The Power Of The Popes Part 14

Thus the Visconti, being subst.i.tuted for the emperors in Italy, erected themselves into heads of the Ghibeline faction, at the same time that the Ghelphic escaped from the popes, and submitted to the influence of the house of Philip the Fair, sovereign of France and of Naples. The war continued between the two Italian factions, without any reference, of esteem or of interest, to their ancient chiefs; the pope was as little regarded by the Guelphs, as the emperor by the Ghibelines; even the latter were seen in arms against the emperor, Charles IV., when he suffered himself to be drawn by the pope into the Guelphic party; and against Robert, when he had declared war against the Visconti. On their side, the Guelphs, whom the weakness of their chiefs, pontiffs, kings of France, or of Naples, abandoned to their own exertions, fought only for the independence of their cities or the general liberty of Italy. At the end of the fourteenth century, Guelphs and Ghibelines, animated by similar interests, tended towards the same end; but it was undesigned; they would have feared to perceive it; and, when their ancient discord had no longer any motive, habit still continued to preserve it.

It results from this statement, that the court of Avignon had for rivals, Germany and France: Germany, which preserved till near 1300, the management of the Ghibeline faction; France, which protected the popes only to rule over them, and which endeavoured to become master in Italy of the Guelphic one.

It was requisite to temper, or elude by intrigue, the French influence, to repress by anathemas the imperial power, and, when Charles IV.

devoted himself to the Holy See, to direct against the Visconti, the thunders of the church. Such were, in Avignon, the cares of the supreme pastors of the flock of Jesus Christ. They taught little, and edified less; they were temporal princes, and reign they would.

Benedict XI. the immediate successor of Boniface VIII. reigned but one year; he had retired to Perugia, to withdraw from the domination of the lords and cardinals who pretended to the government of Rome; the Colonnas, proscribed by his predecessor, entered it again. Out of Rome, Philip the Fair, aspired to the preponderance; connected at first, with the Ghibeline party by the anathemas of Boniface, absolved subsequently by Benedict XI., he little dissembled his intention of ruling the Holy See. Benedict became uneasy in consequence, and directed enquiries to be made after the authors of the outrages which Boniface had experienced.

An excommunication thundered against the Florentines, for a political interest of trifling importance, was perhaps the princ.i.p.al fault which Benedict XI. had time to commit: Italian authors have imputed, without proof, to Philip the Fair, the premature death of this pontiff.

After an interregnum of nearly a year, the election of Bertrand de Gotte, or Clement V. was the work of Philip the Fair, who had reason to complain of him: the monarch wished to select, from among his personal enemies, a pope who would be altogether indebted to him for the tiara, and who would pledge himself to pay dearly for a benefit so little merited beforehand. Gotte made six promises to Philip, all of which were not redeemed by Clement V. For instance, this pontiff excused himself from condemning the memory of Boniface VIII.; and, when the empire became vacant by the decease of Albert I., the king of France, who canva.s.sed for this place for a French prince, vainly counted on the services of the holy father: whilst seconding by a public letter the claims of this candidate, Clement transmitted to the electors a secret brief, in order to exclude him56 It is certain that there needed only this accession to a.s.sure to the house of France, already established at Naples, a universal preponderance, especially when Clement, despairing to reduce the Romans to a tranquil obedience, consented to fix at Avignon the pontifical court. Yet he served the king but too faithfully in the affair of the templars: inasmuch as sound policy required the suppression of this order, insomuch it was accordant, as it ever must be with justice and humanity, to dissuade from so many judicial a.s.sa.s.sinations.

57 J. Villani. 1. 8, c. 101-Pfeffel. abr. chr. Hist, of Germany, ann. 1308.-Velly's Hist, of France, vol. 7, p. 393, 395

When Clement V. cancelled a decision of Henry VII. against Robert, King of Naples; when he decreed to the same Robert the t.i.tle of Vicar of the empire, he erected himself expressly into a sovereign, and placed the emperor in the number of his va.s.sals.57

"Thus we do, he says, as well in virtue of the indu- "bitable supremacy which we hold over the Roman "empire, as of the full power that Jesus Christ has "given us, to provide for the sovereign's place dur- "ing the vacancy of the imperial throne."

He maintained also that Ferrara belonged to the Holy See; and the Venetians having taken this place from the house of Este, he excommunicated them; declared the doge and all the citizens infamous, deprived of every right, incapable, they and their children, to the fourth generation, of all secular or ecclesiastical dignity58

But these anathemas were no longer formidable.5?

"The Italians," as a cardinal then observed, "no "longer dreaded excommunications; the Floren- "tines treated with contempt those of the cardinal "bishop of Ostia, the Bolognese those of Cardinal "Orsini, the Milanese those of the Cardinal "Pellagrue: the spiritual sword terrifies them not, "if the temporal one does not strike them."

58 Fleury's Eccles. Hist. 1. 92, n. 8.

5? Baluz. Vit. Avenion. vol. 1, p. 69,-Fleury's Eccles. Hist. 1. 91, n. 33.

6 Henrici. Vn. Iter, Ital. vol. 9. Rer. Italic, p. 703.

Clement V. also published a crusade against the Venetians: this very Cardinal Pellagrue led an army against them; they were defeated, driven from Ferrara, and absolved.

The decretals of Clement V. united to the decrees of the general council of Vienna, held in 1313, form a canonic code which is designated "The Clementines." The decretals of John XXII., the successor of Clement, are termed the "Extravagantes," that is to say, supplementary to the preceding codes; and the name of "Extravagantes communes" is applied to a collection of the statutes of many popes, whether anterior or posterior to John. Thus the canon law of the middle age is composed of, the decretals forged by Isidore in the eighth century, the decree by Gratian in the twelfth, the decretals of Gregory IX., compiled by Raymond de Pennafort, in the thirteenth, of the "s.e.xte of Boniface VIII.," of the "Clementines," of the "Extravagantes" of John XXII., and of the "Extravagantes communes:" to which may be added the collections which comprize the bulls published by the popes of the latter ages. Such are the sources of the modern jurisprudence of the clergy: such the cause and the effect of the temporal power of the pontiff, and the unlimited extent of their spiritual authority: such the voluminous codes which have taken the place of the pure and simple rules of the primitive church; laws which, since the age of St. Louis to 1682, the Gallican Church has never ceased to re-a.s.sert.

A pontifical interregnum of two years, from Clement V. to John XXII., comprised the entire reign of the king of France, Louis X. or "le Hutin." His brother and successor Philip the Long, received from John XXII. a pedantic and high flown epistle6 which will suffice to shew what this second Avignon pope would have dared under different circ.u.mstances. He created bishop.r.i.c.ks in France: in authorizing the divorce of Charles the Handsome, who repudiated Blanche of Burgundy, he conceived a hope that he could subject by degrees a government which sought compliances of him. But Philip de Valois, who perceived his ambitious designs, threatened to have him burned,6 and provoked a celebrated discussion on the bounds of the two powers. The king's advocate, Peter de Cugnieres, supported the rights of the civil power by arguments, not always of the best description, though much less wretched than those made by the prelates to perpetuate the abuse of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction. It is, say they, by the exercise of this jurisdiction that the clergy are enriched; now the opulence of the clergy, the splendor of the bishops and archbishops is one of the prime interests of the king and of the kingdom. Philip de Valois, but little sensible to this interest, commanded that within the s.p.a.ce of a year the abuses should be reformed, without the intervention of the Roman or Avignon court.

6 Baluz. Vit Pap. Avenion. v. 1. p, 164-Fleury's Eccles. Hist. 1.

82. p. 25.

6 Brler.-Millot's Hist. of France, v. 2, p. 84.

This discussion had not adequate effects; but it was from it appeals as of abuse or error sprung, that is to say, appeals from ecclesiastical decisions to secular tribunals.6

After the death of the emperor, Henry VII. Frederick the Handsome, duke of Austria, disputed the empire with Louis, duke of Bavaria, whose rights were established by victory. However, John XXII, cancelled the election of Louis; he maintained that it belonged to the sovereign pontiff, to examine and ratify the nomination of the emperors, and that, during the vacancy, the imperial government should immediately revert to the Holy See, from whence it emanated6 The pope reproached Louis with protecting the Visconti, excommunicated as heretics; their heresy, we have seen, was the supporting and directing the Ghibeline party. Louis resisted, he kept no bounds in the invectives with which he loaded John.

While John was deposing the emperor, the emperor caused John to be deposed by the clergy, n.o.bility, and citizens of Rome. A Franciscan took the name of Nicholas V., and seated himself on the pontifical throne; but the repentance and obedience of Nicholas, injured so materially the cause of Louis, that he consented to renounce the empire, when John died, leaving twenty-five million of florins in his coffers.64

"This im- "mense treasure, says Fleury, was ama.s.sed by his "Holiness's industry, who, from the year 1319, estab- "lished the reservation of the benefices of all the col- "legiate churches of Christendom, saying, that he "did it in order to do away simony. Furthermore, "in virtue of this reservation, the pope seldom or never "confirms the election of any prelate: but he pro- "motes an archbishop to a bishop.r.i.c.k, and puts an in- "ferior bishop in his place; whence, it often happens "that an archbishop's see, or patriarchate, becoming "vacant, produces six promotions or more, and a "consequent flow of large sums of money into the "apostolic treasury."

6 Villaret's Hist, of France, t. 8, p. 234-253.-Henault's Abr.

Chron. of Hist, of France, ann. 1329, et 1330.

64 Fltury's Eccles. Hist, 1. 93, n. 4.12.

In 1338, Benedict XII. having refused to absolve Louis of Bavaria, the Diets of Rensee and of Frankfort declared, that ancient custom conferred the vicariate of the vacant empire on the count Palatine of the Rhine; that the pretensions of the pope to replace the emperor during an interregnum were untenable; that the pope had over the German empire no sort of superiority; that it was not his province to regulate, nor confirm the elections of the emperors; that the plurality of suffrages of the electoral college conferred the empire without the consent of the Holy See, and, that to a.s.sert the contrary would be a crime of high treason.65 The Germans gave to their decree, the name of "Pragmatic Sanction," and, at the same time, it was forbidden to pay any respect to the censures fulminated against the head of the empire, to receive bulls from Avignon, or keep up any correspondence with the pontifical court.66 Four years after the publication of this decree arose Clement VI. who demanded of the emperor a perpetual edict, in which the empire should be declared a fief of the Holy See, a benefice that none could possess without the authority of the sovereign pontiff. This Clement said, that none of his predecessors knew how to be a pope; Benedict XII.

more modest, said to the cardinals his electors: You have elected an a.s.s.67

65 Eccles. Hist. 1. 94. n. 39.

66 Pfeffel ann. 1338.

67 Fleury's Eccl. Hist. 1. 94, n. 611.

Clement renewed the anathemas of John XXII. against Louis of Bavaria; he added thereto more solemn imprecations:

"May the divine wrath! he "cried, may the vengeance of St. Peter, and St.

"Paul, fall upon Louis in this world, and in the "next! may the earth swallow him up alive! may "all the elements combine against him! and may his "children famish before the eyes of their father, by "the hands of his enemies!"

But Clement, aware that cursing no longer availed, excited a civil war in the heart of Germany, leagued the n.o.bles against Louis, deposed him anew, nominated a vicar of the empire in Lombardy, and caused to be elected emperor in 1340, the Margrave of Moravia, who took the name of Charles IV. Louis of Bavaria, everywhere conqueror, died in 1347, and Clement VI. triumphed. About this time a horrible plague ravaged Italy: the sovereign pontiff who had founded great hopes on this scourge, watched the moment in which the petty princes of Italy, reduced to the last degree of weakness, and having no longer an army to oppose to his anathemas, would be brought to acknowledge and sue to the pontifical authority. To accelerate this event, and second the plague, Clement employed money, stratagem, and force, in order to conquer the insubordination of the cities and n.o.bles of Romagna; in particular, he menaced the Visconti, cited them before the consistory of cardinals, and summoned them to restore Bologna to the church; but, when he heard speak of twelve thousand horse, and six thousand infantry, who were to make their appearance at the court of Avignon with the lords of Milan, he took the course of negociation with this powerful house, and for one hundred thousand florins, sold it the invest.i.ture of Bologna. Avignon he had purchased: Joan, queen of Naples, had ceded this place to him for eighty thousand florins, which, it is said, were never paid. But Clement declared Joan innocent of the murder of her first husband, Andrew; he acknowledged the second; he placed difficulties in the way of the projects of Louis, king of Hungary, who in order to avenge his brother Andrew was about to invade the kingdom of Naples. It was thus that Clement VI. paid for Avignon; and, as this city was a fief of the empire, the sale was confirmed by Charles IV., who, indebted for his crown to the sovereign pontiff could refuse him nothing.

This Pope died in 1352; the picture of his manners, has been drawn by Matteo Villani, a contemporary historian, whose expressions Fleury68 thus translates and softens:

"He kept up a regal estab- "lishment, had his tables magnificently served, a great "train of knights and equerries, and a numerous "stud of horses, which he often mounted for amuse- "ment. He took great pleasure in aggrandizing his "relations; he purchased extensive lands in France "for them, and made many of them cardinals; but "some of them were too young, and of too scanda- "lous a life. He also made some at the request of "the king of France, who were many of them also "too young. In these promotions, he had regard "to neither learning nor virtue. He himself had a "moderate share of learning; but his manners "were gallant, and unbecoming an ecclesiastic.- "When an archbishop, he preserved no restraint "with women, but went further than the young no- "bles; and when pope, he neither knew how to "refrain nor correct his conduct in this way. Great "ladies, as well as prelates, visited his apartments; "among othes a Countess of Turenne, on whom "he conferred numerous favours. When he was "sick, it was the ladies who waited on him, as female "relations take care of seculars."

68 Eedw. Hiat 1,96, a. 13,

A short time before his death, Clement received a letter written, they say, by the archbishop of Milan, John Visconti, and of which the following are lines:6?

"Leviathan, prince of darkness, to Pope Clement "his vicar........Your mother, the haughty, salutes "you; Avarice; Lewdness, and your four other "sisters, thank you for your good will, which has "caused them to thrive so well.'

It was during this pontificate that the Romans saw a man of low rank, Cola Rienzi, raise himself to a high degree of power. Deputed to Clement VI., to invite him to return to Rome, and not being able to prevail on him, Rienzi returned to plant the standard of liberty on the capitol, proclaimed himself tribune, and governed for several months the ancient capital of the universe.

6? Fleury's Eccles. Hist. 1. 9 6,n.9.

The emperor Charles IV. had promised to renounce all claim of sovereignty over Rome and the ecclesiastical domains; these were the conditions on which Clement VI. had raised him to the empire; Charles kept his word. When in 1355 he resumed the imperial crown, he acknowledged the absolute independence of the temporal power of the popes, and swore never to put his foot in Rome, nor on any spot belonging to the Holy See, without the permission of the holy father, annulling all the contrary acts of his predecessors, and obliging his successors, under penalty of deposition, to the maintenance of the engagement entered into by him. This is the first authenticated act which elevated the pope into a temporal sovereign, an independent monarch: till this period he had been but a va.s.sal of the empire.

Innocent VI., who reigned in 1355, profited by this event to enrich his family.7

7 Innocent VI. sent Philip de Caba.s.sole into Germany, to raise the tenth penny on all the ecclesiastical revenues. The following were the complaints of the Germans at the news of this exaction: "The Romans have always looked on Germany as a mine of gold, and have invented various ways of exhausting it. What does the pope give to this kingdom but letters and words? Let him be master of all the benefices as far as the collation; but let him relinquish their revenue to those who do the duty of them. We send money enough into Italy for various merchandize, and to Avignon for our children, who study there or stand for benefices, without mentioning their having to purchase them. None of you are ignorant, my lords, that every year large sums of money are taken from Germany to the pope's court, for the confirmation of prelates, the obtaining of benefices, the prosecution of suits and appeals to the Holy See; for dispensations, absolutions, indulgences, privileges, and other favours. At all times the archbishops confirmed the elections of their suffragan bishops. It is pope John XXII. alone who, in our time, has taken this right from them by violence. And yet this pope further demands of the clergy, a new and unheard of subsidy; threatening with censures those who will not give it, or who oppose it. Check this evil in its outset, and do not permit the establishment of this shameful servitude." Vita 2, Lrnoc. VI. and Bahiz. Vit. Pap. A veiv. 1. p.

350.

Charles IV., a prince as weak as he was ambitious, was commonly surnamed the emperor of the priests.:

"You have then," Petrarch writes to him, "you have promised with an oath never to return to "Rome. What a shame for an emperor, that priests "should have the power or rather the audacity to "compel him to such a renunciation! What pride "in a bishop to deprive a sovereign, the father of "liberty, of liberty itself! And what opprobrium in "him whom the universe should obey, to cease to "be his own master, and obey his va.s.sal!"

This Petrarch, who beheld too nearly the court of Avignon, compares it to7

"a labyrinth in which an "imperious Minos casts into the fatal urn the lot of "humanity, where bellows a rapacious Minotaur, "where triumphs a lascivious Venus. There is no "guide, no Ariadne; to chain the monster, to bribe his "hideous porter, there is no means but gold. But "gold there opens heaven, gold in that place buys "Jesus Christ, and, in this impious Babylon, a "future existence, immortality, the resurrection, the "last judgment, are placed with Elysium, Acheron "and the Styx, in the cla.s.s of fables imposed upon "the grossest credulity."

7 Petrarc. Op. Epist. s. t.i.t 7. 8.10. 11.16.-Three sonnets against the Roman Coart-Et, De Vita Solitar. 1.3. 4. c. 3.

Although the weakness of the emperor Charles IV. had opened a new career to pontifical ambition, yet the return of some degree of light, and the perpetual commotions in the city of Rome, which kept innocent VI. at Avignon, which compelled Urban V. to return to it7 and which would have sent Gregory XI. back, when he died; finally, the schism with which this pope's death was followed; all these causes concurred in depriving the Holy See of the fruits of the policy and enterprises of Clement VI.