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INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER II.
THE POPES AT AVIGNON.
We speak loosely of the Reformation as though it were
a definite event; we ought rather to regard the fall of the Papal autocracy as
the result of a number of political causes which had slowly gathered strength.
The victory of the Papacy over Frederick II marked the highest point of its
power: the beginning of the fourteenth century saw the rise of new ideas which
gradually led to its fall. The struggle of Philip IV against Boniface VIII was
carried on by new weapons — by appeals to political principles. The rights of
the State were asserted against the claims of the Papal monarchy, and the
assertion was made good. The Papacy had advanced to power partly by religious,
partly by political means; and the Papal claims rested on principles which were
drawn partly from texts of Scripture, partly from historical events in the
past. To overthrow the Papal monarchy both of these bases had to be upset.
The ideas of the Middle Ages had to make way for the
ideas of the Renaissance before it was possible for men to grasp the meaning of
Scripture as a whole, and found their political as well as their social life
upon a wide conception of its spirit. But this was the second part of the
process, for which the first part was necessary. Before men advanced to the
criticism of Scripture they undertook the criticism of history. Against the
Papal view of the political facts and principles of the past, the men of the
fourteenth century advanced new principles and interpreted the facts
afresh.
The mediaeval conception of the Papal power was set
forth by Thomas of Aquino. His ideal of government was a constitutional
monarchy, strong enough to keep order, not strong enough to become tyrannical.
The object of Christian society is to lead men to eternal salvation, and this
work is done by the priests under the rule of the Pope. Under the Old Testament
dispensation priests had been subject to kings; under the New Testament
dispensation kings are subject to priests in matters pertaining to Christ’s
law. The king must see that such things as are necessary for the salvation of
his people are cared for, and that things contrary thereto are forbidden. If a
king is heretical or schismatic, the Church must deprive him of his power, and
by excommunicating him release his subjects from their allegiance. The Church
which is thus to lead the State must be ruled by a monarchy strong enough to
preserve the unity of the faith, and decide in matters that arise what is to be
believed and what condemned (nova editio symboli). In the Pope is vested
the authority of the universal Church, and he cannot err; according to Christ’s
words to Peter, “I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not”. Against such
ideas the struggle of Boniface VIII and Philip IV produced a reaction, which
may be seen in the De Monarchia of Dante, who in behalf of the
Empire asserted the claims of the temporal against the spiritual power. Dante’s
Empire was the ideal creation of unity, peace, and order, which floated before
the mediaeval mind. The empire, he argues, is necessary for the good of
mankind, since the end of society is unity, and unity is only possible through
obedience to one head. This empire belongs of right to the Roman people who won
it, and what they won Christ sanctioned by being born into it; further He
recognized its legitimacy by receiving at the hands of a Roman judge the
sentence by which He bore our sorrows. The assertions of those who maintain
that the Empire does not come immediately from God, but mediately through
the Pope, are not to be received; they are founded on the Decretals and other
traditions which came after the Church, and could not therefore confer on the
Church any rights which it did not previously possess. The foundation of the
Church is Christ; the Empire existed before the Church, which received from
Christ no authority over the Empire, and therefore possesses none; “yet”, he
ends, “let Caesar be reverent to Peter, as the first-born son should be
reverent to his father”. Dante’s arguments are scholastic and obscure, resting
frequently on merely verbal grounds; but the importance of the De
Monarchia lies in the fact that, against the Decretals and against the
current interpretation of Scripture, it founds a political system on the basis
of reason and of historical fact. The form of the book is mediaeval, but a
modern spirit of political dignity breathes through its pages.
Dante’s De Monarchia is but a
specimen of the writings which the conflict of Boniface III and Philip IV
called forth. Aegidius Colonna, who became Archbishop of Bourges, and John of
Paris, a Dominican monk, asserted the independent existence of the temporal and
the spiritual power, since both alike came from God, and each has its own
sphere of action; in many points the priesthood must be subject to the
monarchy, and in no way could it be shown that the Papacy had any jurisdiction
over the realm of France. John of Paris went further and argued that, as Christ
exercised no dominion in temporal matters, no priest could, on the ground of
being Christ’s vicar, exercise a power which his Master never claimed. In these
and such like arguments there is an attempt to reach the facts of primitive
Christianity, and use them as a means of criticizing the Papal claims to
universal monarchy.
These attacks upon the Papal position were not the
only mischief which the assertion of Boniface VIII brought upon the Papacy. The
Papacy had destroyed the Empire, but failed in its attempt to establish itself
in the place of the Empire as the undoubted head over the rising nationalities
of Europe. It was worsted by France, and as a consequence fell under French influence.
When Philip IV pursued his victory and devised the scheme of getting the Papal
power into the hands of a nominee of his own, he met with little difficulty.
Clement V, an Aquitanian by birth, shrank before the troubles which Philip IV
easily contrived to stir up in Italy, and for greater safety took up his abode
at Avignon — a city held by Charles II of Naples as Count of Provence. It was,
however, so near the boundaries of the French King as to be practically under
his influence; and it marked a mighty breach with the tradition of the
past when the seat of the Papacy was removed from the world-city of its ancient
glories.
It is at first a cause of some surprise that the
Papacy did not suffer more than it did from the transference of its seat to
Avignon. But, though deprived of strength, it still had the prestige of past
importance, and could exercise considerable influence when opportunity offered.
Clement V was powerless against Philip IV : he had to consent to recognize the
validity of everything that Philip IV had done against his predecessor; he had
to revoke the obnoxious bulls of Boniface VIII, and even to authorize an
enquiry into his life and character; he had to lend himself as a tool to the
royal avarice in suppressing the order of the Knights Templars. But, in spite
of their disasters, the Papacy and the Empire were still the centers of
European politics. No one ventured to think it possible to diminish their
claims to greatness; it was rather a struggle which nation should succeed in
using them for its own purposes. France had secured a strong hold upon the
Papacy, and wished to become master also of the Empire. Philip IV strove to
procure the election of his brother, Charles of Valois, and so gave the Pope a
new means of asserting his importance. Charles was not elected, and the King
found it wise not to press the Pope too far. At Avignon the Pope was subject to
the influence of the French King; but he was at least personally secure, and
could afford to adopt a haughty tone in dealing with other powers. There was no
abatement in the lofty language of the Papacy; and when Clement V died, he
might have boasted that he handed down the Papal power undiminished to his
successors. His position might be ignoble; but he acted with policy and
prudence in difficult and dangerous circumstances, and made up for his humility
towards the King of France by the arrogance of his attitude towards the Empire.
The success of Henry VII in Italy alarmed King Robert
of Naples, and Clement V warmly espoused the cause of his vassal, in whose
dominions lay the protecting city of Avignon. The death of Henry VII prevented
the quarrel from becoming serious; but on Henry’s death Clement V published a
bull declaring that the oath taken by the Kings of the Romans to the Pope was
an oath of vassalage, and involved the Papal suzerainty over the Empire. At the
same time, during the vacancy of the Empire, the Pope, acting as over-lord, did
away with the Ban of the Empire which Henry VII had pronounced against Robert
of Naples, and also appointed Robert as Imperial Vicar in Italy. Clement V
followed the example of his predecessors in endeavoring to turn into a legal
claim the vague talk of former Popes. His death, within a month of the
publication of his bull, left the struggle to his successor.
John XXII (1313-1322) entered readily into the
struggle, and the disputed election to the Empire, between Lewis of Bavaria and
Frederick of Austria, gave him a lucky opportunity of asserting these new
claims of the Papacy over the Empire. As an obsequious dependent of the Kings
of France and Naples, the Pope was encouraged to put forward against the Empire
claims much more arrogant than those which Boniface VIII had ventured to make
to Philip IV. The French King hoped to lay hands upon the Empire; the King of
Naples wished to pursue his plans in Italy without fear of Imperial
intervention. So long as the Pope furthered their purposes, he might advance
any arguments or pretensions that he pleased. It was this selfish policy on the
part of the princes of Europe that maintained so long the Papal power, and gave
the Papacy the means of rising after many falls and degradations. The Papal
power and the Papal claims were inextricably interwoven in the state-system of
Europe, and the Papacy was a political instrument which any monarch who
could command was anxious to uphold.
John XXII claimed to be the rightful ruler of the
Empire during the vacancy, and so long as the contest between Lewis and
Frederick occupied all the energies of the rival claimants, there was no one to
gainsay the Pope. When the Battle of Mühldorf in 1322 gave the victory to
Lewis, John resented his assumption of the title of King of the Romans without
Papal confirmation, and soon proceeded to his excommunication. In the contest
that ensued there was nothing heroic. Papacy and Empire alike seemed the
shadows of their former selves. John XXII was an austere and narrow-minded
pedant, with no political insight; Lewis was destitute of any intellectual
greatness, and knew not how to control the forces which he had at his command.
The attack of the Pope upon the Empire was a desperate attempt to gain
consideration for the Papacy at the expense of a foe who was supposed to be too
weak to make any formidable resistance. But the national feeling of the German
people gathered round their King, when it became manifest that the onslaught
upon him was made in the interest of France. The lawyers, as before, mustered
in defense of the civil power; and unexpected allies came to its
succor, whose help made the contest memorable in the history of the progress of
human thought.
Since the abdication of Celestine V the Papacy had
drifted further away from its connection with the spiritual side of the life of
the Church. The monkish and the ascetism of Celestine and his followers
was not a robust form of Christian life, but it was the only one which set
itself before the imagination of men. The doctrine of absolute poverty, as held
by S. Francis and his followers, was hard to reconcile with the actual facts of
life and the Franciscan Order had become divided into two parties, one of which
insisted on the rigid observance of the rules of their founder, while the other
modified them into accordance with the growing wealth, learning, and importance
of their Order. The Pope had striven by judicious measures to hold together
these contending parties. But the obvious worldliness of the Papacy estranged
from it the more rigid party, the Spiritual Franciscans or Fraticelli, as they
were called. In their enthusiastic desire to lead the higher life, they found
in Christ and His Apostles the patterns of the lives of Mendicant Friars; and
at last the Papacy was brought into open collision with the Franciscan Order. A
Dominican Inquisitor at Narbonne condemned for heresy a fanatic who, amongst
other things, had asserted that Christ and the Apostles had no possessions,
either individually or in common. A Franciscan who was present maintained the
orthodoxy of this opinion against the Inquisitor, and the question was taken up
by the entire Order. Two General Chapters were held in 1322, which accepted
this doctrine as their own, and rested upon a Papal Bull of Nicolas III, 1279.
This brought the matter before John XXII; but the luxury and quiet of Avignon
made the doctrine of apostolic poverty more intolerable to John than it had
been to his predecessors. They had contented themselves with trying to explain
it away and evade it; John XXII denounced the opinion as heretical. The more
pronounced of the Franciscan body refused to admit the justice of the Papal
decision, and clamored against John himself as a heretic.
The question itself may seem of little moment; but the
struggle brought to light opinions which in after times were to become of deep
importance. As Boniface VIII had developed a temporal, so did John XXII develop
a spiritual, antagonism to the Papacy. The Pope was regarded as the head of a
carnal Church, degraded by worldliness, wealth and wickedness, against which
was set a spiritual Church adorned by simplicity, poverty and godliness. The
Spiritual Franciscans gathered round Lewis in his contest with the Pope, and
lent a religious significance to the struggle. It was not the doings of either
party, but the bold expression of opinions, which made the conflict memorable.
Against the Pope were arrayed men who attacked him in the interests both of the
Church and of the State.
From the ecclesiastical side, the General of the
Franciscan Order, Michael of Cesena, maintained against the Pope the principles
on which his order was founded. In his Tractate against the Errors of the Pope
he criticized the Papal utterances, denounced portions of them as erroneous,
and appealed against him, as against a heretic, “to the Universal Church and a
General Council, which in faith and morals is superior to the Pope, since a
Pope can err in faith and morals, as many Roman pontiffs have fallen from the
faith; but the Universal Church cannot err, and a Council representing the
Universal Church is likewise free from error”. In like manner the Englishman,
William of Occam, who had exercised his powers as a disputant in the University
of Paris till he won the title of “the Invincible Doctor”, brought his pen to
attack the Pope. In a series of Dialogues and Tractates he poured forth a flood
of erudition in which scholastic arguments are strangely mingled with keen
criticism of the Papal claims. At one time he is immersed in details of the
passing conflict, at another he enunciates general principles of far-reaching
importance. Against the plenitude of the Papal power he asserts the freedom of
the law of Christ; men are not by Christ’s ordinance the slaves of the Pope,
nor can the Pope dispose of temporal affairs. Christ gave to Peter spiritual
jurisdiction over the Church, and in temporal matters the right only of seeking
his own maintenance and enough to enable him to fulfill his office. Peter could
confer no more on his successors; if they have more, it comes from human grant
or human indolence. It is not necessary that there should be one primate over
the Church, for the Head of the Church is Christ, and by its union with Him the
Church has unity. This unity would not be lessened if there were different
rulers over different ecclesiastical provinces, as there are kings over
different nations; an aristocratic government maintains the unity of a state as
well as does a monarchy. Occam discusses many questions, and the conclusions
which he establishes do not form a consistent system; but we see certain
principles which he stoutly maintains. He is opposed to the Papal claims to
temporal monarchy and spiritual infallibility. Moreover, he shows a remarkable
tendency to assert the authority of Scripture as the supreme arbiter of all
questions in the Church. The Pope may err; a General Council may err; the
Fathers and Doctors of the Church are not entirely exempt from error. Only Holy
Scripture and the beliefs of the Universal Church are of absolute validity.
Occam seems to be groping after what is eternal in the faith of the Church,
that he may mark it clearly off from what is of human ordinance and concerns
only the temporary needs of the ecclesiastical system.
If this is a sample of the ecclesiastical opposition
raised against John XXII, the attack was still stronger from the political
side, where Marsiglio of Padua and John of Jandun examined with boldness and
acuteness the relations between Church and State. Marsiglio was an Italian,
who, in the politics of his own city, had gained a comprehensive grasp of
principles, and whose mind had matured by the study of Aristotle. John of
Jandun, a Frenchman, was Marsiglio’s friend, and both held high positions in
the University of Paris, which they suddenly quitted in 1327, sought out Lewis,
and placed their learning at his disposal for an attack upon the Pope. It was
strange that scholars and theorists should come forward merely on theoretical
grounds to enter into a contest which in no way affected themselves. They
proposed to Lewis a serious undertaking — that the Empire, as such, should
enter into a controversy on abstract questions with the Pope. The Papacy was
the source of orthodoxy, the center of learning; rude soldiers before this had
answered its claims by deeds, but Lewis was asked to meet the Pope with his own
weapons. Marsiglio urged that John XXII had already laid himself open to the
charge of heresy; his decision about the friars was in contradiction to the
opinion of his predecessors; unless the Papal autocracy were to be absolutely
admitted, it was the Emperor’s duty to check an erring Pope. For a time Lewis hesitated;
then he accepted Marsiglio’s proposal, and appealed to Christendom to support
him in his position.
The great work of Marsiglio, the Defensor
Pacis, was already written, when first he sought Lewis, and was at once
published in explanation of the principles on which Lewis acted. The title of
the work was skillfully chosen; it marked out the Pope as the originator of the
troubles, discords, and wars which a pacific Emperor wished to check. The work
itself is a keen, bold, and clear assertion of the rights of the State as
against the Church. Following in the steps of Aristotle’s Politics, Marsiglio
traces the origin of government and of law. Civil society is a community for
the purpose of common life; in such community there are various classes with various
occupations; the occupation of the priestly class is “to teach and discipline
men in things which, according to the Gospel, ought to be believed, done, or
omitted to obtain eternal salvation”. The regulator of the community is the
judicial or governing class, whose object is to enforce the laws. Law is
defined as “knowledge of what is just or useful, concerning the observance of
which a coercive precept has been issued”. The legislator is “the people or
community of the citizens, or the majority of them, determining, by their
choice or will, expressed by word in a general assembly, that anything should
be done or omitted regarding man’s civil acts under pain of temporal
punishment” . This legislative power is the source of the authority of the
prince or ruler, whose duty it is to observe the laws and compel others to
observe them. If the prince set himself above the laws, he ought to be
corrected by the legislative power which he represents.
This system of civil life is disturbed by the
interference of the spiritual authority, especially of the Pope, with the due
execution of the laws, and with the authority of the prince. The Papal claims
rest on the supposed descent to Christ’s representatives of the plenitude of
Christ’s power; but this carries with it no coercive jurisdiction (jurisdictio
coactiva) by which they may exact penalties or interfere in temporal
affairs. It is their claim to this coercive jurisdiction that destroys civil
government and causes universal disorder.
To trace this point more fully Marsiglio proceeds to
examine the relations of the priesthood towards the community. The Church is
the community of all who believe in Christ; for all, priests and laity alike,
are “Churchmen”, because Christ redeemed them with His Blood. So far as a priest
possesses worldly goods or engages in worldly matters, he is under the same
laws as the rest of the community. The priesthood can have no authority except
what was given by Christ, and the question to be considered is not what power
Christ could have given them, but what He actually gave. We find that Christ
did not Himself exercise coercive jurisdiction, and did not confer it on the
Apostles, but warned them by example, advice and precept to abstain from using
it; moreover, Christ submitted Himself to the coercive jurisdiction of temporal
princes. Hence no priest has any judicial or coercive power unless it be given
him by the legislator; his priestly authority, which he derives from Christ, is
to preach the doctrine and administer the sacraments of Christ. To pronounce
excommunication does not belong to an individual priest, but to the community
of believers or their representatives. The priest is the minister of God’s law,
but has no power to compel men to accept or obey it; only as physicians care for
the health of the body, so do priests, by wise advice and warning, operate on
the soul. It may be objected that, at least in question of heresy, the
priesthood has to judge and punish: really, however, the judge of heresy is
Christ, and the punishment is inflicted in another world; the priest judges in
Christ’s stead in this world, and must warn and terrify offenders by the
thoughts of future punishment. The civil power punishes heresy only so far as
heresy subverts the law.
Marsiglio next subjects to criticism the doctrine of
the Papal supremacy. Priests as such are all equal: S. Peter had no authority
over the other Apostles, no power of punishment or jurisdiction. Moreover, the
legend that S. Peter was the first Bishop of Rome rests on no Scriptural authority,
and has no historical evidence. The appointment and deprivation of
ecclesiastics belong to the community of the faithful, as is shown by the
appointment of the first deacons recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. This
authority of the community is now vested in the princes, and the appointment of
good priests is a matter which concerns the well-being of the State.
The Catholic faith is one, and rests on Scripture
only, so that decretals and decrees of Popes and Cardinals are not necessary
for salvation. When doubts arise about the meaning of Scripture, they can be
settled only by a general council of the faithful, in which laity and clergy
alike have seats. The summoning of such a council belongs to the supreme
legislative power, and only a council can pronounce excommunication or
interdict upon princes or peoples. The authority of the Roman bishop over other
bishops is necessary to give a head to the Church and a president to its
councils; but the Roman bishop has no power of coercion beyond what a council
confers.
The existing theory of the primacy of the Pope sprang
from the respect originally paid to the Bishop of Rome, which has been
extended, partly by unfounded claims of scriptural right, partly by the grants
of princes, especially by the donation of Constantine. The Papal primacy has
corrupted the Church; for the Pope, through the plenitude of his power,
interferes with elections, sets aside the rights of chapters, and appoints
bishops who cannot speak the language of the people over whom they are set as
shepherds, and who simply aim at gathering money from their flocks. Generally
speaking, the bishops cannot preach, nor have they knowledge to refute
heresies; and the inferior clergy are as ignorant as their superiors. Lawyers,
not theologians, fill the Papal Court; ecclesiastical order is everywhere
overthrown by the dispensations from episcopal control which the Pope readily
grants to monks and friars. Simony abounds, and on all sides may be seen the
proofs that the plenitude of the Papal power is the root of corruption in the
Church.
Moreover the Papacy has put forth claims against the
temporal power, especially against the Empire. This arises from the fact that
the Pope crowned the Emperor, and a reverence at first voluntary has gradually
been regarded as a right. Papal recognition has been considered necessary to
complete the authority bestowed on the Emperor by election. But this is
entirely unfounded; the right conferred by election needs no supplement, and
the claims of the Papacy have simply been advanced owing to the frequency of
disputed elections and vacancies in the Empire. The Papal claims and the
exercise of Papal power in temporal matters have plunged Italy and Germany into
discord, and it is the duty of all men, especially of kings and rulers, to
check the abuse of this usurped authority.
This remarkable work of Marsiglio stands on the very
threshold of modern history as a clear forecast of ideas which were to regulate
the future progress of Europe. The conceptions of the Sovereignty of the
people, and of the official position of the ruler, mark the development of
European politics up to our own day. The general relations between Church and
State, which Marsiglio foreshadowed, were those which the Reformation
established in countries where it prevailed. In the clear definition of the
limits of ecclesiastical authority, and in his assertion of the dignity of the
individual believer, Marsiglio’s ideas still remained unrealized. It is a
wonderful testimony to the vigor of Italian civic life that the political
experience gleaned at Padua ran so readily into the form provided by a study of
Aristotle’s Politics, and produced results so clear, so bold, and so
systematic. It is the scientific character of the Defensor Pacis that marks it as especially important, and sets it
far beyond the other political writings of the next two centuries. It was
calculated to produce a powerful impression on men’s minds, and remained as a
great store-house for the writers of the next century. The ease with which the
conciliar movement won its way to general acceptance throughout Christendom
must be attributed in great measure to the dissemination of Marsiglio’s
principles. Pope Clement VI declared that he had never read a more pestilent
heretic; and Gregory XI found that the opinions of Wycliffe were only slightly
changed from those of Marsiglio. If Wycliffe had been as clear and as
systematic as Marsiglio, his influence on his contemporaries would have been
far greater and his teaching would not have lent itself to so much
misunderstanding.
It was Marsiglio’s misfortune that he was allied to a
cause which had not a leader strong enough to give adequate expression to the
principles which the crowned genius of Marsiglio supplied. The traditions of
the past still determined the steps of Lewis; in 1327 he marched into Italy and
was elected Emperor by the people of Rome. The old rights of the Roman Republic
were set up against those of the Pope, and the Imperial crown was placed on the
head of Lewis by Sciarra Colonna, who struck the deadly blow against Boniface
VIII at Anagni. Nor was this enough. The Minorites from the pulpits denounced
John XXII as a heretic, and Rome, which had made an Emperor, was willing to go
further and also make a Pope. John XXII was deposed; a friar was elected Pope
by the clergy and laity of Rome, and took the name of Nicolas V. Lewis had no
means of combating the fictions on which the Papal power was founded save by
setting against them a fiction still more ludicrous. The claim of the citizens
of Rome to appoint the temporal and spiritual heads of Christendom was more
monstrous than that of the Pope to determine the election of the Emperor. The
mediaeval theory might be untenable, but the attempt to overthrow it by a
revival of classical usage was absurd. The last struggle which had so long
raged between Empire and Papacy ended in an empty theatrical display.
Lewis was soon made to feel his real powerlessness. He
failed an attempt to reduce Robert of Naples, and his Italian supporters
dropped away from him. He discovered at last that the Italians welcomed an
Emperor only so long as he was useful for the purposes of their own factions;
when their disputes were settled, they were anxious to get rid of their
troublesome guest. Lewis slowly abandoned Italy; the Ghibellin party was
everywhere put down; the anti-Pope Nicolas was driven to make humiliating
submission to John XXII. Lewis’s prestige was gone, and the Pope was
triumphant. In vain Lewis tried to be reconciled with the Holy See; John XXII
was inexorable; but the end of John’s pontificate gave Lewis some gleam of
triumph. John had made many enemies, who were ready to use any handle against
him, and his own pedantic and scholastic mind made him anxious to win
theological triumphs. He ventured on an opinion, contrary to the general views
of theologians, that the souls of the blessed departed do not see God, and are
not perfectly happy, until after the general resurrection. The University of
Paris strongly opposed this view, as did popular sentiment. King Philip VI of
France sided with the University, and in a peremptory tone advised the Pope to
alter his opinion. The cry of heresy was raised against John, and Lewis was
preparing to summon a General Council to enquire into this Papal heterodoxy,
when John died in December 1334.
His successor, Benedict XII, an upright but
feeble-minded monk, would willingly have made peace with Lewis, but he was too
much under the power of King Philip VI to follow his own inclinations. It was
to little purpose that he told Philip VI that, if he had possessed two souls,
he would willingly sacrifice one to do him service, but as he had only one
soul, he could not go beyond what he thought right. Philip still demanded that
Germany should be kept distracted. Benedict XII had to dismiss the ambassadors
of Lewis, with tears over his own powerlessness. The national feeling of
Germany declared itself more strongly than before in behalf of Lewis. The
States affirmed that Lewis had done all that he ought, and that justice was
wrongfully denied him; they pronounced the Papal sentence of no effect, and
threatened with punishment any of the clergy who ventured to observe the Papal
interdict. Moreover, the Electoral princes declared at Rense that, on a vacancy
in the empire, he who was elected by a majority of votes was straightway to be
regarded as King of the Romans, and stood in no need of Papal confirmation
before assuming the title of King and beginning the exercise of the Imperial
rights. This declaration passed into a law; and whatever success the Pope might
meet with afterwards, he could win no victory in a struggle which had
occasioned such an outbreak of decided national feeling. Benedict’s successor
might humble Lewis before him; but Germany had made good its assertion of national
independence, and had rescued its kingship from the difficulties into which its
connection with the Empire had so long involved it. It is true that the
kingship was weak and infirm, and that the Empire had dwindled to a shadow; but
this only made the German protest against Papal interference more
emphatic in its historical importance.
Lewis, however, did not know how to use his
advantages; he had not the firmness to carry on a protracted contest, but
wavered between rash defiance of the Papal power and abject attempts at
reconciliation. After striving for absolution in 1341, he made in 1342 an
invasion upon ecclesiastical authority at which Europe stood aghast. By the
plenitude of the Imperial power he dissolved the marriage of Margaret
Maultasch, heiress of the Tyrol, with John, son of the King of Bohemia, and
also granted a dispensation on the ground of consanguinity for her marriage to
his own son Lewis, Markgraf of Brandenburg. Such an act was the logical result
of the theories of Marsiglio of Padua and William of Occam; and was suggested,
or at least defended, by them. They argued, keenly enough, that, if a marriage
or a divorce was opposed to the law of God, no one, not even an angel from
heaven, could make it lawful; but, if the impediment can be removed by human
law, the dispensation ought to proceed from the civil power, and not from the
ecclesiastical — from the Emperor, and not the Pope. They forgot that it was an
unfortunate case for the assertion of newly claimed powers when personal
interest and dynastic aggrandizement were so clearly the ruling motives. The
moral as well as the religious sentiment of Europe was shocked, and the
political jealousy of the German nobles was aroused by this accession of power
to the Bavarian house. The sympathy which had been on the side of Lewis was now
transferred to the Pope, and the views of Marsiglio and Occam were looked upon
with increased dread. A reaction set in against the rashness of the reforming
party, a reaction which explains the timidity and caution of those who revived
its principles when the Great Schism of the Papacy called for some revision of
the government of the Church.
The Papacy, on its side also, knew not how to use to
real opportunity which had just been offered. If the piety of Benedict XI could
not overcome the difficulties attendant on a reconciliation with Lewis, the
luxurious and worldly Clement VI was resolved to press Lewis to the uttermost.
He would not content himself with the most humiliating submission, but made
demands which the Diet set aside as destructive to the Empire; he set up
Charles of Bohemia against Lewis, who, however, in spite of his unpopularity in
Germany, maintained his position against the Pope’s nominee till his death
(1347). Even then, Charles was so entirely regarded as a tool of the Pope, that
he had some difficulty in establishing his position.
It would seem that the victory in this long and dreary
conflict remained with the Pope. Certainly his opponents showed their
incapacity for organizing a definite political resistance. Resistance to the
Pope had not yet become a political idea; at times it burst forth, but soon
fell back before other considerations of political expediency. Yet the conflict
did much towards educating popular opinion. The flood of political writings
awakened a spirit of discussion, which tended gradually to spread downwards.
The Papacy was no longer accepted without question as a divine institution; men
began to criticize it and examine the origin and limits of its power. It was no
longer looked upon as supreme over the other powers of Europe, but rather as an
independent power with interests of its own, which were opposed to the national
interests of the States of Europe. The Pope could no longer command public
opinion, and feel that it would give force to his decrees. The conflict with
Lewis of Bavaria ends the mediaeval period of the history of the Papacy.
In one way this struggle inflicted serious injury on
the Papacy; it gave it a delusive sense of power. It well might seem to Clement
VI that Boniface VIII had been avenged, and that the majesty and dignity of the
Papal power had been amply vindicated. Princes might learn, from the example of
Lewis, that rebellions against the Papacy were doomed to failure. Moreover, the
Papal position was secure at Avignon, which place Clement VI in 1348 bought
from Giovanna of Naples. At Avignon the voice of public opinion did not make
itself heard by the Pope’s ear so readily as in the turbulent city of Rome. The
luxury, vice, and iniquity of Avignon during the Papal residence became
proverbial throughout Europe; and the corruption of the Church was most clearly
visible in the immediate neighborhood of its princely head. Luxury
and vice, however, are costly, and during the Pope’s absence from Italy the
Papal States were in confusion and yielded scanty revenues. Money had to be
raised from ecclesiastical property throughout Europe, and the Popes at Avignon
carried extortion and oppression of the Church to an extent which it had never
reached before.
As the Church had grown wealthy in every land Kings
and Popes competed with one another to have a share in its revenues. Gregory
VII had labored to deliver the Church from the power of the temporal rulers,
and his attempt was so far successful as to establish a compromise. The Church
was to have the show of independence, the State was to have the practical right
of nominating to important offices. The claims of the Chapters to elect to
bishoprics were nominally unimpaired; but the royal influence was generally supreme.
Still the Chapters were equally amenable to the Pope and to the King, and might
exercise their right according to the dictation of either. Gradually the King
and the Pope arrived at a practical understanding as to the division of spoil.
If the offices of the Church were to furnish salaries for the King’s ministers,
they must also supply revenues to the head of the Church. At times the Pope’s
authority was exercised to order a rebellious Chapter to accept the King’s
nominee; at times the Royal authority supported the Pope’s request that the
Chapter in their election should provide for one of the Pope’s officials. Thus
the Chapters, placed between two fires, tended to lose even the semblance of
independence; while in this alliance with the Crown, the Papacy soon gained the
upper hand. Armed with spiritual power and claiming obedience as the head of
the Church, the Pope cloaked his usurpations under the show of right, and
extended his claims to smaller benefices, which were in the gift of the King or
private patrons. It was but a further extension of this principle when John
XXII reserved to himself all benefices vacated by promotion made by the Pope,
and afterwards extended his reservation to the most lucrative posts in
chapters, monasteries, and collegiate Churches. Monstrous as were these claims,
they met with no decided opposition. The frequency of disputes about elections,
and the consequent appeals to the Pope, had practically given him the decision
of the validity of ecclesiastical appointments. His assumed power of granting
dispensations from canonical disabilities made him a useful means of
overstepping inconvenient barriers. The Pope had been allowed so much authority
to act as the instrument of the selfish interest of kings, that they had
nothing to urge when he began to use his powers shamelessly in his own behalf.
Clement VI provided for his nephews and his Court at the expense of
Christendom, and said, with a laugh, that his predecessors had not known how to
be Popes.
Besides provisions, reservations, and dispensations,
he demanded large fees for the confirmation of all episcopal elections, and
succeeded in wresting from the bishops many of their rights over the
inferior clergy. Chief of these were the revenues of benefices during a
vacancy, which arose from the extension of feudal reliefs to ecclesiastical
holdings. Bishops, as protectors of benefices, disposed of their revenues when
they were vacant, and this claim tended to become a regular tax of half a
year’s revenue paid by the presentee on his succession. The Papacy in its turn
took this right from the bishops and claimed it for itself. Moreover, the Pope
imposed tithes from time to time on clerical revenues; sometimes for his own
use, sometimes granting them to princes on the specious pretext of a crusade. A
vast system of Papal extortion was gradually developed, partly from the fault
of church-men, who too readily brought their quarrels to the Pope’s tribunals,
partly from the short-sighted policy of kings and princes, who found in an
alliance with the Pope an easy means of helping themselves to ecclesiastical
revenues. Papal aggression could not have grown unless it had been welcomed in
its beginnings; and those who used the Pope’s interference to serve their own
ends had no strong ground for repelling the Pope when he used his powers in his
own behalf. Cries went up throughout Christendom, but it was long before the
cries were more than utterances of despair.
England was the first country which showed a spirit of
national resistance to Papal extortion. The alliance of the Papacy with John
and with Henry III had awakened a feeling of political antagonism amongst the
barons, when they found the Pope supporting royal misgovernment. Under Edward I
the nation and the King were at one, and the claims of Boniface VIII were met
by dignified assertion of national rights. The French war of Edward III gave an
increased meaning to the national resistance to the Papal extortions. The Popes
at Avignon were the avowed partisans of the French King, and England would not
submit to pay them taxes. In 1343 a stand was made against the agents of two
Cardinals whom Clement VI had appointed to offices in England, and they were
ignominiously driven from the land. When the Pope remonstrated, Edward III laid
before him a complaint against the army of provisors which has invaded our
realm, and drew a picture of the evils which they wrought on the Church. The
King was warmly supported by Parliament, which demanded the expulsion of
provisors from the country; and in 1351 was passed the Statute of Provisors,
enacting that, if the Pope appointed to a benefice, the presentation was to be
for that turn in the hands of the King, and the provisors or their
representatives were to be imprisoned till they had renounced their claim or
promised not to attempt to enforce it. This statute led to a collision of
jurisdictions: the royal presentee defended his rights in the King’s courts,
the Papal provisor supported himself by Bulls from Rome. To prevent this
conflict was passed in 1353 the Statute of Praemunire, which forbade the
withdrawal of suits from the King’s courts to any foreign court under penalty
of outlawry and forfeiture. These laws did not at once arrest the evils
complained of; but they served as a menace to the Pope, and impressed on him
the need of greater moderation in his dealings with England. They armed the
King with powers which he might use if the Pope did not observe fair terms of
partnership.
Under the pontificate of Innocent VI (1352-1362) the
advantages reaped by the Papal See from its sojourn at Avignon seemed to have
come to an end. The disturbed condition of France no longer offered security
and repose. In 1361 a company of freebooters scoured the country up to the
gates of Avignon, defeated the Papal troops, and were only bought off by a
large ransom. Innocent VI found it desirable to increase the fortifications of
the city. Moreover, the state of affairs in Italy called loudly for the Pope’s
intervention. The wondrous attempt of Rienzi to recall the old grandeur of Rome
showed the power that still attached to the old traditions of the mistress of
the world. The desperate condition of the states of the Church, which had
fallen into the hands of small princes, called for energetic measures, unless
the Popes were prepared to see them entirely lost to their authority. Innocent
VI sent into Italy a Spanish Cardinal, Gil Albornoz, who had already shown his
military skill in fighting against the Moors. The fiery energy of Albornoz was
crowned with success, and the smaller nobles were subdued in a series of
hard-fought battles. In 1367 Urban V saw the States of the Church once more
reduced into obedience to the Pope.
Meanwhile France was brought by its war with England
to a state of anarchy, and the French King was powerless to keep the Popes at
Avignon or to protect them if they stayed. Urban V was a man of sincere and
earnest piety, who looked with disgust upon the pomp and luxury of the
Avignonese court: and he judged that a reform would be more easily worked if it
were transferred to another place. In Rome there was a longing for the presence
of the Pope, who had not been seen for two generations. The inconvenience of
the Papal residence at Avignon was strongly brought out in the repudiation by
England (1365) of the Papal claim to the tribute of 1000 marks which John had
agreed to pay in token of submission to Papal suzerainty. These motives
combined to urge Urban V, in 1367, to return to Rome amid the cries of his
agonized Cardinals who shuddered to leave the luxury of Avignon for a land
which they held to be barbarous. A brief stay in Rome was sufficient to
convince Urban V that the fears of hisCardinals were not unfounded. The death
of Albornoz, soon after the Pope’s landing in Italy, deprived him of the one
man who could hold together the turbulent elements contained in the States of
the Church. Rome was in ruins, its people were sunk in poverty and degradation.
It was to no purpose that the Pope once more received in Rome the homage of the
Emperors of the East and West: Charles IV displayed in Italy the helplessness
of the Imperial name; John Paleologus came as a beggar to seek for help in his
extremity. Urban V was clear-sighted enough to see that his position in Rome
was precarious, and that he had not the knowledge or the gifts to adventure in
the troubled sea of Italian politics: his moral force was not strong enough to
urge him to become a martyr to duty. The voices of his Cardinals prevailed, and
after a visit of three years Urban returned to Avignon. His death, which
happened three months after his return, was regarded by many as a judgment of
God upon his desertion of Rome.
Urban V had returned to Rome because the States of the
Church were reduced to obedience: his successor, Gregory XI, was driven to
return through dread of losing all hold upon Italy. The French Popes awakened a
strong feeling of national antipathy among their Italian subjects, and their
policy was not associated with any of the elements of state life existing in
Italy. Their desire to bring the States of the Church immediately under their
power involved the destruction of the small dynasties of princes, and the
suppression of the democratic liberties of the people. Albornoz had been wise
enough to leave the popular governments untouched, and to content himself with
bringing the towns under the Papal obedience. But Urban V and Gregory XI set up
French governors, whose rule was galling and oppressive; and a revolt against
them was organized by Florence, who, true to her old traditions, unfurled a banner
inscribed only with the word “Liberty”. The movement spread through all the
towns in the Papal States, and in a few months the conquests of Albornoz had
been lost. The temporal dominion of the Papacy might have been swept away if
Florence could have brought about the Italian league which she desired. But
Rome hung back from the alliance, and listened to Gregory XI, who promised to
return if Rome would remain faithful. The Papal excommunication handed over the
Florentines to be the slaves of their captors in every land; and the Kings of
England and France did not scruple to use the opportunity offered to their
cupidity. Gregory XI felt that only the Pope’s presence could save Rome for the
Papacy. In spite of evil omens — for his horse refused to let him mount when he
set out on his journey — he left Avignon; in spite of the entreaties of the
Florentines Rome again joyfully welcomed the entry of its Pope in 1377. But the
Pope found his position in Italy to be surrounded with difficulties. His troops
met with some small successes, but he was practically powerless, and aimed only
at settling terms of peace with the Florentines. A congress was called for this
purpose, and Gregory XI was anxiously awaiting its termination that he might
return to Avignon, when death seized him, and his last hours were embittered by
the thoughts of the crisis that was now inevitable.
Rome had made many sacrifices to win back the Pope,
and on the occurrence of a vacancy which necessitated an election within the
walls of Rome, it was likely that the wishes of the city would make themselves
felt. The remonstrances of Christendom had been raised against the continuance
of the Papacy at Avignon, and its consequent subordination to French influence.
Moreover, national feeling had been quickened in Italy, and the loss of the
Papacy seemed to be a deprivation of one of her immemorial privileges. To this
national feeling was added a spirit of religions enthusiasm, which found its
supreme expression in the utterances of the saintly Catharine of Siena. She had
exhorted Gregory XI to leave Avignon, to return to Italy, to restore peace, and
then turn to the reformation of the distracted Church. On all sides there was a
desire that the Pope should shake off the political traditions which at Avignon
had hampered his free action, should recover his Italian lands and live of his
own in Rome at peace with all men, and should stop the crying abuses which the
needs of a troubled time and of exceptional circumstances had brought
into the government of the Church.
The Papacy had been strong in the past when it was
allied with the reforming party in remedying disorder. The question was — would
the Papacy again renew its strength by taking up an independent position and
redressing the ecclesiastical grievances under which Europe groaned? The first
step was its restoration to its ancient capital, where it might again be
regarded as the representative of Christendom.
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