Society was merely for them a larger school in which they used the same means in order to consolidate their position. During the first years of the seventeenth century, an enormous number of new churches were built. Never had architects been so busy since the time of Philip the Good. The church of Douai, erected in 1583, was a replica of the Gésù in Rome, and the general adoption of the Italian "barocco" by the Jesuits has encouraged the idea, in modern times, that there really existed a Jesuit type of architecture. The flowery ornaments on the façades of these churches, their columns, gilded torches, elaborate and heavy designs, cannot be compared to Rubens's masterpieces, but, from the point of view of propaganda, which was the only point of view that mattered, the glorious paintings of the Antwerp master fulfilled the same purpose. They rendered religion attractive to the masses, they combined with music and incense to fill the congregation with a sacred awe conducive to faith.
It ought not to be assumed, however, that the painters of the period enjoyed complete liberty of expression. If the Church showed great tolerance with regard to the choice of certain profane subjects, Christian art was directly influenced by the reforms promulgated by the Council of Trent. In a pamphlet published in 1570 by Jean Molanus, _De Picturis et Imaginibus sacris_, the new rules are strictly set forth. All subjects inspired by the apocryphal books and popular legends are proscribed, and even such details of treatment as the representation of St. Joseph as an old man and the removal of the lily from the hand of the Angel of the Annunciation to a vase are severely criticized. The censors of the period would have given short shrift to Memling's interpretation of St. Ursula's story and all similar legends which could not be upheld by the authority of the _Acta Sanctorum_. This remarkable historical work, initiated by Bollandus at the time, endeavoured to weed out from the lives of the saints most of the popular anecdotes which had inspired mediæval artists. All episodes connected with the birth and marriage of the Virgin disappeared, at the same time, from the churches. The Jesuits were stern rationalists, and, considering themselves as the defenders of a besieged fortress, were determined not to lay the Church open to attack and to remove any cause for criticism. Their point of view was entirely contrary to that of the mediæval artists. For the latter, Art sprang naturally from a fervent mysticism, just as flowers spring from the soil. Its intimate faith does not need any effort, any artifices, to make itself apparent; even secondary works retain a religious value. The sacred pictures of the seventeenth century appear, in contrast, as a gigantic and wonderful piece of religious advertisement. Based on purely pagan motives, they succeed in capturing the wandering attention on some sacred subject, by overloading it with a luxury of ornament and an exuberance of gesture unknown to the primitives. The treatment may be free, it is even necessary that it should be so in order to flatter the taste of the period, but the repertory of subjects becomes more and more limited. Brilliant colours, floating draperies, powerful draughtsmanship, become the obedient servants of a stern and dogmatic mind. The pagans exalted sensuousness, the mediæval artists magnified faith, the artists of the Counter-Reformation used all the means of the former to reach the aim of the latter "ad majorem Dei gloriam."