The Council of Trent condemned heresies, as Councils have done since the beginning until Vatican II. It arrested such corruption as had been denounced by the Christian people. It laid down businesslike rules for the re-organization of a rather lax ecclesiastical society, it set up seminaries and effective visitations, and it provided the material for a full-bodied Canon Law which for four hundred years prevented any further epidemic demic of scandals, thereby restoring the good name of the church in the eyes of secular society. But as a social document it failed, and failed egregiously. The period which followed on the Council of Trent is known historically as the Counter-Reformation.