The history of the popes, from the close of the middle ages : drawn ...

FERDINAND I. AND THE COUNCIL. 189
have received the impression that Ferdinand, was agreeable
that the Council, after the removal of the suspension, should
again be summoned to Trent.
^
On the same day the privy council assembled at Vienna
in order to come to a final decision upon the matter. 2 Two
Austrian statesmen, Georg Gienger, and the vice-chancellor
of the Empire, Sigmund Seld, had the chief influence there,
and they, hke the great number of the Catholic estates of
the Empire, held the false view that the decrees of Constance
and Basle, which were inimical to the Pope, were lawful and
valid, and that a reform of the Church could only be possible
on this basis. ^ The Emperor's councillors, as well as Duke
Albert of Bavaria, who arrived in Vienna on June 8th,
succeeded in making the most of a threatened invasion of
the Imperial dominions by the Protestants, in order to prevent
the Council desired by the Pope. Under the pressure of
this threat, Ferdinand became more hesitating than ever.
He who had encouraged the Pope in March, through Scipione
d'Arco, to summon the Council as quickly as possible, now,
when Pius IV. wished to proceed energetically with the
matter, did everything to keep him back. He gave his
approval to a memorandum,* drawn up by Gienger, to be
handed to the nuncio, which made so many reservations,
and set up so many claims, which were, in part at any rate,
1 See Steinherz, I., 40 seq.
^ Consultatio quid agendum sit in negocio concilii, in Sickel,
Konzil, 49 seq. Cf. Eder, I., 38 seq.
^ Cf. RiTTER, I., 146; Eder, I., 36 seq. The attack, in the
otherwise thorough work of Eder, pubUshed in 191 1, upon Janssen
for a false account of the character of Gienger, is obsolete, for the
passage in question was corrected by me in 1896 in the 15th and
i6th editions of the IVth vohime.
* Scriptum C. M*''^ in negocio concilii nuncio apostolico ex-
hibitum, in Sickel, Konzil, 55-69, and Ehses, VIII., 39-51.
Cf. Reimann, Unterhandlungen, 596 seq. ; Voss, 58 seq. ; Ehses,
Berufung des Konzils, 9; Eder, I., 43-7. Eder rightly
contends against Kassowitz (p. i seq.) that Gienger was the
author.