It was a period of unexampled splendor for the Holy See, and of substantial temporal conquests.

The second Council of Pisa, which began its sittings, in 1511 under French sanction and support, exercised no disastrous influence over the restored powers and prestige of the Papacy.

On the contrary, it gave occasion for a counter-council, held at the Lateran under the auspices of Julius II.
and Leo X., in which the Popes established several points of ecclesiastical discipline that were not without value to their successors.

But the leaven which had been scattered by Wyclif and Hus, of which the Council of Constance had taken cognizance, but which had not been extirpated, was spreading in Germany throughout this period.
The Popes themselves were doing all in their power to propagate dissent and discontent.

Well aware of the fierce light cast by the new learning they had helped to disseminate, upon the dark places of their own ecclesiastical administration, they still continued to raise money by the sale of pardons and indulgences, to bleed their Christian flocks by monstrous engines of taxation, and to offend the conscience of an intelligent generation by their example of ungodly living.