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

376 HISTORY OF THE POPES.
as possible. We have regulations against the court prelates,^
begging clerics,^ nepotism, ^ unauthorized preachers of in-
dulgences,* too great or too small extension of parishes,^
extravagances in the matter of church music, ^ and in the fine
arts,' the encroachments of lay patrons and the nobles in
ecclesiastical matters f and finally against monks who wander
about outside their monasteries.^ In its XXVth Session the
Council occupied itself very minutely with the raising and
renewal of the religious state.
Next to the reform of the clergy, the Council had the care
of the Christian family specially at heart. ^^ After having
defended the unity, indissolubility, and the religious character
of matrimony in its dogmatic definitions, the reform decrees
endeavour to protect the holiness of the sacrament, and to
prevent scandals by a renewed prohibition of secret marriages,
by a limitation of the impediments to matrimony, by admon-
ishing parish priests to exercise care in marrying persons
unknown to them, or not resident in the place, and by providing
for the complete freedom of all, and especially of the weaker
sex, when entering upon this contract.
^ Sess. 25, c. 17.
2 Sess. 21, c. 2.
3 Sess. 25, 0. I.
* Sess. 5, c. 2 ; sess. 21, c. 9.
^ Sess. 21, c. 4-5.
* Sess. 22, de celebratione missae.
' Sess. 25, de invocatione sanctorum. We shall treat of this
decree later on, when speaking of art during the period of Catholic
reform.
8 Sess. 22, c. II ; sess. 25, c. 9.
* Sess. 14, c. II. " Thus in some way were pastoral activities
dealt with by the Council, from those that were merely mechanical
to those that were purely ideal, many being treated very minutely,
much being laid down that was new, and everything being gone
into more deeply." Swoboda, 102.
^^ Sess. 24. For the influence of the Council of Trent upon the
development of baptismal and matrimonial registers (a thing
already done since the middle ages) cf. Sagmxjller in the Tiibingen
Quartalschrift, LXXXI. (1899), 227 seqq.