ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book analyses the surviving records of late fifteenth-century ordinations at the Roman curia. It focuses on the pontificate of Paul II because it was long enough to provide sufficient material for analysis, because he stayed in the city throughout his pontificate, and because there were no holy years or other exceptional events that would have distorted the evidence. The book examines the motives of the persons who came to the Roman curia to seek ordination. It provides an answer to the question of whether the papal curia through its negligence was guilty of creating a great mass of unqualified priests because it allowed anyone to be ordained to the priesthood, as many historians such as Denys Hay or Francis Rapp have claimed in their studies. The book analyses the Penitentiary material from the pontificate of Pius II.
