Chapter IV: From Exile to Supremacy (1)

[Sidenote: [1305-1513 A.D.]]

The period in the papal history has arrived which in the Italian writers is called the Babylonish Captivity; it lasted more than seventy years (from 1305 to 1376). Rome is no longer the metropolis of Christendom; the pope is a French prelate. The successor of St. Peter is not on St. Peter’s throne; he is environed with none of the traditionary majesty or traditionary sanctity of the Eternal City; he has abandoned the holy bodies of the apostles, the churches of the apostles. It is perhaps the most marvellous part of its history that the papacy, having sunk so low, sank no lower; that it recovered from its degradation; that, from a satellite, almost a slave of the king of France, the pontiff ever emerged again to be an independent potentate; and, although the great line of mediæval popes, of Gregory, of Alexander III, and the Innocents, expired in Boniface VIII, he could resume even his modified supremacy. There is no proof so strong of the vitality of the papacy as that it could establish the law that wherever the pope is, there is the throne of St. Peter; that he could cease to be bishop of Rome in all but in name, and then take back again the abdicated bishopric.

Never was revolution more sudden, more total, it might seem more enduring in its consequences. The close of the last century had seen Boniface VIII advancing higher pretensions, if not wielding more actual power than any former pontiff; the acknowledged pacificator of the world, the arbiter between the kings of France and England, claiming and exercising feudal as well as spiritual supremacy over many kingdoms, bestowing crowns as in Hungary, awarding the empire; with millions of pilgrims at the jubilee in Rome, still the centre of Christendom, paying him homage which bordered on adulation and pouring the riches of the world at his feet. The first decade of the new century is not more than half passed; Pope Clement V is a voluntary prisoner, but not the less a prisoner in the realm, or almost within the precincts of France; struggling in vain to escape from the tyranny of his inexorable master, and to break or elude the fetters wound around him by his own solemn engagements. He is almost forced to condemn his predecessor for crimes of which he could hardly believe him guilty; to accept a niggardly, and perhaps never-fulfilled penance from men almost murderers of a pope; to sacrifice, on evidence which he himself manifestly mistrusted, the Templars, one of the great military orders of Christendom, to the hatred or avarice of Philip. The pope, from lord over the freedom of the world, has ceased to be a free agent.[b]

CLEMENT V

[Sidenote: [1305-1311 A.D.]]

The pontiffs being at a distance, the Ghibelline faction in Italy, which was hostile to the pontiffs, assumed greater boldness than formerly, and not only invaded and laid waste the territories of St. Peter, but also assailed the pontifical authority by their publications. Hence a number of cities revolted from the popes; Rome itself became the parent and fomenter of tumults, cabals, and civil wars; and the laws and decrees sent thither from France were publicly treated with contempt, and not merely by the nobles but also by the common citizens. A great part of Europe followed the example of Italy; and numberless examples show that the people of Europe attributed far less power to the fulminations and decrees issued from France than to those issued from Rome. Various seditions, therefore, were raised in one place and another against the pontiffs, which they were unable to subdue and put down, notwithstanding that the inquisitors were most active in the discharge of their functions.

As the French pontiffs could derive but little revenue from Italy, which was rent into factions, seditious, and devastated, they were obliged to devise new modes of raising money. They, therefore, not only sold indulgences to the people more frequently than formerly, to the great indignation of kings and princes, but they likewise required enormous prices to be paid for their letters or bulls of every kind. In this thing John XXII showed himself peculiarly adroit and shrewd; for though he did not first invent the regulations and fees of the apostolic chancery, yet the Romish writers admit that he enlarged them and reduced them to a more convenient form. He also is said to have imposed that tribute which under the title of _annates_ is customarily paid to the pontiffs; yet the first commencement of it was anterior to that age. Moreover, these French pontiffs, subverting the rights of election, assumed the power of conferring all sacred offices, whether high or low, according to their own pleasure; by which means they raised immense sums of money. Hence, under these pontiffs, those most odious terms reservation, provision, and expectative, rarely used before, were now everywhere heard, and they called forth the bitterest complaints from all the nations of Europe; and these complaints increased immeasurably when some of the pontiffs, John XXII, Clement VI, Gregory XI, publicly announced that they had reserved all churches to themselves, and that they would provide for all without exception, by virtue of the sovereign right which Christ had conferred on the vicars, or in the plenitude of their power. By these and other artifices for filling their treasury and amassing property these indiscreet pontiffs heaped additional odium on the apostolic see, and thus weakened very considerably the papal empire, which began to decline from the time of Boniface.

Clement V was governed all his life by the will and pleasure of Philip the Fair, king of France. Guillaume de Nogaret, the implacable foe of Boniface VIII, though excommunicated, resolutely prosecuted his own cause and that of King Philip against Boniface in the papal court; a transaction which, we believe, is without a parallel. Philip wished to have the body of Boniface disinterred and publicly burned. With great difficulty Clement averted this infamy by his entreaties and advice; but in everything else he had to obey the king. Accordingly he abrogated the laws enacted by Boniface, granted the king five years’ tithes, absolved Nogaret from all crime, after imposing on him a slight penance, which he never performed; restored the inhabitants of Anagni to their former reputable and good standing, and held a general council at Vienne, 1311, that Philip’s pleasure might be gratified in the suppression of the Templars.[c]

THE FATE OF THE TEMPLARS

[Sidenote: [1311-1313 A.D.]]

The end of Clement himself and of Clement’s master, the king of France, drew near. But the pope and the king must be preceded into the realm of darkness and to the judgment-seat of heaven by other victims. The tragedy of the Templars had not yet drawn to its close.[107] The four great dignitaries of the order, the grand-master De Molay, Guy the commander of Normandy, son of the dauphin of Auvergne, the commander of Aquitaine Godfrey de Gonaville, the great visitor of France Hugues de Peraud, were still pining in the royal dungeons. It was necessary to determine on their fate. The king and the pope were now equally interested in burying the affair forever in silence and oblivion. So long as these men lived uncondemned, undoomed, the order was not extinct. A commission was named. The grand-master and the rest were found guilty, and were to be sentenced to perpetual imprisonment.

Six years of dreary imprisonment had passed over their heads; of their valiant brethren the most valiant had been burned alive, the recreants had purchased their lives by confession; the pope in a full council had condemned and dissolved the order. If a human mind, a mind like that of De Molay, not the most stubborn, could be broken by suffering and humiliation, it must have yielded to this long and crushing imprisonment. The cardinal-archbishop of Albi ascended a raised platform; he read the confessions of the knights, the proceedings of the court; he enlarged on the criminality of the order, on the holy justice of the pope, and the devout, self-sacrificing zeal of the king; he was proceeding to the final, the fatal sentence. At that instant the grand-master advanced; his gesture implored silence; judges and people gazed in awe-struck apprehension.

In a calm, clear voice De Molay spoke: “Before heaven and earth, on the verge of death, where the least falsehood bears like an intolerable weight upon the soul, I protest that we have richly deserved death, not on account of any heresy or sin of which ourselves or our order have been guilty, but because we have yielded, to save our lives, to the seductive words of the pope and of the king; and so by our confessions brought shame and ruin on our blameless, holy, and orthodox brotherhood.”

The cardinals stood confounded; the people could not suppress their profound sympathy. The assembly was hastily broken up; the provost was commanded to conduct the prisoners back to their dungeons: “To-morrow we will hold further council.”

But on the moment that the king heard these things, without a day’s delay, without the least consultation with the ecclesiastical authorities, he ordered them to death as relapsed heretics. On the island in the Seine, where now stands the statue of Henry IV, between the king’s garden on one side and the convent of the Augustinian monks on the other, the two pyres were raised (two out of the four had shrunk back into their ignoble confessions). It was the hour of vespers when these two aged and noble men were led out to be burned. Both, as the smoke rose to their lips, as the fire crept up to their vital parts, continued solemnly to aver the innocence, the Catholic faith of the order. The king himself beheld this hideous spectacle.

[Sidenote: [1313-1316 A.D.]]

The wonder and the pity of the times which immediately followed not only arrayed De Molay in the robes of the martyr, but gave him the terrible language of a prophet. “Clement, iniquitous and cruel judge, I summon thee within forty days to meet me before the throne of the Most High.” According to some accounts this fearful sentence included the king, by whom, if uttered, it might have been heard. The earliest allusion to this awful speech does not contain that striking particularity which, if part of it, would be fatal to its credibility--the precise date of Clement’s death. It was not till the year after that Clement and King Philip passed to their account. The poetic relation of Godfrey de Paris simply states that De Molay declared that God would revenge their death on their unrighteous judges. The rapid fate of these two men during the next year might naturally so appal the popular imagination as to approximate more closely the prophecy and its accomplishment. At all events it betrayed the deep and general feeling of the cruel wrong inflicted on the order; while the unlamented death of the pope, the disastrous close of Philip’s reign, and the crimes of his family seemed as declarations of heaven as to the innocence of their noble victims.

The health of Clement V had been failing for some time. From his court, which he held at Carpentras, he set out in hopes to gain strength from his native air at Bordeaux. He had hardly crossed the Rhone when he was seized with mortal sickness at Roquemaure. The papal treasure was seized by his followers, especially his nephew; his remains were treated with such utter neglect that the torches set fire to the catafalque under which he lay, not in state. His body, covered only with a single sheet, all that his rapacious retinue had left to shroud their forgotten master, was half burned (not, like those of the Templars, on his living body) before alarm was raised. His ashes were borne back to Carpentras and solemnly interred.

Clement left behind him evil fame. He died shamefully rich. To his nephew (nepotism had begun to prevail in its baleful influence) he bequeathed not less than 300,000 golden florins, under the pretext of succour to the Holy Land. He had died still more wealthy but that his wealth was drained by more disgraceful prodigality. It was generally believed that the beautiful Brunisand de Foix, countess of Talleyrand Périgord, was the pope’s mistress; to her he was boundlessly lavish, and her influence was irresistible even in ecclesiastical matters. Rumour ran that her petitions to the lustful pontiff were placed upon her otherwise unveiled bosom. Italian hatred of a transalpine pope, Guelfic hatred of a Ghibelline pope, may have lent a too greedy ear to these disreputable reports; but the large mass of authorities is against the pope; in his favour, hardly more than suspicious silence.[b]

JOHN XXII TO URBAN V

[Sidenote: [1316-1333 A.D.]]

On the death of Clement, 1314, there were violent contests among the cardinals respecting the election of a successor, the French demanding a French pontiff and the Italians an Italian. After two years the French gained the victory; and in 1316, Jacques d’Euse of Cahors, cardinal of Porto, was made head of the church, and assumed the pontifical name of John XXII. He was not destitute of learning, but was crafty, insolent, weak, imprudent, and avaricious, as even those who honour his memory do not positively deny. He rendered himself notorious by many imprudent and unsuccessful enterprises, but especially by his unfortunate contest with the emperor, Ludwig of Bavaria. There was a contest for the empire of Germany between Ludwig of Bavaria and Frederick of Austria, each being chosen emperor by a part of the electors in the year 1314. John declared that the decision of this controversy belonged to him. But Ludwig, having conquered his rival in battle and taken him prisoner, in the year 1322, assumed the government of the empire, without consulting the pontiff, and refused to submit a cause which had been decided by the sword to another trial before the pontiff.

John was greatly offended at this, and in the year 1324 divested the emperor of all title to the imperial crown. Ludwig, in return, accused the pontiff of corrupting the faith, or of heresy; and appealed to the decision of a council. Exasperated by this and other things, the pontiff, in the year 1327, again divested the emperor of all his authority and power, and laid him under excommunication. In revenge for this injury the emperor, in the year 1328, at Rome, publicly declared John unworthy of the pontificate; and substituted in his place Pietro di Corvara, a Franciscan monk, and one of those who disagreed with the pontiff; and he, assuming the name of Nicholas V, crowned Ludwig emperor. But in the year 1330, this imperial pontiff voluntarily abdicated his office, and surrendered himself into the hands of John, who kept him a prisoner at Avignon till his death. Thus John continued to reign in spite of the emperor, as did the emperor in spite of the pontiff.

On the side of Ludwig stood the whole mass of the Fratricelli, the Beghards (or Beguins) of every description, and the Spirituals, or more rigid among the Franciscans; and these, being scattered over a large part of Europe, and supported by the protection of Ludwig, everywhere assailed John with reproaches and criminations, both orally and in books, and charged him with religious apostasy. The pontiff, however, was not greatly injured by these private attacks; but towards the close of his life he fell under the disapprobation and censure of nearly the whole church. For in the years 1331 and 1332, he taught in some public discourses that departed souls would indeed behold Christ, but would not see the face of God or the divine nature until their reunion with the body at the last day. With this doctrine, Philip VI, the king of France, was highly displeased; the theologians of Paris condemned it in 1333; and both the friends and the foes of the pontiff were opposed to it. For it appeared to them that the pontiff detracted much from the blessedness of departed spirits. To so great opposition John, though naturally pertinacious, had to give way. He therefore first apologised for the doctrine; and afterwards, when near the point of death, 1334, he did not indeed abandon it, but he qualified it by saying that he believed souls in the intermediate state saw the divine essence, as far as the state and condition of the disembodied spirit would permit. But this declaration did not satisfy his adversaries. Hence, after various disputes, his successor Benedict XII terminated the controversy, according to the decision of the Parisian doctors, by declaring the true faith to be that the souls of the blessed, when separate from the body, fully and perfectly behold the divine nature, or God himself. Benedict could do this without impeaching his predecessor; for John, when dying, submitted his opinion to the judgment of the church, lest, perhaps, he should after death be classed among heretics.

[Sidenote: [1333-1362 A.D.]]

On the death of John, 1334, new contests between the French and the Italians, respecting the choice of a pontiff, divided the college of cardinals. But near the close of the year, Jacques de Nouveau called Fournier, a Frenchman, cardinal of St. Prisca, was chosen, and assumed the name of Benedict XII. Historians allow him the praise of being an upright and honest man, no less free from avarice than from the lust of rule. During his reign the controversy with the emperor Ludwig was at rest. For although he did not restore him to church communion, being prevented, as is reported by the king of France, yet he did not attempt anything against him. He saw the existing evils in the church, and some of them, as far as he could, he removed; in particular he laboured to reform by decrees and ordinances the orders of the monks, both mendicant and opulent. But death removed him, when he was contemplating more and greater changes, in 1342. Overlook superstition, which was the common fault of his age, and we shall find nothing to prevent us from declaring this pontiff to have been a right-spirited man.

Of a different spirit was his successor, Clement VI, who was likewise a Frenchman, named Pierre Roger, and cardinal of St. Nereus and St. Achilles. To say nothing of his other deeds, that are little to be commended, he trod in the steps of John XXII by his provisions and reservations of churches, which was evidence of a shameful avarice; further, he conferred the most important spiritual offices on foreigners and Italians, which produced controversies between him and the kings of France and England; and, lastly, he demonstrated the arrogance and pride of his heart, among other things, by renewing the war with Ludwig the Bavarian. For, in the year 1343, he hurled new thunders at the emperor; and finding these to be contemned by Ludwig, in the year 1346, he devoted him again to execration; and persuaded the princes of Germany to elect Charles IV, grandson of Henry VII, for their emperor. A civil war would now have broken out in Germany, had not the death of Ludwig, in 1347, prevented it. Clement followed him to the grave, in 1352, famous for nothing but his zeal for exalting the majesty of the pontiffs, and for adding Avignon, which he bought of Joanna queen of Naples, to St. Peter’s patrimony.

[Sidenote: [1362-1378 A.D.]]

There was more moderation and probity in Innocent VI, or Etienne d’Albert, a Frenchman, previously bishop of Ostia, who governed the church ten years, and died in 1362. He favoured his own relatives too much; but in other respects encouraged the pious and the well-informed, held the monks to their duty, abstained from reserving churches, and did many things worthy of commendation. His successor, Guillaume de Grimoard, abbot of St. Victor, at Marseilles, who assumed the name of Urban V, was also free from great faults, if we except those which are almost inseparable from the office of a pope. Overcome by the entreaties of the Romans, he removed to Rome in the year 1367, but returned again to Avignon in 1370, in order to make peace between the king of England and the king of France, and died there the same year.

He was succeeded by Pierre Roger, a Frenchman of noble birth, under the pontifical name of Gregory XI. He was inferior to his predecessors in virtue, but exceeded them in energy and audacity. Under him great and dangerous commotions disturbed Italy and the city of Rome. The Florentines, especially, waged fierce war with the Romish church, and were successful in it. To restore the tranquillity of Italy, and recover the territories and cities taken from the patrimony of St. Peter, Gregory, in the year 1376, transferred his residence from Avignon to Rome. One Catherine, a virgin of Siena, whom that credulous age took to be a prophetess divinely inspired, came to Avignon, and by her exhortations greatly contributed to this measure. But Gregory soon after repented of his removal; for by their long absence from Italy the authority of the pontiffs was so fallen there that the Romans and the Florentines had no scruple to insult and abuse him in various ways. He therefore purposed to return to Avignon, but was prevented by death, which removed him from among living men in the year 1378.

After the death of Gregory XI, the cardinals being assembled to provide a successor, the Roman people, fearing lest a Frenchman should be elected who would remove to Avignon, demanded, with furious clamours and threats, that an Italian should be placed at the head of the church without delay. The terrified cardinals proclaimed Bartolommeo Prignani, who was a Neapolitan by birth, and archbishop of Bari, to be elected pontiff; and he assumed the name of Urban VI. This new pontiff, by his coarse manners, his injudicious severity, and his intolerable haughtiness, alienated the minds of all from him, but especially the cardinals. These, therefore, withdrew to Fondi, a city in the kingdom of Naples, and there created another pontiff, Robert count of Geneva, who took the name of Clement VII, alleging that Urban was elected only in pretence, in order to quiet the rage of the people of Rome. Which of these was the legitimate and true pontiff still remains uncertain, nor can it be fully ascertained from the records and documents which have been published in great abundance by both parties. Urban continued at Rome; Clement removed to Avignon in France.

Thus the unity of the Latin church, as existing under one head, came to an end at the death of Gregory XI; and that most unhappy disunion ensued, which is usually denominated “the great schism of the West.” For during fifty years the church had two or three heads; and the contemporary pontiffs assailed each other with excommunications, maledictions, and insidious measures. The calamities and distress of those times are indescribable. For besides the perpetual contentions and wars between the pontifical factions, which were ruinous to great numbers, involving them in loss of life or of property, nearly all sense of religion was in many places extinguished, and wickedness daily acquired greater impunity and boldness. The clergy, previously corrupt, now laid aside even the appearance of piety and godliness, while those who called themselves Christ’s vicegerents were at open war with each other; and the conscientious people, who believed that no one could be saved without living in subjection to Christ’s vicegerents, were thrown into the greatest perplexity and anxiety of mind. Yet both the church and the state received very considerable advantages from these great calamities. For the very sinews of pontifical power were cut by these dissensions, and no art could heal them any more; kings, too, and princes, who had before been in a sense the servants of the pontiffs, now became their judges and masters. Moreover, great numbers, possessing some measure of discernment, despising and disregarding pontiffs, fighting for dominion, committed themselves and their salvation to God alone, in full assurance that the church and religion might be safe and continue so, although without any visible head.[c]

THE GREAT SCHISM OF THE WEST (1378-1417 A.D.)

[Sidenote: [1378-1389 A.D.]]

Clement was immediately recognised as pope in Scotland, Savoy, and Lorraine, afterwards in Castile (1381), Aragon (1387), and Navarre (1390). On the other hand Germany, England, Denmark, Sweden, Poland, and Prussia remained on Urban’s side.

The war between the two popes was not only waged with sentences of excommunication, but in Italy with secular weapons also. Urban declared that Queen Joanna, by her secession from his side, had forfeited the kingdom of Naples, and granted it in fee to Charles, duke of Durazzo. On the other hand Joanna, under Clement’s influence, took Louis, duke of Anjou, at that time regent of France, for her adopted son and successor (1380). Charles meanwhile in a short time made himself master of the whole kingdom, took Joanna prisoner in 1381, and had her put to death, when Louis appeared in Italy at the head of an army (1382). Charles continued to maintain his ascendency, and Louis’ death (1384) would have been decisive as regards Naples in favour of Urban and Charles forever, had not differences forthwith arisen between the two latter, which increased to such a degree, when the headstrong pope went in person to Naples, that Urban pronounced sentence of dethronement and excommunication against Charles, and was consequently besieged by him in the castle of Lucera at Salerno (1385). He escaped to Genoa (September, 1385) without becoming wiser. By the cruel execution of five cardinals he made himself still more hateful. After Charles’ death (1386) by his impolitic refusal to invest his son Ladislaus (or Lancelot) with Naples, he exposed this kingdom afresh to the danger of falling under the dominion of France. The capital city was already conquered for the young Louis of Anjou (1387), and the whole kingdom would have fallen to him and the French pope, had not Urban’s successor, Boniface IX, at the right moment, invested Ladislaus (1390) and rendered him his powerful support. With a view to secure the states of the church against Louis, Boniface granted many towns and castles in fee to powerful nobles, and thus roused afresh in Rome a struggle for independence, which kept him long in banishment from the city. True, Louis was forced to quit Italy altogether (1400), and Ladislaus remained king of Naples. But this restless agitation in Rome increased, and was even supported by Ladislaus, who wished to make himself master of the city.

[Sidenote: [1389-1409 A.D.]]

As the schism lessened the revenues of the popes and increased their expenses, so it caused a fresh aggravation of those church oppressions which were already intolerable. The French pontiff, Clement VII, was obliged indeed to exercise the right of presentation to ecclesiastical offices, to which now also were added the _gratiæ exspectativæ_, according to the nod of the French court, upon which he was quite dependent; but in return for this the church of France, so long as her grievances were not too loudly expressed, was delivered over as a prey to his extortions. Tithes _vacantiæ_ and _annates_ were now the standing income of the papal cabinet. In addition to these Clement laid claim to the spoils of deceased prelates. His successor, Benedict XIII, wherever it was possible, surpassed him in these systems of impoverishment.

So long as Urban VI lived, the Roman curia was advantageously distinguished in this respect from that of Avignon. His successor, Boniface IX, on the contrary, imitated all the extortions of his rivals in France, but he far surpassed them in the simony which was practised quite publicly by himself and the members of his curia, and was even defended without any sense of shame. Thus at the end of this period both obediences were groaning under the weight of persecution. England alone repeatedly threw off every papal oppression, and in 1404 Hungary also followed her example.

In consequence of these church oppressions, which were the result of the schism, the religious scruples which were entertained with regard to it were strengthened, and earlier steps demanded for its settlement. The university of Paris in particular laboured with unshaken perseverance to bring the schism to a close. After she had long waited in vain for a sound agreement of the two popes betwixt themselves, she at last obtained permission from the court of France to interpose her opinion upon these events (1394). Benedict XIII, notwithstanding his promise made before his election, showed even less inclination than his predecessor to take serious steps to close the schism. To the urgent proposals of a French national synod in 1395 he returned only an evasive answer. The university nevertheless persevered in her endeavour, and at length contrived that Charles VI, king of France, should join with the emperor Wenceslaus in forcing both the popes to resign (1398).

The latter was in very truth too weak to keep his word; moreover he was himself deposed by the secret machinations of his pope Boniface IX (1400). On the other hand, by the decree of a new national synod France withdrew from the obedience of Benedict; Castile followed her example (1398), and this pope was kept a prisoner at Avignon. It was not till after the lapse of many years, and the breach of express engagements, that Benedict succeeded in regaining the church of France to his obedience (1403) by the help of the duke of Orleans, who at that time had won the ascendency at court. It was quickly manifest how little he meant to keep these promises; but as the Italian cardinals imposed similar engagements upon their new pope Innocent VII, on his election in 1404, even only with a view to save appearances, it was necessary to open negotiations. The fruitlessness of this proceeding increased the general discontent; France threatened her pope with a fresh withdrawal of allegiance (national council of January, 1407), when at length both the popes agreed upon a personal interview at Savona in September, 1407. Benedict appeared there in person; however, Gregory XII went only as far as Lucca, and opened fresh negotiations for another place of congress. This public breach of promise roused the Roman cardinals; they forsook their pope Gregory, and renounced their allegiance to him, at the same time that France withdrew from the obedience of Benedict. Benedict indeed escaped the imprisonment with which he was threatened, by flight to Perpignan; but the cardinals of both obediences united at Livorno (Leghorn) and summoned a general council at Pisa in March, 1409, with a view to the termination of the schism.

[Sidenote: [1378-1417 A.D.]]

The schism with its church oppression furnished the impulse, the weakness of the papal see gave the long desired opportunity for an unbiased trial of the existing state of the church; it led men to opinions which had hitherto only been mooted in violent struggles with the popes, and so not without an appearance of passion and party spirit; but now they struck root so deeply, even among the most faithful adherents of the church, that they could never again be entirely suppressed. Many an anxious gaze was turned backwards to the earlier and better ages of the church, in order to discover in its constitution the remedy for the scandals of the present. This was a problem of learning. Its representatives, the universities, particularly that of Paris, were listened to with eager attention, and attained an influence which was formidable even to the popes. This comparison of the present with the earlier ages of the church could not but lead to many convictions unfavourable to the papal see.

True there were but isolated individuals who advanced so far upon this line of thought as to wish the papacy quite removed from the church as the source of all her evils. But even its truest adherents now acknowledged the immoderate extension of papal power, and the monstrous exaggeration of the papal dignity. They discovered in the bent of the papacy to secular power the prime cause of all mischief, and even to the schism, and they wished the times back again when the emperors could convoke synods by their own authority to strangle a schism at its birth. No less general was the discontent expressed against the papal church oppressions, and the wish to remove them by limitations of the papal power. Hitherto only adversaries of the popes, at open war with them, had appealed to a general council as a higher authority, but during the schism circumstances led to a general acknowledgment that such a council must rank above the pope. After the Council of Pisa was summoned to terminate the contest between the two popes, and set a limit to the abuses of papal power, the canonists vied with each other in demonstrating this new opinion so injurious to the papacy, of the superiority of general councils to the pope, and thus the papal system of the last century seemed to be threatened with total overthrow.

RELATION OF THE NATIONAL CHURCHES TO THE STATE

The jealousies betwixt the ecclesiastical and secular tribunals arising from the immoderate extension of ecclesiastical jurisdiction still continued, but they began more and more to result in favour of the latter. In Germany the fundamental principle that secular causes belonged only to secular tribunals had been recognised long before, even by the prelates, who were themselves temporal lords of the land; it was, as a general rule, always maintained, though in individual cases the ecclesiastical tribunals continually overstepped their limits. But during the schism, the emperor Wenceslaus could only execute his decisions in things temporal, against the higher orders of the clergy, by deeds of violence. The cities continued to tax the excessive revenues of the ecclesiastical sovereignty. They either forbade altogether the increase of church property, or decreed that all fresh acquisitions should be alienated again in a year and a day, or required from the new revenues the customary taxes. Now that the parish priests, by their management of people’s wills, provided too well for themselves and for the church, it was determined that wills should only be made before the secular authorities. Paderborn even prohibited the multiplication of masses for souls. Still the popes wished to maintain a good understanding with the cities, and bind them to themselves by means of privileges.

During the schism many concessions were made to the nobles also; thus Boniface IX, in 1399 allowed Albert IV, duke of Austria, the _jus primarum precum_. The free Swiss by the priests’ law (_Pfaffenbrief_) in 1370 put an end to the encroachments of the ecclesiastical tribunals. In Italy the operation of the ecclesiastical tribunals, like the condition of the whole country, was very fluctuating. Under Ghibelline lords they were often quite suppressed. In France ecclesiastical jurisdiction had reached its greatest extension; the kings connived at it, because they wished to keep their bishops well inclined to themselves, and knew how to tax any irregularities of the ecclesiastical tribunals. On the other hand the barons were continually at issue with the prelates on this point, and from both sides there were unceasing complaints of usurpation. The remarkable negotiations which were instituted by command of King Philip of Valois with the prelates summoned before parliament (1329), owing to the king’s political aims, failed of their intended result. Immediately afterwards the clergy sought to establish their jurisdiction still firmer by decrees of councils. On the other hand a powerful resistance to these proceedings was being developed in parliament, which was now transforming itself into a standing corporation; this was especially manifest from the time of Charles V. Henceforth ecclesiastical jurisdiction was not only confined to its proper limits, but parliament claimed a certain degree of superintendence over it, and drew to itself the right of decision upon many points, which were at that time universally held to be ecclesiastical.

The earlier encroachments of the popes upon episcopal rights were still further increased by the fact that they now took to themselves entirely the appointment to ecclesiastical offices, and exercised the right of exemption in the highest degree, particularly during the schism. Thus the importance of the bishops in the church was small; they compensated themselves for this by secular honours and worldly enjoyment. The oppression which fell upon them from above they knew how to discharge upon those below, and so the lower orders of the clergy groaned beneath intolerable burdens.

MORAL CONDITION OF THE CLERGY

The moral condition of the clergy could not fail to degenerate still more in this period, in consequence of the manner in which ecclesiastical offices were generally bestowed, the example which the papal court gave, and the method in which the ecclesiastical jurisdiction was administered. In the chapters, where the stalls were for the most part benefices reserved for the nobles, as well as among the parochial clergy, there prevailed a depth of ignorance and an immorality which awakened indignation. The continued struggle of the synods against the dissoluteness of priests remained quite fruitless. The laity were only too glad to secure their wives and daughters from the sacerdotal ravishers, and accordingly favoured, at times even demanded, fixed alliances of their priests with concubines. Thus in many countries concubinage was publicly allowed among the priests, who were supposed to be too sacred for a matrimonial connection. The fines with which these excesses were visited by many synods were quickly changed into a welcome gratuity to the avarice of the bishops. Nevertheless, every attempt of the secular power to check these scandals was resisted by the church as an invasion of her rights.[d]

THE GREAT COUNCILS OF PISA AND CONSTANCE; JOHN HUSS

[Sidenote: [1409-1429 A.D.]]

The Council of Pisa, which was designed to heal the wounds of the divided church, unexpectedly inflicted upon her a new wound. On the 5th of June it passed a heavy sentence on each of the pontiffs; for it declared them both to be heretical, perjured, contumacious, unworthy of any honour, and no longer members of the church. As the next step, the council created Pietro Philarghi of Candia sovereign pontiff in their place, on the 26th of June; and he assumed the name of Alexander V. But the two pontiffs spurned the decrees of this council, and continued still to perform their functions. Benedict held a council at Perpignan, and Gregory assembled another at Austria, near Aquileia; but fearing the resentments of the Venetians, he went first to Gaeta, where he threw himself upon the protection of Ladislaus, king of Naples, and then fled, in 1412, to Rimini.

The church was thus divided among three pontiffs, who fiercely assailed each other with reciprocal excommunications, reproaches, and maledictions. Alexander V, who was elected in the Council of Pisa, died at Bologna in 1410. The sixteen cardinals, who were present in the city, immediately filled his place with Baltasare Cossa, a Neapolitan, who took the name of John XXIII, a man destitute of principle and of piety. From this war of the pontiffs vast evils arose which afflicted both the church and the state. Hence the emperor Sigismund, the king of France, and other kings and princes of Europe, spared no pains nor expense to restore harmony and bring the church again under one head. From the pontiffs it was found quite impossible to obtain any personal sacrifice for the peace of the church; so that no course remained but to assemble a general council of the whole church, to take cognisance of this great controversy. Such an assembly John XXIII, being prevailed on by the entreaties of Sigismund and hoping that it would favour his cause, appointed to be held at Constance in 1414. In this council were present the pontiff John, the emperor Sigismund, many princes of Germany, and ambassadors from the absent kings and princes of Europe, and from the republics.

The principal object of this great council was to extinguish the discord between the pontiffs; and this business was accomplished successfully. For having established by two solemn decrees, in the fourth and fifth sessions, that a pontiff is subject to a council of the whole church, and having most carefully substantiated the authority of councils, the fathers, on the 29th of May, 1415, removed John XXIII from the pontificate on account of various offences and crimes; for he had pledged himself to the council to resign the pontificate, and yet withdrew himself by flight. Gregory XII voluntarily resigned his pontificate on the 4th of July in the same year, through Carlo Malatesta. And Benedict XIII, on the 26th of July, 1417, was deprived of his rank as a pontiff by a solemn decree of the council. After these transactions, on the 11th of November, 1417, Otto Colonna was elected pontiff by the unanimous suffrages of the cardinals, and assumed the name of Martin V. Benedict XIII, who resided at Perpignan, resisted indeed, and claimed the rights and the dignity of a pontiff till his death, 1423; and after the death of this obstinate man, under the auspices of Alfonso, king of Sicily, Ægidius (Giles) Nuños, a Spaniard, was appointed to succeed him, by only two cardinals. He assumed the name of Clement VIII, and wished to be regarded as the legitimate pontiff; but in the year 1429 he was persuaded to resign the government of the church entirely to Martin V.

[Sidenote: [1407-1416 A.D.]]

The things done in this council for the repression and extirpation of heretics are not equally commendable; some of them, indeed, are quite inexcusable. Before the council sat, great religious commotions had arisen in several countries, but especially in Bohemia. There lived and taught at Prague, with much applause, an eloquent and learned man, by name John Huss, who acted as a professor of theology in the university and as a minister of holy things in the church. Vehemently did he declaim against priestly vices of every kind; which was generally done in that age, and no good man disapproved it. He likewise endeavoured, after the year 1408, to detach the university from acknowledging as pontiff Gregory XII, whom Bohemia had hitherto obeyed. This gave great offence to the archbishop of Prague and to the rest of the clergy, who were devoted partisans of Gregory. Hence arose great hostility between Huss and the archbishop, which the former kept up and increased by his discourses against the Romish court and the vices of the clergy.

To these first causes of hatred against Huss, which might easily have been surmounted, others were added of greater magnitude. First, he took the side of the Realists in philosophy, and, therefore, according to the usage of the age, goaded and pressed the Nominalists to the utmost of his power; yet their number was very considerable in the university of Prague, and their influence was not small. Afterwards, in the year 1408, he brought it about that, in the controversy between the Germans and the Bohemians respecting the number of votes, the decision was in favour of the Bohemians. By the laws of the university it was ordained that in academic discussions the Bohemians should have three votes, and the other three nations but one. The university was then divided into four nations, but the Bavarian, Polish, and Saxon were comprehended under the general name of the German nation. The usage had been that the Germans, who far exceeded the Bohemians in numbers, gave three votes and the Bohemians but one. Huss, therefore, either from partiality to his country or from hatred of the Nominalists, whom the greatest part of the Germans preferred to the Realists, obtained, by means of the vast influence at court which his eloquence gave him, a decree that the Germans should be deprived of the three votes and should be bidden to content themselves with one. This result of a long contest so offended the Germans that a great multitude of them, with the rector of the university, Johann Hofmann, at their head, left the university of Prague and retired to Leipzig, where Frederick the Wise, elector of Saxony, founded a university on their account in the year 1409. This event contributed much to increase the odium against Huss and to work his ruin. The Germans being ejected from Prague, Huss inveighed more freely than before against the vices of the clergy, and also publicly preached and recommended the opinions and the books of John Wycliffe, the Englishman. [See the history of England.] Being accused before John XXIII, in the year 1410, he was excommunicated by that pontiff. Spurning this thunderbolt, he continued, with general applause, first by word of mouth, afterwards in various writings, to lash the sores of the Roman church and of the priest of every degree.

This good man, who was in love with real piety, but perhaps had sometimes too much warmth and not sufficient prudence, being summoned to the Council of Constance, went thither on the faith of a safe-conduct given by the emperor Sigismund, with a view to demonstrate his innocence and prove them liars who talked of him as an apostate from the Roman church. And certainly he had not departed in things of any moment from the religion of his times; but had only inveighed severely against the pontiffs, the court of Rome, the more considerable clergy, and the monks; which in fact had the sanction of his times, and was daily done in the Council of Constance itself. Yet his enemies, who were numerous both in Bohemia and in the council, managed the procedure against him so artfully and successfully that, in violation of the public faith, he was cast into prison; and when he would not, according to the council’s order, confess himself guilty, he was adjudged a heretic, and burned alive, on the 6th day of July, 1415. Full of faith and the love of God, he sustained this punishment with admirable constancy. The same unhappy fate was borne with the same pious fortitude and constancy by Jerome of Prague, the companion of John Huss, who had come to Constance to support and aid his friend. He yielded at first through fear of death to the mandates of the council, and renounced those opinions which the council had condemned in him; but being retained still in prison, he resumed courage, again avowed those opinions, and was, therefore, committed to the flames on the 30th of May, 1416.

Before Huss and Jerome were condemned by the council, John Wycliffe, who was considered, and not altogether without reason, as their teacher, had been pronounced infamous, and condemned by a decree of the fathers. For on the fourth day of May, 1415, the council declared a number of opinions extracted from his writings to be abominable; and ordered all his books to be destroyed, and his bones to be burned. Not long after, on the 14th of June, they passed the famous decree that the sacred supper should be administered to the laity under one kind of bread only, forbidding communion under both kinds. For in the preceding year, 1414, Jacobellus (James) of Mies, incumbent of St. Michael’s church at Prague, by the instigation of a Parisian doctor, Peter of Dresden, had begun to celebrate the communion under both kinds, at Prague; which example many other churches followed. The subject being brought before the council by one of the Bohemian bishops, it considered a remedy to be required even for this heresy. By this decree at Constance, the communion of the laity under one kind obtained the force and authority of law in the Roman church.

[Sidenote: [1407-1431 A.D.]]

In the same year, the council placed among execrable errors, or heresies, an opinion of Jean Petit, a Parisian theologian, that tyrants might be lawfully slain by any private person. The party however, from whom this opinion came was not named, because he was supported by very powerful patrons. John duke of Burgundy employed assassins, in the year 1407, to murder Louis duke of Orleans. A great contest now arose, and Petit, an eloquent and ingenious man, pleaded the cause of John of Burgundy at Paris; and in order to justify his conduct he maintained that it is no sin to destroy a tyrant, without a trial of his cause, by force or fraud, or in any other manner, and even if the persons doing it are bound to him by an oath or covenant. By a tyrant, however, Petit did not understand the sovereign of a nation, but a powerful citizen, who abused his resources to the ruin of his king and country. The university of Paris passed a stern and severe sentence upon the author of so dangerous an opinion. The council, after several consultations, struck at the opinion, without naming its author. The new pontiff, however, Martin V, from fear of the Burgundian power, would not ratify even this mild sentence.

After these and some other transactions the council proceeded avowedly to the subject of a reformation of the church, in its “head and members,” as the language of that age was. For all Europe saw the need of such a reformation, and most ardently wished for it. Nor did the council deny that chiefly for this important object it had been called together. But the cardinals and principal men of the Romish court, for whose interest it was, especially, that the disorders of the church should remain untouched, craftily urged and brought the majority to believe that a business of such magnitude could not be managed advantageously, until after the election of a new pontiff. The new head of the church, however, Martin V, abused his power to elude the design of reformation; and manifested by his commands and edicts that he did not wish the church to be purged and restored to a sound state. The council, accordingly, after deliberating three years and six months, broke up on the 22nd of April, 1418, leaving the matter unaccomplished, and putting off that reformation, which all good men devoutly wished, to a council which should be called five years afterwards.

[Sidenote: [1431-1439 A.D.]]

Martin V, being admonished on the subject, after a long delay appointed this other council to be held at Pavia; and afterwards removed it to Siena, and lastly to Bâle. But at its very commencement, on the 21st February, 1431, he died; and was succeeded, in the month of March, by Gabriel Condolmieri, a Venetian, and bishop of Siena, who took the name of Eugenius IV. He sanctioned all that Martin had decreed about holding the council at Bâle; and accordingly it commenced on the 23rd of July, 1431, under the presidency of Cardinal Julian, as representative of the pontiff. Two objects especially were assigned to this celebrated council: first, a union between the Greeks and the Latins; and secondly, the reformation of the church, both in its “head and its members,” according to the resolution adopted in the Council of Constance. Now that the head, namely the sovereign pontiff, and all the members of the church, that is the bishops, priests, and monks, were in a very unsound state no one doubted. But when the fathers, by the very form of the council, by its mode and order of proceeding, and by its first decrees, showed an intention of performing in earnest what was expected of them, Eugenius IV became uneasy for a corrupt church under such physicians, and twice attempted to dissolve the council. This the fathers most firmly resisted; and they showed by the decrees of the Council of Constance, and by other arguments, that the council was superior in authority to a pontiff. This first contest between the pontiff and the council was brought to a close in the month of November, 1433; for the pontiff silently gave up the point, and in the month of December, by letters sent from Rome, gave the council his approbation.

After this the council prosecuted with energy the business upon which it had entered. The legates of the Roman pontiff were now admitted; but not until they had promised under oath to obey the decrees of the council, and particularly the decrees of the Council of Constance, asserting the dominion and jurisdiction of councils over the pontiffs. These very decrees of Constance, so odious to the pontiffs, were renewed in a public meeting of the fathers on the 26th of June, 1434. And on the 9th of June, 1435, annates, as they were called, were abolished, the pontifical legates in vain opposing it. On the 25th of March, 1436, a profession of faith was read, intended for the pope himself on the day of his election. The number of cardinals was reduced to twenty-four; and expectatives, reservations, and provisions were abolished.