as archbishop of Mainz, which method of procedure would have been scandalous enough, and which would have furnished plenty of proof that the indulgences were a means unscrupulously employed to fill the treasuries of the Vatican. But the investigation of the dealings of the House of Fugger, the Pope's banker, that transacted all of the papal business at that time in Germany, Hungary, Poland and Scandinavia, by the Catholic Alois Schulte48 disclosed very clearly that the papal business was even much more sordid. Not only did Albrecht have to pay the Pope the sum of 12,000 Dukaten (= ca $60,- 000) as regular fee for confirmation as archbishop of Mainz; but it was hinted to him that he could never unite the archbishopric of Mainz with the bishopric of Halberstadt and the archbishopric of Magdeburg without paying a further sum of 10,000 Dukaten (about $50,000); only then could the rules forbidding such unification of offices be set aside. And Albrecht conceded. So in the end the much-mooted simony was committed by the Pope himself! In order to gain the sums for this unholy business it was Rome itself who intimated to the young Albrecht that the best way would be to sell indulgences in Mainz and Brandenburg, send half of the money thus acquired directly to Rome, the other half indirectly as a payment for the sanction of three bishoprics existing under one head! It is fairly astonishing what conditions Alois Schulte discloses in his book.
What was the nature of indulgences? On this subject also many disclosures have been made in the last thirty- five years. We name especially the works of Bratke, Dieckhoff, Brieger, Ditterle and the one by the Roman Catholic Paulus.49 Although Protestants were at first a little too much blinded by Catholic statements according
