JOHN XXII.: THE COURT AT AVIGNON
In maintaining that the power of the Papacy waned after the Pontificate
of Innocent III., I do not mean that there was such visible decay as
even the most acute contemporary observer might have detected. The
thirteenth century must have seemed to the statesmen of the time to
strengthen the Papacy. The Dominican and Franciscan friars, quickly
recognized by Innocent's successors, impressed on Europe the duty of
implicit obedience. The great canonists began to make an imposing
body of law out of the decrees of the Popes. Art developed in close
association with religious sentiment. The hereditary feud with the
Hohenstauffens ended, fifty years after the death of Innocent, with
the complete overthrow of the son and grandson of Frederic II. Yet
most historians now recognize that the thirteenth century was, for the
Papacy, a period of slow and subtle decay. The mighty struggle with
Frederic, Manfred, and Conradin exhausted the high-minded, but not
heroic, successors of Innocent, and it ended only when, by summoning
Philip of Anjou, they substituted French for German predominance and
inaugurated another exacting period of conflict. The alternative was a
period of comparative impotence and flabby parasitism. Into this the
Papacy passed; and, unfortunately for it, the degeneration occurred
just when the eyes of Europe were growing sharper. It was the date of
the early renaissance of culture, inspired by the Moors: it was a rich
period of civic development and prosperity: it was the time when castes
of keen-eyed lay lawyers and scholars were growing. Arms were yielding
to togas in the work of restricting the growth of the Papacy.
Boniface VIII. (1294-1303) is the last great representative of the
Papal ideal in its earlier and more austere mediæval form. His Bull
_Clericis laicos_ (1296) which declared all clerical and monastic
property in the world to be under his protection and sternly bade
secular rulers respect it, was one of the last Olympic fulminations;
and it was defeated by England and France. Then, in 1300, he declared
the Jubilee; and some historians see in that prostration of Christendom
at the feet of the Papacy the last notable expression of its
world-power. Men said at the time--I am not pressing it as fact--that
Boniface was so exalted by the spectacle that he put on the imperial
crown and sandals. No one questions that the Papacy decayed from that
year. Under the banner of Papal absolutism Boniface made war on the
great Ghibelline family of the Colonnas, and on Philip the Fair and his
lawyers, and he ignominiously fell. The blameless and gentle Dominican,
Benedict XI., who succeeded him, could not sustain for more than a
few months the struggle he had inherited, and the Gascon Clement V.
then inaugurated what has been too forcibly called "the Babylonian
Captivity."
After a secret compact with Philip, after a complete sacrifice of
his ideals, and after the distribution of much French gold among
the cardinals, he obtained the tiara (1305). In 1309 he settled at
Avignon, basely surrendered the Templars (after an appalling travesty
of justice) to the cupidity of the King, and settled down, in the
company of his sister and niece and dear friend the Countess of
Talleyrand-Périgord, to a life of sensuous luxury and the accumulation
of wealth. He died on March 12, 1314, leaving 1,078,800 florins (about
£500,000) nearly the whole of which went to his family and friends, and
the cardinals gathered anxiously to choose his successor.
Clement had died near Carpentras, about fifteen miles from Avignon, and
the cardinals met in the episcopal palace of that town. The austere
Gregory X. had decreed in 1274 that the cardinal electors should be
walled into their chamber (or Conclave) until they had chosen a Pope,
and the twenty-three princes of the Church prepared for a desperate
encounter in their isolated quarters. There were six Italians, eager to
tell a pitiful story of the ruin of Rome and the patrimonies because of
the absence of the Pope from Italy. But there were nine Gascons--three
of them nephews of Clement, all creatures of Clement--and, as two
of the eight French cardinals supported the Gascons, they made a
formidable majority and demanded an Avignon Pope: in fact, a Gascon
Pope. Day followed day in angry discussion, and the cries of the
infuriated followers of the Gascon cardinals without grew louder and
louder. At last, on July 23d, there came a thundering on the doors, and
the terrified cardinals, breaking through the wall, fled from the town
and dispersed. For two years, to the grave scandal of Christendom, they
refused to agree on a place of meeting, until at last Philip of Valois
enticed them to Lyons, entrapped them into a monastery, and told them
that they were prisoners until they made a Pope.
Under these auspices Jacques de Cahors, Cardinal of Porto, became John
XXII. He was a little, dry, bilious old man of seventy-two: but an able
lawyer and administrator, and a man of wonderful vigour for his age.
In his case the more careful research of modern times and the opening
of the Vatican Archives have tended to give him, in some respects, a
more honourable position in history than he had hitherto occupied. The
reader will hardly find him morally and spiritually attractive, but he
had a remarkable and powerful personality, and he achieved more than
has been supposed. His "Register" in the Vatican Archives contains
65,000 letters. Most of these are very brief notes written by the Papal
clerks, but there are many of interest and they enable us at times to
correct the anecdotists of his age. He had virulent enemies, and they
must be read with reserve.[255]
Jacques d'Euse, of Cahors, is said by unfriendly writers of the time
to have been the son of a cobbler (or, according to others, a tailor).
As he had relatives in good positions, and received a good schooling,
this is probably a legend. But his early life is obscure. He studied
under the Dominicans of Cahors, and then attended the lectures at
Montpellier and at Paris. The story of Ferretti di Vicenza, that he
went with a trading uncle to Naples and became tutor to the sons of
Charles II., does not harmonize with these facts, and we must therefore
reject the further charge that he obtained his bishopric by forging a
letter in the name of Charles. He seems rather to have taught civil law
for a long period at Cahors, and then at Toulouse, where he earned the
friendship of the Bishop, St. Louis, and was thus brought to the notice
and favour of the Bishop's father, the King of Naples. Charles secured
the bishopric of Fréjus for him in 1300, and made him his Chancellor in
1307. When Charles died, his son Robert continued the patronage and got
for him the bishopric of Avignon. Clement V. found him a useful man and
pliant lawyer. It was he who did the most accommodating research for
Clement in the suppression of the Templars, and he was rewarded with a
red hat in 1312. He was a sober man, liking good solid fare and regular
ways, and kept his energy and ambition in his eighth decade of life.
Robert of Naples pressed his candidature for the Papacy when Clement
died, and the Gascons adopted him. He won the vote of Cardinal
Orsini--this statement of his critics is confirmed by later events--by
professing a most determined intention to transfer the Papacy to Rome.
The anecdotists say that he swore never to mount a horse until he was
established at the Lateran; and, after a gorgeous coronation-ceremony
at Lyons on September 5th, he at once proceeded _by boat_ to Avignon.
The Italian cardinals left him in disgust, and he promptly promoted
ten new cardinals, of whom nine were French (and three, including
his nephew, from Cahors). Of his later seventeen cardinals, thirteen
were French, three Italian, and one Spanish. The Papacy was fixed at
Avignon.
The little town which Clement had chosen as the seat of the Papacy
had the advantage, in John's eyes, of being separated from Philip's
territory by the Rhone and being under the suzerainty of Robert of
Naples. It was still a small, poorly built town. Clement had found the
Dominican monastery large enough for his Epicurean establishment. John
returned at first to his old episcopal palace, but the great rock on
which the Papal Palace now stands soon inspired his ambition and he
began assiduously to nurse the Papal income. Much of Clement's money
had been removed and stored by his clever and unscrupulous nephew, the
Viscount Bertrand de Goth, who would not easily disgorge it. After
a time John asserted his spiritual power, and summoned the Viscount
to present an account. Three times the noble ignored his summons,
and then, when John was about to proceed against him, he judiciously
distributed some of the money among the cardinals and had the case
postponed. At length he rode boldly into Avignon to give his account.
He had, he explained, with a most insolent air of simplicity and
candour, received 300,000 florins from his uncle. This sum was destined
to be used in the next Crusade, and he had sworn on the Gospels not to
yield it for any other purpose. John was baulked and was compelled to
compromise. They agreed to divide the money, and a receipt preserved
at the Vatican shows that 150,000 florins were all he obtained of
Clement's huge fortune. Clement had left only 70,000 florins directly
to his successor, and half of this had to go to the cardinals. All the
rest Clement regarded as private fortune and distributed among his
friends and servants.
John turned to the organization of the Papal income, and his success
in this direction is notorious. Villani says in his _Florentine
History_[256] that at his death John left a fortune of 25,000,000
florins[257] in coin and jewels. Villani is hostile, but he affirms
that he had this information from his brother, who was one of the
bankers appointed to appraise the sum. Other chroniclers give different
figures. It happens, however, that John's ledgers are still preserved
in the Vatican archives, and as in this case they completely refute
the anti-Papal chroniclers--a point certainly to be carefully noted
by the historian--they have been published.[258] Some of the ledgers
are "missing," but there are general statements (tallying with the
separate ledgers), and from these it appears that the entire income of
the Papacy during the eighteen years of John's Pontificate was about
four and a half million florins (or about £120,000 a year), and that
the greater part of this was spent on the Italian war. There is an
expenditure of nearly three millions under the humorous heading of
"Wax, and certain extraordinary expenses," and the items show that the
Italian campaign to recover the Papal estates absorbed most of this. At
the same time the ledgers do not quite confirm the edifying tradition
of John's sober and simple life. His table and cellar cost (in modern
terms) nearly £3000 a year; his "wardrobe" nearly £4000 a year: and
his officials and staff about £15,000 a year. Immense sums seem to
have been given to relatives--there is one item of 72,000 florins paid
to his brother Peter for certain estates--and we know that in 1339 he
began to build the famous Papal Palace.
In sum, the editors of John's accounts conclude that the Papal
treasury would, at his death, have shown a deficit of 90,000 florins
but for a loan of half a million from his private purse; and that
the total amount left behind by him (besides his valuable library of
1028 volumes, his collection of 329 jewelled rings, etc.) was only
about 800,000 florins. It is true that, in spite of the businesslike
appearance of the ledgers, we must not take this as a statement of
the Pope's entire estate. Vast sums were collected which did not pass
through Avignon, but went straight to the Legate in Italy (and possibly
elsewhere). Moreover, the "private purse" of the Pope is an interesting
and obscure part of his system. It was discovered at his death that he
had a secret "little chamber," over one of the corridors, into which a
large part of the income went. There are historical indications that
he diverted to his private account large sums for military and special
political purposes. He did not foresee how Clement VI. would genially
dissipate it, with the words: "My predecessors did not know how to
live." This account was not entered in books, and we have to be content
with the assurance that he left at his death rather less than a million
florins in all.
Yet an income of--if we make allowance for the unrecorded
sums--something like £200,000 a year, at a time when the patrimonies
were mostly alienated, was enormous, and there is no reason to doubt
the statement of all historians that it came largely from tainted
sources. John's fiscal policy is a stage in the degeneration of the
Papacy. Clement IV. had, in 1267, reserved to the Pope the income
of the benefices of clerks who died at Rome, and Boniface VIII. had
enlarged this by including all who died within a two days' journey of
Rome. John extended the law throughout the Church and demanded three
years' revenue for each that fell vacant. By his Bull _Execrabilis_ he
ordered all clerks (except his cardinals) who held several benefices
to select one and surrender the rest to the Apostolic See. He
created bishoprics--he made six out of the bishopric of Toulouse--by
subdividing actual sees (on the plea, of course, that the duties would
be better discharged), and by an astute system of promotions he, when
a see fell vacant, contrived to move several men and secure the "first
fruits" on their appointments: a vacant archbishopric, for instance,
would be filled by a higher bishop, the higher bishopric by a lower
bishop, and so on. It was possible to put a complexion of reform on
all these measures, but clergy and laity muttered a charge of avarice.
Then there were the incomes from kingdoms and duchies (England, Aragon,
Portugal, Naples, Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, and Spoleto) which owed
an annual tribute, the yield of the surviving patrimonies, the taxes
on dispensations and grants, and a certain beginning of the sale of
indulgences which, unfortunately, we cannot closely ascertain.
John was not wholly immersed in finance and insensible of higher
duties. He created universities at Cahors and Perugia, regulated the
studies at Oxford, Cambridge, and Paris, and even (as we shall see)
concerned himself with the state of the East. But the only council
we trace under his control (held at St. Ruf, in 1326) was almost
entirely concerned with ecclesiastical property and immunities, and his
correspondence is, in effect, almost wholly fiscal and political. He
greatly enlarged the Rota (or legal and business part of the Curia),
and filled it with a cosmopolitan staff of clerks, to deal with this
large and lucrative side of his affairs. It is pleaded that the Papacy
could not discharge its duties without this wealth and power; and it
must seem unfortunate that the acquisition and maintenance of the
wealth and power left so little time for the duties they were to enable
the Pope to discharge.
Watered by this stream of gold, Avignon flourished. John was generous
to his family and his cardinals: palaces began to rise above the lowly
roofs of the town: a gay and coloured life filled its streets. A Papal
household costing £25,000 a year would of itself make an impression. We
know Avignon best in the later and even richer days of Benedict XII.
and Clement VI. who followed John. Not far away, even in the days of
John, dwelt a writer who was destined to immortality, and he passed
scathing criticisms on Avignon. Petrarch is a rhetorician and poet, as
well as a fierce opponent of the Avignon Papacy, but one cannot lightly
disregard his assurance that Papal Avignon was "Babylon," "a living
hell," and "the sink of all vices."[259] He is chiefly describing
Avignon under Clement VI., but he says that it is only a change "from
bad to worse" since John's days.
An episode that occurred soon after John's elevation is, perhaps,
more convincing than Petrarch's fiery rhetoric, since its features
were determined in a legal process. Hugues Géraud, a favourite of
Clement V., had obtained from that Pope the bishopric of Cahors,
paying the Papal tax of a thousand florins for it. He proceeded to
make his possession as lucrative as possible and live comfortably on
the revenue his clerks extorted for him. John's townsfolk appealed to
him, as soon as he settled in Avignon, and he summoned the Bishop to
his court. Hugues Géraud sealed the lips of his priests by an oath of
silence, but, of course, a Pope could undo that seal, and the inquiry
revealed enormities on the part of the Bishop. Toward the close of the
inquiry certain men were arrested bringing mysterious packages into
the town. They had with them various poisons and certain little wax
images concealed in loaves. The Bishop and his chief clerks were at
once arrested, and, although the Papal officials used torture to open
their lips, the substance of their story seems reliable. Fearful of the
issue, Hugues Géraud had applied to a Jew at Toulouse, and to others,
for these poisons and wax images. It was proved in court that members
of the Papal household, including a cardinal, were bribed to facilitate
the poisoning, and that the wax images, which were not effective
without the blessing of some prelate, were actually blessed by the
Archbishop of Toulouse. The Archbishop pleaded that he had no suspicion
of the awful purpose of these images--familiar as they were in the
Middle Ages--but he soon fled from Toulouse, and it is conjectured that
he had hoped that the death of the Pope would save his diocese (and
income) from the threatened dismemberment.[260]
Some of these images had already been smuggled into Avignon and the
Bishop and his archpriest had, in the well-known mediæval manner,
set up one of them as representative of the Pope's nephew, Cardinal
Jacques de Via, and stabbed it in the belly and legs with silver
styles, while the wicked Jew repeated the suitable imprecations. John
XXII. fully shared the views of his age in regard to these magical
practices, and we can imagine how he and others were confirmed in
that belief when, in the course of the trial, Jacques de Via sickened
and died. The trial came to a speedy conclusion. The Bishop of Cahors
was dragged by horses through the town and burned at the stake: his
numerous clerical and lay accomplices were adequately punished: and
John spurred the Inquisitors to a deadly campaign against magicians
throughout the country. Some of the cardinals were involved in this or
a similar plot, but John shrewdly disarmed them with gold rather than
make powerful enemies.
These details will suffice to make clear the state of the clergy and
laity at the close of a century which some writers appraise as one of
profound inspiration, and we must go on to consider the large policy
which John's wealth was intended to support. The central theme is,
once more, the political struggle with the Emperor--the undying curse
which temporal power had brought with it--but we cannot understand this
aright unless we first regard a spiritual struggle of great interest.
The followers of Francis of Assisi had branched into the customary
parties of rigourists and liberals. On the one hand were the great
body of the friars, living in large comfortable monasteries, raising
a stupendously rich church over the bones of their ascetic founder.
On the other hand were the faithful minority, the genuinely ascetic,
casting withering reproaches on the liberals, assimilating much of the
mystic and--we may justly say--protestant feeling which was growing
in Europe. There were bloody conflicts as well as highly seasoned
arguments. The "Spirituals" and "Fratricelli" could not but regard
the wealth and sensuality of the higher clergy as an apostasy from
the Christian ideal, and they had become one of the most pronounced
"protestant" sects of the time and were anathematized repeatedly by the
Popes. During the Papal vacancy the Spirituals had prospered and become
more strident. Christendom had apostatized, and they were the heralds
of a new religion, revealed to Francis of Assisi. This arrogant Papacy
and priesthood must disappear before true religion can flourish.
In the spring of 1317 John condemned them, and, when they still
preached revolt, summoned about sixty of them to Avignon. They used
very plain speech and received a very plain reply. The Papacy had now
discovered that persistent or "contumacious" disobedience amounted to
heresy, and the Inquisitors belonged to the rival Dominican order. So
several sons of St. Francis were burned at the stake--four were burned
at Marseilles on May 7, 1318--and many were cast into prison. But John
went too far. He ordered the Franciscan authorities to consider whether
absolute poverty was the genuine basis of their rule, and they decided
that it was: in the sense of a Bull (_Exiit qui seminat_) of Nicholas
III., which allowed them "the use" of things without the actual
"ownership." John revoked the Bull, and in a Decretal of December 8,
1322 (_Ad Conditorem_), declared that this was impossible nonsense.
When the friars retorted that such poverty had actually been practised
by Christ and his Apostles, John consulted the learned doctors of
Paris and, in the Decretal _Cum inter nonnullos_ (November 12, 1323),
pronounced this thesis heretical. The "Spirituals" were now reinforced
by abler men, who fled to Italy and joined the anti-Papal campaign of
Louis of Bavaria. Michael de Cesena, the General of the Order, nailed
to the door of Pisa cathedral a document in which he impeached John for
heresy. William of Ockham, the English friar, one of the most acute
of the later schoolmen, and others, discharged a shower of invectives
which would have made the fortune of a sixteenth-century Reformer.
John was "Anti-Christ," the "Dragon with Seven Heads," and so on. They
induced Louis of Bavaria to declare John's Decretals heretical, and
fought shoulder to shoulder with the learned Paris doctors, Marsiglio
of Padua and Jean of Jandun, whose _Defensor Pacis_ (1324) was a
crushing indictment of the Papal pretensions and vindication of the
secular power. All over Italy and Germany there was a fierce scrutiny
of the bases of the Papal claims. The Reformation was commencing, two
centuries before Luther.
The spiritual struggle had thus merged in the political struggle,
owing to the common opposition to John XXII., and this must now be
considered. Frederic of Austria and Louis of Bavaria were both chosen
King of the Romans, and, as neither had had the full number of votes,
there was the not unfamiliar struggle for recognition. They disregarded
John's summons to his tribunal, took to the sword, and Frederic was
beaten and imprisoned in 1322. John coldly acknowledged Louis's letter
announcing his victory; unquestionably he from the first wanted the
imperial crown to pass to France and the imperial rule to vanish from
Italy. Then Louis invaded Italy, and John declared war.
Italy already gave the Pope concern. The Ghibellines, or Imperialists,
had grown powerful in the Pope's absence, and their chief leader,
Matteo Visconti of Milan, a ruthless and exacting ruler, was "Imperial
Vicar" in the country. When Visconti, in defiance of the Pope's
commands, gave aid to the Ghibellines of Genoa, John, who claimed
to represent the Empire during the "vacancy," withdrew his title of
Vicar and awarded it to Robert of Naples. Robert went to consult John
at Avignon, and a campaign followed. Cardinal Bertrand de Poyet--who
was, says Petrarch, so much like John "in face and ferocity"[261]
that one could easily credit the rumour that he was John's son--was
sent to direct the Papal cause and to denounce the Viscontis to the
Inquisition. Matteo was found guilty of heresy (or contumacious refusal
to abandon the title of Vicar), and he and his son were charged with
oppression of the clergy (which is plausible enough) and with a quaint
and amusing mixture of magic and other devilry.[262] Possibly John
relied more confidently on the troops of Philip of Valois and Henry
of Austria, whom he successively summoned to Italy; but they retired
almost without a blow. Matteo repented and died, but his sons and their
associates continued the war.
At this juncture Louis conquered Frederic and sent word to the Legate
to keep his troops out of imperial territory. When the Legate refused,
he joined the Ghibellines and drew from John a vigorous denunciation.
He was to abandon the "heretics" and come to Avignon for the
examination of his claim to the Empire. Louis, retorting (under the
inspiration of the friars) that there were heretics at Avignon as well
as in Italy, went his way, and John turned to France. Charles the Fair,
the new King, had discovered that, when Clement V. had authorized his
marriage with Blanche of Burgundy, a remote godmothership had been
overlooked, and he was in the painful position of living with one to
whom he was not validly married. John declared the marriage void,
allowed Charles to marry another lady, and was soon in conference with
Charles and with Robert of Naples. Germany took alarm at this plain
hint of an intention to make Charles Emperor; the Italian spiritual war
upon the Pope was vigorously repeated in that country, and the Diet of
Ratisbon rejected John's authority and called for a General Council.
Louis, in 1326, became reconciled with Frederic of Austria and was
recognized in Germany as sole Emperor, but John had gone too far to
withdraw, or was too deeply involved with Charles of France and Robert
of Naples. In alliance with the Ghibellines, Louis made a triumphant
tour over Italy, and on April 18, 1328, to the immense joy of his
throng of rebel supporters, solemnly declared, in St. Peter's, that
"James of Cahors" was guilty of heresy and treason.[263] Friar Peter
of Corbara was substituted for him, with the name of Nicholas V., and
Rome exulted in the restoration of the Papacy. But the drama ended as
it had often ended before. Louis oppressed the country and alienated
his supporters; and before the end of the year Friar Peter was, with a
halter round his neck, at the Pope's feet in Avignon and Louis was back
in Germany. John refused to compromise honourably with Louis, and the
agitation against the Papacy in Germany, whither all the rebels had now
gone, was more bitter than ever.
The next phase of the struggle is not wholly clear. John of Bohemia
intervened and overran Italy. It seems probable that the Pope had
nothing to do with this invasion, and at first suspected that John
was in league with Louis; but that, as John made progress and had
friendly communication with Avignon, the Pope began to hope that the
new development offered him a stronger King of Italy (under Papal
suzerainty) than Robert and a less oppressive protector than Philip VI.
of France.[264] Philip and John visited the Pope at Avignon, and it
was announced that John was to be recognized as King of part of Italy.
The curious alliance of the three reveals some miscalculation. Philip
must have trusted that John of Bohemia would work for him, but the Pope
had assuredly no idea of abandoning his claim to Italy. The issue was
singular. The Italians, in face of this alliance, united under Robert
of Naples and overcame the Papal and Bohemian troops. John had, as part
of the campaign, announced his intention of transferring the Papal
Court to Bologna, and the Legate actually began to erect a palace for
him. When the Bolognese realized that John had no serious intention of
coming, they joined the Imperialists and cast out the Legate and his
troops. It is said that the collapse of his costly Italian campaign
weighed so heavily on the Pope that he did not leave his palace during
the year of life which still remained.
John's relations with other countries are not of great interest. He
was almost the master, rather than the slave, of the three French
monarchs who ruled during his Pontificate, and some of his letters
paternally chide them for such defects as talking in church. In
letters to Edward of England he tried to reconcile that monarch with
Robert Bruce, and he begged more humane treatment of the Irish, who
had appealed for his intervention. In Poland he excommunicated the
Teutonic knights for taking Danzig and Pomerania from King Ladislas.
His eye wandered even farther afield. He was genuinely interested in
the fate of Christians in the East, and sent a mission to the Sultan,
who sharply dismissed it. No Pope had, in a sense, a wider horizon,
for John not only sent friars to preach in Armenia and Persia, but
actually appointed a Legate for India, China, and Thibet. Yet his
ruling of the Christian world was singularly slender in comparison with
that of his great predecessors. His energy was absorbed in fiscal and
political matters. In co-operation with Philip he sent a fleet against
the Saracens, and it won a victory, but the Crusade he announced on
July 26, 1333, never went beyond that naval success. On the other hand,
when the Pastoureaux, a wild rabble, marched over France proclaiming a
popular Crusade, John excommunicated them for taking the cross without
his permission; of their appalling treatment of the Jews he made no
complaint, nor did he move when the lepers of France were brutally
persecuted on some superstitious charge of the time. He was oppressive
to the Jews, and ordered the burning of the Talmud.
He has, in fine, the distinction of putting forward a doctrine which
his Church condemns as heretical. Preaching on All Saints' Day in 1331,
he suggested that probably the saints did not enjoy the direct vision
(or Beatific Vision) of God in heaven, and would not do so until after
the Day of Judgment. There is no doubt whatever that he held this as
an opinion, though he made no effort to impose it on others; beyond
a certain liberality in bestowing benefices on clerics who supported
him. There was a violent agitation in France. The Dominican friars and
the universities strongly opposed the view, and, when the General of
the Franciscan Order thought it advantageous to support the Pope, the
King of France swore that he would not have his realm sullied by the
heresy. This agitation, and John's correspondence with Philip VI.,
make it quite clear that the Pope held the heresy, as an opinion. A
few days before he died, however, he wrote a Bull--at least, such a
Bull was published by his successor--endorsing the received doctrine
and declaring that he had put forward his theory only "by way of
conference."
He died on December 4, 1334, bowed with age and saddened by the
failure of his work. A more complete study of his letters than has
yet been made may in some measure enlarge our knowledge of his
properly Pontifical action, but there can be little doubt that money
and politics chiefly engrossed his attention. The chief interest of
his Pontificate is the light it throws on the preparation for the
Reformation. John's fiscal policy, however much open to censure, was
unselfish; but he opened to his even less religious successors the road
to disaster.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 255: For the letters see _Lettres de Jean XXII._ (2 vols.,
1908 and 1912), edited by Arnold Fayen: a selection of 3653 letters,
generally business notes of little importance. Various short lives of
John are given in Baluze's _Vitæ Paparum Avenionensium_, vol. ii.,
and there are censorious allusions to him in G. Villani's _Historie
Florentine_: a contemporary but biassed work. Bertrandy's _Recherches
sur l'origine, l'élection, et le couronnement de Jean XXII._ (1854)
is valuable for his early years, as well as Dr. J. Asal's _Die Wahl
Johann's XXII._ (1910). V. Verlaque's _Jean XXII._ (1883), is foolishly
partisan, and declares John "one of the greatest successors of St.
Peter." Sectional studies will be noticed in the course of the chapter.]
[Footnote 256: Xi., 20.]
[Footnote 257: The gold florin is estimated at about ten shillings of
English money.]
[Footnote 258: _Die Einnahmen der Apostolischer Kammer unter Johann
XXII._ (1910), by Dr. Emil Göller, and _Die Ausgaben der Apostolischer
Kammer unter Johann XXII._ (1911), by K.H. Shäfer.]
[Footnote 259: See, especially, the book of his letters "Sine titulo,"
most of which contain appalling invectives on the Popes and cardinals
and clergy. _Epistola_ xviii, is a classical picture of vice, even
among the elderly clergy. Its chief defect is to associate the name of
tolerably respectable Babylon with such a picture.]
[Footnote 260: See a full (and conservative) analysis of the evidence
in E. Abbe's _Hugues Géraud_ (1904). I am entirely ignoring the gossipy
chroniclers of the time, whom Milman too frequently follows.]
[Footnote 261: _Ep._ xvii. of the book "Sine titulo."]
[Footnote 262: See Michel, "Le Procès de Matteo et de Galeazzo
Visconti," in _Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire_, xxix. (1909),
and H. Otto, "Zur Italienischen Politik Johanns XXII.," in _Quellen
und Forschungen aus Italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken_, Bd. xix.
(1911).]
[Footnote 263: Baluze, ii., 512; and a later indictment, p. 522.]
[Footnote 264: See the essay on John's policy, by H. Otto, quoted
above.]