idem in KirchrnU'x. s. v.; P.\cca, Memorie storicite sul di lui soggiorno in Gcrmania dal anno 17S6 al VOU (Rome, 1832), German tr. (Auffsburg, 1.S321; Feller, Coup-d'a-il sur le Con- grcs d'Ems (Diis-seldorf, 1777), German tr. (Dusseldorf, 1788).
Michael Ott.
Emser, IIiERONYnrus, the most ardent literary op- ponent of Luther, b. of a prominent family at Ulm, 20 March, 1477; d. 8 Nov., 1527 at Dresden. At the LTni- versity of Tiiliingen, whither he went in 1493, he ac- quired a thorough knowledge of Greek ami Latin, but in 1497 he began the study of law and theologj^ at the University of Basle. Tlirough the good offices of Christopher, later Bishop of Utenheim, he barely es- caped imprisonment at Basle for having inscribed some satirical verses of his countryman, Bcl)el, in a volume which was circulated among the students. The leg- ate. Cardinal Raymond Peraudi of Gurk, who seems to have been the judge in this trial, shortly after en- gaged him as secretary. In 1500 he published a medi- ocre work on the miraculous crosses which were gen- erally supposed to have fallen from heaven. Four years later he began a series of brilliant lectures at Er- furt on Reuchlin's "Sergius vel Caput Capitis" and numberc<l Martin Luther among his hearers. On ac- count of his triumphs at Erfurt he always claimed the
