THE residence of the popes within the walls of Avignon, from 1305 till
subsequent to the year 1370, and the schism which, in 1378, divided for
a long time the church between rival pontiffs, are the two leading
circumstances of the ecclesiastical history of the fourteenth century;
both have contributed to the decline of the pontifical empire. It is
true that in leaving Italy the popes sheltered themselves from some
perils: they removed from the theatre of the commotions which their
ambitious policy excited or reanimated. It is also true that the
apprehension of authorising, by so imposing an example, the wandering
life of the bishops, was no longer worthy of restraining the sovereign
pontiff: the time was past, in which sacred laws confined each pastor
within the bosom of his flock; interests had amplified, had reformed
these humble manners, and dissipated these apostolic scruples. But, to
disappear from Italy, was to weaken the influence of the Holy See over
the then most celebrated and enlightened country of Europe; it was to
desert the post where they had obtained so many victories, the centre in
which were united all the radii of the power they had achieved; it was
to renounce the ascendancy which the very name of Rome conveyed, whose
ancient glory was reflected on the modem pontificates that seemed to
continue it; it was, in fine, to discontent the Italians, to deprive
them of the last remains of their ancient consequence, and, by private
rivalries, to prepare the way for a general schism. We may be astonished
that this consequence should have been deferred for seventy years; but
it was inevitable; and this schism, in exposing publicly the ambition of
the pontiffs, in placing before the eyes of the multitude the picture of
their scandalous quarrels, in revealing, by their reciprocal
recriminations, the secret of their vices, dissipated for ever the
illusion with which the power of their predecessors was environed.
The sojourn of the popes in the Comtat Venaissin, evinces at least that
the pope could dispense with a residence in Rome; and many other proofs
unite here to demonstrate, that any other city could become the seat of
the first pastor of the church. To fix the papacy to a geographical
point would be, to cut it off from the number of institutions necessary
to Christianity; for it is, without doubt, impossible that an essential
article in the gospel establishment should depend on any particular
locality, changeable at the will of a thousand circumstances.
Not one word in the gospel, or in the writings of the apostles points
out the city of Rome as the indispensible metropolis of Christianity.
There is no spot upon earth, where one may not be, a Christian, bishop,
patriarch, or pope. But this demi-theological discussion exceeds the
limits of our subject: let us return to the popes of Avignon.
To throw a light on this portion of the history of the papacy, and to
compensate for the details which would occupy too much space here, we
shall present in the first place, a slight sketch of the political
revolutions of the fourteenth century.
In the East, the Turks were masters of Palestine. Ottoman, their head,
founded the empire which bears his name; he turned to account the
discord of the Persians, the Saracens, and the Greeks; he deprived them
of Asiatic, and European provinces. The throne of Constantinople verged
towards its ruin; seditions menaced it in the city, conspiracies
encompassed it in the court; and the sons of the emperor were frequently
the conspirators against him. The Russians were as yet barbarous; but in
Denmark, Valdemar, taught by adversity, did honour to, and established
the throne. Under his daughter Margaret, Sweden and Norway, formed with
Denmark, but one monarchy. Poland, agitated for a long time by the
Teutonic knights, respired under Casimir III. The English deposed Edward
II., seconded the activity of Edward III,, and condemned and banished
the proscriber Richard. In Spain, Peter the Cruel perished at the age of
thirty-five, the victim of Henry Transtamare who succeeded him. In
France, Philip the Fair had for successors his three sons, Louis X.,
Philip the Long, and Charles IV., weak princes, and dupes of their
barbarous courtiers. After them, Philip of Valois, and John his
unfortunate son, supported against the English an unsuccessful war: in
vain did Charles V. devote himself to the reparation of so many evils;
they recommenced with aggravations during the minority of Charles VI.,
continued during his derangement, during his whole reign, which was
prolonged into the fifteenth century.
Since the Sicilian vespers, Sicily had remained subject to the king of
Arragon, Peter III., who, in spite of the anathemas of Rome, transmitted
it to his descendants; from the year 1262, Charles of Anjou had only
reigned over Naples. Robert, the grandson of Charles, contributed in a
singular degree to fix the popes in Avignon: he thus preserved a more
immediate influence over the Guelphs, over Florence, over Genoa, and the
other cities which belonged to this faction. The Holy See had clothed
Robert with the title of vicar imperial in Italy during the vacancy of
the empire; and, when the emperors Henry VII. and Louis of Bavaria
restored once mort the Ghibeline party, Robert served as a counterpoise.
Joanna, his grand-daughter, married the king of Hungary, Andrew, whom
she is accused of having murdered; she herself died the victim of
Charles Durazzo, who, fixing himself after her on the throne of Naples,
transmitted it to his own children Ladislaus and Joanna II.
The exterior power of the Venetians rose or fell, their territories were
extended or confined, according to the various success of their eternal
wars with Hungary and Genoa. They took Smyrna and Treviso; they lost a
part of Dalmatia; they made themselves masters of Verona, of Vicenza,
and of Padua; they possessed, but could not preserve Ferrara: but they
maintained and consolidated the the aristocratical government which
Gradenigo had given them, and punished the attempted alteration by
Salieri. Liguria, on the contrary, harassed for ages by intestine
changes, presented in the fourteenth century a spectacle fickle as ever:
we behold her obeying in succession a captain, two captains, sometimes
Genoese, sometimes foreigners; a council of twelve, of twenty-four; a
mayor; a doge: and, in the intervals of these ephemeral governments,
receive or reject the yoke of the emperor, of the pope, of the king of
France, or of the lord of Milan. This last title at this time belonged
to the family of Visconti. From the thirteenth century, an archbishop of
Milan, Otho Visconti, had become lord of this city, and had obtained for
his nephew Matthew the title of vicar imperial of Lombardy. Matthew, at
the beginning of the fourteenth century, associated with himself his son
Galeas. Overthrown by the Torriani, restored by Henry VII., and upheld
by Louis of Bavaria, the Visconti resisted the pope, the king of Naples,
the Florentines, and the whole Guelphic party. After the emperor
Venceslas had bestowed on one of these Visconti, John Galeas, the title
of Duke of Milan, they became powerful enough to defend themselves
against the head of the empire himself. When Robert, the successor of
Venceslas, wished to deprive them of the cities of which they had become
masters, a decisive battle in 1401, confirmed their possession and
retarded their fall.
The emperors of the fourteenth century were, Albert of Austria, whose
yoke the Helvetians shook off; Henry VII. of Luxemburgh, who, during a
reign of five years, began to shed some lustre on the imperial crown;
Louis of Bavaria, the restless enemy of the popes; Charles IV. or of
Luxemburgh, their creature; and his son Venceslas, a vindictive monarch,
deposed in 1400. Robert belongs more pro-properly to the fifteenth
century.
Thus the Visconti, being substituted 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 principal 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
canvassed 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 him²⁵⁶ It is certain that there needed only
this accession to assure 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
assassinations.
²⁵⁷ 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 title of Vicar of the
empire, he erected himself expressly into a sovereign, and placed the
emperor in the number of his vassals.²⁵⁷
“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 dignity²⁵⁸
But these anathemas were no longer formidable.²⁵⁹
“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.”
²⁵⁸ Fleury’s Eccles. Hist. 1. 92, n. 8.
²⁵⁹ Baluz. Vit. Avenion. vol. 1, p. 69,—Fleury’s Eccles. Hist. 1. 91,
n. 33.
²⁶⁰ Henriçi. 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 “Sexte 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-assert.
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 epistle²⁶⁰ which will suffice to shew
what this second Avignon pope would have dared under different
circumstances. He created bishopricks 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,²⁶¹ 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 space of a year the
abuses should be reformed, without the intervention of the Roman or
Avignon court.
²⁶¹ Baluz. Vit Pap. Avenion. v. 1. p, 164—Fleury’s Eccles. Hist. 1.
82. p. 25.
²⁶² Brûler.—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.²⁶²
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 emanated²⁶³ 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, nobility, 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.²⁶⁴
“This im−
“mense treasure, says Fleury, was amassed 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 bishoprick, 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.”
²⁶³ Villaret’s Hist, of France, t. 8, p. 234-253.—Henault’s Abr.
Chron. of Hist, of France, ann. 1329, et 1330.
²⁶⁴ 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 assert the contrary would be a crime of high
treason.²⁶⁵ 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.²⁶⁶ 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
ass.²⁶⁷
²⁶⁵ Eccles. Hist. 1. 94. n. 39.
²⁶⁶ Pfeffel ann. 1338.
²⁶⁷ 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 nobles 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 nobles 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 investiture 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 Fleury²⁶⁸
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.”
²⁶⁸ 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:²⁶⁹
“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.
²⁶⁹ 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 vassal of the empire.
Innocent VI., who reigned in 1355, profited by this event to enrich his
family.²⁷⁰
²⁷⁰ Innocent VI. sent Philip de Cabassole 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 vassal!”
This Petrarch, who beheld too nearly the court of Avignon, compares it
to²⁷¹
“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 class of fables imposed upon
“the grossest credulity.”
²⁷¹ Petrarc. Op. Epist. s. tit 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 it²⁷² 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.
²⁷² Urban V. when dying, expressed these words: “I firmly believe all
that the Holy Catholic Church holds and teaches; and if I ever
advanced doctrines contrary to the church I retract and subject
them to its censure." Here is one pope, says Fleury, who did not
think himself infallible.—Eccles. Hist. 1. 97, n. 18.
In 1378, the cardinals, assembled to give a successor to Gregory XI.
proclaimed Barthelemi Pregnano, who took the name of Urban VI., and they
a few months after withdrew to Fondi, where they elected Robert of
Geneva, or Clement VII.: they pretended that the election of Urban was
but a formality to appease the fury of a people which wished to control
their choice. Clement was installed in Avignon: France, Spain, Scotland
and Sicily acknowledged him: the rest of Europe supported Urban, who
resided at Rome, and published in England a crusade against France.
Urban died in 1389, and the cardinals of his party supplied his place by
Peter Tomacelli or Boniface IX. On the other hand, Clement being
deceased in 1394, the French cardinals raised to the pontificate Peter
de Lune, a Spaniard, who was called Benedict XIII. Modes of
reconciliation were proposed from all quarters; France especially
evinced her anxiety to extinguish the schism: but neither of the
pontiffs would lis-ten to relinquishing the tiara; and the spiritual
arms directed by each pope against the other became harmless in their
hands. What one did against the supporters of the other; what dangers
they encountered; what cardinals, what kings, what cities, they
excommunicated; how many threats, how many bulls, how many censures they
published, we will not undertake to relate here: we shall only remark,
that the Church of France, after useless efforts to reestablish concord,
ended by withdrawing, in the year 1298, from obedience to either one or
the other pontiff.:
“We,” says Charles VI.,
“supported by
“the princes of our blood, and by many others, and
“with us the church of our kingdom, as well the
“clergy as the people, we, altogether withdraw from
“obedience to Pope Benedict XIII. as from that of
“his adversary. We desire that henceforth no
“person pay to Benedict, his collectors, or other
“officers, any ecclesiastical revenues or emoluments:
“and we strictly forbid all our subjects from obeying
“him or his officers in any matter whatever.”
Villaret²⁷³ adds, that Benedict having caused a report to be spread,
that the French were desirous to withdraw from obedience to him in order
to substitute a pope of their own nation, the king to do away such
suspicions, declared, in his letters, that any pope would be agreeable
to him, whether African, Arab or Indian, provided he did not dishonour
by his passions the chair of St. Peter.
The French profited by these events to repress the exactions of the
pontifical court. The churches were restored the right of freely
electing their prelates, and collators the disposal of other benefices.
Boniface IX. had perfected the art of enriching the Holy See; he had, as
Fleury observed,²⁷⁴ doubly need of money, for himself, and, to support
Ladislaus at Naples against the house of Anjou. We may read in
Fleury,²⁷⁵ how the clergy, who possessed benefices at Rome, paid for
the favour of being examined; how Boniface in the second and third year
of his pontificate, dated as of the first the bulls for benefices; how
he exacted compensation for this antedate; how he extended to prelacies
the right of first fruits, that is, the reservation of the revenue of
each benefice for the first year; how he kept couriers throughout Italy,
to be apprised, without delay, of the sickness or death of prelates or
other dignitaries, and in order to sell twice, or thrice, the same abbey
or church; how, by clauses of preference, he revoked the reservation,
and the survivorship, the price of which he had received: how he would
even annul the preferences which paid a higher price; how in fine, this
traffick, combining with the plague, and the consequent rapid mortality
of the incumbents, brought into the treasury of the apostolic see, the
innumerable contributions of all those who obtained, hoped for, or
coveted, a rich or a poor ecclesiastical benefice.
²⁷³ Hist, of France, vol. xii. p. 270,271.
²⁷⁴ Eccles. Hist. 1. 99. n.-26.
²⁷⁵ Ibid. n. 26, 27,28.
It was, without doubt, impossible but that these scandalous abuses,
multiplied and extended through the lapse of time from Hildebrand to
Boniface IX. and Benedict XIII., should excite the indignation of
upright minds and honest hearts. The French, much more christianized in
the fourteenth century than the people of Italy or Germany, evinced, by
this alone, more zeal in repressing the irregularities and excesses of
the clergy. They had seconded Philip the Fair against Boniface VIII.;
under Philip of Valois, Peter de Cugnieres had expressed their
honourable wishes; and more than twenty years before their renunciation
of Benedict XIII. as of Boniface IX. they had, under Charles V. enquired
into the limits of ecclesiastical authority. A monument of this
discussion has been preserved to us under the title of “The Verger’s
dream, or Disputation between the clerk and the squire:”²⁷⁶ a work the
author of which is not well known; but which we would attribute to John
de Lignano, or to Charles de Louvieres, rather than to any other. The
clerk in it claims for the successor of St. Peter, the title of
Vicar-General of Jesus Christ upon earth.—The squire distinguishes two
eras in our Saviour’s history, one of preaching and humility before his
death, the other of power and of glory after his resurrection. St Peter,
according to the squire and the pope as well as St. Peter, can represent
but the poor and the modest: Jesus, preaching the gospel, and affecting
over thrones and temporal things, no sort of pretension, acknowledging
that his kingdom is not of this world, submitting himself to the civil
power, and, in fine, rendering to Cesar, that which to Cesar belongs.
²⁷⁶ “The Verger’s dream,” one of the most ancient monuments of French
literature and of the liberties of the Gallican Church, occupies
the half of a folio volume, in the collection of proofs of, and
treatises on these liberties.