_ 422 _ everyone waits for his neighbor to arm first, I think that being unprepared, we will all burn together. I reminded His Holiness many times that it was for him, as the universal father, to summon and unite the princes in some form of defence against the fleets of the Turk which come every year and are more powerful each time, and that to mollify the Germans, he ought to make it known that he was calling a General Council so that this could also be discussed, and to encourage the princes to attack the enemies or at least to prepare a common defence of Christianity. He said that he will do so, and I think it will be necessary because of these many reminders. The world is so asleep in its perdition that it seems that God wishes it, so that we may pay a heavier price for our sins. The Pope has granted to the King of Spain (as I have already written) that he may sell the revenues from churches appertaining to vassals up to twenty-five thousand cruzados, placing the capital produced at interest-giving elsewhere as interest, the double revenue to be sold. The king asked for fifty thousand, but with the twenty-five, he will make a large sum. The fourths [fees] of the churches are also conceded to him as a subsidy for three years; and all this is on the grounds of the war with the Turks.
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