This dirty secret was about as dirty as the business of indulgences could get. It therefore seems fitting that this particular excess would be the last straw that broke the back of medieval Christendom. That the humble faithful would hurl their coins into an iron coffer believing they really would pay for their sins—and simultaneously build St. Peter’s—was bad enough. But that half of what they paid was actually going to pay an exorbitant debt so that a papal rule might be ignored—and the ambitious archbishop could collect a second impressive bishopric—took the cake. And ate it too.
