HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH FROM THE APOSTOLIC AGE TO THE REFORMATION A.D. 64-1517 |
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BOOK VIII.
A.D. 1303-1418.
CHAPTER I.
BENEDICT XI. AND CLEMENT V.
A.D. 1303-1313.
The state of
affairs at the death of Boniface VIII (a.C. 1303) was
such as might well fill the chiefs of the Roman church with anxiety. The late
pope had provoked the most powerful sovereign in Christendom, had uttered
sentences of excommunication and deposition against him, and had fallen a
victim to his enmity. Philip had been supported in the contest by the prelates
and clergy, the nobles and the commonalty of the realm; and while such were the
relations between the Roman see and France, Boniface had also seriously
offended the rulers of some other countries. Was, then, his policy to be
carried out by his successor in defiance of all the fearful risks which beset
such a course, or was the papacy to endure submissively the indignities which
had been inflicted on it?
In the
conclave which met at Perugia for the election of a pope, the influence of the
Orsini family was predominant. On the 23rd of November—eleven days after the
death of Boniface—the choice of the cardinals fell on Nicolas Bocassini, bishop of Ostia, who took the name of Benedict,
and was at first reckoned as the tenth of that name, but was eventually styled
the eleventh. He was a native of Treviso, and was of very humble origin; he had
been general of the Dominican order; had been promoted to the cardinalate by
Boniface, who employed him on important missions to England and other
countries; and he had been one of the few who stood faithfully by his patron
throughout the outrages of Anagni. Bui if Benedict’s principles agreed with
those of Boniface, his character was mild and conciliatory, and his policy was
sincerely directed to the work of reconciling the spiritual with the temporal
power.
In
congratulating Benedict on his election, Philip the Fair expressed a hope that
he would redress the wrongs which his predecessor had committed against France.
But it was needless to urge such a request; the pope, without waiting to be entreated,
hastened to restore the “lost sheep” to the fold, by releasing the king
from his excommunication. He annulled all acts which might be to the prejudice
of the French crown or nation, and revoked all sentences which had been
incurred by neglect of Boniface’s citations to Rome, or by forbidding obedience
to those citations. He repealed or suspended various decrees of the late pope,
on the ground that they had been made without the advice of the cardinals. He
restored to the French chapters their rights of election; to the universities
their privileges of teaching and of conferring degrees; and he ratified all the
appointments which had been made since the time of Boniface’s inhibitions. The
bull Clericis laicos was so far mitigated as to allow the payment of all voluntary subsidies by the
clergy to the sovereign, and the tithe of benefices was granted to Philip for
two years. The Colonnas were restored to their
position, and to so much of their property as had not been bestowed on others,
although the rebuilding of Palestrina was forbidden unless the pope’s
permission should be obtained; and the cardinals of the family were reinstated
in their dignity, although they did not as yet recover the full exercise of its
privileges. Even the actors in the outrage of Anagni were forgiven, with
exception of those who had actually plundered the papal treasures, and of
Nogaret, whose case was reserved for the pope’s special judgment.
But these
concessions were insufficient to satisfy the enmity of Philip against the
memory of his antagonist. With the royal sanction a libellous life of the late
pope was circulated, describing him, under the name of “Maleface”,
as a wicked sorcerer, whose end had been attended by terrible prodigies; and a
petition was contrived, in which the French people were made to entreat that
the king would take measures for getting him declared a heretic, as having
notoriously died in heresy and in mortal sin, without sign of repentance. By
such means only (the petitioners were made to say) could the independence of
the kingdom be asserted. An emissary of the king, Peter of Peredo,
prior of Chese, had been employed during the last
days of Boniface’s life in endeavouring to stir up the Roman clergy against
him. With the same object he now put forth a long list of points in which he
represented Boniface as having encroached on the rights of the clergy by acts
which he contrasted with the alleged system of earlier popes; and it was urged
that a general council should be assembled at Lyons, or some other convenient
and neutral place. To this proposal Benedict gave no answer.
Rome was
again distracted by the factions of its cardinals and nobles, which were
complicated and embittered by the influence of the French king; and the pope,
unsupported by any family connexions, found himself unable to hold his ground.
It was believed that he intended to seek a refuge in Lombardy; but when, on the
approach of the heats of summer, he announced an intention of going to Assisi,
it was at first opposed by the cardinals, although through the influence of
Matthew Orsini, the most important member of the college, he was able to carry
out his design, and reached Perugia.
In various
directions Benedict found it necessary to assert his authority. He had rebuked
Frederick of Trinacria for presuming to reckon the
years of his reign from the time when he assumed the crown instead of dating
from the papal acknowledgment of him as king. He had endeavoured to pacify the
exasperated factions of Florence, where about this time the great poet, who has
invested the squabbles of Whites and Blacks with an interest not their own,
attempted, with some fellow exiles, to surprise the city, and was condemned to
banishment without hope of return. But Benedict’s legate was driven to flight, and
the pope avenged the indignity by an anathema against the Florentines.
It was,
however, on the side of France that difficulties were most to be feared. The
bitterness with which the persecution of Boniface’s memory was urged on
compelled Benedict, unless he would submit to the utter degradation of the
papacy, to depart from that policy of conciliation which best accorded with his
desires. He refused William of Nogaret’s petition for
provisional absolution and declined to treat with him as an ambassador from the
king; and on the 9th of June he issued a bull, by which, with much strength of
denunciation, Nogaret, with fourteen others who had been especially concerned
in the seizure of Boniface and the plunder of his treasures, together with all
their abettors, was declared excommunicate, and was cited to appear for
judgment on the festival of St. Peter and St. Paul. But two days before that
term Benedict died after a short illness, produced by eating largely of figs
which had been brought to him as a present, and in which it was commonly
suspected that poison had been administered by some enemy.
For many
months after the death of Benedict the cardinals were unable to agree in the
choice of a successor. The nineteen members of whom the college then consisted
were divided between a French and an Italian party—the Italians headed by
Matthew Orsini, who was supported by Francis Gaetani, a nephew of Boniface
VIII; while the chiefs of the French party were Napoleon Orsini and Nicolas Ubertini, bishop of Ostia, but more commonly styled
cardinal of Prato, an able and subtle Dominican, who was the confidential agent
of king Philip. At length the citizens of Perugia became impatient of the
delay, and threatened to force an election by shutting up the cardinals in conclave
and stinting their allowance of provisions; but before this threat was carried
into act, a compromise was settled on terms which the cardinal of Prato had
proposed to Gaetani—that the Italians should name three candidates from beyond
the Alps, and that from these three the French cardinals should select a pope.
This arrangement was accepted by the Italians in the belief that the power of
limiting the election to three candidates would secure the triumph of their
party; but the cardinal of Prato, according to the story which has been
commonly believed, pursued a deeper policy. Knowing the men who were most
likely to be put forward, he trusted that the French, by having the final
choice in their hands, would be able to gain over the most formidable of their
opponents. Of the three who were nominated by the Italians, he fixed on
Bertrand d’Agoust or Du Got, archbishop of Bordeaux,
a Gascon of noble family, who had been a thorough partisan of Boniface, had
been indebted to that pope for the metropolitan see of Bordeaux, and had
attended his synod of November 1302. The archbishop was a subject of the king
of England, and therefore owed no immediate allegiance to the French crown; he
had made himself obnoxious to Philip, and had more especially offended the king’s
brother, Charles of Valois. Yet this was the man in whom Nicolas of Prato,
reckoning on his notorious vanity and ambition, saw a fit instrument for
bringing the papacy into subserviency to France. Between the nomination of the
three and the final choice of a pope there was to be an interval of forty days.
Within eleven days a courier despatched by cardinal Nicolas arrived at Paris;
and it is said that within six days more the king held a secret interview with
the archbishop of Bordeaux in the forest of St. Jean d’Angely.
In consideration of receiving the papacy, the archbishop is reported to have
submitted to six conditions, of which five were expressed at the time, while
the sixth was to be reserved until the occasion should come for the performance
of it. Each party swore to the other on the holy Eucharist, and the future pope
gave his brother and his two nephews as hostages for his good faith. He bound himself (1) to reconcile the king perfectly with the
church; (2) Philip and his agents were to be readmitted to communion; (3) the
king was to be allowed the lithe of the ecclesiastical income of France for
five years, towards the expenses of the Flemish war; (4) the memory of pope
Boniface was to be undone and annulled; (5) the Colonnas were to be restored to the cardinalate, and certain friends of the king were to
be promoted to the same dignity. As to the sixth condition, attempts have been
made to gather it by conjectures from the sequel of the history—that it related
to the empire, to the order of the Templars, or to the settlement of the papal court in France.
But this
story, which in itself appears suspicious from the fullness of detail with
which transactions so mysterious are related, has of late been contradicted in
almost every point; and, more especially, a document has been discovered which
proves that, at the time of the alleged interview in the forest of St. Jean d’Angely, the archbishop was engaged in a provincial
visitation which must have prevented his meeting Philip there or elsewhere. It
would seem, therefore, that the negotiations between the king and the prelate
were carried on through the agency of other persons; and the particular
conditions which are said to have been imposed on Du Got may have been inferred
from his later conduct. That he had thoroughly bound himself to Philip’s
interest is, however, unquestionable. On the 5th of June 1305 the archbishop
was elected to the papal chair, and each of the rival parties among the
cardinals suppose him to be its own.
But soon
after the election the Italian cardinals, who had requested the new pope to
consult the interests of the church by repairing to Italy, were surprised at
receiving from him a summons to attend his coronation, not at Rome, but at
Lyons. Matthew Orsini, the senior of the college, is said to have told the
cardinal of Prato that, since he had succeeded in bringing the papal court
beyond the mountains, it would be long before it would return; “for,” he added,
“I know the character of the Gascons”.
On St.
Martin’s day the coronation of the new pope, who took the name of Clement V,
was solemnized. The king of England had excused himself from the ceremony, on
account of his war with the Scots; but Philip of France and king James of
Majorca were present, and, as the pope rode from the church of St Just towards
his lodgings, the king of France held his horse’s reins for part of the way.
But as the procession was passing near an old and ruinous wall, on which many
spectators were crowded together, the wall gave way. The pope was thrown from
his horse, and his crown was rolled in the mud; the duke of Brittany, who was
leading the horse, was killed; and many other persons, among whom was Clement’s own brother, perished. The accident was regarded
as ominous of evil to come.
Another near
relative of Clement was soon after slain in an affray which arose out of a
disreputable amour, and, in consequence of the exasperated feeling of the
citizens, the pope thought it well to withdraw from Lyons to Bordeaux. As an
instance of the manner in which the resources of cathedrals and monasteries
were drained by the expense of entertaining him and his train on this journey,
it is recorded that, after his departure from Bourges, the archbishop, Giles
Colonna, found himself obliged to seek the means of subsistence in the daily
payments which were allowed to members of his chapter for attendance at the
offices of the cathedral. During five years Clement sojourned in various parts
of France, until at length he fixed his residence at Avignon, a city held under
the imperial kingdom of Arles by the count of Provence, who, as king of Naples,
was also a vassal of the papal see. But, although nominally beyond the French
territory, the popes at Avignon were under the influence of the kings of
France; and the seventy years’ captivity in Babylon (as it was styled by the
Italians) greatly affected the character of the papacy. Among the popes of this
time were some whose memory deserves to be held in very high respect; but the
corruption of the court grew to a degree before unknown, its exactions raised
the indignation of all western Christendom, and its moral tone became grossly
scandalous. Clement himself openly entertained as his mistress Brunisenda de Foix, the wife of Count Talleyrand of Perigord, and lavished on her insatiable rapacity the
treasures which he wrung out from the subjects of his spiritual dominion.
Simony was practised without limit and without shame; and some payments which
had formerly been made to the bishops, such as the first fruits of English benefices,
were now seized by the popes themselves. Ecclesiastical discipline was
neglected, and the sight of the corruptions of Avignon swelled the numbers of
the sectaries who regarded the church as apostate; while in the meantime the
ancient capital of western Christendom was left to neglect and decay. But,
whereas the Italians denounce the corruption of the papal court as an effect of
its settlement in France, French writers represent the luxury and vices of
Avignon as imported from Italy, to the destruction of the virtuous simplicity
which they supposed to have formerly marked the character of their own
countrymen. In truth the state of things which had been bad at Rome became
worse at Avignon; but it is in vain that either nation would endeavour to throw
the blame of this on the other.
From the
very beginning of his pontificate Clement showed his subserviency to the author
of his promotion. He granted to Philip the tenth of the ecclesiastical revenues
of France for five years, under the pretext of a crusade; he restored the king
and all his abettors in the late struggle to the communion of the church; at
his request he reinstated the cardinals of the Colonna family in all the
privileges of their office he created ten new cardinals, who were all either Frenchmen
or devoted to the French interest; he withdrew all that was offensive in
Boniface’s bulls, the Clericis laicos and the Unamsanctum. At the same time he began to display his own character by using his new power
for purposes of revenge on persons who had formerly offended him, and by
scandalous promotions of his near relations to dignities for which they were
notoriously unfit. “The whole court,” says St. Antoninus of Florence, “was governed by Gascons and Frenchmen.”
During the
vacancy of the papal chair, William of Nogaret had repeatedly presented himself
before the official of the bishop of Paris, and had protested against the
sentence which the late pope Benedict had uttered against him, as having been
based on false grounds. He claimed for himself the character of a champion of
the church against the evil practices of Boniface; he declared that Boniface’s
misfortunes were the result of his obstinacy, and tendered a list of sixty
articles against his memory. He charged him with the most abominable and
monstrous crimes, with having obtained his office irregularly, with having been
an enemy of the French church and kingdom and he quoted against him the saying
as to his having entered like a fox, reigned like a lion, and died like a dog.
As to his own behaviour at Anagni, he asserted that he had been obliged to use
force because the pope could not be dealt with by gentler means; that he had
protected Boniface and the papal treasures, had saved his life and that of his
nephew Peter Gaetani; that in consideration of his exertions, which had cost
him much reproach, he had received the pope’s thanks and absolution after
Boniface had been set at liberty. And he professed a wish to be heard in his
own justification before a council.
Philip was
not disposed to let the memory of Boniface rest. Immediately after the
coronation of Clement he had desired him to listen to charges against his
predecessor; and, although the pope was able to defer the matter for a time,
Philip persisted in his design. In 1307 he invited Clement, who was then at
Bordeaux, to Poitiers—ostensibly with a view to a crusade under Charles of
Valois, who, by marrying the heiress of the Courtenays,
had acquired pretensions to the throne of Constantinople. It was said that the
reigning Greek emperor, Andronicus, was too weak to hold his ground against the
advancing Turkish arms; that it was therefore expedient to set him aside, and
to oppose to the infidels a strong Christian power, with Charles as its head.
The pope entered into this scheme, wrote letters in favour of it, granted
ecclesiastical tenths, and in other ways showed himself willing to favour the
interest of the French princes. Of a vast debt which Charles of Naples had
contracted to the papal treasury, two-thirds were forgiven, and the remainder
was to be transferred to the proposed crusade; the crown of Hungary was awarded
to the Neapolitan king’s grandson, Charobert, and
proceedings were begun for the canonization of his second son, Lewis, who had
died in 1297 as archbishop of Toulouse. All who had been Philip’s instruments
in his contest with Boniface were allowed to go unpunished; even William of
Nogaret was absolved, on condition that he should join the next crusade to the
Holy Land, and that in the meantime he should make pilgrimages to the shrine of
St. James at Compostella, and to certain other places
of devotion.
But still
Philip urged on the case against Boniface, requiring that he should be
condemned as a heretic, and that his bones should be disinterred and burnt.
Clement felt that by such a course the credit of the papacy would be grievously
impaired; that if Boniface had not been a rightful pope, his appointments to
the cardinalate must be void, and consequently Clement’s own election, by cardinals of whom a large proportion owed their dignity to
Boniface, would be annulled; and, as was natural, the cardinals whose position
was affected were allied with the pope in opposition to Philip’s wishes.
Finding that, although treated with a great show of respect at Poitiers, he was
virtually a prisoner, Clement attempted to escape in disguise, carrying with
him a part of his treasures; but the attempt was unsuccessful. At length,
however, it was suggested by the cardinal of Prato that the question should be
reserved for the consideration of a general council, which Clement intended to
assemble at Vienne, a city beyond the bounds of the French king’s territory.
The pope eagerly caught at the suggestion; and Philip, who had often pressed
for such a council, found himself now debarred from opposing it, however
distasteful to him.
But during
the conferences at Poitiers another subject was brought forward, which held out
at once to Clement a hope of rescuing the reputation of Boniface and the credit
of his see, and to the king the prospect of replenishing his exhausted
treasury. For, notwithstanding the unexampled severity of his taxation, and the
absence of all splendour in his court, Philip was continually in difficulties
as to money, chiefly on account of his unsuccessful wars with the Flemings. In
order to supply his needs, he had more than once expelled the Jews and the Lombards from his dominions, and had confiscated their
property; and he had practised a succession of infamous tricks on the coinage,
so as to provoke his subjects to discontent, which in 1306 broke out into
insurrection. Philip, finding himself insecure in his own palace, took refuge
in the house of the Templars at Paris, which was more strongly fortified; and
having appeased the multitude which besieged him there by concessions, he
afterwards hanged nearly thirty of their leaders. The society to which he had
then been indebted for shelter and deliverance was now to feel his enmity.
The great
military orders of the Temple and the Hospital, while they grew in importance and
in power, had incurred much enmity by their assumptions, and had not escaped
serious imputations. Although the Templars at their outset had received no
special exemptions (for to such privileges their great patron, Bernard of
Clairvaux, was opposed) they had gradually acquired much of this kind. Their
lands were free from tithes. They were untouched by interdicts uttered against
any place where they might be. A bull of Alexander III, granted as a reward for
their adhesion to him against the rival claimant of the papacy, had made them
independent of all but the papal authority, and allowed them to have a body of
clergy of their own. But Alexander himself found it necessary, at the Lateran
council of 1179, to censure them, in common with the Hospitallers, for having
greatly exceeded their privileges; and about thirty years later, Innocent III
reproved them as undutiful to the holy see, as insubordinate to all other
ecclesiastical authority, as interfering with the discipline of the church, and
as having fallen into many vices, so that they used the show of religion in
order to blind the world to their voluptuousness. At a later time, they had
opposed Frederick II in his expedition to the Holy Land, and it was said that
they had offered to betray him to the Sultan—an offer which the more generous
infidel made known to the object of the intended treachery. Since the loss of
Palestine, both orders had established themselves in the island of Cyprus, and
many of the Templars had returned to settle on the estates which their order
possessed in Western Europe.
The order of
the Temple now consisted of about 15,000 members—the most formidable and
renowned soldiery in the world; and the whole number of persons attached to it
may probably have amounted to not less than 100,000. About half of them were
Frenchmen, and the preponderance of that nation was shown by the fact that all
the grand-masters of the order had been French. They had vast wealth, which it
was supposed that they held themselves bound to increase by unlawful as well
as by lawful means; and, strong and powerful as they already were, it may have
been not unnatural to suspect them of intending, after the example already
given by the Teutonic knights on the Baltic, to establish a sovereignty of
their own. They were animated by a spirit of exclusive devotion to the
brotherhood, and of contempt for all men beyond it. When Clement had projected
a union with the Hospitallers, the master of the Temple, James de Molay, had declined the proposal on grounds which although
partly reasonable, showed a scornful assumption of superiority to the order
which made the less rigid profession. Towards the bishops, from whose authority
they were exempt, towards the sovereigns of the countries within which their
vast estates were situated, the behaviour of the Templars was disrespectful and
defiant. The unpopularity caused by their pride was increased by the mystery
and closeness which they affected in all that concerned the order; and out of
this not unnaturally arose dark suspicions against them. During the latter part
of their career in the Holy Land, they had become familiar with the infidels,
whom they had at first opposed with unrelenting hatred; and it was supposed
that both their religion and their morals had been infected by their oriental
associations. In their ordinary habits it is said that they were lax and
luxurious, so that “to drink like a Templar” was a proverb,
When Gregory
IX, in 1238, had reproved the Hospitallers for having allied themselves with
the Greek Vatatzes against the Latin emperor of Constantinople, he had taken
occasion to speak of imputations of unchastity and heresy which were cast on
them. It was not until a later time that any accusations of heresy were brought
against the Templars; but now strange and shocking reports of this kind were
circulated, and, instead of the charge of familiarity with women, there were
suspicions of unnatural vices, which were less abhorred in the east than in the
west. It would seem that the loss of the Holy Land had told unfavourably on
their character. Having been deprived of their proper occupation, they may
naturally have yielded to the temptations which arise out of idleness; perhaps,
too, the spirit which commonly led the people of these days to judge by visible
appearances may have inclined the Templars themselves to doubt the power of the
God whose champions had been forced to give way to unbelievers, while it
disposed the generality of men to accept tales and suspicions against the
order, to whose sins it was natural to ascribe the loss of that sacred
territory which it had been their especial duty to defend. And it is probable
that even before their withdrawal from Palestine they may have taken up
oriental superstitions as to the virtue of charms and magical practices.
Philip the
Fair had at one time endeavoured to establish a connexion with the order,
probably in the hope of becoming master of its treasures; but his suit had been
rejected. In the contest with Boniface, the Templars, notwithstanding the
allegiance which most of them owed to the crown of France, had inclined to side
with the pope, and when Benedict XI had granted Philip the tenths of spiritual
property in France, the Templars had firmly stood on their exemptions The king
had been largely in their debt for money advanced to pay the dowry of his
sister, the queen of England; and his acquaintance with their resources had
been extended by his late sojourn in the head-quarters of the order at Paris—a
large enclosure, covered with buildings sufficient to contain a vast number of
dependents, and strong enough to hold out against a more formidable siege than
that which he had there experienced. And to the motives of cupidity and
jealousy may have been added the influence of a Dominican confessor over the king’s
mind; for the Dominicans, who had at one time been closely allied with the
Templars, had since become their bitterest enemies.
The
circumstances which led Philip to attack the Templars are variously reported.
The story most generally received is, that one Squin of Floyrac or Florian, a native of Beziers, who had
been prior of Montfaucon, having been imprisoned at
Paris for heresy and vicious life, became acquainted in prison with a
Florentine named Noffo Dei, an apostate from the
order; and that these wretches conspired to seek their deliverance by giving
information of enormities alleged to be committed by the Templars.Squin of Florian refused to tell the important secrets of which he professed to be
master to anyone but the king; and Philip heard the tale with eager delights.
It appears that he spoke of the matter to the pope as early as the time of Clement’s coronation at Lyons; but nothing was done until
later.
The pope
summoned the masters and other chief dignitaries of the two great military orders
from Cyprus, in order to a consultation as to the best means of carrying out an
intended crusade. The master of the Hospitallers, Fulk de Villaret, was able to excuse himself, on the
ground that he and his brethren were engaged in the siege of Rhodes; but the
master of the Templars, James de Molay, a knight of
Franche-Comté, who had been forty-two years in the order, obeyed the summons,
and appeared in France with such a display of pomp and of wealth as naturally
tended to increase the envy and the mistrust with which his brotherhood was
already regarded. By Philip, to one of whose sons he had been godfather some
years before, he was received with great honour, and the pope, in accordance
with the invitation which had been given, consulted him as to the proposed
crusade. But the Templars soon became aware that rumours of an unfriendly kind
were current, and themselves requested the pope to investigate the truth of the
suspicions which had been cast on them. The result of this inquiry was
favourable to the order; but Philip held firmly to his purpose. On September
the 14th, 1307 (the festival of the Exaltation of the Cross), orders were
issued to his officers in all quarters, desiring them to prepare a force
sufficient for the execution of certain instructions which were not to be
opened until the 12th of October; and by these instructions they were charged
to arrest all the Templars at one and the same time—a measure similar to those
which the king had already employed towards the Jews and the foreign merchants.
At the dawn of the following day the orders were carried out without any
difficulty; for the Templars, unsuspecting and unprepared, made no attempt at
resistance. So closely was Philip’s secret concealed, that, on the 12th of
October, James de Molay had, at his request, been one
of those who carried the wife of the king’s brother Charles to the grave; and
within a few hours the master and his brethren were arrested, and conveyed to
prison by a force under the command of William of Nogaret. The king took
possession of the Temple, and throughout the kingdom the property of the order
was placed under seal by his officers.
Philip lost
no time in following up the arrest of the Templars. Next day the canons of the
cathedral and the masters of the theological faculty in the university were
assembled in the chapter-house of Notre Dame. The question was proposed to them
whether the king might of his own authority proceed against a religious order;
and, although the answer was not immediately given, it was foreseen and acted
on—that the secular judge was not entitled to take cognisance of heresy, unless
in cases remitted to him by the church; but that he might properly arrest
suspected persons, and might keep them for ecclesiastical judgment. On the
following day, which was Sunday, the pulpits were filled with friars, who were
charged to denounce the alleged crimes of the Templars; and some of the king’s
ministers addressed assembled crowds on the same subject. Within a week from
the time of the arrest, Philip set on foot an inquiry under his confessor,
William Imbert, who also held the office of grand inquisitor, and, as a
Dominican, was hostile to the Templars. The master and others of the order were
examined, and it is said that De Molay admitted the
truth of almost all the charges. In other parts of France also the
investigation was carried on at the same time under the general superintendence
of Imbert.
By taking it
on himself to direct an inquiry into such charges against a body which was
especially connected with the Roman see, the king gave great umbrage to the
pope, who wrote to him in strong terms of remonstrance, desiring that the
prisoners should be made over to two cardinals and reserved for his own
judgment, suspending the powers of inquisitors and of bishops over them, and
ordering that their property should be kept inviolate for the benefit of the
Holy Land. At the same time the pope declared his willingness to co-operate
with Philip by desiring other sovereigns to arrest the Templars within their dominions.
To these demands Philip, after some delay, professed to yield; and by this
concession he was able to overcome Clement’s opposition.
As in the
case of Boniface, the king resolved to get up a national demonstration of
concurrence in his policy; and with this view the estates of the realm were
convoked at Tours in May 1308. From such an assembly the Templars could expect
no favour. They were (for reasons which have been already explained) hated by
the nobles and by the clergy; and the commons were prepossessed against them by
the tales which had lately been circulated. To deal with the assembled estates
was an easy task for the subtlety of Nogaret (to whom the eight chief barons of
Languedoc had entrusted their proxies) and of Plasian;
and the meeting resulted in a memorial by which the king was entreated to go on
with the process against the Templars, even although the ecclesiastical power
should refuse to support him.
While the
French estates were sitting at Tours, the murder of Albert of Austria, by
causing a vacancy in the empire, suggested to Philip a new object of ambition,
for the attainment of which he desired to secure the pope’s assistance, and
found it necessary to deal tenderly with him. Repairing from Tours to Poitiers,
he laid before Clement the memorial of the estates, and offered to produce
convincing evidence as to the guilt of the Templars. Seventy-two members of the
order, carefully selected under the king’s directions, were examined in the
pope’s presence, where they confessed the truth of the charges against them;
and some days later they heard their confessions read, and expressed their
adhesion to them as true.
The master
and other dignitaries of the order were on their way to Poitiers, when it was
found that they were too ill to travel beyond Chinon;
and there they were examined by three cardinals. It is said that De Molay confessed the charge of denying the Saviour in the
ceremony of reception, and that he then referred the cardinals for further
evidence to a serving brother of the order who attended on him. The avowals of
his companions reached still further; but, in consideration of their
professions of penitence, the cardinals were authorized by the pope to absolve
them from the sins which they had acknowledged, and they commended them to the
king’s mercy.
The pope
professed to be convinced by the evidence which had been produced, and issued a
number of documents in accordance with Philip’s wishes. The powers of the
bishops were restored, so that each might take cognisance of the matter within
his own diocese; and, until the meeting of the intended general council, the
king was to retain the custody of the accused, in the name of the church, and
was to maintain them out of their property, which was allowed to remain in his
hands.
On the 12th
of August appeared a bull, which begins with the words Faciens misericordiam. In this the pope, after having mentioned the reports which
were current against the order, with the avowals which had been made by some
members of it, both in his own presence and elsewhere, and having declared that
King Philip acted in the matter not from rapacity, but from zeal for the
orthodox faith—appoints commissioners to inquire into the case of the Templars
in each province of France, and authorizes them to call in, if necessary, the
aid of the secular arm. By another document of the same date he orders that all
property belonging to the Templars shall be given up, and threatens severe
penalties against all persons, however eminent, who should venture to detain
any part of it.
Another
bull, which is known by the title of Regnans in coelis, bears the same date with the Faciens misericordiam, and has much in common
with it. By this bull the archbishop of Narbonne, the bishop of Mende (William Durantis, nephew and successor of the famous canonist and
ritualist whose name he bore), the bishops of Bayeux and Limoges, and other
ecclesiastics, were commissioned to investigate the matter of the Templars,
with a view to the intended general council; and a list of 127 questions was
annexed, embodying the charges already mentioned, with others of a like odious
character. The inquiries of the commissioners were to concern themselves with
the order generally, while the cases of individuals were left to the ordinary
judges of such offences. Their first sitting was on the 7th of August 1300. The
confessions formerly made were put in evidence, but an opportunity of
disclaiming them was allowed; and, although the archbishop of Narbonne and
other members of the commission often absented themselves, as if ashamed of
their work, the examination was in general conducted with mildness.
On the 26th
of November, the master, De Molay, was brought before
the commissioners, and was asked whether he would defend the order. He answered
that it was confirmed and privileged by the apostolic see, and contrasted the
hasty character of the proceedings against it with the long delay of thirty-two
years which had taken place before the deposition of the emperor Frederick II.
For himself, he professed that he had neither the wisdom nor the skill
necessary for the defence of the order; but that he must deserve contempt and
infamy if he should fail to do what he could for a body to which he owed so
much. He spoke of himself as a prisoner, with but four deniers in the
world, but said that he wished to have assistance and counsel, so that the
truth might be known with regard to the order. The commissioners offered him
time and other facilities, but told him that in cases of heresy the proceedings
must be simple and straightforward, and that the arts of advocates were
inadmissible. They then read to him the pope’s bull, in which his own
confession before the cardinals at Chinon was
mentioned. On hearing this he crossed himself twice, and made other demonstrations
of the utmost astonishment and indignation. “If,” he said, “the commissioners
were persons of another sort, they would hear something of a different kind
from him.” To this they replied that they were not to be challenged to the
ordeal of battle; whereupon the old knight rejoined that he had not thought of such things, but only wished that in this case the
same rule might be observed which was observed by the Turks and Saracens—that
false accusers should have their heads cut off or should be cleft down the
middle of their bodies. He then, observing William of Plasian,
who had attended the session uninvited, desired leave to speak with him. The
old man’s confidence was won by Plasian’s professing
to love him as a brother knight, and affecting to caution him against
imprudence in the management of his cause; and the examination was adjourned
until the next day but one. When the master was again brought forward, the
effects of Plasian’s insidious counsels were
evident. He declared that, as an unlearned and poor man, he would not undertake
the defence of the order; but, as it appeared from the bull that Clement had
reserved to himself the judgment of the chief officers, he desired that he
might be carried before the pope with as little delay as might be. On being
told by the commissioners that their business was to deal with the order, and
not with individuals, he asked leave to state three facts in favour of the
brotherhood—that he knew of no order in which the divine services were better
performed or with greater splendour of ornaments; none in which almsgiving was
more liberal; no religious order, and no kind of persons, who more readily shed
their blood for the Christian faith, or were more dreaded by its enemies.
The
commissioners remarked that unless the foundation of faith were sound, all
these things were unavailing; to which De Molay assented, and, in proof of his own orthodoxy, stated his belief in the chief
articles of the Christian creed. Nogaret, who was present, asked some questions
as to the stories which were current against the order, but the master replied
that he had never heard of them. He begged Nogaret and the commissioners that
he might be allowed to enjoy the offices of religion with the services of his
chaplains, and they promised to see to the matter.
Of the other
knights who were examined, some said that they would defend the order; some,
that they were willing to do so, if they might have their liberty and their
property restored to them, but that in their captive and destitute condition
the question was a mockery; some, apparently in the belief that the order was
doomed, and tempted by the hope of making good terms for themselves, declined
to stand up for it; one expressed a belief that, by administering the holy
Eucharist to those who gave evidence on opposite sides, a Divine judgment might
be obtained for the manifestation of the truth.
On the 28th
of March 1310, about 550 knights from all parts of France, who had professed
themselves willing to undertake the defence of the order, were assembled in the
orchard of the bishop’s palace at Paris. The charges were read over in Latin by
a notary, but when he was proceeding to restate them in French, a cry arose
that this was needless, that they did not care to hear in the vulgar tongue
such a mass of charges, too vile and abominable to be mentioned. When asked
whether they would defend the order, they said that they were ready to do so if
permitted by their superiors. They were desired to name six, eight, or ten
persons as proxies; and Peter of Boulogne, a priest, was appointed, with three
others, although they said that they could not act without the master’s
sanction.
After the
meeting in the bishop’s orchard, the commissioners visited the various houses
in which the Templars were confined. In the course of these visits it became
evident that a great part of the confessions to the disadvantage of the order
had been wrung out by torture, by hunger, or by the other hardships of their
long imprisonment. The torments which had been applied are described by some of
the sufferers, and, among them, by one who had been racked by the original
accuser, Squin of Florian. He professes himself
willing to endure death in any form, but unable to withstand the protracted
agony of the torture—by which some of the knights declare that they might have
been wrought to confess anything whatever, even the guilt of having put the
Saviour to death. They entreat that no layman, or other person who might be
likely to disturb them, may be allowed to be present at the examinations, and
protest that, when their terrors and temptations are considered, it was not
wonderful that some should lie, but rather that any should venture to speak the
truth. They complain bitterly of the rigorous treatment which they met with;
that they were miserably lodged, loaded with chains, and scantily fed; that
they were deprived of the ministrations of religion; that their brethren who
had died in prison had been excluded from the last sacraments and from
Christian burial; that they themselves, in addition to other heavy charges,
were even compelled to pay, out of the wretched pittance which was allowed
them, a fee for unloosing and refastening their chains, and a toll for their
passage across the Seine, on every day of their examination. They represent
that they cannot act in behalf of the order without the master’s leave; they
urgently entreat that, as being nearly all unlearned men, they may be allowed
the assistance of advocates, and that so much of the order’s property may be
granted to them as would suffice for the costs of their defence.
In the
meantime Philip had set another engine in motion for the accomplishment of his
purpose. By exerting a strong pressure on the pope, he had contrived that
Philip de Marigny, a young brother of his favourite
counsellor, Enguerrand de Marigny,
should be promoted to the archbishopric of Sens. The new archbishop received
his pall at Easter 1310, and on the 10th of May he opened at Paris a provincial
council, before which a number of Templars, who had retracted their
confessions, were brought to trial as relapsed heretics. Some of them yielded,
and were allowed to escape altogether, or with slight punishment; others were
put to penance, or were sentenced to imprisonment for life; but those who adhered
to their retractation were condemned to be made over to the secular arm—such of
them as belonged to the clerical order being previously degraded.
While the
commissioners were engaged in their investigations, they were informed of the
summary processes by which the archbishop of Sens was sentencing men to death,
and the four chosen defenders of the order put in an appeal to them, lest the
knights who had offered to defend it should be dealt with in like manner; but
they answered that they had no power to interfere, as the archbishop was
independent of them by virtue of the pope’s late decree, which had restored to
the French prelates their ordinary jurisdiction in such matters. They sent,
however, a message to the council, requesting that it would delay its
proceedings, as the report of these had so terrified the witnesses before the
commission as to render them incapable of giving evidence calmly; but their
envoys were not allowed to see the archbishop, and they made no further attempt
to interposed
On the 12th
of May fifty-four Templars were, by the sentence of the council, conveyed to a
field near the convent of St. Antony, where a stake had been prepared for each.
It was announced that anyone who would confess should be set at liberty, and
the unhappy knights were beset by the importunities of their kindred and
friends, entreating them to save themselves by accepting this offer. But
although deeply affected by the feelings which are natural in such a case, not
one of the whole number flinched. They endured the slow ‘kindling of the
faggots, and the gradual progress of the flames which were to consume their
bodies; and with their last breath they attested their orthodoxy by invoking
the Saviour, the blessed Virgin, and the saints’. The courage and constancy of
these brave men impressed the popular mind deeply and widely; but it soon
became manifest that their fate had struck terror into the hearts of many among
their brethren. On the following day, a Templar named Aimeri de Villars was brought before the commissioners, and appeared as if beside
himself from terror and excitement. With vehement gestures, beating his breast,
tossing his arms in the air, and imprecating on himself the most frightful
curses unless his words were true, he declared that the charges against the
order were all false, although under extremity of torture he had before
admitted some of them; but that the sight of the victims, as they were dragged
in carts to the place of execution on the preceding day, had so terrified him
that, rather than endure the fire, he was ready to own whatever might be
imputed to him, even if it were said that he had slain the Saviour.
The
commissioners, in disgust at the cruelties which had been committed, and in
despair of obtaining trustworthy evidence so long as the impression of the
terror should be fresh, adjourned their sittings from the 19th to the 30th of
May, and afterwards for a longer time; and when they met again, in the middle
of October, the effect of the late proceedings was plainly shown. Many knights,
who had professed their readiness to defend the order, now renounced the
defence, lest they should make themselves liable to the doom of relapsed
heretics from the archbishop of Sens and his suffragans. Of the four chosen
representatives, Peter of Boulogne had disappeared; another had become
disqualified through having been degraded from his orders by the council; and
the remaining two declared that, after the loss of their colleagues, they were
no longer equal to the task. From this time the evidence before the
commissioners was more in accordance with the wishes of the prosecutors than
before; it seemed as if the fate of the order were hopeless, and as if its
members were bent only on trying, by whatever means, to secure their individual
safety. Between August 1309 and the end of May 1311, two hundred and thirty-one
witnesses were examined; and at length the commissioners sent off the report of
the evidence to the pope without pronouncing any judgment of their own on it.
In the meantime both councils and commissioners in other parts of France had
been engaged on the affair of the Templars. The only council of which a record
has been preserved is one of the province of Reims, which met at Senlis; and by its sentence the body of a dead Templar was
dug up and burnt, while nine members of the order perished at the stake,
steadfastly declaring their innocence of the crimes imputed to them.
We may now
proceed to examine the charges which were brought against the order of the
Temple, with the evidence which was drawn forth by the inquiry.
The
ceremonies of initiation are described with an amount of variety which proves
that they must have differed according to places, times, and other
circumstances; but the avowals of those who confessed may be thus summed up as
to their general substance. The candidate, on bended knees, requested that he
might be admitted into the society of the order, and might be allowed to share
in its bread and water and clothing. He was told, by way of answer, that what
he asked was a great thing. He was warned that he must prepare himself to
endure hardships; that he must not judge of the order by the splendid
appearance and equipments of the knights; but that he
might have to walk instead of riding, to be hungry when he might wish to eat,
to thirst when he might wish to drink, to go when he might wish to stay, to
watch when he might wish to sleep, to give up his liberty for absolute
obedience and servitude. If he still persevered in the desire to be admitted,
he was then questioned as to his freedom from impediments, such as debts or
secret ailments; he was required to profess his Christian faith, and in some
cases to kiss the cross; he took the monastic vows of poverty, chastity, and
obedience, and swore to observe the statutes of the order; after which an
instruction in his duties as a member of it was addressed to him. Then,
according to the confessions of many Templars, the new knight was led into some
small chapel or other secret place; a cross, either plain or with an image of the
Saviour on it, was produced; and he was required (in some cases thrice) to deny
God and to spit on the cross—perhaps also to trample on it. He was next
required to kiss the receiver on various parts of his body—sometimes in the
most obscene and degrading manner. In some instances, it was said, the new
member was told that unnatural lust was permitted in the order: sometimes an
idol was produced, a cord was passed round its head, and this (or, at least, a
cord which was supposed to bear some mysterious meaning) was very commonly worn
by the Templars. In some instances these offensive ceremonies were not required
until some days after the more legitimate form of reception.
As to the
alleged abominations of the initiation, there is first the question of fact;
and with regard to such of the circumstances as may be accepted for facts,
there remains the question how they are to be understood. A late writer
supposes the whole to be symbolical—that the applicant for admission was
represented as sunk in the depths of sin and apostasy, and that from this state
the order was supposed to raise him. But of this ingenious theory there is no
proof, nor has the supposed symbolism any real analogy to the Festival of Fools
and other such things, with which the writer in question would compare it.
Rather we may perhaps suppose that the ceremonies were imposed—injudiciously
and blamably indeed, but without necessarily involving any evil meaning—as a
test of the obedience which had just been professed; in order to typify, by the
denial of that which had been acknowledged as holiest, by compliance with
degrading and disgusting requirements, the entire and unreserved submission
which the new member of the order had become bound to yield to the commands of
his superiors. That this intention was not explained, would seem to have been
of the very essence of the system: the Templars were left to interpret it for
themselves; they were forbidden to communicate with each other as to the mode
of reception, and many of them may have failed to understand a meaning which
may nevertheless have been really intended. In many cases no such ceremonies
were enforced at all; many Templars asserted that they had never heard of them
until after the arrest of the order; and men who deposed that they themselves
had been obliged to submit to them deposed also that in later receptions,
which they had witnessed or in which they had themselves acted the part of
receivers, the offensive forms were not required. The witnesses all declared
that they had been horrified at hearing these proposed—that they would rather
have been on their way to the galleys, in the depths of the earth, even in
purgatory itself, than be put to such a trial, and that they had earnestly
endeavoured to escape it. In some cases resistance had been successful in
obtaining an exemption from the ceremonies either wholly or in part; but more
commonly the novices were told that they were bound to submit, in virtue of the
obedience which they had sworn, and because these were points established in
the order; while, for the satisfaction of their scruples, they were assured
that the denial of the Saviour was merely a form, a jest, an imitation of St.
Peter’s denials; that it was to be made with the mouth only, not with the
heart, and was not contrary to Christian religion, or dangerous to the soul.
All declared that their denials had been made with the mouth alone, and some
professed to have uttered a like declaration at the time when they were
received. All declared that their spitting had not been on the crucifix or
cross, but near it, and some had been told by their receivers that the mere
pretence of spitting was enough. Although they were usually told they must make
no confession except to the clergy of the order, they had invariably carried their
tale of the initiation to some other confessor, who had listened to it with
astonishment and horror, and had enjoined some penances by way of expiation.
Sometimes the receivers themselves, while requiring submission, told the
candidates that they might confess to whomsoever they would. In one case the
confessor suggested that the denial of the Saviour had been required in order
to test the novice’s spirit, and that, if he had steadfastly refused, he would
have been considered fit to be sent earlier to the Holy Land, and to encounter
the dangers of intercourse and captivity among the infidels. All the witnesses
agreed in testifying that after their admission no attempt had been made to
confirm them in apostasy; that the order adored the cross on Good Friday and on
the festivals of its Invention and Exaltation; and that they considered their
brethren in general to be true Christian believers, although some of them
suspected that those who had enforced such ceremonies at the reception could
not be sound in the faith.
With regard
to the kissing which was said to be a part of the rite of admission to the
order, and to have been the subject of much ridicule from their rivals of the
Hospital, it appears that the
clerical members were usually excused from it; that a formal appearance of
kissing the receiver between the shoulders, or in some such place, was
considered to be enough; and that when objections were taken to any further
kissing, it was never enforced.
The most
revolting of the accusations against the order might be supposed to have grown
out of a charge which was given to the new members that each should share his
bed with a brother, if required—a charge of which the true sense was, that they
should be ready to give up their own convenience for that of others. Some
witnesses, indeed, deposed that they were expressly authorized to indulge in
unnatural lusts. But, even if this were true, the real intention might have
been, not to sanction such abominations, but (as has been already suggested
with regard to the denials) to try the spirit of the new members by the shock
of an apparent contrast with the vows of religion and purity which had just
been taken; and it is certain that acts of the kind in question were denounced
in the institutes of the Templars as deadly sins, that they were regarded with
abhorrence, and that, in the very rare instances which were detected they were
visited with severe punishment, such as lifelong imprisonment in chains, or
expulsion from the order.
The tales as
to the use of idols are very indistinct and perplexing. Some witnesses deposed
that an idol had been produced at their reception, but could give no
satisfactory account of it. They said that they had been too much disturbed in
mind to look at it; one stated that at the sight of it he had run away in
terror. And the descriptions of its appearance were very various: that it had
one head, and that it had three; that it had two feet in front and two behind;
that it was a bare human skull, that it was black, that it was. gilt and
silvered, that it had a long white beard, and that its eyes were glowing
carbuncles; that it was the head of St. Peter or of St. Blaise, of one of St.
Ursula’s virgin companions, of a master who had apostatized to Islam and had
introduced the guilty customs into the order,—or of a cat. Some declared that
they had often seen an idol—to which the name of Baphomet (a corruption of
Mahomet) was given—produced for adoration at chapters of the order at
Montpellier, and even at Paris. But there is no evidence as to actual use
elsewhere, nor, although the suddenness of the arrest would have put it out of
the power of the Templars to conceal their idols, if they had possessed any,
was any such object discovered in any of their houses. Perhaps, therefore, the
charge of idolatry may have had no other foundation than the use of reliquaries
made (as was very common) in the form of a human head, to which credulity
annexed the wild stories which were current.
The practice
of wearing a cord round the body was established by the evidence; but the
object of it was very variously explained. Although some witnesses deposed that
the cord, which was given to them at their initiation, had been previously
applied to an idol, the greater number knew nothing of such a contact, and stated
that the cord had not been delivered to them on the part of the order, but that
they were allowed to procure it for themselves.
On the
question at what time and on what occasion the offensive rites had been
introduced into the order, no satisfactory or consistent testimony was to be
obtained. There were stories of their having been instituted by a master who
had been captive to a sultan; it was said by some that they had been used under
the last four masters only; but other witnesses declared that nothing was known
on the subject.
The mystery
in which the proceedings of the order were shrouded gave occasion for much
popular suspicion against it. The receptions and the chapters were held with
closed doors, sometimes by night or in the faint light of dawn, and the members
were forbidden to talk even among themselves of what took place on these
occasions. A witness who did not belong to the order was told by one of the
high officers that, at the proceedings of the chapters, there was one point so
wonderful and so secret that, if the king of France himself were by chance to
witness it, those who held the chapter would be compelled to secure his silence
by putting him to death. The same officer had also declared that, in addition
to the ordinary book of statutes, the Templars had another, so mysterious that
he would not for the whole world allow it to be seen; and other witnesses
deposed that the members in general were not allowed to see the rules or the
statutes, except by special permission. The suspicion of guilty secrets was
supported by the charge that the Templars were bound to confess to no one but
the chaplains of their own order. But it appears that, although such an
injunction was laid on them, it was not strictly observed, and that an
exception was made as to cases of necessity; and if such exceptions were
allowed, the rule cannot fairly be blamed as unreasonable, or as really
warranting the suspicions which were not unnaturally founded on it. Another
accusation was, that the master and other lay officers took it on themselves to
grant absolution. As to this, it is clear from the evidence that the only
offences for which absolution was really given by laymen were breaches of the
rules of the order; but the testimony of some witnesses appears to show that
this distinction was not always rightly apprehended, and that some Templars may
have shared in the popular opinion which supposed it to supersede the necessity
of absolution from a priest. With regard to the charge that the priests of the
order, in reciting the canon of the mass, omitted the four words on which the
consecration of the host was supposed to depend, the greater part of the
witnesses declared that they knew nothing of it; and those who admitted that
they had heard of it, denied that they had observed any such omission in the
performance of the office. The practice of the order as to almsgiving was among
the subjects of inquiry; and the result of the answers appears to be that,
notwithstanding the grandmaster’s claim in behalf of his brethren as to this
point, the Templars did not enjoy the reputation of liberality; that they
exercised hospitality towards persons of wealth and condition rather than
charitable bounty to the poor; and that in many places their alms had of late
years become less than before.
The charges
that they were enjoined to gain acquisitions for the order by wrongful as well
as by rightful means, appeared by the evidence to have no other foundation than
vague reports. One member deposed that at his reception he was told to practise
such arts without scruple, but only against the Saracens; and others declared
that they had been charged to avoid all ways of unfair gain.
The
circumstance that there was no novitiate, although explained on the ground that
the members ought, immediately on their admission, to be ready to proceed to
the holy war, excited much suspicion—as if the rites of initiation were such
that no one who had witnessed them should have an opportunity of leaving the
order; and terrible stories were told of persons who, after having gone through
those rites, never smiled again. It was said that one expressed his grief by
causing a signet-ring to be made with an inscription which described him as
lost, and that within a year and a half after his reception he pined away. An English witness related that a Templar spoke
of himself as having lost his soul by joining the brotherhood. Another said
that his grandfather entered the order in full health and in high spirits,
taking his hawks and dogs with him; and that three days later he was a dead
man. Another knight, who had before been rallied by his friends as to the
popular stories of the manner of reception, came out from the ceremony pale and
overwhelmed with sorrow; and on being urged to relate the details, as he had
promised, he sternly forbade all questioning on the subject. Some professed to
have forsaken the order on account of the abominations which were connected
with it; others said that they had wished to leave it, but that they and many
others were kept in it by fear; but these witnesses appear to have been men of
low character, and little entitled to belief. It is indeed impossible to decide
as to the value of much of the evidence. The witnesses make confessions to the
discredit of the order; they avow that they had done this from a wish to save
themselves at its expense, retract their confessions, and yet afterwards
retract their retractations. Many of them declare that they had yielded to
force or to the fear of tortures, and that by the same means they might have
been wrought to confess anything, however false or monstrous. Many had been won
by the blandishments which were practised on them, and by the hopes of royal
favour which were held out, to give testimony agreeable to Philip’s designs;
and many—especially in the south of France—when they were pressed with the
avowals which had been extracted from the grand-master and others, declared
that there was no truth in them.
In other
countries, also, inquiries as to the Templars had been carried on, and with results
less doubtful than in France.
With
England, Clement, notwithstanding his subserviency to the French king, had
studied to be on friendly terms. As archbishop of Bordeaux, he had been subject
to the English sovereign. As pope, he had released Edward I from his oath to
observe the charters, and had allowed him to levy ecclesiastical tenths
throughout the British islands for two years; and in consideration of this he
had himself been permitted to extort large sums from the English church,
notwithstanding strong remonstrances of the parliament. He had countenanced the
attempts to subdue Scotland, had suspended the Scottish bishops who were
obnoxious to Edward, and had excommunicated Robert Bruce, who, after the
execution of Wallace in August 1305, had become the champion of the national
freedom. He had suspended the English primate, Robert Winchilsey,
who had offended Edward by acts which have been in part already mentioned; and
by these and other compliances he had established a friendly understanding, although
he had declined the king’s request that Bishop Grossetete of Lincoln, whom the court of Rome could not but regard as an enemy, should
receive the honour of canonization. At the time when the process against the
Templars was begun in France, Edward II, who had just succeeded to the English
crown, was about to marry a daughter of Philip, who wrote to bespeak his
co-operation against the order; and Clement, by a bull dated on the 22nd of
November 1307, after reciting the confessions which were alleged to have been
made by the master and other members, desired him to imprison the Templars of
his dominions, and to commit their property to the custody of independent persons
until the charges against them should be investigated.
In
compliance with these letters—although Edward had before regarded the Templars
with great favour, and was still so little inclined to believe the charges,
that even at this time he wrote to the kings of Spain, Portugal, and Sicily,
desiring that they would not too readily take part against the order—all the
Templars in the British islands (for Scotland was then under the English dominion)
were arrested in January 1308, with the same suddenness which had before been
used against their brethren in France. Councils of the two provinces were held
at London and at York respectively, and showed themselves disposed to treat the
accused with fairness. The pope had ordered that the witnesses should be
examined by torture,—a novelty in English procedure; and the York council ask,
with visible repugnance, what should be done if no one capable of applying it
should be found in England—whether torturers should be brought from abroad? to
which no other answer was given than that it must not be so applied as to maim
the victims for life.
Forty knights
were examined before the bishop of London, and after these followed a number of
other witnesses, who did not belong to the order. The interrogations, which
were furnished by the pope, were eighty-seven in number, and to these
twenty-four were afterwards added. The evidence (of which some portions have
been quoted already) presents the same features with which we have become
familiar in that of the French Templars. There are stories of denying the
Saviour, of spitting on the cross, of obscene ceremonies and abominable
licenses as connected with the reception. One witness, Stephen of Staplebridge, who is described as a fugitive and apostate
from the order, and professed much contrition for his sins, states that there
were two ceremonies of reception—a good and a bad—and that he himself had gone
through both; he believed that any who should refuse compliance with the
objectionable rites were put to death in foreign countries, but was not aware
of any such case in England. There is much about idols, brazen heads with
either one face or two, a cat, a calf, a black monster with glowing eyes; and
one witness, a Franciscan friar, had been told by a “veteran,” who had left the
order, that there were four principal idols in England. Yet on this point there
was no clear testimony from personal knowledge, and it was commonly stated
that, with very few exceptions, the faith of the members was sound. There were
tales of the mystery in which the order delighted, and of the terrible effects
which an initiation into its secrets had in some cases produced.
The councils
both of London and of York were inclined to greater lenity than the French
tribunals. Many of the accused were persuaded to forswear all heresy, on which
they were absolved, and placed in monasteries for penance until the expected
general council should decide the fate of the order. But for those who
persisted in a denial of guilt, severer measures were used. Thus one was shut
up for the time “in a most vile prison, being bound with double irons;” and the
grand preceptor, William de la More, was reserved for the pope’s judgment, and
died in prison.
In Scotland,
only two knights—both of English birth—were arrested. They admitted that the
great officers were accustomed to give absolution as if by authority from God,
St. Peter, and the pope. One of them said that at his reception he was charged
to accept no service from a woman—not so much as water to wash his hands. Many
witnesses not belonging to the order were examined, but nothing beyond mere
suspicions could be drawn out from them. The abbot of Dunfermline stated that
he had never heard of any reception as having taken place in Scotland.
In Ireland,
after some Templars had been examined without admitting any of the charges, the
evidence came chiefly from Franciscans, who were bitter enemies of the order.
One who had been a servitor in it had heard that many Templars had been put
into sacks and thrown into the sea; but when questioned as to the story that
one was lost at every general chapter, he said that he had himself disproved it
by counting them as they went in and as they came out. Another deposed that at
the elevation of the host Templars had been known to look down to the ground;
and that from this and other circumstances he believed them all and each to be
conscious of some guilty secret.
In Italy,
although the usual avowals to the discredit of the order were extorted in the
papal states and in the southern kingdom, which was under the influence of
France, the result of inquiries elsewhere was favourable. The archbishop of
Ravenna, as inquisitor for Tuscany and northern Italy, held two synods for the
consideration of the subject, where it was resolved that the guilty members
should be punished and that the innocent should be absolved; that those who
retracted confessions made under torture should be reckoned as innocent; and
that, as the innocent outnumbered the guilty, the order should be allowed to
retain its property.
In the
Spanish kingdoms the affair took a peculiar course. The Templars of Castile and
Aragon, warned by the sudden arrest of their brethren in France, shut
themselves up in their castles, and offered to do battle for the defence of the
order. Some of their fortresses were reduced by the king of Aragon, and were
made over by him to papal commissioners. The case of the Aragonese Templars was
considered by synods at Tarragona in 1310 and 1312—between which times some of
them had been put to torture, but without making any confession. At the second
synod they were declared to be innocent of heresy; but as the pope had already
dissolved the order, it was decreed that, until he should determine further,
they should be allowed to hold houses and income within the dioceses where
their property lay, and to live under the inspection of the bishops.
For the
kingdoms of Castile and Leon, the inquiry was carried on by a commission which
sat at Medina del Campo, and afterwards by a synod at Salamanca, in 1310. The
prelates who were present expressed great satisfaction that no crime had been
established against the Templars, but referred the decision of the case to the
pope, on the ground that an acquittal by him would carry greater weight than
one pronounced by an inferior tribunal; but eventually the Templars of Castile
were involved in the general fate of the order.
In Germany,
the Templars of Mayence, Toul, and Verdun denied all
the charges. The case of the order was brought before a council at Mayence in 1410, when, to the astonishment of the assembled
prelates, Hugh, count of the Rhine and waldgrave, the
provincial head of the Templars, appeared with twenty companions, in the full
armour and habit of the Temple. On being asked by the archbishop of Mayence, Peter Aichspalter, to
explain their business, the count said that he and his brethren protested
against the charges of “enormous and more than heathen crimes,” which had been
brought against them; that the innocence of those who had been burnt elsewhere
had been proved by a miracle, their white cloaks and red crosses having been
unconsumed by the fire; and he appealed to a future pope and to a general
council. The archbishop answered that he would refer the matter to the pope;
and in the following year a second council was held, by which it was declared
that the Templars were innocent. Yet at Mayence the
property of the order was confiscated; and in other parts of Germany there were
serious commotions, and some of its members perished at the stake.
The pope
wrote to the king of Cyprus and to the Latin patriarch of Constantinople,
urging inquiry into the case of the Templars, and enjoining the use of torture.
In reply, Amaury of Cyprus reported that he had not been able to arrest the
knights, as they had been warned against a surprise; but that they had waited
on him, asserting their innocence, and offering to submit to the papal
judgment.
Within a few
months after the beginning of Philip’s proceedings against the Templars, the
empire had been left without a head by the death of Albert of Austria, who,
while on his way to suppress an insurrection of the Swiss, was murdered by his
nephew John, within sight of the castle of Hapsburg, the original seat of their
family. His eldest son, Frederick, became a candidate for the vacant dignity,
but found that his hope of gaining the electors was destroyed by their
remembrance of Albert’s harshness, and of the policy by which he had
strengthened the crown. Philip now conceived the scheme of gaining the empire
for a member of his own family—which, in addition to France and Navarre,
already possessed the thrones of Naples and Hungary, and through agents at
Florence and at Rome swayed the affairs of central Italy; and (as we have seen)
he lost no time in visiting Clement at Poitiers, with a view to secure the
pope’s interest for his brother, Charles of Valois. It has, indeed, been
supposed by some writers that this interest was the object of the secret
article which Philip was said to have exacted from Clement before his election.
But the pope had reason to dread the vast aggrandizement of French influence
which was designed; and although, in compliance with Philip’s wishes, he wrote
in favour of Charles to the electors, he at the same time took measures
underhand to defeat the king’s policy. In consideration of his apparent
subserviency, not only as to the Templars but as to the empire, he was allowed
to leave Poitiers, and Philip was about to visit him at Avignon, in order to
press his suit with greater advantage at the head of 6,000 cavalry. But
Clement, having been informed of this design by a member of the king’s council,
employed Cardinal Nicolas of Prato (who had been alienated from Philip by his
bitterness against the memory of Boniface) to urge the electors that they
should choose speedily, and to recommend to them, as the fittest candidate,
Duke Henry of Luxemburg, who had lately visited the papal court. The important
see of Mayence was at this time occupied by Peter of Achtzpalt (Aichspalt or Aspelt), who having been sent to solicit it for Henry’s
brother Baldwin, and having recommended himself to the pope by his medical
skill, had himself been promoted from the see of Basel to the German primacy,
for which Baldwin was considered to be too young; and within two years he had
been able to console Baldwin by procuring for him the archbishopric of Treves.
Through the exertions of Peter Aichspalter, aided by
Baldwin, it was now contrived that the election should fall on Henry—a petty
prince who had not at first been thought of as a candidate, but who had been
distinguished by the justice and the vigour of his administration within his
own small territory, and was renowned as the most accomplished knight in
Europe. The archbishop of Mayence and the other
electors took, as was usual, the opportunity to secure large privileges or
other advantages for themselves and their successors; and the pope, in
ratifying the election, exacted from Henry an engagement that he would confirm
the grants of former emperors to the church, that he would exterminate
heresies and heretics, that he would never intermarry or ally himself with
Saracens, heathens, or schismatics, and that he would secure to the Roman
church the lands which had been mentioned in former compacts.
Philip—whether
or not he knew or suspected that the pope’s duplicity had been the cause of his
failure as to the empire,—was rendered eager to console himself for the
disappointment by pursuing his suit against the memory of Boniface; and,
although it had been intended that the matter should be reserved for the
general council, which had been summoned to meet in October 1310, Clement was
urged to a more speedy trial. He announced an intention of hearing the case in
Lent 1310, and summoned Philip and his sons, with Nogaret and Plasian, to appear as accusers. The king and the princes,
however, declined to undertake that character in a question of heresy; and
thus the task was thrown on Plasian and Nogaret, who
had staked their all on the process.
Witnesses
were on their way from Italy, under Reginald of Supino, who had been concerned
in the attack on the palace of Anagni, when, within three leagues of Avignon,
they were assailed by some of Boniface’s partisans, who had been lying in wait
for their arrival. Some of the Italians were killed; the rest were scattered
and returned across the Alps; and their leader hints, in a protest which he
made at Nimes, that the scheme for thus getting rid of their evidence had not
been unknown to pope Clement.The power and wealth of
Boniface’s family had provided him with able advocates, when, on the 16th of
March, 1310, the question came before the pope in his consistory. The French
king’s civilians were confronted by men learned in the ecclesiastical law,
among whom the most conspicuous was Baldred Bisset, a
canon of Glasgow, whose name has already come before us in connexion with the
question as to the Scottish crown.By each party an
attempt was made to deprive its opponents of a standing in the court. On the
one side, it was said that a man who was dead, and who was charged with heresy,
was not entitled to counsel: on the other, that a dead man ought not to be
brought to trial, since he had been cited before a higher tribunal; that a pope
could not be judged by any man—not even by his own successor, forasmuch as an
equal has no power over an equal; or, at least, that he could not be judged by
any authority less than a general council. To this it was rejoined that Boniface, being dead, was no longer pope; that the pope represented the
whole church, so as to render a general council superfluous; while Clement
himself disclaimed the right to try his predecessor. Nogaret objected to some
of the cardinals, as unfit to be judges on account of their partiality; while
the opposite party asserted that Nogaret himself ought not to be heard on
account of his notorious enmity against Boniface, of his acts against that
pope, and of the excommunication which he had incurred. Against Plasian, too, disqualifying circumstances were alleged,
Nogaret and his advocate, Bertrand of Roccanegata, replied
that he had not incurred excommunication; that, since he had spoken with
Boniface before the pope’s death, he could not be in an excommunicate state;
but the pope said that, although this opinion was held by some lawyers, it
could not be admitted. Both Plasian and Nogaret
asserted those doctrines of royal, as opposed to ecclesiastical, power which
were characteristic of their class—maintaining, among other things, the right
of the sovereign to prevent his subjects from going out of the realm, and to
take the property of the clergy without their consent. The trial went on for
many months.
Evidence,
partly obtained by a commission sent to Italy, partly given by witnesses who
appeared in person, was brought to prove a long list of accusations. It was
said that Boniface had been a blasphemer from his youth upwards; that he had
not only disbelieved the chief articles of the Christian faith, but had openly
and habitually scoffed at them; that he had neglected the outward duties of
religion, and had not confessed for thirty years; that he had been a gamester
and a profligate; that even in extreme old age he had indulged in the most
odious and abominable forms of dissoluteness; that he had declared the sins of
the flesh to be as much a matter of indifference as the act of washing the
hands; that he had been seen by night performing pagan sacrifices and
incantations, while voices of demons had been heard in the air; that he had
worshipped a devil enclosed in a ring, and an idol given to him by a famous
sorcerer. And, together with these and other such monstrous tales, was brought
up the old history of the irregularities connected with the resignation of
Celestine and his own promotion, and of the cruelties which he was said to have
exercised on his predecessor, of whose death he was even alleged to have been
guilty.
Clement found
himself in a great perplexity. Was he to give up the reputation of Boniface,
and with it the credit of the papacy, the validity of Benedict’s election and
of his own? or was he to tax Philip with falsehood, fraud, and subornation of
perjury in the persecution of the deceased pope? He had already requested the
intervention of Charles of Valois, whose hopes of the empire he had lately
frustrated. The kings of Castile and of Aragon also remonstrated with Philip
against his proceedings and at length a compromise was agreed on, to which
Philip was the more readily brought to consent, because the new emperor’s
successes in Italy suggested the fear that in him the pope might find another
protector. In consideration of being allowed to carry out his designs against
the Templars—with whom an attempt had been made to connect Boniface by a story
that he was aware of their heresy, but had been bribed to connive at it—the
king agreed to forego the fullness of his triumph over the memory of his old
antagonist, to leave the judgment of Boniface’s case to the pope and cardinals,
and never to question their decision. A special bull was issued, by which it
was declared that all Boniface’s acts against the king and kingdom of France
were annulled; they were to be erased from the papal registers, and it was
forbidden under penalties that any one should keep a copy of them. The bulls
known as Unam sanctam and Remnon novamonly were excepted, and these were to be understood in a qualified and inoffensive
sense. At the same time Philip, after a number of cardinals and others had, at
the pope’s request, testified to the purity of his zeal, was pronounced to be
free from all blame in his proceedings against Boniface—to be innocent as to
the attack on the pope, and as to the plunder of his treasures; and it was
declared that neither the existing pope nor his successors should molest the
king on account of Boniface. All who had been concerned in the contest with
Boniface were forgiven, except the authors of the outrage at Anagni, and even
for these some other way of release was to be used.Nogaret himself was absolved ad cautelam, on condition
that he should perform pilgrimages to Compostella and
certain other places, and that in the next crusade—an expedition which was
never to be made—he should serve until the pope should authorize his return.
The council
of Vienne, after having been deferred from time to time, met on the 16th of
October 1311. The number of bishops and mitred abbots is given by one writer as
114; by others as upwards of 300. The pope, in his discourse at the opening of
the proceedings, announced three subjects for consideration—the case of the
Templars, a crusade, and the reform of the church; and, in addition to these,
the question as to Boniface was discussed. Three advocates—a civilian, a decretalist, and a theologian—appeared in his behalf, and
it is said that two Catalan knights offered to do battle for the deceased
pope’s memory, but that no one took up their challenge. The question both as to
Boniface’s character and acts, and as to the French king’s opposition to him,
was settled on the footing of the compromise which has been already mentioned.
On the
subject of reform in the church, the bishops gave in written statements of
their views; one of these memoirs, by Durantis,
bishop of Mende, displays so much of knowledge and understanding, that it has
led some writers to draw from it a presumption in favour of the judgment which
he formed as a commissioner in the affair of the Templars.
In this
tract the bishop, with a great display of canonical learning, treats the
principal subjects which appeared to him to require the council’s attention. He
urges a thorough reform of the church, from the head downwards. He would have
the character of the Roman primacy exactly defined; that the pope should not,
in contradiction to the prohibition of Gregory the Great, be styled universal
bishop, and that in various ways his pretensions should be limited. If the
papacy should be vacant more than three months, the right of election ought to
pass from the cardinals to certain other representatives of the church. He
proposes that a general council should be assembled once in ten years, and that
the power of making general laws should belong to such councils alone. He urges
the restoration of the rights of the episcopate in cases where they had been
invaded from various quarters, as by the undue preference of cardinals and
members of the pope’s household above the bishops, and by those grants of
dispensations and exemptions to monastic communities which had been found
ruinous to discipline, and had often led even the inferior members of such
communities to fancy themselves equal to bishops and archbishops. He denounces
simony, pluralities, the system of granting monastic and other benefices to cardinals
in commendam, the employment of bishops and
clergy in secular affairs, improper promotions, the pride, luxury, and
ignorance of the clergy, the want of decent ornaments and vestures in churches,
defects in the performance of the services, and the profanation of Sundays and
holydays by giving them up to unseemly merriment. He urges reform among the
bishops and clergy, and, while maintaining the immunity of the clergy from
secular courts, he would guard against the abuse of this privilege as a
protection to unworthy persons. He proposes that the decretal De clericis conjugatis should be
revoked, as having been made by pope Boniface without the concurrence of a
general council; that the western discipline as to the marriage of the clergy
should be conformed to that of the eastern church; and he suggests the revival
of those canons by which the offspring of the amours of the clergy were
condemned to servitude. But although the question of reform had been thus fully
brought forward, the council did little to effect a reformation in the points
which had been indicated as faulty.
The subject
of a crusade was discussed, but languidly. A grant of tenths for six years was
voted for the purpose;money and jewels were
contributed, and some knights, among whom were Philip of France, Edward II of
England, and Lewis of Navarre, son of the French king, took the cross with a
view to the expedition. But nothing came of these acts, and, although attempts
were made to aid the cause by a report that the books of the Mussulmans
themselves foretold a speedy extinction of the false religion, it was more
manifest than ever that the period of crusading enthusiasm was over. A
chronicler relates that, when some thousands of crusaders, in obedience to the
pope’s summons, made their appearance at Avignon, Clement absolved them from
their vow, and desired them to return to their homes; “and thus,” says the
writer, “their labours and very great expenses became like a mockery and had no
effect.”
While the
council was engaged in hearing and considering the evidence which had been
collected as to the case of the Templars, seven knights presented themselves at
one of the sessions; and at a later meeting, two more appeared in like manner,
offering to defend the order, and stating that from 1500 to 2000 of their
brethren, concealed at Lyons and in its neighbourhood, were ready to support
them; but the pope in alarm ordered them to be arrested and imprisoned. In
February 1312, Philip, impatient at the slowness of the council, appeared
before the gates of Vienne at the head of a large force, declaring an intention
to “make the cause of Christ triumphant,” and demanding the abolition of the
order, on the ground that it had been convicted of heresies and crimes. A vast
majority of the council, however—all but one Italian bishop and the archbishops
of Sens, Rouen, and Reims, who had been concerned in the burnings of the French
Templars—desired that the accused should be heard; and Clement in perplexity
caught at a suggestion which had been made by the bishop of Mende, that the
order should be abolished, not on grounds of law, but as a measure of
expediency for the good of the church. On the 22nd of March, he brought the
question before his secret consistory, when no objection was raised against the
course which he proposed; for the members of the council had been gradually
subdued to the papal influence.And at the second
general session, on the 3rd of April, when king Philip and three of his sons
were present, the dissolution of the order was proclaimed, “not,” as the pope
avowed, “by way of definitive sentence, forasmuch as, according to the
inquisitions and processes which have been held, we cannot of right pass such a
sentence, but by the way of provision or apostolical ordination.” Thus the very instrument by which
the abolition of the order was determined left the question of its guilt or
innocence open, and has left it to perplex later ages, without even such
assistance towards the solution of it as might have been derived from a papal judgment.
A writer who lived near the time, and who professes to have special authority
for his statement, reports Clement as having said that the order could not be
destroyed in the way of justice, but that it must be destroyed by the way of
expediency, “lest our dear son the king of France should be offended”.
The members
of the order individually were left to the judgment of provincial synods. For
those who should seek and receive absolution, a maintenance was to be provided;
and the property of the order in France was made over, for the benefit of the
Holy Land, to the Hospitallers, who had achieved the conquest of Rhodes at the
very time when the great rival society was in the agonies of ruin. Many members
of the dissolved order were received into that of the Hospital, while others
sank into humbler conditions of life.But such was the
rapacity of Philip, and so effectually did he use the means of extortion which
he possessed, that his exactions for the temporary custody of the property, and
under other pretexts, are said to have left the Hospitallers for a time rather
losers than gainers by the great possessions which were thus transferred to
them. The property of the Templars was also bestowed on the knights of the Hospital
in Germany, England, and other countries; but a different arrangement was made
as to Spain, where the lands of the dissolved society were assigned to the
sovereigns, with a view to the continual war against the Moors; while some
smaller brotherhoods, devoted to the prosecution of that war, grew out of its
ruins, and were in part composed of persons who had been among its members.
The
grand-master, James de Molay, and three other great
dignitaries of the order, had spent six years and a half in prison when it was
at length resolved to bring their case to a final decision. They were produced
for trial before a commission, of which the archbishop of Sens was president,
were condemned on their old confessions to imprisonment for life, and on March
11th 1314 were brought forward in the presence of two cardinals on a platform
which had been erected in the parvis of the cathedral. The cardinal of Albano
began to read out their confessions; but suddenly this was interrupted by the
grand-master, who denied and repudiated the avowals imputed to him, declaring
himself to deserve death for having, from fear of torture and in flattery of
the king, made a false confession. The master of Normandy adhered to him in his
protest; but the other two brethren, worn out and dispirited by their long
imprisonment, had not the courage to join them. The cardinals, at a loss how to
act on this unexpected emergency, adjourned the further proceedings until the
morrow: but Philip, on being informed of the scene which had taken place, at
once, and without consulting the cardinals or any other clerical advisers, gave
orders for the execution of the two who had retracted their confessions. On the
same day De Molay and the master of Normandy were led
forth to death on a little island of the Seine, below the island of the City,
to which it has since been joined. Molay requested
that his hands might be unbound, and that in his last moment the image of the
blessed Virgin might be held before his eyes; and, as the flames gradually rose
around him and his companion, they firmly protested their orthodoxy and the
innocence of their order. Philip watched from the bank the death of his
victims, whose constancy in suffering produced a deep impression on the people,
so that their ashes were carefully collected and were treasured up as relics,
while their fate was generally ascribed to the king’s insatiable rapacity. It
was afterwards currently believed that Molay at the
stake summoned the pope and the king, as the authors of his death, to appear
before the judgment-seat of Christ within forty days and a year respectively,
and that each of them died within the time assigned. This story, however, does
not appear at all in contemporary writings; and the earliest versions of it are
without those coincidences of time which would at once give it a prophetic
character, and furnish a strong presumption of its falsehood. The two knights
who had hung back from taking part with the master in the parvis of Notre-Dame
ended their days in prison.
ITALY
In Italy the
enmities of the Guelf and Ghibelline factions had continued with unabated
bitterness. The head of the Guelf party was Robert of Naples, who, on the death
of his father, Charles II, had been preferred by the pope, on account of his maturer age and of his abilities, to the son of his elder
brother, Charles of Hungary. Robert had received the crown from the pope’s
hands at Avignon, which was within his own territory of Provence; and at the
same time he had been excused the payment of a very large debt which his
grandfather and father had incurred to the Roman see on account of their
Sicilian wars.
Since the
deposition of Frederick II at the council of Lyons in 1245, no king of the
Romans had received the imperial crown; and Albert as well as Rudolf had been
severely rebuked in Dante’s enduring verse for neglecting Rome and Italy. Yet
while the empire was thus in a state of abeyance or weakness, the idea of the
emperor’s power, as an absolute monarch and supreme arbiter, had been raised
higher than before through the exertions of the lawyers, who grounded their
theories on the old legislation of Justinian, and had never been in greater
authority than at this time. For Henry of Luxemburg his want of territorial
power and family connexions made it important that he should be invested with
the imperial crown; and in August 1309 he announced to an assembly at Spires
his intention of proceeding into Italy for this purpose. At Lausanne, where
many representatives of Italian princes and parties waited on him, in October
1310, he renewed the oath which his envoys had already taken to the pope; and
towards the end of the same month he crossed the Mont Cenis, with a force which
did not in all exceed 5000 men. On the Epiphany 1311 —the second anniversary of
his coronation at Aix-la-Chapelle—he was crowned at Milan as king of Italy by
the archbishop of that city. From a throne erected in a public place at Milan
he proclaimed that he desired to know nothing of party, but everywhere to
establish peace and justice, and to restore the exiled citizens; and the people
wept for joy at the announcement. The factions of the Milanese, which were
headed respectively by the families of Visconti and Della Torre, were not,
however, to be at once appeased; and the exactions to which Henry was driven by
his necessities produced a commotion, in consequence of which he was led to
expel the Della Torres, who, from having been the first to welcome him, had
afterwards turned against him. In faithful adherence to his declaration that
he had not come into Lombardy for the benefit of a party, but of all, Henry
proceeded from city to city, everywhere restoring the exiles, whether
Ghibellines who had been banished by Guelfs, or Guelfs who had been banished by
Ghibellines. But some of the Lombard cities rose against him on account of this
impartial procedure, and it was not without much labour that he was able to
reduce them; while the detention thus caused (as at Brescia, which did not
capitulate until after to having been reduced to extreme distress by a siege of
four months) involved the loss of opportunities which might have enabled him to
make himself master of central and southern Italy. At Genoa, where he spent
four months—partly on account of the illness and death of his queen—he received
ambassadors from Robert of Naples, proposing term of friendship and alliance;
but on proceeding southward, he found that Robert was exerting all his
influence against him, and that the king’s brother, John, prince of Achaia, was
in possession of the approach to Rome by the Ponte Molle,
and of some strong places within the city. After some negotiation he compelled
John to withdraw from the bridge (although the prince professed to do so for
strategical reasons); and he gradually got possession ofthe Capitol, the Colosseum, the Pantheon, and other strongholds on the left bank of
the river. But the Capitol was recovered by the Neapolitan party, through the
influence of money. The Vatican quarter and the Trastevere,
with that part of the Campus Martius which is nearest to the river, were in the
hands of John and of his allies, the Orsini; bloody encounters were frequent in
the streets; and after repeated attempts to gain possession of St. Peter’s, by
force or by treaty, with a view to his imperial coronation, Henry was obliged
to submit to receive the crown on St. Peter’s day in the half- ruinous church
of St. John Lateran, which had lately been in great part destroyed by fire. For
this there was a precedent in the case of Lothair III, who had been crowned in the Lateran because St. Peter’s was occupied by
the antipope Anacletus, and it was sanctioned by a
decree of the Roman senate and people; but the three cardinals who had
been commissioned by the pope to officiate, did not consent to such a deviation
from the usual practice until after much difficulty and under protest; and the
ceremony, shorn of its usual splendour, was performed in the midst of danger
and alarm.
Immediately
after the coronation, the duke of Bavaria and others of Henry’s supporters left
Rome with their troops, in fear of the heats which had so often been fatal to
the Germans; and the emperor himself, who had been reduced to great straits by
the diminution of his force, finally took his departure on the 20th of August.
It was in vain that Clement desired Henry and Robert, as sons of the church, to
make peace; for Henry, having been advised by his legal counsellors that the
pope was not entitled to interfere thus between him and his vassal, was
determined to assert the fullness of his imperial rights.
After some
previous formalities, he uttered at Pisa the ban of the empire, by which
Robert, on account of treasons and other offences which were recited, was
declared to have forfeited both his southern kingdom and the county of
Provence. His subjects were absolved from their allegiance, and, as an outlaw,
he was threatened, if he should fall into the emperor’s hands, with the same
death which his own grandfather, the founder of the Angevine dynasty, had
inflicted on the unfortunate Conradin. The pope
declared this sentence to be null, and reminded Henry of his oaths to the
apostolic see; to which Henry replied that he had taken no oath of fealty to
any one; and, having made this declaration solemnly before witnesses, he caused
it to be formally recorded.
Henry’s army
had been greatly reduced by defections, war, and sickness, and he was obliged
to wait for reinforcements from Germany. Yet the firmness with which he held to
his purpose, and the other great qualities which he displayed, were such as
even to extort the admiration of those who were opposed to him. Being as yet
unable to attack Robert directly, he laid siege to Florence, which now for the
first time began to take a prominent part in the general politics of Italy; but
the strength of the defence and a sickness among his troops obliged him to
relinquish the attempt. The pope, greatly incensed, threatened excommunication
and interdict against anyone who should invade the Neapolitan kingdom, as being
a fief of the church; but Henry replied to his legate, “If God be for us,
neither the pope nor the church will destroy us, so long as we do not offend
God.” The pope, instigated by Philip’s influence in behalf of his Neapolitan
kinsmen, pronounced his curses; but before the publication of them, Henry had
died at Buonconvento, on the 24th of August 1313, at
a time when his power was greater and when his prospects appeared brighter than
they had ever before been. His death appears to have been really occasioned by
natural causes but its suddenness gave countenance to the suspicion of poison,
which was said to have been administered in the eucharistic cup by his
confessor, a Dominican named Bernard of Montepulciano, who had been bribed
(according to various theories) by Robert of Naples, by Philip of France, by
the Florentines, or by the pope.
With Henry’s
attempt to restore the dignity of the empire Dante’s famous treatise ‘Of
Monarchy’ is connected by its subject, although it was probably composed
somewhat earlier. From one of the poet’s letters it is inferred that he waited
on the emperor at his appearance in Italy and his interest in Henry personally
appears from a well-known passage of the ‘Paradise’. The treatise ‘Of Monarchy’
may be regarded as a remarkable instance of the manner in which the advance of
the papal claims provoked the development of a rival theory, which invested the
emperor with a majesty partly derived from the remembrance of the ancient Roman
greatness, and partly borrowed from the theocratic idea of the papacy. The
author proposes to himself three questions whether monarchy be necessary for
the wellbeing of the world; whether the Romans acquired their empire
rightfully; and whether the monarch’s authority be derived from God
immediately, or through some other power;—and all these questions he decides in
favour of the imperial pretensions. He argues that in every society there must
be a head, and in the great human society this head must be a monarch. He
regards this monarchy as absolute and universal, and declares that such a
government is the only means of establishing universal peace, which never
existed except under the empire of Augustus Caesar. The Romans, he says, were
the noblest of peoples, and therefore were worthy of universal empire. They got
their empire rightfully; for they got it by war, and war is a recourse to the
Divine arbitration. In proof of this, he alleges stories of miracles from Livy
and from Virgil; and he argues that, if the empire were not of right, the
Saviour, by being born under it, would have sanctioned wrong. In the third
book, Dante discusses the question of the emperor’s deriving his authority
from God immediately or mediately. He admits that the secular power is under
certain obligations to the spiritual power; but he denies that the phrase of
the “two swords” showed St. Peter to be possessed of temporal as well as
spiritual government. He combats such deductions from the “two great lights”
and from other scriptural language as would make the temporal power inferior to
the spiritual; and, without questioning the genuineness of the donation
ascribed to Constantine, he denies the inferences from it as to the emperor’s
having made over his power to the pope. As the empire existed in its fullness
before the church, it could not be derived from the church; the emperor has his
power immediately from God, and he is chosen by God alone, while the so styled
electors are merely the instruments for declaring the Divine will. The whole
treatise—and nothing in it more signally than the wild inconsequence of some of
the arguments—may be regarded as evidence of the fascination which the idea of
the imperial grandeur and the traditional dignity of Rome as its seat could
exercise over a mind lofty, solitary, perhaps unequalled in some elements of
greatness, but ill fitted for the practical work of human politics.
The pope had
been embroiled with the Venetians as to Ferrara, where, on the death of Azzo III, in 1308, the succession was disputed between his
brother Francis, and his illegitimate son Frisco.Frisco,
finding himself odious to the Ferrarese, called in the aid of the Venetians, to
whom he afterwards sold his interest; while his uncle threw himself on the
protection of the pope. The Venetians, who had always been inclined to hold
themselves independent of Rome in ecclesiastical matters, persisted in keeping
their questionable acquisition; while Clement advanced an apocryphal claim to
Ferrara as a dependency of the Roman see. A papal nuncio was insulted, and even
stoned, at Venice; and on Maundy Thursday 1309, the pope issued a bull so
monstrous that even the papal annalist Rinaldi is ashamed to transcribe it at
full lengths Clement declared by it that, unless the Venetians would submit,
they should be excluded from religious offices, from civil intercourse, and
from all benefit of laws; their magistrates were to be branded as infamous,
their doge was to be stripped of the ensigns of office, their whole property
was to be subject to confiscation, they were to be liable to slavery, and their
goods were to be at the mercy of any who might care to plunder them. Princes
were invited to carry out these outrageous denunciations, and a crusade was
proclaimed against the republic, with the usual promise of indulgences. The
clergy and monks withdrew from Venice in obedience to the pope’s order, and
multitudes were readily found to catch at the license to plunder which was held
out in the name of religion. In England and in France the property of Venetian
traders was violently seized; at Genoa and in the ports of the Romagna, of
Tuscany, and of Calabria, many of them, in addition to the loss of their
effects, were reduced to slavery, or even were slain. Cardinal Arnold of Pelagrue, whom the pope had commissioned as legate for
Tuscany and northern Italy, marched an army to Ferrara, which he took with
great slaughter by the aid of the party opposed to Frisco; and he exercised
cruel vengeance on the Venetians who fell into his hand. The interdict on
Venice continued in force until the year 1313, when Francis Dandolo (afterwards
doge) was sent to the papal court at Avignon, and, by the adroitness of his
submission, was able to obtain the absolution of his countrymen.
Feeling his
health declining, Clement in 1314 resolved to seek a restoration of it by a
visit to his native province; but he had proceeded no further than Roquemaure, on the western bank of the Rhone, when death
came on him on the 20th of April. His body was removed to Carpentras for
burial; and it was said that, having been left unattended in a church, it was
partly burnt in a conflagration occasioned by the candles which were placed
around it. Notwithstanding the expenses of his court and the rapacity of his
mistress, he left vast wealth to his nephews.
Ignominious
as Clement’s subserviency to the king of France
appears, he had yet been able by his policy to gain some points which would
have been certainly lost if he had attempted to carry on the lofty manner of
Boniface. His underhand dealings had frustrated Philip’s attempt to gain the
imperial crown for the reigning family of France; he had succeeded in rescuing
the memory of his predecessor from reprobation, and by so doing had rescued the
credit of the papacy itself.
The last
years of Philip the Fair were not happy, and many saw in the troubles which
befell him the punishment of his outrages against Pope Boniface or of his
injustice to the Templars. He was dishonoured in his family by the infidelity
of his queen and of the wives of his three sons. The falsification of the
coinage, and his other oppressive means of raising moneys although they failed
to enrich him, provoked discontents which sometimes found a vent in
insurrection and compelled him to withdraw his offensive measures. But in the
meantime his piety and his cruelty were shown at once in the punishment of
religious error, as in the case of Margaret Porrette,
a native of Hainault, who in 1310 was burnt for having produced a book on the
Love of God, written in a strain of mystical fervour which seems to have
bordered on the errors of the sect of the Free Spirit. So noted was Philip’s
zeal for orthodoxy, that Arnold of Villeneuve, a Provencal physician, and
professor in the university of Paris, after having published a book against the
prevailing religious system, thought it well to secure his safety by seeking a
refuge in Sicily. After a reign of twenty-nine years, Philip, although he had
reached only the age of forty-six, was prematurely broken and worn out. An
accident which befell him while hunting in the forest of Fontainebleau produced
an illness, which he is said to have borne with great patience; and on the 29th
of November 1314 he died, leaving the memory of a rule more despotic and
oppressive than any that had been known in France.
CHAPTER II
FROM THE DEATH OF POPE CLEMENT V TO THAT OF THE EMPEROR LEWIS IV
A.D. 1314-1347.
The
cardinals met at Carpentras, the place of Clement V’s burial, for the election
of a successor to him. Of twenty-three who composed the college, six only were
Italians, and the feeling of these is shown in a letter which was addressed by
one of them, Napoleon Orsini, to king Philip. The cardinal expresses his deep
dissatisfaction with the result of the last election. Rome and Italy had
suffered by Clement’s withdrawal, and had fallen a
prey to confusion. The patronage of bishoprics and other ecclesiastical
dignities had been prostituted to money or to family interest. The Italian
cardinals had been slighted in all possible ways; the pope had shown his
intention to confine the church to a corner of Gascony: and the letter
concludes by praying that Philip would concur towards the election of a pope
who may be as unlike his predecessor as the good of the church required that he
should be.
The Italians
urged a return to Rome, and maintained that, in order to preserve the
ascendency of the pope over the hearts of men, the chair of St. Peter must be
fixed in the apostle’s own city. To this course they were strongly urged by the
great poet of the age, who addressed a letter to them, in which he represented
the faults which were commonly imputed to their order, lamented the condition
of Rome, “now deprived of both lights” (the empire and the papacy), “sitting
solitary and a widow”; and he exhorted them to make the disgrace of the
Gascons, who greedily attempted to usurp the glory of the Latins, a warning to
future ages. The French cardinals, although nearly thrice as many as the
Italians, hesitated to force an election by outvoting them; but while the
conclave was sitting, two of Clement’s nephews, under
pretence of accompanying his body, entered the town at the head of a party of
Gascons, who, with shouts of “Death to the Italians!”—“We will have the pope!”
attacked the houses of the Italian cardinals, killed many of their dependents,
and began to plunder and to burn in several quarters. The palace in which the cardinals
were assembled was set on fire, and they were compelled to make their escape by
breaking through the back wall of the building. The cardinals were scattered
“like frightened partridges”; and although Philip urged them to meet at Lyons
for an election, the matter was unsettled at the time of his death.
His son and
successor, Lewis X, who from his noisy and disorderly habits acquired the name
of Huting was a frivolous, prodigal, childish prince,and while he gave himself up to the amusements of
the tilt-yard and to other enjoyments, the real conduct of affairs was in the
hands of his uncle, Charles of Valois. The late king’s ministers and
instruments were disgraced : Enguerrand de Marigny and others of them were put to death; and in the
course of the proceedings against them were discovered the arts of some
sorcerers, who, in complicity (as was said) with Marigny,
his wife, and his sister, were supposed to practise against the lives of the
king, of his uncle Charles, and of others, by placing waxen images of them
before a slow fire, when, as the figure gradually melted away, a corresponding
decrease took place in the fleshly substance of the person who was represented.
The spirit
of party was strong among the cardinals. The Gascons would have no one but a
Gascon for pope, while those who had been discontented under Clement were not
inclined to elect one of his countrymen. In consequence of these differences
the papacy had already been vacant two years, when Lewis, by promising that the
rule for closing the conclave should not be enforced, persuaded the members of
the college to assemble at Lyons for an election, and deputed his brother
Philip, count of Poitiers, to superintend it. But before any decision had taken
place, Philip was informed that Lewis had suddenly died, on the fifth of July
1316; and, being advised by some counsellors that the engagement as to the
conclave was illegal, and therefore invalid, he ordered that the Dominican
convent, in which the cardinals were assembled, should be walled up and
guarded, while he himself set off to secure his own interests in the new
circumstances of the kingdom. A son whom the widowed queen bore after her
husband’s death lived only a few days; and as the only other child of Lewis, a
daughter, was set aside on account of her sex, Philip “the Long” himself became
king, although not without a protest in the name of the excluded princess.
The
cardinals were at length brought, through the management of Napoleon Orsini, to
elect James d’Euse, or Duèse,
cardinal of Porto, who took the name of John XXII. John was a native of Cahors,
and appears to have been the son of a respectable citizen of that place,
although some represent him as descended from a knightly family, while others
make his father a tavern-keeper or a cobbler.He was a
man of small stature, of simple personal habits, and of vehement and bitter
temper; he was distinguished for his acuteness, his eloquence, and learning; he
had been chancellor to king Robert of Naples, and had held the sees of Frejus and of Avignon, to
the latter of which he was promoted by Clement V, in compliance with a
recommendation which was signed and sealed by the chancellor in the king’s
name, but to which Robert himself was not privy. He had been employed in Italy
to inquire into the case of Boniface VIII; at the council of Vienne he had
rendered important services to Clement by labouring both for the rescue of
Boniface’s memory and for the condemnation of the Templars; and these services
had been rewarded by his promotion to the dignity of cardinal.
It is said
that at the election John conciliated the Italian cardinals by swearing that he
would never mount on horseback unless to return to Rome; and that he eluded his
oath by descending the Rhone to Avignon in a boat, and walking from the
landing-place to the papal palace, which he never afterwards quitted, except in
order to attend the services of the neighbouring cathedral.
But although
John remained in France, his condition was very different from that of his
predecessor. The kings with whom he had to deal did not possess the vigour of
Philip the Fair; and the air which the pope assumed towards them was not that
of a subordinate but of a superior. Even if he endeavoured to bring about that
transference of the imperial crown to the royal house of France which Clement’s art had been employed to prevent, it was with a
view to establishing more thoroughly the superiority of the papacy over the
empire. He took it on himself, in disregard of a right which had always been
claimed by sovereigns, to redistribute the dioceses of southern France,
erecting Toulouse into an archbishopric, with six suffragan bishops under it,
and to make similar changes in other parts of the kingdom. And, in reliance at
once on his pontifical authority and on his personal reputation for learning,
he undertook to reform and to dictate to the universities of Paris, Toulouse,
and Orleans.
John was
especially severe against those magical practices which have been already
mentioned, and by the fear of which the public mind was at that time thrown
into a state of panic. The Inquisition was employed to discover those who
carried on similar arts —with whom the remains of the Albigensian sectaries
were sometimes confounded. For such crimes (real or imaginary) many persons
were put to death; among them was Hugh Geraldi, the
bishop of John’s native city, who, having been found guilty of having compassed
the pope’s death by unhallowed arts, was degraded from his orders, flayed
alive, and torn asunder by horses, after which his remains were dragged through
the town to the place of public execution, where they were burnt. The lepers,
who, during the time of the crusades had generally been regarded with
compassion, and who, in the early days of the Franciscan order, had been the
special objects of its charity, now fell under suspicion of a conspiracy
against the rest of mankind. It was said that they were engaged in a design to
poison all the wells of France, by putting into them little bags, containing
the consecrated host, mixed with human blood, herbs, and various loathsome
substances; that by such means they hoped either to destroy all Christians, or
to infect them with their own miserable disease; that with a view to this plot
they had held four general councils, at which all lazar-houses were
represented; that they had been instigated to the crime by Jews, who were the
agents of the Moorish king of Granada; and that, while lending themselves to
the plots of the infidels, the lepers had engaged themselves to deny the Christian
faith. In consequence of these wild tales, a general persecution was carried on
against the lepers. In some places they were shut up in their houses, which
were set on fire by excited mobs; many of them were burnt indiscriminately by
sentence of the king’s judges, who were commanded to deal summarily with them;
but at Paris and elsewhere the distinction was at length established, that such
of them as could not be convicted of any personal share in the alleged crimes
should be confined for life within the lazar-houses, in the hope that by a
separation of the sexes their race might become extinct.
The Jews
also, who in the reign of Lewis had been allowed to return to France, and had
paid heavily for the privilege, were now persecuted. Many of them were burnt,
their property was confiscated, and the pope ordered that the bishops should
destroy all copies of the Talmud, as being the chief support of their
perversity. Many Jews threw their children into the fire, in order to rescue
them from being forcibly baptized.
Under Philip
the Long the system of administration which had pressed so heavily on France in
his father’s time was resumed. Among other means of exaction, he was authorized
by the pope to levy a tenth of ecclesiastical income for the crusade; but when
he attempted to collect the money, the bishops, who suspected that it was
intended to serve the king in some design on the empire, refused to pay until
they should be assured that a crusade was really intended. The oppressiveness
of the king’s exactions produced in 1320 a new movement of pastoureaux,
which, like that in the reign of St. Lewis, began in the north of France. The
leaders in this movement were a priest who had been deprived of his parish for
misconduct, and an apostate Benedictine monk; their followers were at first
shepherds and swineherds—chiefly boys; and they set out as if for the Holy
Land, marching along silently, preceded by a cross, with staves in their hands
and empty wallets, trusting to find their support in alms. But gradually the
company was swelled by persons of lawless character, and from begging they
proceeded to plunder. Their violence showed itself in an alarming degree at
Paris, and when some of them were imprisoned, the rest broke open the prisons
and forcibly released them. Wherever they went, the Jews were especial objects
of their fury. At Verdun, on the Garonne, where many of these had been driven
to take refuge, the pastoureaux shut up more
than 500 of them in the castle, and set it on fire. At Toulouse they slew all the
Jews and plundered their goods, in defiance of the magistrates and of the
king’s officers. The wave rolled on, everywhere spreading terror, so that the
inhabitants of the country fortified themselves against the strangers, and
would not sell them any provisions. As they approached Avignon, the pope
uttered an anathema Ascension-day, against all who should take the cross
without his sanction, and requested the protection of the seneschal of Beaucaire, who had already put many of them to death. When
they reached Languedoc, the pastoureaux had
numbered 40,000. The seneschal shut them out of Aigues Mortes, where they had intended to embark, and,
enclosing them with his troops in the adjoining country, he left them to the
operation of famine, of nakedness, and want of shelter, and of the fever
generated by the swamps,—occasionally falling on them when thus weakened, and
hanging them in large numbers on gibbets or on trees. Thus this unhappy
fanaticism was speedily extinguished.
With the
extreme party among the Franciscans pope John was very seriously embroiled. The
luxury and splendour of his court, the wealth which he was visibly
accumulating, although a large part of the treasures left by his predecessor
Clement escaped his endeavours to get possession of it—such things contrasted
violently with the severe notions which this party held as to the nature and
obligation of evangelical poverty. While in other matters they mostly adhered
to the opinions of Peter John of Olivi—declaring the
pope to be the mystical antichrist, the precursor of the greater antichrist,
his church to be the Babylonian harlot, the synagogue of Satan, and in some
cases professing to support their opinions by the authority of new
revelations,—they denied that the Saviour and his apostles had possessed
anything whatever; they maintained that He and they had only the use—not the
possession or the disposal—of such things as were necessary for life, of their
dress, and even of their food; that the scrip and the purse of which we read in
the Gospels were allowed only by way of condescension to human infirmity; that
the use of such repositories as cellars and granaries is a distrust of the
Divine providence. If, it was argued, the Saviour had possessed, whereas St.
Francis did not, He would not have been perfect, but would have been excelled
by the founder of the minorites. As even the
fanaticism of the fraticelli recoiled from
such a supposition as blasphemous, it was concluded that therefore the Saviour
possessed nothing; and it was inferred that He ought to be obeyed not only in
his precepts but in his counsels. In such opinions John saw a revolutionary
tendency which threatened the papacy and the whole hierarchical system; and he
condemned them by several bulls, in some of which he argued the question,
maintaining that, in the case of such things as food, the power of use involves
possession and ownership. But the “spirituals” met the pope’s condemnation by
denying his right to dispense with their statutes, by taking their stand on the
bull of Nicolas III, which was known by the title of Exiit,
and by appealing to a future pope. In Languedoc some convents broke out into
rebellion, and the spirituals, who were supported by the popular favour,
expelled those who differed from them. An inquiry was set on foot by a
commission, of which Michael of Cesena, the general of the order, was a member;
and by it many of the more violent faction were condemned either to the flames
or imprisonment. A general chapter of the Franciscans, which was held at Perugia
in 1322, affirmed the doctrine of evangelical poverty, and Michael of Cesena,
who presided, was now with the rigid party. The pope declared the chapter to be
heretical, and denounced the Franciscans as hypocritical for enjoying great
wealth under pretext of the fiction that the use alone was theirs, and that the
possession belonged to the papacy. He renounced the nominal right on which this
fiction was grounded; he forbade the order to employ the name of the apostolic
see in collecting or administering money, repealed the bull of Nicolas III, on
which they relied, and subjected them to various disabilities. The University
of Paris, which was under the influence of the rival order of St. Dominic,
condemned at great length the extreme doctrine of poverty. A division took
place in the Franciscan order, and Michael of Cesena, who had fled from Avignon
in defiance of the pope’s orders that he should remain there, and had denied
the validity of the deposition which John had thereupon pronounced against him,
was superseded as its head by the election of Gerard Odonis in June 1329. But in consequence of these differences with the pope, the more
rigid Franciscans were driven into Ghibellinism and while the learned men of
the party, such as the famous schoolman William of Ockham, employed themselves
in inquiries which tended to the overthrow of the papal pretensions, the
results of such inquiries were spread everywhere by the itinerant friars, who
familiarized the people, down even to the lowest classes, with the notion that
the pope and the Roman church were the mystical antichrist and Babylon of
Scripture. And thus that order on which the popes had relied as their surest
support and instrument was turned in great part into dangerous opposition to
their interest.
In order to
fill the vacancy caused by the death of Henry VII, Frederick and Leopold of
Austria, the sons of his predecessor Albert, were brought forward; but they
were opposed by the late emperor’s partisans, of whom the archbishop of Mayence, Peter Aichspalter, was
the leader The candidate of this party was Lewis of Bavaria, a grandson of
Rudolf of Hapsburg through female descent, and therefore a cousin of the
Austrian princes whom he was reluctantly persuaded to oppose. On the 19th of
October 1314 Frederick was elected by one party, and on the following day Lewis
was chosen by the other. Both elections took place in the suburbs of Frankfort;
but Lewis, in addition to being supported by three unquestionable votes, while
Frederick had only two, had the advantage of being able to gain admission into
the city, where he was raised aloft on the high altar of the great church, and
was afterwards displayed to the people assembled in the surrounding place. As
the archbishop of Cologne, when asked to crown him according to custom at
Aix-la-Chapelle, pretended to a right of investigating the election, the
coronation was performed there by the archbishop of Mayence;
and on the preceding day the archbishop of Cologne had crowned Frederick at
Bonn. The papacy was then vacant by the death of Clement V, and each party drew
up a statement of its case, to be submitted to the future pope, with a request
that he would confirm the election of its candidate. Clement, after the death
of Henry, had declared the imperial ban which had been pronounced against
Robert of Naples to be null, had claimed for himself—by ancient right, as he
pretended—the administration of the empire in Italy, and on the strength of
this novel claim had appointed Robert as vicar over the imperial territories in
that country. By John this pretension was carried yet further. He issued a
bull, declaring that all authority which had been held in Italy under grants of
the late emperor was at an end, and forbidding the officials to continue the
exercise of such authority without fresh commissions from himself; he even
attempted to set up a similar pretension to a vicariate in Germany during the
vacancy of the imperial throne, and refused to confirm German bishops in their
sees unless on the condition of their owning neither of the elect as king until
the apostolic see should have decided between the rivals. In Italy the chiefs
of the Ghibelline party were not disposed to obey the new claim; the most
conspicuous among them, Matthew Visconti, although he laid down the title of
imperial vicar, got himself chosen by the Milanese as their captain-general,
and thus founded a hereditary dominion which afterwards became the dukedom of
Milan. In consequence of this John thundered against him charges of heresy and
other offences, curses, and interdicts, and proclaimed a crusade with the full
crusading indulgences; yet Visconti maintained his power against all the
forces which the pope could raise up against him, until a short time before his
death, when he transferred it to his son John Galeazzo, and gave up his
remaining days to devout preparation for his end. It was, however, found
necessary to conceal the place of his burial, lest the papal vengeance should
be wreaked on his body as that of one who had died under excommunication.
Robert of
Naples, by spending some years in Provence, gained an entire ascendency over
his old chancellor, the pope, which he intended to employ for the subjugation
of Italy; but throughout the peninsula the dread of falling under his power
contributed strongly to foster an antipapal spirit. Almost all the cities had
now parted with their republican liberties, and had fallen under the dominion
of lords, of whom many were detestable tyrants, yet at whose courts literature
and the arts, which were now bursting into splendour, found an enlightened and
a munificent patronage. Thus Dante’s last years were spent at the court of
Ravenna, under the protection of Guy of Polenta, nephew of that Francesca on
whose name the poet has bestowed a mournful immortality.
In the
dissensions of Germany John seemed for a time to take no side, giving the title
of king of the Romans alike to each of the rival claimants of the crown, while
he contented himself with desiring them to settle their quarrel and to report
the result to him. But this quiescence did not arise from indifference; for no
pope ever entered into political strife more keenly than John, and the part
which he at length took was not provoked, as the action of popes in other cases
had been, either by any personal vices in the emperor, or by aggressions on the
church. In his contest with Lewis of Bavaria, John’s single motive was a desire
to assert for his see a power over the empire. He is said to have avowed the
principle that “when kings and princes quarrel, then the pope is truly pope”.
So long, therefore, as Lewis and the Austrian princes were wearing each other
out in indecisive struggles, the pope looked on with calmness. But when the
great battle of Muhldorf, on Michaelmas-eve 1322, had
given victory to Lewis, and had thrown into his hands Frederick of Austria and
his brother Henry as prisoners, John was driven from his policy of inaction,
and put forth a manifesto, in which his claims were strongly asserted. The pope
lays down that, as the election to the empire had been doubtful, it ought to be
referred to him for judgment; he desires Lewis to cease within three months
from using the title or the authority of the Roman kingdom or empire, and to
recall, in so far as might be possible, the acts which he had done as king. He
forbids all obedience to Lewis, and declares engagements to him as king elect
to be null. The document was not sent to Lewis, as the pope considered the
display of it on the doors of the cathedral at Avignon to be a sufficient
publication. Lewis, on being made acquainted with it, sent forth a protest,
which was read in the presence of a large assembly at Nuremberg. With much
profession of veneration for the Roman church, he denounces the injustice and
the enmity which he had experienced at the pope’s hands. He maintains that one
who had been rightfully chosen by the electors, or by a majority of them, and
who had been duly crowned, had always been acknowledged as king of the Romans;
and he complains that he himself, after having held that dignity for ten years,
should now find his title questioned by the pope, with a disregard of all the
usual forms of justice. He repels the charge of favouring heresy, which the
pope had brought against him on account of his connexion with Galeazzo Visconti
and others, and even retorts on John himself for neglecting the accusations
brought against the Franciscans, that they revealed the secrets of the
confessional, and so deterred Christian people from confession, to the great
danger of their souls. He concludes by appealing to a general council, and he
also sent envoys to the papal court, with a request that the time allowed him
for defending himself might be extended. To this the pope replied that the time
was not allowed for defence, but for submission. He consented, however, to
grant two months more; and as within that period Lewis did not submit, he
pronounced him excommunicate, forbade all acknowledgment of him as king of the
Romans, and annulled all engagements to him as such, while he yet suspended for
three months the further penalties which had been threatened.
Lewis again
appealed to a general council, and to a true and lawful future pope. He again
denied the charge of favouring heresy, and protested against the disregard of
the rules of justice which had been shown in John’s proceedings against him.
The liberties of the church, he says, were the gift of Constantine to pope
Sylvester. He charges John with invading the rights of the empire and of the
German electors, and taxes him with cruelty and perfidy towards the
imperialists of Italy, with having stirred up rebellion in Germany, with
profanation of the sacraments and contempt of the canons, and with having
prevented the deliverance of the Holy Land by detaining the money collected for
that purpose. And whereas in a former document he had blamed him for partiality
to the Franciscans, he now accuses him of heresy and profanity in endeavouring
to blacken that order by asserting that the Saviour and His apostles possessed
goods in common. John, finding his opponent still contumacious, issued on the
nth of July his “fourth process,” by which Lewis was pronounced to be deprived
of all that he might claim in right of his election, while his excommunication
was renewed, all who had abetted him were placed under ban or interdict, and he
was cited to appear, either in person or by proxy, before the pope at Avignon
on the 1st of October. The archbishops of Sens, of Canterbury and York, of
Magdeburg and of Capua, were charged with the proclamation of this sentence in
their respective countries.
In these
proceedings the pope did not meet with the general acquiescence and support
which he probably expected. Electors and other great personages—even Leopold of
Austria—began to take alarm at the extravagance of the papal pretensions. At
Paris and at Bologna doctors of both canon and civil law gave opinions
condemnatory of his acts. In Germany the sentences against Lewis were not
published by any prelates except such as had before been his enemies, and at
Basel a clerk who ventured to proclaim them was thrown into the Rhine. Some
Dominicans in German cities, who adhered to the pope, found themselves deprived
of the alms on which they had relied for a maintenance, and were compelled to
leave the country. The canons of Freising refused to
receive a bishop who had been nominated by the pope. Respect for ecclesiastical
sentences had died out, unless in cases where the justice of them was clear;
and the charges to avoid the emperor as an excommunicate person were unheeded.
Lewis was
aided in his struggle by men of letters, whom the exaggerated pretensions of
the papacy had provoked to follow in the line opened by Dante’s treatise “Of
Monarchy”, and to inquire into the foundations of the ecclesiastical power with
a freedom of which there had as yet been no example. The jurists were, as of
old, on the imperial side, and maintained the emperor’s entire independence of
the pope; even those who were hindered by circumstances from taking a declared
part—as the lawyers of Bologna, who were subject to the pope’s temporal
rule—allowed their imperialist principles to be seen. And in the “spiritual”
party among the Franciscans, who were already embroiled with John on the
question of evangelical poverty, and whose rigid opinions on that subject
accorded with the emperor’s desire to humble the secular greatness of the
papacy, Lewis found a new and important class of allies.
Of these
Franciscans the most famous was the Englishman William of Ockham, so called
from his native place in the county of Surrey, who, according to the custom of
the schools, was distinguished by the titles of “Singular and invincible
Doctor”, and “Venerable Inceptor”. William had studied at Paris under Duns
Scotus, of whose system he afterwards became a conspicuous opponent, and he had
taught both there and at Bologna. He had revived the almost extinct philosophy
of the nominalists, which his followers maintained against the realism of the Scotists with such zeal that their disputes often ran into
violent affrays. In the contest between Philip the Fair and pope Boniface he
had written a treatise on the side of royalty; and, as a provincial of his
order, he had taken a conspicuous part in the synod of Perugia, which asserted
opinions contrary to those of pope John on the question of evangelical poverty.
A papal sentence drove him from Bologna; and, like others of his order, he took
refuge with Lewis, to whom he is reported to have said, “Defend me with the
sword, and I will defend you with the word.”
Ockham’s
chief contribution to the controversy, a “Dialogue” between a master and a
disciple, is (although incomplete) of enormous length, while it is also
repulsive from its difficulty, and is written with a scholastic intricacy which
might often lead any but a very careful reader to confound the author’s
opinions with those which he intends to refute. He professes, indeed, to give
impartially the arguments for the opposite sides of each question; but the
greater weight of argument is always laid on that side which the author himself
espoused. After discussing the nature of heresy, he decides that not only the
pope, but the Roman church, a general council, the whole body of clergy—nay,
all Christians—may err from the faith. He holds that general councils may be
summoned without the pope’s consent. He attacks the papal pretensions as to
temporal dominion and to “plenitude of power,” and discusses questions as to
the form of civil government. He holds that general councils have only a
general influence of the Holy Spirit, and are not infallible as to matters of
detail; that our Lord’s promises to St. Peter were given for the apostle
himself alone. In another division of the work, he denies that the empire is in
the pope’s disposal, and maintains that the gift of it may not be transferred
to the pope, but belongs to the Roman people; that the emperor is not dependent
on the pope, but has the right of choosing him; and that in coactive power the
pope is inferior to the emperor. It is not to be supposed that such a work as
this “Dialogue” can ever have found many readers; but the anti-hierarchical
opinions which were embodied in it were spread in all directions, and made
their way to all classes, through the agency of the itinerant friars.
On the same
side wrote John, who takes his name from his native village, Jandun, in Champagne, and Marsilius Raimondini, of Padua, a physician, who had also
studied law at Orleans. These two are supposed to have shared in the authorship
of the “Defensor Pacis”—a treatise of which the title
was intended as a sarcasm on the pope for fomenting war instead of acting, as
became his office, for the maintenance of peace. Passing beyond the
technicalities on which the jurists had rested their assertion of the imperial
prerogative, the authors inquire into the origin of civil government, founding
their theory on Aristotle’s “Politics”. It is laid down that there ought to be
no power uncontrolled by law; that election is to be preferred to hereditary
succession that the pope, according to ancient testimony as well as to
Scripture, has no coactive sovereignty or jurisdiction, but ought to be subject
to earthly powers, after the Saviour’s own example. As to the power of the
keys, it is said that God alone can remit sin, with or without the agency of
the priest, forasmuch as He alone can know in what cases sin ought to be
remitted or retained; that the priest’s absolution relates only to the
communion of the church on earth; that he is as the keeper of a prison, who, by
releasing a prisoner, does not free him from guilt or from civil punishment.
The identity of the orders of bishop and presbyter is maintained, and, in
quoting the well-known words of St. Jerome, who speaks of “ordination” as the
only function by which bishops are distinguished from presbyters, the writers interpret
the term as meaning administrative power. They maintain the equality of all the
apostles, and deny that the Roman bishops derive from St. Peter any superiority
over others. They trace the rise of the papal power to the peculiar
circumstances of Rome. The final decision of ecclesiastical questions is
ascribed to general councils, which must, it is said, be summoned by the
emperor; and as an instance of the unfitness of popes, who may possibly be
heretical, to interpret doubtful points, they mention the reigning pope’s
opinions on the subject of evangelical poverty. The precedence of one church
over others is declared to be a subject for general councils to settle. The
popes are denounced for having assumed an unfounded “plenitude of power’’; for
having confined to the clergy the privilege of electing bishops, which ought to
belong to all the faithful; for having further narrowed it by excluding the
priests of the diocese from a share, and restricting the election to the
canons, who are described as rarely in priestly orders, and as ill qualified
for such a trust; and, finally, for having extinguished the right of election,
by reserving all questions on such matters to themselves. It is maintained that
the choice of a pope belongs to the people and to the emperor; and that those
who elect are also entitled, on sufficient cause, to depose. The usurpations of
the popes on the imperial power (which are illustrated by the fable of the
snake warmed in the husbandman’s bosom)—their abuse of indulgences as encouragements
to war against Christian princes—their attempts to prevent the election of an
emperor, in order that they themselves might claim power during the vacancy;
the injustice, and consequent invalidity, of their sentences, the iniquity of
John’s behaviour towards Lewis, the hostility of the papal pretensions to all
secular government,the great calamities and injury to
religion occasioned by the pope’s proceedings—are strongly denounced. The idea
of the necessity of one earthly head for the church, the Roman bishop’s claim
to judicial power, his pretensions to unfailing faithfulness, are controverted;
and the treatise ends by exposing some of the current sayings as to the
superiority of spiritual to secular power, and by combating the inferences
which were drawn in the papal interest from the alleged transference of the
empire from the Greeks to the Germans.
The freedom
of speculation which these antipapal writers displayed was, indeed, more likely
to alarm than to convince the men of that age; but this effect was perhaps more
than counterbalanced by the extravagances into which the assertion of the papal
pretensions was carried out by such champions as Augustine Trionfi,
an Augustinian friar of Ancona,and Alvar Pelayo, a
Spanish Franciscan who eventually became bishop of Silves,
in Portugal. All the old claims of the Hildebrandine party were put forward, with those falsifications of history to which time had
given the currency of undoubted truths. It was maintained that all powers, both
spiritual and secular, belonged to the pope, and that princes exercised power
only as his delegates; that to deny this would be “not far from heresy”; that
whatever might have been granted by emperors to popes (as the donation of
Constantine to Sylvester) was not properly a gift, but a restitution of
something which had been wrongfully taken away; that the pope’s sovereignty
extends even over the heathen; that he has all kingdoms in his absolute
disposal; that he is entitled to appoint and to depose the emperor and all other
sovereigns; that the German electors hold their power of election from him;
that the pope cannot be deposed for any crime—even for heresy, if he be willing
to be corrected; and that he cannot be judged, even by a general council.
The Germans
in general were strongly in favour of Lewis, and the more so because the pope
showed an inclination to make over the imperial crown, as if it were forfeited
and vacant, to the reigning sovereign of France With a view to this, Charles
IV, who succeeded his brother Philip in 1322, and who, like his father, bore
the epithet of “le Bel,” had visited the papal court in company with king John
of Bohemia, who, in consequence of some supposed wrongs, had turned against
Lewis. Robert of Naples, who was then at Avignon, joined in the consultations
which were held; and it was after these conferences that the ban of March 21,
1324, was pronounced. With the same purpose, an alliance with the Austrian
party was projected; but a meeting between Charles and Leopold, at Bar on the
Aube, was unsatisfactory, and although the proposal was discussed in an
assembly of the German princes at Rhense, early in
1325, it was rejected, chiefly through the effect of an appeal which Bertold of Bucheck, commander of
the knights of St. John, made to the national feeling by insisting on the
disgrace of transferring the empire to foreigners for the mere gratification of
the pope’s vindictiveness.
Leopold of
Austria, despairing of success for his party, was induced to send the insignia
of the empire to Lewis, in the hope of obtaining the release of his brother
Fredericks In this he was disappointed; but an agreement was soon after made by
which Frederick was set at liberty on certain conditions, among which it was
stipulated that he should renounce all further designs on the empire, and
should ally himself with Lewis against all men, especially “against him who
styles himself pope, with all who abet or favour him, so long as he should be
opposed to the king and kingdom”. Although the details of this compact were
kept secret for a time, the pope, without knowing what they were, annulled it,
on the ground that no such agreement with an excommunicated person could be
binding. But Frederick disdained to avail himself of this evasion, and finding,
after strenuous efforts, that it was impossible to fulfill the conditions of his engagement, he carried out the alternative which had been
prescribed in the treaty by repairing to Munich, and throwing himself on the
mercy of his rival. Lewis met this “old German fidelity” with a corresponding
generosity, and admitted his captive into the closest intimacy. They ate at the
same table, and even slept in the same bed; and when Lewis was called away for
a time from Bavaria, he left the care of defending the country to Frederick as
his representative. A scheme for sharing the empire between them as equal
colleagues was devised, as Lewis was in fresh difficulties, which made some
compromise desirable; but as this was found to give offence to the electors,
who complained that their right of choice was set aside, it was proposed that
one of the elect kings should reign in Italy, and the other in Germany. But the
sudden death of Leopold, who was regarded as the chief support of the Austrian
party, appeared at once to relieve Lewis from all dread of that party, and to
release him from any engagements which had not been completed with it.
He now
resolved to proceed into Italy, in compliance with invitations which he had
received from the Ghibelline chiefs and from a party among the Romans. But on
proposing the expedition to a diet at Spires, he found that the great
feudatories (especially the ecclesiastical electors) refused to accompany him;
for, although bound to do so when a king of the Romans was about to receive the
imperial crown, they alleged that they owed no such duty to a king who was
excommunicate, and whose relations with the pope were altogether such as to
shut out the hope of coronation. Lewis, however, persevered, although the force
which he was able to take with him across the Alps was so small that a
chronicler of the age likens it to a hunting party. At Trent, where he was met
by some heads of the Ghibelline faction, and by the representatives of others,
a great demonstration took place against the pope, to whom he had lately made
fresh overtures without success.Marsilius of Padua
and John of Jandun excited the indignation of the
assembly by enlarging on the misdeeds of “priest John” (as they contemptuously
styled him); eighteen articles were drawn up against him, and he was declared
to be a heretic and unworthy of the papacy. In these proceedings the emperor
was supported by many bishops, by the grand-master of the Teutonic order, and
by a multitude of Franciscans, Dominicans, and others, whose natural attachment
to the papacy had been turned into enmity against the existing pope. At Milan,
as the archbishop had taken night, the iron crown was placed on the head of
Lewis by three bishops who had been expelled from their sees by the Guelfs; but
he imprudently alienated the family of Visconti, who had been the chief
supporters of the imperial interest in northern Italy, and, by depriving
Galeazzo of his signory and imprisoning him, he spread alarm among the
Ghibelline tyrants of Lombardy and of Tuscany. In the meantime the report of
the meeting at Trent provoked the pope to issue a “fifth process” by which,
after a long recital of the previous dealings, Lewis was pronounced to be
deprived of all fiefs which he held, not only under the church, but under the
empire, and was summoned to appear at Avignon in order to hear his sentence.
About the same time were uttered other papal denunciations.
Rome had,
since the withdrawal of the popes, been under a republican government, and had
in turn been swayed by the influence of Robert of Naples, of the papal legates
and other envoys, and of its great families—the imperialist Savellis, the
papalist Orsinis, and the Colonnas,
whose chiefs, the brothers Stephen and Sciarra, were arrayed in opposition to
each other. The Romans had already entreated the pope to return, and now
renewed the request; but John excused himself on the ground of important
business which detained him in France, of the unsettled state of Italy, and of
the commotions and changes which had lately taken place in Rome itself. He
promised, however, to return at a later time, and he warned them in the
meanwhile to avoid Lewis, as being a heretic, excommunicate, and a persecutor
of the church. By this reply, and by the attempt of a Genoese force, in
alliance with the pope, to surprise their city and to set fire to the Vatican
quarter, the Romans were disposed in favour of Lewis, who entered the city on
the 7th of January 1328, and was received with general exultation. Of the
clergy who adhered to the pope, some fled, and others refused to perform the
offices of religion; but Lewis was accompanied by a train of bishops, clergy,
monks, and friars, who made him independent of this opposition. A great
assemblage at the Capitol proclaimed him king of the Romans and lord of Rome;
and on the 17th of January he was crowned as emperor in St. Peter’s. The
unction was administered by the bishops of Castello and Aleria,
both already excommunicated by the pope; the sword was girt on his thigh by
Castruccio Castrucani, lord of Lucca, as count of the
Lateran palace; and the crown was placed on his head by Sciarra Colohna, whom the Romans had lately elected as their
captain. At the same time the empress was crowned, and Lewis bound himself by
three decrees to maintain the catholic faith, to reverence the clergy, and to
protect widows and orphans. The pope, on being informed of these proceedings,
denounced the emperor afresh, declared his coronations, both at Milan and at
Rome, to be null, proclaimed a crusade against him, and exhorted the Romans to
arrest the two impugners of the papal authority, Marsilius and John of Jandun—the former of whom had been
appointed imperial vicar of the city, and exerted himself in compelling the
reluctant clergy to say mass.
On the 18th
of April the emperor appeared with all the insignia of his dignity on a throne
erected in the Place of St. Peter’s. In the presence of a vast assembly which
stood around, an accusation against the pope was delivered by some Franciscans,
and by two syndics who professed to represent the Roman clergy; and the
question was thrice proclaimed whether any one wished to appear as procurator
for priest James of Cahors, who styled himself Pope John the Twenty-Second; but
no one took up the challenge. A German abbot then preached an eloquent sermon
in Latin, enlarging on the emperor’s love of justice and on the offences
committed by Pope John; and the imperial sentence was read aloud. In this John
was charged with having neglected the interest of Christendom and with having
exposed it to Saracens and heathens; with having asserted that the Saviour and
His disciples were possessed of property; with having attempted to usurp
temporal power, whereas Christ commanded that we should render unto Cesar the
things that are Caesar’s, and declared His kingdom to be not of this world;
with having questioned the emperor’s election, which had been regularly made
and did not need the papal confirmation. For these offences John was pronounced
to be deprived of the papacy and of all benefices spiritual or temporal, and to
be subject to the penalties of heresy and treason; and the emperor declared
that, after the example of his predecessor Otho the Great, he held it his duty
to provide the apostolic see with a new and fit occupant. The rashness of such
a step began to be manifest four days later, when James Colonna, a canon of the
Lateran, and son of Stephen (who had been driven from the city by his brother
Sciarra), read in public the pope’s last and bitterest sentence against Lewis,
which no one had as yet ventured to publish at Rome. After having declared his
adhesion to John, he affixed the paper to the door of the church of St.
Marcellus, and escaped unmolested to Palestrina. Yet Lewis was resolved to go
on.
On the
following day a statute was published, by which it was forbidden that the pope
should go to the distance of two days’ journey from Rome without the consent of
the clergy and people, and it was enacted that, if after three citations he
should refuse to return, a new pope should be chosen in his stead.
On
Ascension-day, the 12th of May, a multitude was again assembled in front of St.
Peter’s. A sermon was preached by a monk, in which pope John was compared to
Herod, while Lewis was likened to the angel who delivered St. Peter out of
prison; and the bishop of Venice thrice proposed to the assembled multitude
that Peter Rainalucci, of Corbaria,
should be elected to the papacy. The imperialists were present in such numbers
as to overpower all differences of opinion; and Peter was invested with the
papal mantle by the emperor, who saluted him by the name of Nicolas the Fifth,
placed him at his own right hand, and afterwards accompanied him into the
church in order to be present at his celebration of mass. The antipope, a man
of humble parentage, had been married in early life, but had separated from his
wife that he might enter the Franciscan order; he had held the office of papal
penitentiary, and, notwithstanding the aspersions of his enemies,it would seem that he had been highly esteemed for learning and prudence. But,
although he had hitherto professed the opinion of the most rigid party among
his order as to evangelical poverty, he fell at once, on assuming the title of
pope, into the traditional habits of pomp and luxury, for which the means were
chiefly provided by the traditional expedients of selling offices and
preferments. He made seven cardinals, all of them men who had been deposed from
dignities by pope John, or had been prominent in opposition to him; he
pronounced deposition against bishops who adhered to his rival, and nominated
others to fill their sees—among them, Marsilius to be
archbishop of Milan; he affected to appoint legates, and on Whitsunday he
confirmed Lewis in the imperial dignity, and pronounced on him a solemn
benediction, but with a careful avoidance of everything that might have seemed
to imply a claim to the right of conferring the imperial office, or a
subordination of the secular to the spiritual power.
Lewis soon
began to find himself uneasy at Rome. His delay there had given an advantage to
Robert of Naples, whereas it is not improbable that, by vigorously pushing
forwards to the south, he might have been able to overthrow the Angevine
dynasty. A Neapolitan fleet took Ostia, and some of the ships advanced up the
Tiber as far as the convent of St. Paul, committing devastations of which the
blame was commonly thrown on the emperor. The citizens, instead of receiving
from the emperor the benefits which they had expected, found themselves
oppressed by taxes, which his own necessities and those of his pope compelled
him to impose. The Ghibellines had been offended by some impolitic measures;
and, while Nicolas met with little or no acknowledgment even among the
imperialists of the city, the party of John, whose intrigues were incessant,
recovered its force. Provisions became scarce, partly because the supplies were
cut off by the Neapolitan troops, and the emperor’s own soldiers, being unable
to get their pay, swelled the grievances of the Romans by plundering; the
northern Germans quarrelled with those of the south, and many of the soldiers
deserted. After a vain attempt to proceed southward, Lewis left Rome on the
4th of August, amidst general curses and derision, mixed with acclamations in
honour of “holy church.” Stones were thrown as he retired, and some of his men
were killed. In token of the popular feeling, the privileges which had been
granted by the emperor and the antipope were burnt in the Place of the Capitol;
even some bodies of Germans were dragged from their graves and ignominiously
thrown into the Tiber.
At Pisa,
where he had been joined by the leaders of the disaffected Franciscans—Michael
of Cesena, Bonagratia, and William of Ockham, who had
all escaped from detention at Avignon—the emperor held an assembly on the 13th
of December, when Michael denounced pope John as a heretic, and the emperor
again pronounced him to be deposed. About the same time John at Avignon renewed
his condemnation of the emperor as a heretic and a persecutor of the church,
and declared the antipope a heretic and schismatic. The antipope joined Lewis
at Pisa, where he carried on the system of ejecting Guelf bishops and
substituting Ghibellines, from whom payments were extorted for their promotion.
But, on the emperor’s departure from that city Nicholas was left behind, and
Lewis, as he proceeded northwards, found the Italians less and less favourably
disposed, while discontent and desertion became more rife among his own troops.
In the end of January 1330 the emperor recrossed the Alps. His expedition to
Italy had ruined the imperial cause in that country, and his failure had given
additional force to the impression made by the papal curses. The Romans swore
fealty anew to the pope, and, with Pisa and other Italian cities, entreated his
forgiveness for their temporary submission to Lewis.
The
antipope, when left at Pisa, was glad to find shelter with a powerful nobleman,
count Boniface of Donoratico, but in the following
year was, after much urgency, given up by him to the pope, on condition that
his life should be spared. On St. James’s day Nicolas abjured his errors in the
cathedral of Pisa, expressing deep contrition for his conduct and casting much
blame on the emperor. The ceremony was afterwards repeated at Avignon, where he
appeared with a rope around his neck, and threw himself at the feet of his
triumphant rival. John raised him up, released him from the rope, and admitted
him to the kiss of peace. The fallen antipope spent the remaining three years
of his life in an apartment of the papal palace, where he was supplied with the
means of study, but was strictly secluded from all intercourse with men.
The death of
Frederick of Austria, in January 1330, appeared to favour the establishment of
peace between the papacy and the empire; but the pope, acting under the
influence of Naples and of France, was bent on effecting the ruin of Lewis. He
scornfully rejected the mediation of the king of Bohemia, who had been
empowered by the emperor to offer very humiliating terms: he uttered fresh anathemas,
in “aggravation” of his former denunciations; he endeavoured to stir up enemies
against Lewis on all sides, and encouraged his neighbours to attack him—not
scrupling even to let loose the heathens who bordered on Brandenburg for an
invasion of that territory, where they committed atrocious cruelties and
profanations he urged the German princes to choose a new emperor; he declared
Germany to be under an interdict so long as Lewis should be acknowledged. A
fearful confusion prevailed in that country, although, notwithstanding all the
pope’s denunciations, the emperor was still generally obeyed. Some of the
clergy, in obedience to the interdict, refused to perform the Divine offices in
cities where Lewis was, and on this account they were driven out by him.
Alliances were continually changing, and the ascendency was always shifting
from one party to another. In these movements John of Luxemburg played a very
conspicuous part. At the age of fourteen he had received the kingdom of Bohemia
from his father, Henry VII, as a fief of the empire which had become vacant
through the failure of male heirs, and at the same time he had married the
younger daughter of the late king, Wenceslaus—thus excluding Henry duke of
Carinthia, the husband of her elder sister. But he speedily found that he and
his subjects were ill suited to each other, and while the queen, with her
children, lived in the palace at Prague, John made his home in his hereditary
territory of Luxemburg, and roamed over Europe in quest of adventures, visiting
Bohemia on rare occasions for the purpose of raising money. In 1330 he was
invited by the citizens of Brescia to defend them against the Visconti of Milan
and the Scaligers of Verona, and in consequence of
this he proceeded at the head of 10,000 men into Italy; where his intervention
was welcomed at once by the Guelfs, who saw in him a friend of the pope, and by
the Ghibellines, who regarded him as the son of Henry VII and as a
representative of the emperor. His influence was beneficially exerted for the
pacification of many Lombard cities but gradually both parties began to
distrust him, so that he found himself obliged to withdraw before a combination
which was formed against him; and, after a second expedition, in which he
enjoyed the countenance of the French king and of the pope, he was compelled to
retire altogether from the field of Italian politics.
The three
sons of Philip the Fair, who had successively reigned over France, were all
carried off at an early age; and while the clergy saw in this the vengeance of
heaven for Philip’s outrages against pope Boniface, the popular opinion traced
it to the martyrdom of the Templars, and to the supposed curse or prophecy of
James de Molay.
After the
death of Charles IV, which took place in January 1328, his widow gave birth to
a second daughter, who lived only a few days; and as the hope of a male heir
was extinguished, Philip, the son of Charles of Valois and nephew of Philip the
Fair, became king, to the exclusion of his predecessor’s surviving daughter.
Philip of Valois revived much of the chivalrous splendour which had lately been
wanting to the court of France; and in his ecclesiastical policy he
endeavoured, like St. Lewis, to maintain the rights of the national church as
against the papacy. When, however, he proposed a new crusade, it was evident
that the idea was not prompted by a spirit of self-sacrificing devotion like
that which had animated his saintly ancestor. He designed, by placing himself
at the head of Christendom in such an enterprise, to gain for himself and his
family a title to the empire; and he endeavoured in other respects to turn it
to his own advantage by obtaining great concessions from the pope. John granted
for the crusade the tithe of ecclesiastical benefices throughout the whole
western church for six years; and in October 1333 Philip took the cross, and
swore to set out for the holy war within three years. But he was reminded that
some of his predecessors, after having collected tithes, as if for a crusade,
had spent them on other objects; and, whatever his intentions may really have
been, circumstances arose which prevented the execution of the project. When
the collection of the tithe was attempted in Germany, the emperor, in a great
diet at Spires, declared that no such impost could be raised without his
permission, and hinted his doubts whether the money would be spent for the
professed object. He added that, if peace were re-established, he himself would
head an expedition for the recovery of the Holy Land; for he considered that he
would have lived long enough if he might once see a pope who cared for his
soul’s good. Mission after mission was sent to Avignon, but all brought back
reports of the pope’s implacable hardness. The difficulties which pressed on
the emperor were so serious that in 1333 he was willing to resign his crown for
the sake of restoration to the communion of the church; but the plan was
frustrated through the indiscretion of his cousin, Henry, duke of Lower
Bavaria, in whose favour the abdication was intended.
John XXII,
who had been so profuse of accusations of heresy against others, himself fell
under a new charge of this kind, by asserting in a sermon that the saints would
not enjoy the beatific vision until the end of the world; he was reported to have
said that even the blessed Virgin herself would until then behold only the
humanity, but not the God-head, of her Son. This opinion, although agreeable to
the authority of many early fathers, had been generally abandoned for
centuries; it endangered doctrines and practices which had become firmly
established in the church—the belief in purgatory, the use of indulgences,
masses for the dead, and invocation of saints. Although the papal court in
general acquiesced, an English Dominican, named Thomas Waleys,
raised an alarm by preaching against it. John’s old Franciscan opponents,
Michael of Cesena, Bonagratia, and William of Ockham,
eagerly raised the cry of heresy; and the question was referred by king Philip
to the theological faculty of Paris, in an assembly held at the palace of
Vincennes, while John laboured to influence the opinion of divines by heaping
preferment on those who sided with him. At Paris great excitement arose, and
men were divided in their judgment. The Dominicans opposed the pope’s view; the
general of the Franciscans, who had superseded Michael of Cesena, supported it;
the doctors of the Sorbonne condemned the doctrine, but suggested that John
might have propounded it only by way of a doubt or a question. The king is
said to have threatened not only the Franciscan general, but the pope himself,
with the punishment of heresy, and made use of John’s danger to extort important
concessions from him; while the Italian cardinals, in their dislike of a French
pope, threatened to bring him before a general council. John offered to produce
ancient authorities in his behalf, but was glad to avail himself of the escape
which the doctors of Paris had suggested, and declared that he had intended
only to state the opinion, not to decide in favour of it. But the excitement
burst out afresh, and at last John, on his death-bed, was brought—it is said
chiefly by the urgency of his nephew or son, cardinal Bertrand de Poyet—to profess the current doctrine, “that purged souls,
being separated from their bodies, are in heaven, the kingdom of heaven, and
paradise; that they see God face to face, and clearly behold the Divine
essence, in so far as the condition of separate souls permits.”
On the day
after having made this declaration, John died, at the age of ninety. The
treasures which he left behind him were enormous, partly the produce of
exactions raised under the pretext of a crusade, partly of the arts of the
papal court as to the disposal of preferments and favours. In these arts John
showed himself a master. Under the pretence of discouraging simony, he kept
valuable reserves in his own hands. By the bull Execrcibilis,
he compelled pluralists to give up all but one benefice each, and got for
himself the disposal of the rest. He took into his own hands the appointment of
bishops, in disregard of the capitular right of election, which had been so
hardly extorted from sovereigns. Whenever any high preferment fell vacant, he
made it the means of promoting the greatest possible number of persons,
advancing each of them a single step, and so securing the payment of fees from
each. And to the exactions which already pressed on the church, he added the
invention of annates—the first year’s income of ecclesiastical dignities. Yet
although his long pontificate was chiefly remarkable for the unrelenting
hostility with which he pursued the emperor Lewis, and for the extortions and
corruptions by which he so largely profited, it must in justice be added that
he is described as temperate in his habits, regular in the observances of
devotion, and unassuming and unostentatious in his manner of life.
At the time
of John’s death, the college of cardinals consisted of twenty-four members,
among whom the French, headed by Talleyrand of Perigord,
had a great majority. Both Frenchmen and Italians, however, agreed to choose
the cardinal of Comminges, bishop of Porto, if he
would pledge himself that the papal residence should not be removed from
Avignon; but he refused to comply with this condition, and the cardinals, shut
up in the palace of Avignon by an officer of king Robert of Naples, began
afresh the usual intricate manoeuvres of a papal election. By an unforeseen
concurrence of circumstances, the result of which was considered to be a divine
inspiration, their choice fell on James Fournier, a member of the Cistercian
order, cardinal of St. Prisca and bishop of Mirepoix, whose remark on the
announcement of his new dignity was, “You have chosen an ass.” The new pope,
Benedict XII., was a native of Saverdun, in the
country of Foix, and had risen from a humble condition in life. He was highly
respected for his learning, and, notwithstanding his modest estimate of
himself, was a man of sense and judgment. He is praised for his sincerity, his
justice, his liberality in almsgiving, and his benevolence of character; while his orthodoxy had been displayed by his
activity as an inquisitor in his own diocese and throughout the region of
Toulouse. Disinclined to share in political affairs he was earnestly bent on a
reform in the church, and in order to this he reversed in many respects the
system of his predecessors. The crowds which, in hope of preferment, had
thronged the city of the papal residence, the idle and greedy friars who hung
about the court, were dismissed to their own homes. A reform of the monastic
system was strenuously taken in hand. The abuse of commendams was done away with, except only in the case of such as were held by cardinals.
Pluralities were steadily discouraged. Expectancies of benefices not yet vacant
were abolished, and such as had been already granted were revoked. The late
pope’s custom of multiplying promotions on every vacancy was abandoned. All
practices which might appear to savour of simony were forbidden. It was ordered
that no canonries in cathedrals should be bestowed on boys under fourteen years
of age, and all applicants for the pope’s patronage were examined as to their
fitness. Preferments were given to men of learning, without solicitation, and
although they did not frequent the court. The pope withstood the entreaties of
great men, who attempted to influence his patronage; and he was careful not to
favour his own relatives unduly. He refused great matches for his niece, whom
he married to a merchant of Toulouse, with a dowry not more than suitable to
the husband’s condition; and when the pair visited his court, in the hope of
favour, he told them that as James Fournier he knew them, but that as pope he
had no kindred; that he could only give them his blessing, with payment of the
expenses of their journey. One nephew alone obtained high office in the church,
having been urgently recommended by the cardinals for the archbishopric of
Arles. The officials of the court were required to swear that they would not
accept any gifts. The messengers who conveyed the papal letters were bound in
like manner neither to ask nor to receive anything beyond food and other
necessaries. The pope moderated the expenses of episcopal visitations, which
had long been a subject of complaint;and he caused a
visitation of cathedrals to be undertaken by commissioners, who corrected such
irregularities as they discovered. Yet, great as Benedict’s merits were, he has
not escaped serious imputations. His desire to purify the administration of the
church and the monastic orders appears to have been too little tempered by
courtesy or by discretion, so that it excited much animosity, which has left
its lasting traces in the chronicles of the times. Petrarch speaks unfavourably
of him in more than one place, and mentions especially that excessive love of
the pleasures of the table which is said to have given rise to the saying, “Let
us drink like a pope.” And a biographer, whose enmity would seem to have been
provoked by Benedict’s avowed dislike of the mendicant orders, charges him with
avarice and with harshness of character, with negligence in some parts of his
duty as to administration, and with a general distrust and ill opinion of
mankind.
Benedict’s
virtues were also marred by a want of courage, which prevented him from
carrying out his wish to deliver himself from the thralldom of king Philip, and from the oppressive influence of the French cardinals. And,
when he attempted to prepare the way for a return to Rome, or at least to
Bologna, where the foundations of a palace had been laid by the legate Bertrand
de Poyet, he was deterred by the manifestations of an
antipapal spirit, by the dangers of the way, and by other such considerations.
He therefore, as if to guarantee the continuance of the papal residence at
Avignon, began the vast and costly structure which still remains as the chief
monument of it; but at the same time he showed his interest in the ancient
capital of Christendom, by spending large sums on renewing the roof of St.
Peter’s, and on repairing other churches and palaces at Rome. He accepted the
office of senator, to which he was elected by the Romans in 1337; he forbade
the use of the terms Guelf and Ghibelline, as being continual sources of
discord, and he endeavoured to keep up a semblance of influence in Italy, by
investing some party chiefs with the character of vicars under the apostolic
see.
Philip,
however, notwithstanding his ascendency, was not able to gain all that he
desired from Benedict. When he asked the newly-elected pope to make over to him
the treasures of John XXII, and to bestow on him the ecclesiastical tithe for
ten years—professedly with a view to a crusade, but in reality for the war into
which he had been drawn with England—Benedict replied that his predecessor’s
wealth, having been collected for the crusade, must not be given up until that
expedition was actually begun; and he withdrew the grant of tenths which John
had previously sanctioned. It was in vain that the king asked the vicariate of
Italy for himself, and the kingdom of Vienne for his son; and when he went to
Avignon, for the purpose of urging his suit as to the pretended crusade, the
pope declared that, if he had two souls, he would gladly sacrifice one of them
for the king; but that, as he had only one, he must endeavour to save it.
The
controversy which John XXII had raised as to the Beatific Vision, and in the
discussion of which Benedict had formerly taken a conspicuous part, was now
determined by him in a formal decree, which declared that the glory of the
saints is perfect; that they already enjoy the vision of the blessed Trinity;
and that, although they will have their perfect consummation in body and in
soul after the judgment-day, the joy of their souls will not be sensibly
increased.
The pope,
both from natural character and from alarm at the French king’s inordinate
requests, was heartily desirous of peace with the emperor Lewis, and with a
view to this made overtures, both indirectly and directly, to him. Lewis, on
his part, sent a fifth and a sixth embassy to Avignon, with offers of
submission; but the influence of France, of Naples, and of Bohemia, with that
of the cardinals, whose property Philip had threatened to confiscate if they
made peace with the Bavarian, prevailed over the pope’s favourable
dispositions. Yet he made no secret of his real feeling. Thus, on one occasion,
when urged by the representatives of the French and the Neapolitan kings, he
asked whether they wished to do away with the empire. On their answering that
they did not speak against the empire, but against Lewis, who had been
condemned as an enemy of the church,—“Rather,” said Benedict, “it is we that
have sinned against him. He would, if he might have been allowed, have come
with a staff in his hand to our predecessor’s feet; but he has been in a manner
challenged to act as he has done.” The emperor’s sixth embassy, in October
1336, was authorized to offer very humiliating terms : to confess that he had
done grievous wrong in setting up an antipope, in his alliances with the
Visconti, with the rebellious minorites (whose
opinions he disavowed), with John of Jandun and Marsilius, by whom he professed to have been deceived and
misled. The ambassadors professed that he was ready to submit to penance, to
lay down the imperial title, to persecute heretics, to build churches and
convents, if the pope would release him from excommunication and interdict, and
would grant him the empire anew. But they became weary of waiting for an
answer, and Lewis, despairing of any satisfactory result so long as the French
king’s influence should be exerted against him, declined an invitation to
resume negotiations, and allied himself with Edward of England, who had now set
up that claim to the crown of France which for a century and a half arrayed the
two nations in deadly hostility to each other. Benedict’s warnings to Edward
against entering into a connexion with an excommunicated person were unheeded,
although the king professed all dutiful submission to the papal authority, and
said that he had advised Lewis to make his peace by humbling himself.
Another
mission—the seventh—in behalf of Lewis, was sent to Avignon by the archbishop
of Mayence, Henry of Virneburg,
and his suffragans, after a council held at Spires.The pope is said to have had tears in his eyes as he told the envoys that he could
not grant absolution to Lewis, in consequence of his breach of treaties with
France; that Philip had threatened him with a worse fate than that of Boniface
VIII, if the Bavarian should be absolved without the French king’s consent; and
that he could hold no communication with the archbishop of Mayence,
who had given great offence by a compact which he had lately made with his
chapter, in order to obtain admission to his see.
The Germans
were indignant that their requests should thus be rejected at the dictation of
a foreign sovereign, and that pretensions should be set up which seemed to
transfer the right of the electors to the pope. In reliance on this feeling,
Lewis summoned a great diet, consisting not only of princes and nobles, but of
deputies from cities and cathedral chapters, to meet at Frankfort on Rogation
Sunday, 1338. Before this assembly Lewis stated, in a pathetic tone, the course
of his dealings with the papal see, and the pretensions which had been set up
for the papacy in derogation of the imperial dignity; and in proof of his
orthodoxy he recited the Lord’s prayer, the angelic salutation, and the creed.
The case was argued on his behalf by lawyers and canonists, especially by the
famous Franciscan, Bonagratia; and the assembly
resolved that the emperor had done enough, that the censures uttered against
him were wrongful, and therefore of no effect; that the clergy ought not to
observe the papal interdict, and that, if unwilling to celebrate the Divine
offices, they should be compelled to do so.
On the 15th
of July the electors, with the exception of the king of Bohemia, held a meeting
at Rhense, where they expressed their apprehensions
that, if the papal claims were admitted, they might in future have to choose
only a king—not an emperor. They resolved that the empire was held immediately
under God; that the emperor, chosen by all the electors, or by a majority of
them, needed no confirmation from the pope; and they swore to defend the
dignity of the empire and their own rights against all men, and to accept no
dispensation from their oath. These resolutions were confirmed by a diet held
at Frankfort, and several documents were drawn up by which the late pope’s
processes against Lewis were pronounced to be null, and pope Benedict was
requested to withdraw them, while the emperor appealed against John to a
general council. It was declared that the vicariate of the empire, during a
vacancy of the throne, belonged not to the pope but to the count palatine of
the Rhine; that the oath taken by emperors was not one of fealty to the pope;
and it was forbidden to receive papal bulls without the sovereign’s permission.
A great
excitement followed in Germany. While the imperialists posted on church-doors
manifestoes annulling the papal sentences, the papalists placarded copies of those sentences, and denunciations against all who should hold
intercourse with the excommunicated Lewis. The clergy and monks who observed
the interdict were driven out, and their property was confiscated; many of them
went to Avignon, but, as their distress found no relief there, some returned to
Germany and submitted to the emperor. Each party defended itself by the pen;
and on the imperial side the most conspicuous writers were William of Ockham
and Leopold of Bebenburg, who afterwards became
bishop of Bamberg.
In September
1338 the emperor held a meeting with the king of England at Coblentz. The
importance of the occasion was marked by a great display of splendour on both
sides. Each of the sovereigns set forth his causes of complaint against Philip
of France; an intimate alliance was concluded, and was confirmed by oath, and
Edward was appointed vicar of the empire over the territories westward of
Cologne. Yet notwithstanding the solemnity of his compact with Edward, from
whom he received large subsidies, the emperor allowed himself to be soon after
enticed,—chiefly through the influence of the countess of Hainault, who was at
once his own mother-in-law and Philip’s sister,—into making an alliance with theFrench king; an inconstancy which can only be explained
by supposing that he was sincerely disquieted in conscience by the papal
excommunications, and that he wished to secure Philip’s intercession with the
pope. But although Philip affected to mediate, the faintness of his interest in
the matter was too manifest, and Benedict looked with no favour on such an
alliance between the sovereign whom the holy see had regarded as its especial
favourite, and him who had been the object of its most terrible condemnations.
He expressed his willingness to listen if Lewis would sue for absolution
according to the forms of law, but intimated that the orthodoxy or the heresy
of Lewis could not be dependent on the French king’s conveniences.
About this
time a new cause of difference arose. Margaret, the heiress of the Tyrol, had
been married to a boy six years younger than herself, a son of the king of
Bohemia. The marriage had not been happy, and the emperor now formed a scheme
of securing Margaret and her possessions for his son Lewis, on whom he had
already bestowed the marquisate of Brandenburg. It was alleged that the
Bohemian prince was incapable of performing the duties of a husband, and
Leopold, bishop of Freising, was found willing to
pronounce a separation on this ground, and to grant a dispensation for the
marriage of Margaret with the younger Lewis, to whom she was related within the
forbidden degrees. But before these things could be done, Leopold was killed,
while on a journey, and no other bishop could readily be found to carry out the
plan. In this difficulty the emperor’s literary allies, Marsilius and William of Ockham, came to his aid, by writing treatises in which it was
maintained that the jurisdiction in such cases was not for the church, but for
the temporal sovereign; that it had belonged to heathen emperors, and therefore
much more must it be the right of the Christian emperor; that, while it is for
bishops and theologians to decide whether certain defects in one of the parties
would justify a divorce, the application of the rule so determined is the
business of the secular judge; that “it is for the human lawgiver to order
that to be done which is established by the Divine law.”
On the
strength of these opinions Lewis proceeded. Margaret’s husband was cited, and,
as he did not appear, the emperor took it on himself to decree a divorce, and
to dispense with the laws as to consanguinity with a view to her second
marriage. But although Lewis thus gained his immediate object, this invasion of
a province which had always been supposed to belong exclusively to the
hierarchy excited a general distrust, which told severely against him. He made
enemies of the king of Bohemia, with his uncle the powerful archbishop Baldwin
of Treves, and all the Luxemburg party. The pope desired the patriarch of
Aquileia to declare the late proceedings null, and to interdict the Tyrol and
at this very time the death of Benedict XII made way for a successor more
formidable to the emperor.
The election
fell on Peter Roger, a Limousin of noble family, who
styled himself Clement VI. He had been a Benedictine monk, and at the time of
his election was archbishop of Rouen and cardinal of SS. Nereus and Achilleus. He had also been chancellor to king Philip, who,
from unwillingness to lose his services, had for a time hindered his promotion
to the cardinalate. His devotion to the interest of France was indicated in the
ceremonies of his coronation, where the chief parts were assigned to great
French dignitaries; and it was soon after more fully shown by the circumstance
that, of ten cardinals whom he appointed at once, all but one were French.
Clement was
noted for his learning, for his eloquence, and for an extraordinary power of
memory; his manners were agreeable, and he is described as free from malice and
resentments His morals were never of any rigid correctness; and while he was
pope, a countess of Turenne, if not actually his mistress, is said to have
exercised an absolute influence over him. He was a lover of splendour and luxury.
The great palace of Avignon was growing under his care, and the princely houses
of the cardinals rose around it; the court of the successor of St. Peter was
perhaps the gayest and most festive in Europe. Under Clement the vice of the
papal city became open and scandalous. Petrarch, who himself cannot be
described as a model of severe and intolerant virtue, expressed in the
strongest terms his horror at the abominations which filled the new “Babylon of
the West,” and withdrew in disgust from the papal city to the solitudes ot Vaucluse.
In his
ecclesiastical administration, Clement reversed the policy of Benedict.
Preferments which the late pope had kept open, from a conscientious anxiety as
to the difficulty of finding suitable men to fill them, were now bestowed
without any regard to the qualifications of the receivers. Bishoprics,
cardinalates, and other high dignities were given to young men whose sole recommendation
was the elegance of their person and manners, while some of them were notorious
for their dissolute habits. Other benefices were declared to be vacant as papal
reserves, and were conferred with a like want of discrimination. The higher
offices of the church were reserved for the pope’s own disposal, in contempt of
the claims alike of sovereigns and of cathedral or conventual electors. The
pope’s own kindred, both clerical and lay, were loaded with benefices and
wealth to a degree of which there had been no example; among his cardinals
were one of his brothers, two nephews, and another relation; and when someone
ventured to remark on this, Clement’s answer was,
“Our predecessors did not know how to be pope.”
The Romans,
by two legations composed of persons who represented the various classes of the
community, invited the pope to take up his abode in the ancient capital, and
Petrarch, who was one of the deputies, urged the prayer in a poetical epistle,
setting forth the attractions of the imperial and apostolic city. In reply,
Clement alleged the necessity of remaining north of the Alps, that he might act
as a peacemaker between England and France; but he promised to visit Rome as
soon as the troubles of France should be settled. In the meantime he accepted
the office of senator, which was offered to him, not as pope, but as a private
person, and he granted another of their requests—that the jubilee, which was
supposed to recur only once in a century, should be celebrated every fiftieth
year.
Towards the
emperor Lewis, the pope, while yet archbishop of Rouen, had shown his hostility
by a sermon, in which he condescended to play on the words Bavarian, barbarian,
and boor; and his behaviour towards him was marked throughout by a
rancour which contrasted strongly with the easiness of Clement’s general character. The emperor sent a mission to Avignon, caused processions
and other religious services to be celebrated with a view to an accommodation,
and reminded king Philip of his engagement to intercede for him; but although
Philip made a show of exerting himself, the terms which the pope prescribed were
too rigid. It was required that Lewis should penitently acknowledge all the
errors of his past conduct—that he should resign the empire, and restore the
Tyrol to the Bohemian prince John; and on Maundy Thursday 1343 a new bull was
issued, in which, after a long recital of the emperor’s offences—his contempt
of ecclesiastical censures, his opposition to pope John on the question of
evangelical poverty, his proceedings in Italy and at Rome, especially the crime
of setting up an antipope, his usurpation of the right to grant a dispensation
for the “incestuous and adulterous” union of his son with Margaret, “whom her
immodesty will not allow us to call our beloved daughter”—the pope charges him
within three months to lay down the imperial title and authority, to appear in
person for penance, and to amend his offences against the church; and he
threatens him with yet worse punishments in case of failure.At the same time Clement, by private letters, desired the German princes to
prepare for another election, and threatened that, if they should be backward,
he would give the empire a new head, by the same authority which had formerly
transferred it from the Greeks to the Germans.
Notwithstanding
the French king’s intercession, the pope, at the expiration of the time which
he had named, pronounced Lewis to be contumacious; and a meeting of electors
was held at Rhense, under the influence of John of
Bohemia and his uncle, archbishop Baldwin, who were now strongly opposed to the
emperor. Lewis, although on receiving the report of his first mission to
Clement he had angrily sworn that he would never yield to the assumptions of
the papal court, was warned by tokens of a growing disaffection to attempt a
different course. He appeared at Rhense, and was able
to avert the immediate danger by professing himself willing to be guided in all
things by the judgment of the electors, and to labour in all ways for a
reconciliation with the church, and by producing a letter in which the French
king held out hopes of his obtaining absolution.
As his
former applications had been considered insufficient, Lewis now begged that the
pope would himself furnish him with a draft of the terms which were required of
him; and in answer to this he received a document to which it might have seemed
impossible that an emperor could submit in any extremity. He was required not
only to acknowledge the errors of his past conduct, but to profess that he had
never thought it right; to give up the imperial title, and to own that it was
in the gift of the pope alone; to undertake a crusade whenever the pope should
call on him; to amend all faults against the church and the pope, and to
promise absolute obedience. Even pope Clement was surprised when Lewis
authorized his ambassadors to accept these terms; but still these were not
enough. Another document was prepared, by which Lewis was required to amend
and retract all that he had done, not only as emperor, but as king—not only as
to Italy and Rome, but as to Germany—and to pledge himself for the future to
absolute slavery to the papal will. At this, which concerned the electors as
well as himself, the emperor hesitated. He summoned a diet to meet at Frankfort
in September 1344, and, after having exposed the pope’s dealings with him, he
asked the advice of the assembly. Great indignation was expressed, and it was
resolved, in accordance with the determination of the electors in a previous
meeting at Cologne, that compliance with the pope’s demands would be
incompatible with the emperor’s oath of office and with the duty of the
electors. But the feeling of the assembly, instead of being favourable to
Lewis, turned against him, as having by his weakness and vacillation lowered
the dignity of the empire, and as being now for personal reasons the only
hindrance to peace. Another meeting was held a few days later at Rhense, where John of Bohemia took the lead in opposition
to him. When Lewis offered to resign, the electors showed themselves
willing to accept the offer, and in his place to set up Charles, marquis of
Moravia, a son of the Bohemian king; and the emperor’s attempt to recommend his
son, Lewis of Brandenburg, as his successor, was met by the insulting
declaration that, since one Bavarian had so degraded the empire, they would
have no more Bavarian emperors.
Clement was
resolved against any reconciliation. Another mission from the emperor appeared
at the papal court, but without effect; and on Maundy Thursday a fresh anathema
was issued, in which the pope, after forbidding all intercourse with Lewis except
for the benefit of his soul, denying him the right of Christian burial, and,
charging all Christian princes to expel him from their territories, proceeds to
implore the most horrible curses on him;and the
document concludes by charging the electors to make choice of a new king, with
a threat that, in case of their neglect, the pope would himself provide a
person to fill the vacant throne.
John of
Bohemia, who had lately become blind, visited Avignon with his son Charles, who
had received in the French court an education of almost a clerical character;
and Clement, who, as abbot of Fecamp, had been the
prince’s tutor, was now favourable to his pretensions. But when the question of
the empire was brought before the cardinals, a violent conflict arose. The French
party, headed by Talleyrand of Perigord, bishop of
Albano, was with the pope; the Gascons, under the cardinal of Comminges, a nephew of Clement V, were on the other side.
Odious charges and imputations were bandied to and fro;
the two chiefs had risen from their seats to rush at each other, when they were
with difficulty restrained by the pope, and the meeting was suddenly broken up;
whereupon the members of the hostile factions fortified their houses and armed
their servants, as if in expectation of a general tumult. A paper of terms was
offered by the pope to Charles, and was accepted by him. By this the future
emperor bound himself to a degrading submission to the papal see.
The pope now
issued a mandate desiring the electors to proceed to a new choice. As there was
no hope of gaining Henry of Virneburg—to whom, as
archbishop of Mayence, belonged the privilege of
superintending the election—Clement set him aside in favour of Count Gerlach of
Nassau, a youth of twenty; and he desired that Lewis of Brandenburg, son of the
deposed emperor, should be excluded from a vote, as holding his position
unlawfully. The young archbishop summoned a meeting to take place at Rhense on the 10th of July, when he appeared with the
electors of Cologne and Treves, the king of Bohemia, and Rudolf, duke of
Saxony. The empire was declared to be vacant; Charles of Moravia was elected by
the five, and the ceremony of raising him aloft was performed on the “King’s
Chair” of Rhense, as Frankfort was in the hands of
the opposite party. The services of his supporters were, as usual, rewarded by
large payments or other concessions, and the election was, although not until
nine months later, confirmed by the pope.
The general
feeling of the Germans was against Charles. They saw with indignation that the
same humiliations to which Lewis had submitted only in the extremity of
distress were accepted by the new claimant as the very conditions on which he
was to be allowed to supplant a lawfully-chosen emperor. A diet at Spires,
under Lewis, declared the election of his rival to be null, and denied the
pope’s right to depose an emperor. No secular prince would side with Charles;
no city would countenance or harbour him; even at Basel, the bishop and his
monks were unable to procure his admission. Aix-la-Chapelle, the traditional
scene of the German coronations, shut its gates against him; and he was derided
by the name of the “priests’ emperor.” In this state of things he found it
expedient to withdraw with his father into France; and at the great battle of
Cressy, where the blind king died in the thick of the fight, Charles fled from
the field. As Aix and Frankfort were closed against him, he was, with the
pope’s consent, crowned at Bonn by the archbishop of Cologne; and Germany
seemed to be on the verge of a civil war, when Lewis suddenly died of a fall
received in hunting, on the 11th of October 1347—the last emperor against whom
the anathema of the church was directed, and the one who felt it most severely,
although living at a time when such denunciations were generally less dreaded
than in the days when men had not become familiar with them through abuse.
CHAPTER III.
JOANNA OF NAPLES—RIENZI—LAST YEARS OF CLEMENT VI.
A.D. 1343-1352.
ROBERT, who
from the year 1309 had reigned over the kingdom of Apulia, or Naples, with a
reputation for wisdom and political skill unequalled among his contemporaries,
lost his only son, Charles, in 1328 and, seemingly from a wish to compensate
the elder branch of his family for its exclusion from the Neapolitan throne at
an earlier time, he resolved to bestow his granddaughter Joanna, who had thus
become his heiress, on one of its members. For this purpose, Andrew, the second
son of Robert’s nephew, king Charobert of Hungary,
was chosen, and the marriage took place in 1333, when the bridegroom was seven
and the bride five years old. Andrew remained at Naples in order that he might
be duly trained up for his future dignity; but the roughness of his character,
which the Italians ascribed to his Hungarian birth, refused to yield to the
southern culture, and he grew up rude, passionate, and headstrong. On the death
of Robert, in 1343, Joanna, to whom her grandfather had already caused an oath
of allegiance to be taken, succeeded to the throne; but intrigues were busily
carried on by members of the royal family, and a Hungarian faction, headed by
a friar named Robert, attempted to make itself supreme at Naples. Andrew
endeavoured, through the interest of his brother Lewis, king of Hungary, to
obtain the pope’s consent that he should be crowned, not as consort, but as
king by hereditary right; and he indiscreetly uttered threats of the
punishments which he intended to inflict on all who had offended him, as soon
as he should be established in the kingdom. He also suspected his wife of
infidelity, and the mutual ill-feeling which arose from this and other causes
was artfully fomented by interested courtiers. A conspiracy was formed against
Andrew, and, while residing with the queen and a hunting-party at the Celestine
convent of Aversa, he was decoyed from his chamber and strangled, on the night
of the 18th of September 1343. By desire of the Neapolitan nobles an inquiry
was made as to the murder, and some of the persons who had been concerned in
it were put to death, or otherwise punished. But Joanna herself was suspected,
and when she sent a bishop to Lewis of Hungary, entreating his protection for
herself and for the child with whom she had been pregnant at the time of his
brother’s death, he replied in a letter which, with unmeasured severity,
declared his belief of her guilt.
On the death
of his posthumous nephew, Lewis claimed the Apulian kingdom as his inheritance,
and invaded it, displaying at the head of his army a banner on which was
painted the murder of Andrew. He also sent an embassy to the pope, with a
request that he might be crowned as heir of Sicily and Apulia; but his envoys
were unable to obtain a public audience, as it was alleged that he was
connected with the excommunicated Lewis of Bavaria. In the meantime, Joanna,
yielding (as it was said) to the entreaties of her subjects, who dreaded a
Hungarian rule, married her cousin Lewis of Taranto, who had been suspected of
criminal intimacy with her during the life of her former husband, and of a
share in the guilt of his death; and by this she appeared to confirm the
imputations which had been cast on her. The pair withdrew from Naples before
the approach of the Hungarian force, and fled by sea to the queen’s territory
of Provence, where she was received at Avignon with great honour, all the
cardinals going out to meet her. Clement, who had already pronounced a general
excommunication against the murderers of Andrew, at the request of Lewis,
appointed a commission of three cardinals to investigate the case, but without
any definite result; he granted a dispensation for the queen’s second marriage,
and endeavoured to mediate between her and the king of Hungary. After a time
Lewis withdrew from Apulia, where he had inflicted severe punishment on many
who were suspected of a share in his brother’s murder. Joanna and her husband
were requested by a party among her subjects to return and, in order to provide
money for this purpose, she agreed to sell Avignon to the pope for a price far
below its real value, in consideration (as was believed) of the favours which
she had received or might still desire from him in the matter of Andrew’s
murder. In 1351 the king of Hungary again appeared in southern Italy; but
Joanna and her husband were able, by the help of one of the mercenary bands
which were then at the service of any power that would pay them to make so
vigorous a resistance that a truce was concluded. By this the question was
referred to the pope and cardinals for arbitration, with the understanding
that, if Joanna were found guilty of the crime imputed to her, she should
forfeit the kingdom, and that if acquitted, she should retain peaceful
possession, but should reimburse the Hungarian king for the expenses of the
war. The decision of Clement was in her favour, and she and her husband were
crowned by a papal legate on Whitsunday 1352.
The long
absence of the popes from Rome had been disastrous in its effects on the city.
Although still an object of pilgrimage, it no longer enjoyed the wealth which
had been drawn to it by the residence of the court, and by the resort of
persons from all quarters for official business. Even the pilgrims were often
plundered on the way by robbers, or by the bands of mercenary soldiers which
beset the roads. The churches were falling into decay; the great monuments of
antiquity were turned into fortresses, or were left to utter neglect. While the
popes were usually elected, each in his private capacity, and for his own life,
to the nominal dignity of senator, the city was a prey to anarchy, and to the
contentions of the great families. In these circumstances some romantic spirits
felt themselves thrown back on the memories of an earlier time, regarding less
the veneration which was attached to Rome as the religious capital of
Christendom than the fame of its ancient republican and imperial grandeur. Thus
Dante had desired to see Rome the seat of the papacy and of the empire; and now
Petrarch, the foremost man of his age in poetry and general literature,
endeavoured from time to time, by letters both in prose and in verse, which
found circulation wherever the Latin language was understood, to stir up both
emperors and popes to make Rome again their residence. Petrarch was decorated
with the laurel crown in the Capitol on Easter-day 1341, having received at the
same time an offer of that tribute to his genius from the university of Paris
and from the Roman senate, and having chosen to be so honoured by the
representatives of ancient greatness rather than by the body which, in his own
time, was most distinguished in the cultivation of literature.
Among the
spectators of this ceremony it is probable that there was one in whom the
romantic feeling which has been described was soon to find a remarkable
expression; indeed, it has been supposed that his enthusiasm had drawn
nourishment from the sight of the great poet wandering among the monuments of
Rome’s former majesty on an earlier visit to the city. Nicolas, who, from a
popular corruption of his father’s name, is commonly called Rienzi, was born
about the year 1314, in the region named Regola,
which extends along the left bank of the Tiber, adjoining the Jewish quarter of
Rome. His father was a tavern-keeper, his mother a washerwoman and
water-carrier; and although, in the later part of his life, he professed to be
an illegitimate offspring of the emperor Henry VII, it is certain that this
attempt to glorify his paternal descent at the expense of his mother’s
reputation was merely the invention of a diseased vanity.
Rienzi was
educated for the profession of a notary; but his delight was in the study of
the old Roman authors,—of Livy, Caesar, Cicero, Boethius, and the poets,—and he
acquired an unusual skill in reading and interpreting ancient inscriptions.
From brooding over these records of the past he conceived visions, which he
attempted to realize with an amount of success which for a time was wonderfully
great, and might have been far greater and more lasting but for his own utter
inadequacy to the part which he attempted to act; and the anarchy into which
Rome had fallen was especially brought home to him by the circumstance that his
brother was killed in an affray, and that no redress was to be obtained from
the great families which then exercised the powers of government.
In 1342-3
Rienzi was one of the deputation sent by the Romans to beg that pope Clement
would return to their city; and it is said that his eloquence won the
admiration of the pope himself, while it is certain that he excited the
enthusiasm of Petrarch, who afterwards found reason to regret that he had too
easily allowed himself to be fascinated. The embassy, as we have seen, was put
off with fair words, and with a grant of the petition that the jubilee should
be celebrated every fiftieth year, instead of once in a century; but this concession
was hailed by Rienzi with a joy so extravagant that he extolled Clement above
the greatest of the ancient Roman worthies.
Rienzi
returned to Rome with the official character of papal notary, and resumed his
old studies, while his indignation at the oppression of the nobles (who mocked
at his ideas as the fancies of a crazy enthusiast) became more vehement than
ever. He endeavoured to excite the patriotic feeling of the people by various
means, such as expounding inscriptions which attested the glory and liberty of
former days, and by exhibiting a picture which, in the midst of many other
symbols, displayed Rome under the figure of a majestic matron, clothed in
tattered garments, with disheveled hair, weeping
eyes, and hands crossed on her breast, kneeling on the deck of a ship, which
was without mast or sail, and appeared about to sink. On the first day of Lent
1347, he announced by a placard on the church of St. George in the Velabro that
the Romans would “soon return to their ancient good estate”; and after having
held many meetings on the Aventine, in order to prepare the minds of the
citizens, he gave out at Whitsuntide that this good estate was come. Rienzi, at
the Capitol, assumed the title of tribune, with the pope’s legate, Raymond,
bishop of Orvieto, for his colleague; the laws of his government were
proclaimed, and forthwith he entered on the administration of the republic. A
strict and rigid system of police was enforced without respect of persons; the
fortresses of the nobles, both in the city and in the Campagna, were
demolished; the owners were compelled to swear to the observation of peace, and
long and bitter feuds were extinguished by a forced reconciliation of enemies.
The streets of Rome and the highways of its neighbourhood became, for the first
time since many years, safe the Romans, in the enjoyment of the unwonted
security, fancied themselves once more free. The tribune’s authority was
respected far beyond the bounds of his jurisdiction; his announcement of his
elevation, and his invitation to the Italian cities to combine for their common
country, were received with a respectful welcome: it is said that even the
sultan of Babylon was affected by the change which had taken place in the
government of Rome. Petrarch, watching with enthusiastic delight the course of
affairs in the city, congratulated the tribune and his people on having thrown
off the domination of foreigners, and exhorted them to profit by their
opportunities.
But very
early Rienzi began to show that his mind—vain, fantastic, and unsteady from the
first—had become intoxicated by success. With the title of tribune he combined
others at once pompous and inconsistent, including some which belonged to the
imperial dignity. He claimed a special influence of the Holy Ghost,—a
pretension which, when taken in connexion with the oracles of abbot Joachim and
his school, was likely to awaken suspicions of heresy; nay, he did not hesitate
even to compare himself to the Saviour. He levied new and heavy taxes, the
proceeds of which, and of the confiscations to which he subjected the wealthier
citizens, were spent in luxurious living, and on theatrical displays, in which
he himself was the chief figure. Among these exhibitions the most noted were his
admission to the order of knighthood after having bathed in rose-water in the
porphyry vessel which was traditionally believed to have been the font of Constantine’s
baptism, and his coronation with seven crowns, each of which was intended to
bear particular symbolical meaning. He promoted his own relations to all sorts
of offices, in which they disgraced themselves and him by their unfitness, and
by their extravagance of vulgar luxury; and his own indulgences in food and
drink were such that his figure became gross and bloated. He kept a train of
poets to celebrate his actions, and of jesters to amuse him. Fancying himself
seated on the throne of the Caesars, he summoned the pope to return to Rome,
and the rival claimants of the empire, together with the electors, to submit
themselves to his arbitration; and although this was unheeded, Lewis of Bavaria
stooped to entreat his mediation, with a view to reconciliation with the
church, while Lewis of Hungary and Joanna of Naples each endeavoured to enlist
him as a partisan in their contest.
But Rienzi’s
errors became more and more palpable, and speedily brought on his ruin. He
treacherously arrested the chiefs of the adverse nobles, as if on suspicion of
a conspiracy; and, after having alarmed them with the expectation of death, he
not only set them free at the intercession of some citizens, but loaded them
with offices and honours. The Colonnas and others,
having collected a force in their fastnesses among the mountains, attacked him
under the walls of Rome : and, when their blunders had given him a victory
which his own ability could not have gained for him, he abused it by cruel
insults to the dead, and was unable to profit by his success. Although he had
throughout professed the deepest reverence not only for religion, but for the
papacy, the pope had not unnaturally viewed his proceedings with jealousy. He
was charged with heterodoxy, and even with magic and the legate, who had once
been his colleague in power, but had separated from him on finding that Rienzi
intended to use him merely as a tool, pronounced an anathema against him. Pipin, count palatine of Minerbino and Altamura, a Neapolitan noble, who had been banished from his own country,
and had become the head of a band of mercenaries, having been summoned to
appear before the tribune on account of his violent acts, proceeded to attack
him; and Rienzi, who had forfeited the affection of the people by his misconduct
and tyranny, did not venture to stand his ground, but fled in abject terror.
After having been sheltered for a time by the Orsini in the castle of St.
Angelo, he privately made his escape from Rome, and found a refuge among the
fanatical fraticelli of the Apennines, while the
churches resounded with the papal denunciations of him, and Rome relapsed into
a state of anarchy worse than before.
Two years
and a half after his flight from Rome, Rienzi appeared at Prague, in
consequence of a commission given to him by a hermit named Angelo, who believed
that he and Charles IV were destined to reform the world. He obtained access to
the emperor, and endeavoured to draw him into the hermit’s schemes, but the
wildness of his talk, which savoured of the society in which he had lately been
living, excited such suspicions that Charles thought it well to commit him to
the care of the archbishop of Prague, by whom, in compliance with a request
from the pope, he was after a time sent to Avignon. The charge of heresy,
however, was not prosecuted against him. His life was spared, partly through
the intercession of Petrarch, who, although grievously disappointed in his
career, still regarded him with interest and sympathy, and partly in
consequence of a mistaken belief that he was entitled to the honours of a poet;
and he was kept in confinement, which, according to the notions of the time,
was lenient, as he was bound only by a single chain, and was allowed the use of
books, especially of the Scriptures and of Livy. In this condition he remained
until circumstances brought him once more into public life.
About the
same time when Rienzi was in power at Rome, a pestilence of oriental
origin made its appearance in Europe, and raged with unexampled virulence
from Sicily to Iceland and even to Greenland. This “Black Death” (as it was
called) is said to have carried off at least a fourth of the population in the
countries which it visited. Among the places which most severely felt its
ravages was Florence, where the historian John Villani was among its victims,
and where its tragic details furnished an incongruous framework for the lively
and licentious tales of the “Decameron”. At Marseilles it carried off the
bishop and all his chapter, almost all the Dominican and Minorite friars, and
one-half of the citizens. At Avignon three-fourths of the inhabitants are said
to have died, among whom was cardinal Colonna, the chief patron of Petrarch,
with several other princes of the church, and the lady whom the poet has made
for ever famous under the name of Laura. So great was the mortality in the city
of the papal residence that the living were insufficient to bury the dead, and
the pope had recourse to the device of consecrating the Rhone in order to
receive the bodies which could find no room in the cemeteries. In England the
pestilence raged violently, and among its victims was John de Ufford, whom the king, in his anger against the Canterbury
monks for having elected the learned schoolman Thomas Bradwardine without the royal licence, had begged the pope to appoint by provision to the
archbishopric. After the death of his rival (who had not been consecrated) Bradwardine was promoted by the consent of all parties, and
received consecration from the pope; but within a few days after landing in
England he too was carried off by the plague. At Drontheim,
all the members of the chapter except one died; and the survivor elected a new
archbishop, without any interference on the part of the crown.
The moral
effects of this visitation were not altogether favourable. In many it produced
a spirit of selfishness and covetousness and a decay of charity. It is said
that in Italy many of the survivors, finding themselves easier in their
circumstances through the consequences of the pestilence, ran into all sorts of
dissoluteness and self-indulgence; while the lower classes of society, for a
like reason, gave themselves up to idleness and dissipation. In England, when
such persons of the labouring classes as had escaped death demanded an
increased price for their work, a royal decree forbade all servants, artisans,
and the like, to receive higher pay than in former years. In consequence of
this, such persons found that, as the cost of living was increased, their state
was worse than before; and their discontent was shared by the lower clergy. For
a time the surviving members of this class had found their services so much in
request, as curates or chaplains, that they had insisted on receiving four or
five times as much as before; and, in consequence of this, many laymen who had
lost their wives by the pestilence pressed into the ministry of the church,
without any other qualification than an imperfect knowledge of reading. But
through this multiplication of their numbers, combined with the increase of
prices and with the diminution of fees which followed on the decrease of
population, the condition of the lower clergy speedily became worse than it had
ever been before. Even on monastic discipline it is said that the Black Death
told unfavourably; as in many places the older and more experienced monks were
carried off and those who succeeded them were unable or unwilling to enforce
the rules with the strictness of former times. This great calamity was
naturally followed by outbreaks of superstitious terror. The Jews were
suspected of having poisoned the wells and infected the air; some of them were
tortured into a confession of these crimes, and multitudes of the unfortunate
people suffered death. In some places the Jews were driven by despair to attack
the Christians; at Mayence they killed about 200, and
the act was avenged by a butchery of 12,000 Jews. The persecution raged
especially in the towns along the Rhine; and when the pope threw his protection
over the Jews, the age was so little able to apprehend any good motive for such
humanity that he was commonly supposed to have been bribed. The end of the
world was believed to be at hand. The fanaticism of the flagellants, which had
been first known in the preceding century, and of which there had since been
some smaller displays, was now revived. The flagellants professed to have come
into Germany from Hungary, and displayed a letter which an angel was said to
have brought down to Jerusalem, declaring the Saviour’s wrath against mankind
for profanation of the Lord’s day, for neglect of fasting, for blasphemy,
usury, adultery, and other sins. They went about half-naked, singing, and
scourging themselves; and they declared that the blood which was thus shed was
mingled with that of the Redeemer, and that it superseded the necessity of the
sacraments. When the Saviour’s passion was mentioned in their hymns, they threw
themselves on the earth “like logs of wood,” with their arms extended in the
form of a cross, and remained prostrate in prayer until a signal was given to
rise. They were under “masters” of their own, to whom all that joined them were
required to swear obedience, and their behaviour towards the clergy was
hostile and menacing. From Germany the movement spread into France, but the
king forbade the flagellants to approach the capital, and the university of
Paris pronounced their practices to be a “vain superstition”. At the instance
of the university, flagellancy was condemned by the
pope, and at his desire it was forbidden by the royal authority. Some of the
flagellants carried their fanaticism from the Low Countries into England; but
the English looked on their wild exercises with indifference, and suspected
them of heresy.
In many
towns the parochial clergy fled from the pestilence, and their places were
taken by the more courageous friars, who visited the sick, administered the
last sacraments, and performed the offices of burial. This devotion was
rewarded with large bequests, especially from persons who had lost their
natural heirs; and a complaint was made to the pope by the cardinals and the
secular clergy, who desired that the mendicant orders should be suppressed for
interfering with the parochial system of the church. But Clement, according to
a writer who himself belonged to the mendicant brotherhood of Carmelites,
rebuked the objectors severely. He asked them what they themselves would preach
if the monks were silent? He told them that if they were to preach humility,
poverty, and chastity, their exhortations would be vitiated by the glaring
contrast of their own pride and luxury, their avarice and greed, and the notorious
laxity of their lives. He reproached them for closing their doors against the
mendicants, while they opened them to panders and buffoons. If, he said, the
mendicants had got some benefit from those whose deathbeds they had attended,
it was a reward of the zeal and the courage which they had shown while the
secular clergy fled from their posts; if they had erected buildings with the
money, it was better spent so than in worldly and sensual pleasures; and he
declared the opposition to the friars to be merely the result of envy. The
rebuke carried weight from its truth, if not from the character of the pope who
uttered it.
Although the
death of Lewis of Bavaria had removed a great obstacle from the path of his
rival Charles, the “priests’ emperor” found that his difficulties were not yet
ended. In going about the cities of Germany, attended by clergy who offered the
pope’s absolution from ban and interdict, on condition that the people should
renounce the late emperor and all his family, he met with hostile demonstrations
in some places. Thus at Basel, when the bull announcing the terms of absolution
was read, the mayor of the city stood forward, and addressing the pope’s
commissioner, the bishop of Bamberg, declared that the citizens of Basel did
not believe the emperor Lewis to have been a heretic; that they were resolved
to acknowledge as king and emperor anyone who should be chosen by the electors,
or by a majority of them, without requiring the pope’s confirmation of the
choice; that they would do nothing contrary to the rights of the empire, but
were willing to accept the pope’s forgiveness of all their sins, if he should
be pleased to bestow it. By this firmness an unconditional absolution was
extorted. In other towns the emperor’s arrival was the signal for scenes of
disorder. Many of the most religious persons, such as the famous mystic John Tauler, of Strasburg, regarded the pope’s proceedings
against Lewis as unjust and invalid; and, as at some earlier times, the
impatience of the papal rule gave rise to a popular expectation that the
emperor Frederick II would reappear, to destroy the clergy and the friars, and
to restore the glories of the empire.
The Bavarian
party, headed by Henry of Virneburg, who was still
acknowledged by most of the Germans as archbishop of Mayence,
endeavoured to set up an emperor of its own. The crown, after having been
declined by some German princes, was offered to Edward of England, whose fame
had lately been enhanced by the victory of Cressy; but Edward, in deference to
the opinion of his parliament, and fearing that the offer might be intended to
divert him from the prosecution of his designs on France, refused it. At length
a champion was found in count Gunther of Schwarzburg, in Thuringia, a man of
great renown for prowess, but of no considerable territory or power. Gunther
was elected by his partizans on the 30th of January
1349, was displayed on the high altar of St. Bartholomew’s at Frankfort as
king, and was enthroned in the same city but he found few adherents, and after
a time his chief supporters were gained over to the side of Charles by means of
matrimonial alliances or other inducements. Gunther himself, who had been
attacked by a hopeless illness, was persuaded, although unwillingly, to resign
his pretensions, chiefly in consideration of a large sum of money. The Bavarian
party was conciliated by Charles’s undertaking to get the papal sanction for
the marriage of Lewis of Brandenburg with Margaret of the Tyrol and Lewis made
over to Charles the insignia of the empire, which had come into his hands at
his father’s death. Thus Charles acquired peaceable possession of his dignity,
to which, according to some writers, he submitted to be again elected, so that
the honour of the empire might be formally saved, although the acceptance of
the pope’s nominee proved that the electors were no longer inclined to oppose
the papacy.
The
character of Charles as a sovereign is very differently estimated by the
Germans and by the Bohemians; but their estimates are not inconsistent. To the
Germans he appeared to neglect the empire for the interests of his family,
which he laboured to secure by marriages and peaceful negotiations rather than
by the more brilliant exploits which accorded with the taste of the age while
in his hereditary kingdom, which he had governed as his father’s deputy while
John was seeking adventures all over Europe, his name is honoured above those
of all other sovereigns for his good administration, and for his patronage of
literature and the arts. To him Prague was indebted for its splendour as a
capital and for the foundation of its university, which drew to it a vast
concourse of students, not only from the Slavonic countries, but from all parts
of Germany—as in that country no such institution yet existed.
Notwithstanding
the late mortality, and the dangers which in a time of such disorder beset the
ways, the jubilee of 1350 drew vast multitudes of pilgrims to Rome. Many
persons of the higher classes, indeed, availed themselves of the dispensations
which the pope offered to those who should be prevented from undertaking the
journey. And Edward of England, although he granted licenses for the
pilgrimage, forbade his subjects in general to take part in it, alleging the
necessities of war in answer to Clement’s remonstrances
on the subject. Yet Matthew Villani states that the number of those who visited
Rome from Christmas to Easter was 1,000,000 or 1,200,000, and that in the
season of the Ascension and Whitsuntide there were 800,000 more. The same
writer tells us that the streets leading to the churches which were to be
visited—St. Peter’s, St. Paul’s, and St. John Lateran—were so crowded as to
admit of no movement except with the stream of the multitude; and that the
Romans were extortionate as to the prices of lodging, food, fodder, and other
necessaries. Another chronicler, who was present, tells us that at the
exhibition of the Veronica many were crushed to death. The numbers of the
pilgrims must probably have been swelled by the serious impressions of the late
calamity; and while Matthew Villani describes them on their journey as
cheerfully braving the inconveniences of an unfavourable season, the interest
with which the more pious might view the decayed but venerable city, and the
relics of especial fame for holiness which were displayed before their eyes,
may be conceived from the fervent language of Petrarch. Yet, as to the result
of the pilgrimage, we may probably believe a contemporary chronicler’s
statement, that many came back from Rome worse than before.
On the 6th
of December 1352 Clement suddenly died in consequence of the bursting of a
tumour, having in the preceding year mitigated the law of papal elections by
allowing that the cardinals, when shut up in conclave, should have their
portions of the room separated by curtains; that each of them might have two
attendants, who might be either clerks or laymen; and that the rigour of the
regulations as to the supply of food should be abated on the third day.
CHAPTER IV.
FROM THE ELECTION OF POPE INNOCENT VI. TO THE DEATH OF GREGORY XI.
A. D. 1352-1378.
AT the death
of Clement VI the cardinals had reason to suppose that John, who in 1350 had
succeeded to the crown of France, would endeavour to set up a pope of his own
nomination; and, notwithstanding their devotion to the French interest, they
resolved to preserve a show of independence by making their election before any
intimation of the royal will could reach them. It seemed as if John Birelli, general of the Carthusian order, were about to be
chosen; but cardinal Talleyrand warned his brethren that the Carthusian, if he
were to become pope, would reduce them to primitive simplicity of living, and
would degrade their splendid horses to drag the waggon or the plough. The
cardinals then determined to choose one of their own number, under a system of
capitulation such as had sometimes been practised in elections of bishops, and
had lately been usual in the elections of emperors. Every member of the college
was to swear that, if chosen, he would make no new cardinals until the college
should be reduced to sixteen; that he would never raise their number to more
than twenty; that he would not create, depose, or arrest any cardinal without
the consent of the whole body; and that he would make over to the cardinals
one-half of the revenues of the Roman church. By these terms the future pope
would have bound himself to become a tool of the cardinals; and, although all
took the oath, some of them did so with the reservation “provided that these
laws be agreeable to right”.
On the 18th
of December the choice of the cardinals fell on Stephen Aubert, a Limousin, bishop of Ostia, a man eminent for his learning
in civil and ecclesiastical law, who styled himself Innocent VI. Soon after his
election, the new pope took advantage of the reservation which he had made in
swearing to the late agreement, by declaring that he had found such engagements
to be contrary to the decrees of some former popes; and also that they were
void for attempting to limit the power which God had bestowed on St. Peter and
his successors. And the cardinals, who seem to have become aware of the evils
which might result from such capitulations, acquiesced in this determinations
Innocent
betook himself earnestly to the work of ecclesiastical reform. He did away with
the system of reserves, and in his bull for that purpose he dwelt on the
mischiefs which had arisen from them—such as the neglect of pastoral care, the
dilapidation of churches, and the decay of hospitality. He abolished many of
the corruptions of the court, and did much to restrain the extortion of his
officials. He suppressed the scandalous abuse by which prostitutes had been
allowed, on payment of a tax to the papal treasury, to ply their trade at
Avignon. He insisted on an abatement of the excessive luxury in which the
cardinals had indulged, and himself set an example in this respect; and those
members of the college who offended him by their laxity of life were awed by
threats that he would remove the court to Rome. The bishops who haunted Avignon
were compelled to return to their dioceses. He discouraged pluralities : there
is a story that when a favourite chaplain, who held seven benefices, asked for
some preferment in behalf of a nephew, Innocent desired him to give up to the young
man the best of his own preferments; and, as the chaplain showed
dissatisfaction at this, he was further required to resign three other livings,
each of which the pope bestowed on a poor clerk. Innocent was careful in the
disposal of his patronage; and, although he is charged with too great fondness
for advancing his own relations, it is admitted that in general the kinsmen
whom he promoted did him no discredit.
Innocent was
able to act with an independence unknown to the earlier Avignon popes; for king
John, weakened by the disastrous war with England, in which he himself was made
a captive at Poitiers, was unable to exercise a control like that of Philip the
Fair, or of his own father, Philip of Valois.
In the
meantime Italy was a prey to disorder. While every division of the country had
its own little tyrant, the Milanese family of Visconti had gained such a
predominance in the north that the ancient parties of Guelfs and Ghibellines
forgot their enmities in order to combine against a foe who threatened them
all. On the death of Lucchino Visconti, in 1348, the
lordship of Milan fell to his brother John, who was already archbishop of the
city. By violently seizing on Bologna, a city which belonged to the pope, he
incurred threats of excommunication and deprivation from Clement VI; but by
bribing the king of France and other powerful intercessors, including that
pope’s favourite, the countess of Turenne, he was afterwards able to make
terms, and was allowed to retain the place for twelve years, on condition of
paying tribute. It is said that, when required by a legate to choose between
the characters of archbishop and secular prince, he desired that the message
might be repeated in the face of his clergy and people; and when this was done
on the following Sunday, after he had celebrated mass with great pomp, he rose
from his throne, holding in one hand his crosier, and in the other his drawn
sword—“These”, he said, “are my arms spiritual and temporal; and with the one I
will defend the other”. He signified, however, his willingness to appear at
Avignon; but the proceedings of his harbingers, who set about hiring all the
houses that could be got in the city and for leagues around it, as if to lodge
an overwhelming train, alarmed the pope to such a degree that the archbishop’s
visit was excused.
The citizens
of the Italian republics, devoting themselves to the accumulation of wealth,
ceased to cultivate the art of war, and relied for their defence on the
mercenary bands which now, under the name of free companies, overran both
France and Italy. These companies were at first composed in great part of
soldiers who, by the conclusion of peace between France and England, had found
their occupation gone. They admitted into their ranks men of various nations, and
enlisted themselves in the service of any power that could afford to hire
them—keeping their contract faithfully so long as it lasted, but holding
themselves at liberty to go over to an opposite party at the end of the term;
and when not thus engaged, they plundered and ravaged on their own account.
Among the captains of such mercenaries the most famous was Sir John Hawkwood, an Englishman, who, after having distinguished
himself in the French wars, passed into Italy, and there served for thirty
years under the Visconti, the pope, and lastly under the republic of Florence,
which at his death commemorated him by a colossal equestrian portrait, still
existing in the cathedral. Hawkwood had the
reputation of being the most skilful commander of his age; and in our own day
he has been characterized by an eminent historian as “the first real general
of modern times; the earliest master, however imperfect, in the science of
Turenne and Wellington”. Avignon was repeatedly threatened by these companies,
which laid waste the country around it; and the popes endeavoured to protect
themselves, sometimes by uttering anathemas, sometimes by engaging the aid of
princes and nobles, but more successfully by the payment of large sums of
money, by which the adventurers were persuaded to transfer themselves to some
other quarter. Thus Innocent in 1362 bought off the “White company”, which
thereupon crossed the Alps, at the invitation of the marquis of Montferrat, and
engaged in the wars of Italy. With a view to defence against such assailants,
Innocent fortified his palace and the city of Avignon—enclosing within the
walls an extent of ground which left room for the future increase of the place.
Rome had
been in a state of confusion since the time of Rienzi’s withdrawal, in January
1348. With a view to recovering his power over the city, and over the territory
of the church, Innocent in 1353 sent into Italy an army under Giles Albornoz,
cardinal of St. Clement, a Spaniard, who had been a knight in his youth, and
afterwards archbishop of Toledo—a man eminent both for military and for
political talents. With this legate was joined Rienzi, who had been released
from prison, and invested with the dignity of senator, in the hope that he
might be able to resume his influence over the Romans, and that he would use it
in the interest of the papacy. But although the citizens, weary of anarchy,
appear to have begged that their former tribune might be restored to them, and
received him with enthusiasm, he speedily forfeited their favour by his
misconduct. The faults which had led to his earlier fall were repeated in a
worse degree than before. The people were oppressed by heavy taxes levied on
the necessaries of life. His power was exercised with caprice and cruelty; and
especial distrust was excited by the death of one Pandulf,
whose only crime was the possession of influence, and by that of Walter de
Montreal, a famous Provencal condottiere, who, from having been formerly a
knight of St. John, was commonly styled Brother Moreale.
This man had offended against the public peace by acts which pope Innocent
describes as worse than the outrages of Holofernes or of Totila;
but his brothers had laid Rienzi under great obligations by advancing sums of
money which were necessary to the fulfilment of his mission; and when the
senator, in disregard of this, treacherously decoyed Moreale into his power, tortured him and put him to death, the victim’s faults were forgotten
in indignation at the manner of his end. Meanwhile Rienzi’s personal habits became
grossly sensual; he fed immoderately on sweetmeats, drank strong mixed wines at
all hours, and showed the effect of these indulgences in the swelling of his
body, which a contemporary likens to that of a fatted ox or of an abbot of
unreason. His reputation was lowered by failure in an attempt to take the
fortress of Palestrina from the Colonnas. Rome became
impatient of his yoke, and his oratory had lost its power over the multitude. A
rising took place, there were cries for his death, and Rienzi was arrested
while attempting to escape in disguise. For an hour he was exposed to the
derision of the mob, who then fell upon him, cut him to pieces, and treated his
remains with indignities which showed the violence of their exasperation
against him. Although, however, the attempt to turn Rienzi to account had
utterly failed, the legate Albornoz, a man of a very different stamp, conducted
his affairs with such skill that he succeeded in recovering Bologna and the Romagna,
with almost all the other ecclesiastical territories.
In 1354 the
emperor Charles, with the pope’s sanction, proceeded into Italy for his
coronation. He found that the formidable archbishop of Milan, John Visconti,
had died in consequence of a surgical operation,
and
been succeeded in his secular power by his three nephews, of whom the eldest,
Matthew, was soon after poisoned by his brothers Bernabò and Galeazzo, because
his excessive dissoluteness endangered the interests of the family. Charles
received the iron crown at Milan on the Epiphany, 1355, and, leaving Bernabò
Visconti as his vicar (an appointment which greatly offended the pope), he
continued his progress towards Rome. The smallness of the force by which he was
accompanied—a mere escort of three hundred horsemen—disarmed the suspicion of
the Italians, and, because of his very weakness, Charles was everywhere
received with an extraordinary show of respect; even the rigid Guelf
republicans of Florence did homage, and bound themselves to the payment of
tribute. At Pisa he was strengthened by the arrival of those Germans whose duty
required them to attend the emperor on such expeditions, so that he found
himself at the head of a considerable force, composed of the Rower of the
German nobility. A condition by which he had pledged himself not to enter Rome
before the day of the coronation, had been in so far relaxed by the pope that,
on arriving on Thursday in the holy week, he was allowed to visit the churches
and the cardinals as a pilgrim. But his solemn entry was deferred until
Easter-day, when he and his empress were crowned in St. Peter’s by the
cardinal-bishop of Ostia; and on the same day, agreeably to his engagement, he
again left the city. Without having made an attempt to recover any rights of
the empire which had been invaded, or to establish any authority over Rome,
Charles returned northward so hastily, and with so little display, that his
journey almost resembled a flight; and Petrarch, who had urged him to revive
the glories of Rome, and had been summoned to meet him at Mantua on his way to
the coronation, expressed strongly the bitter disappointment of the hopes which
he had rested on the emperor. In July 1355 Charles arrived again in Germany,
enriched by the money which he had levied on the Italian cities, but without
having increased his reputation.
Charles had
announced from Piacenza that, if he should be permitted to return to Germany,
he intended to do some good thing for the benefit of the kingdom and, in
fulfilment of this promise, he summoned a diet to meet in January 1356 at
Nuremberg, where the document known as his Golden Bull was enacted as a
fundamental law of the empire. By this bull many circumstances of the election
to the crown were settled—the forms to be observed, the duties of the chief officers,
the time within which an election must take place after a vacancy, the election
at Frankfort, and the coronation at Aix-la-Chapelle. By a provision which
doubtless originated in Charles’s own rare knowledge of languages, it was
ordered that, whereas the empire consisted of various nations, the sons of the
lay electors should, from their seventh to their fourteenth year, be instructed
in Italian and Slavonic. But the bull was chiefly important as determining to
whom the right of sharing in the election should belong. For as to this there
had been much difficulty and uncertainty, from the circumstance that the rule
of inheritance by primogeniture had not been established in the families of
the lay electors, and that consequently their territories were liable to be
broken up among several heirs, each of whom might claim the electoral suffrage.
By the “golden bull” it was settled that in every case the vote should be
attached to a certain portion of territory, which was to be regarded as the
electoral land, and that this portion should descend according to the order of
primogeniture. The claim of the pope to interfere with the election was not
mentioned at all; and it was assumed that in Germany, at least, the king or
emperor had full power from the time of his election, so as to need no
confirmation in his office. The “priests’ emperor” had secured the crown
against the pretensions of the papacy; and Innocent was greatly annoyed at the
result.
After a
pontificate of nearly ten years, Innocent died on the 12th of September 1362.
Twenty cardinals assembled for the choice of a successor; but they were unable
to agree as to the promotion of one of their own body, and their choice fell on
William de Grimoard, a native of the diocese of
Mende, and abbot of the Benedictine monastery of St. Victor at Marseilles. The
new pope, Urban V, who was supposed to have been elected under a special
influence of the Holy Ghost, had attained the age of sixty, was respected alike
for his sanctity and for his learning, and had exerted himself greatly in the
service of the church. Like his predecessor, he showed himself an enemy to the
corruptions of the court, to simony, pluralities, and non-residence. He took
away from the houses of the cardinals the privilege of sanctuary, which had
been much abused. As pope he retained the monastic dress and the simplicity of
monastic habits but, while thus sparing of expense on himself, he laid out
vast sums for the benefit of the church, as on the restoration of the Roman
churches and palaces, the erection and endowment of a monastery and a college
at Montpellier, and the encouragement of learning by maintaining a thousand
students in various universities, and by liberally supplying them with books.
He chose his cardinals for their merit alone, whereas the late popes had
limited their choice to such persons as were devoted to the French interest.
Nor did he fall into the usual fault of enriching his own kindred, whether
laymen or clergy, at the expense of the church; for only two of his near relatives
were advanced to the prelacy, and of these it is said that both were deserving,
and that one was promoted at the special request of the cardinals.
The south of
France continued for a time to be infested by the free companies; but at length
they were put down under this pontificate. In Italy, however, the evil endured
longer, and the country suffered greatly from the power, the tyranny, and the
ambition of Bernabò Visconti, who was now the head of his family. Innocent had
proclaimed in 1356 a crusade against the Visconti for detaining certain cities
which belonged to the church; but the design was marred by the misconduct of
the preachers, who endeavoured to make a profit for themselves out of the
indulgences which they were authorized to offer, and the payments for exemption
from service.
Bernabò
showed himself especially hostile to the clergy. For instance, it is said that
he seized a priest who had been sent to preach the crusade, put him into an
iron cage, and roasted him to death on a gridiron; and that he caused some
Franciscans to be shod with iron, like horses, the nails being driven into
their feet. He declared himself to be both pope and emperor within his own
dominions; he tore up papal letters, and imprisoned the bearers of them; Urban
himself when sent to him as legate by pope Innocent, had been forced to swallow
the bull which he carried, with the leaden seal and the string by which it was
attached to the parchment; and he compelled a priest of Parma to utter an
anathema against Innocent and the cardinals. The pope denounced him
excommunicate, authorized his wife to separate from him as a heretic and
unbeliever, formed an alliance against him with the emperor and with some
Italian states, and put off, in favour of a crusade against Bernabò, one in
which king John of France and many of his nobles had enlisted themselves for
the recovery of the Holy Land. But Bernabò was able to hold his ground, and the
pope was glad at length to conclude a peace with him, by which Bologna was
recovered for the papacy, while Urban undertook to mediate for him with the
emperor.
Urban before
his election had been strongly in favour of restoring the papal residence to
Rome, and he was now entreated to act on the desire which he had expressed. The
emperor Charles urged him; the Romans invited him to take up his abode among
them; Peter, a prince of Aragon, who had become a Franciscan, brought the
authority of visions in support of the return; and Petrarch renewed the suit
which he had so often made to preceding popes. The poet represents the desolate
state of Rome, where the holiest and most venerable buildings lay in
heartrending decay, while the pope lived in ease and splendour on the banks of
the Rhone. He dwells on the beauty of Italy, which wanted nothing but peace,
while he sneers at Avignon as the “native country of the winds”. He even argues
from Urban’s name the duty of returning to the city. He endeavours to gain over
the cardinals, whom he supposes reluctant to tear themselves away from the
wines of Burgundy, by assuring them that Italy too has its delicious wines, and
that in any case they will be able to import the other vintages. In a loftier
strain Petrarch admonishes Urban by a comparison between the ancient capital
of Christendom and the French city which had become infamous for its vices from
the time when the popes made it their residence; and, after setting forth the
terrors of the judgment-day and of the account to be then exacted, he asks the
pope whether he would rather choose to rise with the notorious sinners of
Avignon, or with St. Peter and St. Paul, St. Stephen and St. Laurence, and the
thousands of other saints whose relics or whose memories were connected with
Rome.
On the other
hand, Nicolas Oreme, an ecclesiastic attached to the
French court, argued in behalf of Avignon and of France, insisting especially
on the superiority of that country in literary fame. But Petrarch indignantly rejoined that many of the men to whom France owed its
renown in letters were of Italian birth, as Peter Lombard, Thomas of Aquino,
Bonaventura, and Giles Colonna; and, as he had been blamed for calling Gaul a
place of exile, he justified the phrase by referring to the banishment of
Herod and of Pilate.
In May 1365
the emperor Charles visited Avignon, professedly in order to concert measures
for the crusade; but the visit resulted in an agreement that both the pope and
the emperor should go to Rome in the next year but one. The cardinals were
opposed to the removal of the court; but Urban, who had never been a member of
the college, set light by their opposition, and is said to have made two new
cardinals by way of showing his power April 30, over them. On this they took
alarm, and while some of them reluctantly accompanied him, breaking out into
lamentations and reproaches as they put to sea, others made the journey by
land, although five stubbornly remained at Avignon.
On landing
at Corneto he was met by the legate Albornoz, to
whose prudence and warlike skill the papacy had been indebted for the recovery
of much of its temporal power, but this eminent man died at Viterbo during
Urban’s stay there. The insolence of a cardinal’s servant, who washed a
favourite dog in a public fountain, excited the populace of Viterbo to a
tumult, in which cries of “Death to the church!” were raised, and it was
suspected that the outbreak was contrived by the cardinals in the hope of
disgusting the pope with Italy.
At Rome,
however, he was welcomed with enthusiasm; and within a year from the time of
his arrival he received the homage, not only of the queen of Naples and of the
king of Cyprus, but of the emperors both of the west and of the east. John
Palaeologus, whose object was to obtain the aid of the western Christians
against the Turks, acknowledged in all points the faith of the Roman church and
the claims of the papacy. Charles behaved towards the pope with the deepest
show of reverence : he led his horse from the gate of St. Angelo to St.
Peter’s, and then officiated as deacon at a mass celebrated by Urban, who
placed the crown on the head of the emperor’s fourth wife. But we learn from an
eye-witness that, while the clergy were exulting over this subordination of the
temporal to the spiritual dignity, other persons viewed with deep disgust a
scene which they regarded as a humiliation of the empire. The pope himself was
disappointed at finding that Charles, instead of carrying out an alliance
against Bernabò Visconti, made peace with him on condition of receiving a large
sum of money. In like manner the emperor allowed himself to be bought off by
various cities on his way homewards; and, as after his former visit, he
returned to Prague with the general contempt of the Italians.
Urban’s
favourite place of residence was Monte Fiascone,
which he preferred to Rome on account of its quiet and of its more salubrious
air; and there, in September 1368, he increased the preponderance of the French
party among the cardinals by adding six Frenchmen to the college, while of
other nations there were only one Italian and one Englishman.
After three
years spent in Italy, the pope announced his intention of returning to Avignon.
To the Romans, who remonstrated, he expressed gratitude for the peace which he
and the members of his court had enjoyed among them, and assured them that he
would still be with them in heart; but he alleged the necessity of public
affairs—a plea which, although it might have been warranted by the renewal of
war between France and England, is supposed to have really meant that the
French cardinals would no longer endure to be at a distance from the delights
of Avignon. St. Bridget of Sweden, whose oracles exercised a powerful influence
on the age, solemnly warned the pope that, if he returned to France, it would
be only to die; Peter of Aragon added his monitions to the same purpose; and
these prophetic threats were supposed to be fulfilled when Urban’s arrival at
Avignon was followed within three months by his death. In his last sickness he
formally retracted anything (if such there were) that he might have taught or
said contrary to the faith of the church. The general reverence for his
character was expressed in a belief that miracles were done at his grave and it
is supposed that his canonization, which was solicited by Waldemar III of
Denmark and others, was prevented only by the troubles which soon after came on
the papacy.
GREGORY XI. MASSACRE OF CESENA
On the 30th
of December, Peter Roger, cardinal of Sta. Maria Nuova, was elected to the
vacant chair, and took the name of Gregory XI. He was a nephew of Clement VI,
by whom he had been advanced to the cardinalate at the age of seventeen or
eighteen; but Clement, “lest he should seem to have conferred with flesh and
blood”, had been careful to place the young cardinal under the best tutors, so
that Gregory was respected for his learning in civil and in canon law, as well
as for his modesty, prudence, and generosity. The chief defect noted in him was
that same regard for family interests to which he had owed his own early
promotion.
Gregory took
an active part in the affairs of Italy, where Bernabò Visconti and his brother
Galeazzo continued to be formidable. In 1372 a bull was issued by which they
were excommunicated, their subjects were released from allegiance, and all
Christians were invited to take part in a holy war against them. There were
serious commotions in the papal states, where eighty towns threw off their
subjection to Rome. Robert, cardinal of Geneva, was sent into the Romagna as
legate, with a band of Breton mercenaries, whose acts of license excited the
detestation of the people. At Cesena a rising took place, in which some
hundreds of them were killed, and the rest were driven from the town. The
legate, having secured the co-operation of the famous condottiere Sir John Hawkwood, persuaded the citizens to admit him peaceably,
allowing that they had received great provocation from his troops, and even (it
is said) swearing that no vengeance should be taken if they would lay down
their arms. Having thus lulled them into security, he then gave loose to a massacre
in which, according to some writers, three thousand perished, while others
reckon the number at four, five, or even eight thousand. A thousand women were
saved by the humanity of Hawkwood, who furnished them
with an escort; but atrocious acts of cruelty were committed by the infuriated
Bretons; and it is said that the cardinal overcame the scruples of Hawkwood and his men by desiring that all the inhabitants
might be killed indiscriminately.
The
Florentines, for their resistance to the papal authority, against which they
had formed an extensive league, were put under ban and interdict in March 1376.
It was even declared that they might be made slaves, and advantage was taken of
this against many of them who were in England, while their old rivals of Genoa
and Pisa, by scrupling to act on the permission, incurred the penalty of
interdict against themselves. The Florentines entreated the mediation of St.
Catharine of Siena, whose austerities were supposed to be connected with
prophetic insight and she, having repaired to Avignon for the purpose of
pleading their caused, used the opportunity to set before the pope the
misgovernment of the ecclesiastical states, and to urge his return to Rome. The
voice of Petrarch was no longer to be heard in the cause which he had so often
advocated but St. Bridget of Sweden, who had seen the beginning of Gregory’s
pontificate, had solemnly warned him, on the ground of revelations, that,
unless he returned to Rome within a certain time, the States of the Church
would be rent asunder, even as her messenger was charged to read the letter
which he conveyed, and her prophetical authority had been inherited by her
daughter, St. Catharine of Sweden, who now joined her representations to those
of the virgin of Siena.
It is said that
Gregory had vowed that, if he should be chosen pope, he would return to Rome;
and, in addition to all other incitements, he was now convinced that his
interest in Italy suffered, and was even in danger of being absolutely ruined,
through his absence. The Bolognese had driven out the legate and all the papal
officials; the sovereignty of the church was hardly anywhere acknowledged
throughout the ecclesiastical states. It is said, too, that the pope was much
influenced by the repartee of a bishop, who, on being asked by him why he did
not go to his diocese, retorted the question on Gregory himself. In 1376
Gregory announced his intention of returning to Rome; and, although it was
opposed by the French king, by his own relations, and by many of his cardinals,
six of whom refused to leave Avignon, he set out on the 13th of September.
After a tedious journey, performed partly by land and partly by sea, he landed
at St. Paul’s on the 15th of January 1377, and his entrance into Rome was
welcomed with great demonstrations of joy. The “Babylonian captivity” of
seventy years was ended.
Gregory,
however, soon found that his course was beset with difficulties. Although the
hostility of the Visconti had been appeased by a compact that Galeazzo should
retain certain towns on consideration of paying a sum of money to the papal
treasury, the differences with Florence still remained, and the nobles of Rome
and of the ecclesiastical states were insubordinate. The pope could not feel
himself at home in his capital. The ruinous state of the walls, the churches,
the palaces, and other buildings, depressed him. The long absence of the court,
and the anarchy of Rome, had produced an offensive rudeness in the manners of
the citizens. Even his want of acquaintance with the language of his
subjects—the meaning of which he could only guess at by the help of Latin,
French, and Provençal—aggravated not a little the discomfort of Gregory’s
position. It is believed that he meditated a return to Avignon, when he was
seized with an illness, which, acting on a weak constitution, carried him off
on the 27th of March 1378, at the age of forty-seven. His feeling towards the
saints whose prophetical admonitions had influenced him in his removal to Rome
is said to have been remarkably shown on his death-bed, when, holding the holy
Eucharist in his hands, he warned those who stood around against the
pretensions of enthusiastic men or women who uttered as revelations the fancies
of their own brains.
A Florentine
embassy had been well received at Rome but the terms of reconciliation which
Gregory proposed were too severe to be accepted; and when the pope in turn sent
some envoys to Florence, the citizens not only refused to submit to their
proposals, but compelled the clergy to defy the interdict, which had until then
been so far respected that the offices of religion had been performed with
closed doors. The pope retaliated by aggravated denunciations; but at length
certain terms of peace had been agreed on, when the death of Gregory put an end
to the negotiation.
The
eagerness of Charles IV to secure the imperial crown for his own family had
furnished Gregory with an opportunity for asserting the papal claim to a
control over elections to the empire. On the emperor’s proposing that his son
Wenceslaus, then only seventeen years of age, should be chosen as king of the
Romans, some of the electors (perhaps from a wish to hide their own dislike of
the scheme) expressed an apprehension that the pope might object; and Charles,
in contradiction to the principles asserted by the union of Rhense in 1338, and afterwards in his own golden bull, applied for the pope’s consent.
The election of a son during his father’s lifetime was opposed to the Roman
policy, which discouraged the idea of inheritance in the imperial crown, and
even Rudolf of Hapsburg had failed in a similar request. But Gregory, in
consideration of the advantage which the papacy might derive from the
acknowledgment that his sanction was necessary, assented after some delay,
although with the warning that his assent was not to become a precedent.
Although Charles himself, in his golden bull, had charged the electors to give
their votes gratuitously, and had prescribed that they should swear to do so,
he was obliged to pay heavily, both in money and in capitulations, for his
son’s election, and even to pledge or alienate some cities and territories
which belonged to the imperial crown.
In another
quarter Gregory obtained a success which was rather apparent than real. The
long contest between the Angevine dynasty of Naples and the house of Aragon for
the possession of Sicily was ended in 1372 by a treaty which Frederick of
Sicily concluded with Joanna and her husband Lewis. By this, the island was to
be held under the Apulian crown, on condition of paying tribute, and of
furnishing soldiers in case of war; and the title ot king of Sicily was to belong to the sovereign of Apulia, while the actual ruler
was to style himself king of Trinacria. The “Sicilian
monarchy”, which, although originally sanctioned by a pope, had been a grievous
offence to his successors, was to be abolished; and in other respects the
treaty was greatly in favour of the papacy. But these terms were never carried
into effect. The papal confirmation was not sought either by Frederick or by
his daughter Mary, who succeeded him in 1377. Sicily never performed the feudal
obligations which had been stipulated; and its sovereigns, so long as the
island remained a separate kingdom, bore in their title the name, not of Trinacria, but of “Sicily beyond the Strait”.
CHAPTER V.
THE GREAT SCHISM OF THE WEST, TO THE END OF THE COUNCIL OF PISA.
A. D. 1378-1409.
AT the death
of Gregory XI the Romans were resolved to put an end, if possible, to the
residence of the popes in France, by insisting that one of their own countrymen
should be chosen. Gregory, foreseeing the danger of a schism, had, in the last
days of his life, made a decree that a pope chosen by a majority of the
cardinals should be acknowledged, whether the election were made in Rome or
elsewhere, and although the usual formalities of the conclave were not
observed. But the Romans were bent on carrying out their purpose. In order that
the cardinals might not escape from the city, they took the keys of the gates
from the officials of the church, and replaced the sentinels by partisans of
their own; they expelled the nobles, and, with a view to overawing the
electors, they called in a multitude of armed and half-savage peasants from the
neighbouring mountains, while Italian prelates, within and without the city,
were busily employed in stirring up the people. The number of cardinals then at
Rome was sixteen—four Italians, a Spaniard (Peter de Luna), and eleven Frenchmen,
of whom seven were Limousins; while of the other
seven members of the college one was employed as legate in Tuscany, and the
rest had remained at Avignon. It was with difficulty that the electors were
able to make their way through the threatening crowd which beset the Vatican,
and, as they entered the chamber appointed for the conclave, they were alarmed
by a violent thunderstorm, which seemed like an omen of coming evil. But they
were yet more terrified by the behaviour of the multitude, which had forced its
way into the palace, furiously clamouring, “We will have a Roman, or at least
an Italian!”. After a time the greater part were turned out, but about forty
persisted in remaining; they searched the beds of the cardinals and the most
secret corners of the apartment, in order to discover any men who might be hidden,
or any private outlet by which the electors might escape; and, as the Romans
had not allowed the usual form of walling up the entrance to be observed, the
intruders were able to terrify the cardinals by their menaces and by their
display of force.
The French
cardinals, although more than twice as many as all the rest, were weakened by a
division among themselves; for the Limousins, who for
six-and-thirty years had enjoyed the papacy and its patronage, wished to choose
one of their own number, while the other section, headed by Robert of Geneva,
was resolutely opposed to the election of a Limousin.
Each of these factions, if unable to carry a candidate of its own, would have
preferred an Italian to one of the rival French party; and thus the Italians,
although few, found that they held the balance in their hands.
As the
tumult increased, two bannerets of Rome (the chiefs of the regions into which
the city was divided) asked admittance, and urged the expediency of yielding to
the wishes of the people. But they were told that the election was a matter
with which no personal regards must interfere; that the cardinals, after having
celebrated the mass of the Holy Ghost on the morrow, would be guided by Him
alone in their choice. All through the night the uproar waxed wilder and
wilder. The ruffians who had remained in the palace, after having unwillingly
consented that the conclave should be shut, took up their position in the room
below; they plundered the papal stores of food and wine in their heightened excitement,
they dashed their swords and lances against the ceiling, so as to add to the
terror of the cardinals, and even made preparations as if for burning the
palace; while the multitude without kept up their cries for a Roman or an
Italian, mingled with shouts of “Death to the cardinals!”. The great bells of
St. Peter’s and of the Capitol were beaten with hammers as if the city were on
fire.
In the
morning the numbers of the mob were greater than ever. When the cardinals were
at mass, the words of the service could not be heard for the noise without; and
now the cry was for a Roman only. The cardinals again met for the election,
while the door of the conclave was assailed with violent blows, and the noise
became louder every moment. It was suggested that someone should be declared
pope, in order to appease the multitude, and that another should be privately
chosen, with a view to his being afterwards substituted for the first. The
cardinal of Florence proposed Francis Tibaldeschi,
cardinal of St. Sabina, and archpriest of St. Peter’s, the oldest member of the
college; but the motion met with no support; and on a second vote, all, with
the exception of James Orsini, who declined to act under such coercion, agreed
in the choice or Bartholomew Prignani, archbishop of
Bari, who was not a cardinal, but, as being at once an Italian and a subject of
the French sovereign of Naples, might be supposed to be acceptable to both
parties. On the announcement of the election an accident led the multitude to
believe that it had fallen on Tibaldeschi. They
plundered his palace, according to the custom on such occasions, forced a way
into the conclave, and overwhelmed the old man with violent congratulations,
while he strove to make them understand their mistake, and desired them, even
with curses, to let him go. In the meantime the cardinals dispersed in terror,
leaving their hats and cloaks behind them, and some of them were severely
handled by the mob.
Next day,
however, they met again; and, although the announcement of the archbishop of
Bari’s election caused some tumult, as his title was mistaken for the name of
James of Bar, a Limousin of the papal household, he
was peaceably invested with the mantle of office. It is said that, in answer to
his doubts as to the validity of his election, the cardinals assured him that
all had been rightly and fairly done. He received their homage, and they all
took part in his coronation, which was solemnly performed on Easter-day. The
election was announced to the sovereigns of Europe, not, as had been usual, by
the pope himself but by the cardinals; and they also reported it to their
brethren at Avignon in a letter which declared that their choice had been made
unanimously, and (as they professed to believe) under the direction of the Holy
Spirit.
Urban VI (as
the new pope styled himself) was a Neapolitan of humble birth, and a man of
strictly ascetic life. He was deeply read in ecclesiastical law, but was more
especially respected for his devotion to the study of Scripture, and for the
humility, the disinterestedness, the equity, and the compassion which were
supposed to mark his character. But almost immediately after his elevation, it
began to appear that some of the virtues by which he had been hitherto
distinguished were exchanged for qualities of an opposite kind. He was open to
flattery, while, in dealing with his cardinals and with other high
ecclesiastics, he behaved with a haughtiness and a rudeness which were felt to
be intolerable, and called forth open remonstrances. Even his good actions were
so done as to produce an unfavourable impression. He announced reforms of an
unpopular kind, without any consideration for the prejudices or the interests
which might be affected by them. He threatened to reduce the luxurious
cardinals to one dish at table, after his own example; to overwhelm the French
influence in the college by the addition of Romans and Italians; and he further
provoked the French cardinals by absolutely refusing to go to Avignon.
Preaching in his own chapel, he denounced the bishops who were at the court as
perjured for neglecting their dioceses; to which the bishop of Pampeluna immediately replied that the charge was in his
case untrue, as he was there on diocesan business. The pope desired the
cardinals to repair to the churches from which they took their titles, and to
reside at them. At a consistory he charged such of them as had been sent on
embassies with having allowed themselves to be bribed; to which James de la
Grange, cardinal of St. Marcellus, retorted, “As archbishop of Bari you lie!”,
and the cardinal, who was one of the French king’s councillors, went off to
use his influence with Charles V in opposition to Urban. Joanna of Naples had
celebrated the election of the Neapolitan pope by public festivities; she sent
him magnificent presents of money, food, and wine, and deputed her husband,
duke Otho of Brunswick, to convey her congratulations and respects to him; but
Urban, although he had formerly been on terms of friendship with the duke, now
treated him with such discourtesy that Otho returned to Naples indignant and
alienated. St. Catharine of Siena, although she adhered zealously to Urban in
the differences which afterwards arose, found herself compelled to remonstrate
with him on his irascibility and on the impolicy of his behaviour.
The majority
of the cardinals, angry and disgusted at his treatment of them, and the more so
because they saw that he endeavoured to ingratiate himself with the people of
Rome, began to question the soundness of the pope’s mind, and to consider how
they might rid themselves of him. One by one they made their way out of the
city, and assembled at Anagni, where they invited Urban to join them. Instead
of complying with this request, he summoned them to Tivoli, where he was with
the four Italian cardinals; but they answered that they could not conveniently
leave Anagni, as they had laid in large stores of provisions there. Their
design, which had probably been nothing more than to draw Urban into a
capitulation, was now carried further. In the presence of three of their
Italian brethren, who had conveyed the pope’s invitation, they swore on the
Gospels that their consent to Urban’s election had been extorted only by the
fear of death; and on the 9th of August, after having celebrated a solemn
mass, they sent forth a letter in which they renounced him as an apostate and a
deceiver—professing to have chosen him in the trust that, as a man of integrity
and acquainted with the canon law, he would feel himself bound to regard as
null an election which had been made under constraint, and to take the earliest
safe opportunity of declaring its nullity.
Yet,
although the election had unquestionably been influenced by fear of the Roman
populace,—although the cardinals, if they had been free, would probably have
chosen otherwise,—their choice of Urban had really been rather a compromise
than a compliance with the will of the multitude, who had cried out for one of
their own fellow-citizens, and, far from wishing for the archbishop of Bari, had
been eager to enthrone the cardinal of St. Peter’s. And, whatever might have
been the original defects in Urban’s title, the cardinals appear to have
debarred themselves from insisting on these. They had, it would seem, gone
through a second form of election, in order to make the matter sure; they had
accepted him after the restoration of peace in the city; they had with apparent
willingness taken part in all the forms which were necessary in order to put
him completely into possession of the papacy; they had announced his elevation
to the Avignon cardinals and to the sovereigns of Christendom as having been
made in due form, and even under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. They had
assisted at his celebration of the most solemn rites. They had solicited and
received preferment at his hands, for themselves or their friends, even since
their withdrawal to Anagni. In all possible ways they had acknowledged him,
until driven by his outrageous behaviour to seek for pretexts which might
warrant them in forsaking and superseding him.
The
cardinals now hired a band of Breton and Gascon soldiers to protect them. They
got possession of the papal jewels and insignia, which had been deposited in
the castle of St. Angelo. They entered into an understanding with the queen of
Naples, and removed from Anagni to Fondi, within the
Neapolitan territory, where the count of the place, a turbulent man of the
Gaetani family, who had long held the government of Campania under the Roman
church, was induced by his enmity against Urban to support them. They persuaded
three out of the four Italian cardinals to join them—it is said, by holding out
to each the hope of being chosen as pope. They endeavoured to fortify their
cause by procuring the opinions of eminent lawyers; but in this their success
was imperfect, as the jurists in general held that the election of Urban had
been regular, or that, if it were not so, the power of amending it belonged,
not to the cardinals, but to a general council.
CLEMENT VII, ANTIPOPE
The aged
cardinal of St. Peter’s was the only member of the college who still adhered to
Urban; but he did not long survive. Urban now announced an intention of
creating nine cardinals; but in the Ember-week of September he proceeded to
bestow the dignity at once on twenty-nine persons—a number which exceeded that
of the French and the Italians together. Many of these were Neapolitans like
himself and recommended by powerful family connexions, or by other
circumstances which might enable them to exercise an influence in his favour
among their countrymen.
On the 20th
of the same month, the rebellious cardinals at Fondi renewed their declarations against Urban, and, although the Italian members of
the college withdrew before the election, chose as pope Robert of Geneva, cardinal
of the Twelve Apostles and bishop of Cambray, who took the name of Clement VII.
The antipope, who was recommended to them by his enterprising spirit, as well
as by his birth—which connected him with almost all the chief princes of
Europe—was only thirty-six years of age. His qualities were rather those of a
warrior than of a prelate; he had been the leader of a company of Breton
mercenaries, and had been deeply concerned in the massacre of Cesena, and in
other barbarities by which the late contests of Italy had been stained. The
election of Clement was accepted by the cardinals of Avignon and thus was begun
the great schism of the west, which for nearly forty years distracted Latin
Christendom, between rivals who hurled against each other the spiritual weapons
of excommunication and anathema, while each loaded the other with charges of
the worst of crimes. France declared for Clement, although not until 1379, when
Charles V requested the university of Paris to give a judgment on the question.
The faculties of theology, law, and medicine, with the French and Norman
nations in the department of arts, pronounced in favour of Clement, and the
neutrality of the English and Picard nations of “artists” was overpowered.
England was on the side of Urban, because France was with Clement; and Scotland
was for Clement, because England was with Urban. Germany and Bohemia, Hungary,
Poland, and Portugal, tired of the long series of French popes, were in favour
of Urban; so, too, was all Italy except the Neapolitan kingdom, which he had
alienated by his behaviour to queen Joanna’s husband, and by showing an
inclination to favour the pretensions of Charles of Durazzo as a rival claimant
of her throne. Castile and Aragon were brought, after some delay, to declare
for Clement—in great measure through the skilful negotiations of his legate,
cardinal Peter de Luna. Within a short time after the beginning of the schism,
changes occurred by which the chief thrones of Europe were transferred from
experienced sovereigns to princes whom a writer of the time describes in
general as voluptuous youths, and whose authority was not such as to exercise
much influence in the question. In France, Charles V, a king distinguished for
his prudence and for his love of learning and the arts, was succeeded by his
son Charles VI, a boy of fourteen, who from his early manhood became subject to
fits of lunacy, in consequence of which the kingdom fell a prey to the
rivalries of the princes of the blood. In England, Edward III had been
succeeded in 1377 by the young and feeble Richard II. In Germany and Bohemia,
Charles IV was succeeded by his son Wenceslaus, whose slender capacity was
obscured by continual debauchery. Nor, while the power of sovereigns was thus
ineffective, was there any predominant saint who, like Bernard in an earlier
age, could, by throwing his influence into the scale of one of the claimants of
the papacy, have made the other to be generally regarded as an antipope. On
each side there were saints and prophets whom their contemporaries regarded
with veneration : while Urban had with him Catharine of Siena, Catharine of
Sweden, and the royal friar-prophet, Peter of Aragon, Clement was supported by
the great Spanish Dominican preacher, Vincent Ferrer, and by a prince of
Luxemburg, Peter, bishop of Metz and cardinal, who, although he died at the age
of eighteen in 1387, continued after death to throw over the cause of the
Avignon popes the lustre of innumerable miracles. Nor has the question as to
the legitimacy of the two popes, and of the lines founded by them respectively,
been ever decided by any authority which is regarded as final. It was carefully
avoided by the councils which were assembled with a view to healing the schism;
and in later times, while writers of the Roman communion in general have been
in favour of the Italian popes, the Gallicans have maintained the title of the
French line. As to the practical question of communion with the popes of one or
the other party, the judgment of St. Antoninus of
Florence appears to be commonly accepted—that, while Christians in general are
not bound to have such knowledge of canon law as would qualify them to judge of
the elections, they are safe in following those who are set over them in the
church.
Soon after
his election Clement proceeded to Naples, where he was received with great
honour by the queen. But the people were on the side of Urban, as being their
countryman, and he had strengthened his interest by including several
Neapolitans in his late creation of cardinals. Cries of “Death to the antipope
and the queen!” were raised in the streets and Clement, after a time, found it
expedient to make his way by Marseilles to Avignon, where he settled under the
protection of the king of France, and found himself obliged to endure the miseries
of a dependent position.
In the
meantime Urban was successful in Italy. A mercenary force which he engaged,
under a native captain, Alberic of Barbiano, defeated and broke up the Breton and Gascon bands
which were in the pay of the opposite party. The castle of St. Angelo, which
had been held for the cardinals, was now for the first time assailed by
artillery, and fell into the hands of the Romans, who dismantled it and
barbarously mutilated it by pulling down a large part of the marble facing, and
employing the stones in paving the streets.
Urban was
resolved to make Joanna feel the weight of his enmity. He stirred up Charles of
Durazzo, the last representative of the Angevine dynasty, to make an attempt on
the Apulian crown, instead of waiting until the course of nature should give it
to him. The enterprise was favoured by the oracular utterances of St. Catharine
of Siena, and in order to contribute to the expenses of it, Urban sold the
plate, the jewels, and other precious ornaments of churches, and even alienated
ecclesiastical property without regard to the will of the incumbents. In April
1380 he pronounced Joanna, as a heretic and schismatic, to be deprived of her
kingdom and of all fiefs held under the Roman see, released her subjects from
their allegiance, and proclaimed a crusade against her. Charles was received at
Rome with great honour, was anointed as king of Sicily, and was invested in the
dominion of all southern Italy, except the papal city of Benevento, with Capua,
Amalfi, and other places, which Urban wished to form into a principality for
his nephew, Francis Prignano. On the other hand,
Joanna resolved to call in to her assistance Lewis, duke of Anjou, a prince of
warlike character, whom she adopted as her heir; and the Avignon pope not only
sanctioned this, but professed to bestow on Lewis a portion of the papal
states, which was to be styled the kingdom of Adria, on condition that neither
he nor his successors should accept an election to the German crown, or to the
lordship of Lombardy. The gift was one which cost Clement nothing, as the papal
territory was in the hands of his rival, and there was a hope that, by
professing to give a part, he might gain the assistance of Lewis towards the
acquisition of the rest. But the plan failed. While Lewis remained in France,
busily engaged in securing the inheritance which had fallen to him by his
brother’s death, Charles invaded southern Italy. Otho, although distinguished
for his military skill, was without money, and was unsupported by the people,
who had been irritated by the demand of a heavy war-tax; and Charles, after
having defeated him at San Germano, got possession of
Naples. The queen was compelled to surrender herself to the victor, and it is
commonly believed that by his command she was smothered or strangled in prison.
Her death and the manner of it are said to have been determined by the advice
of king Lewis of Hungary, who thus avenged, even in its very circumstances, the
murder of his brother Andrew. When at length Lewis of Anjou was able to enter
Italy at the head of a powerful and brilliant army, he found that the policy of
Charles had raised up difficulties which beset him in his passage through
Lombardy. His troops suffered severely from the want of provisions and from the
inclemency of the weather, while Charles declined meeting him in the field, and
left these enemies to do their work,—so that the soldiers, according to the
expression of a contemporary, “died like dogs”, and Lewis himself was carried
off by a fever at Bari. His force was utterly broken up, and gallant nobles,
who had accompanied him in full confidence of victory, were obliged to beg
their way in rags back to France, while Charles remained undisputed sovereign
of Naples.
To Urban it
seemed that the new king, of whose success he regarded himself as the author,
was slow in showing the expected gratitude for his support, and especially in
contributing to provide a territory for his nephew, Francis (who was commonly
called Butillo). He therefore resolved to go in person to Naples, and when his
cardinals endeavoured to dissuade him, he burst into a fury, which seemed to
confirm their suspicions of his sanity, and threatened to depose them. At
Aversa he was met by Charles, who received him with a show of honour, and acted
as his esquire; but both at Aversa and Naples he was closely guarded, from fear
that he might engage in political intrigues; and when this restraint was about
to be relaxed, a difficulty was caused by the misconduct of the foolish and
profligate Butillo, who seduced and carried off a noble and beautiful nun of the order of St. Clare. For this he was condemned to
death by the king’s court of justice; but Urban (who usually excused his
nephew’s excesses by the plea of youth, although Butillo had reached the age of
forty), declared that he himself was suzerain of the Apulian kingdom, and that
in his presence no other tribunal had jurisdiction over a grandee. Charles was
unwilling to carry matters to an extremity, as the French invasion had not yet
passed away. The cardinals, therefore, were able to compound the dispute, by
arranging that Butillo should marry a lady related to the king, and Urban
withdrew with all his cardinals to Nocera.
During his
stay at Naples, Urban had deprived all such clergy of that city as were
suspected of leaning to the opposite interest, and, in filling up the
vacancies, he had put many low men into dignities for which they were grossly
unfit. He had promoted at once thirty-two Neapolitans to archbishoprics and
bishoprics. He now resolved on a new creation of cardinals, among whom he
wished to include the three ecclesiastical electors of Germany; but these all
declined to bind themselves to his fortunes by accepting the doubtful honour.
And when he offered it to a number of the Neapolitan clergy, he had the double
mortification of finding that they refused from fear of offending the king, and
that the cardinalate was discredited in the general estimation by the
characters of those whom he had thought worthy of it.
Charles
invited Urban to a conference, but was told in answer that it was for kings to
wait on popes, not for popes to wait on kings; and he was charged to relieve
his subjects from the heavy taxes which he had imposed on them. On hearing this
he indignantly exclaimed that the kingdom was his own,—that the pope had no
concern with the government of any but the priests; and that he would go to
Urban, but at the head of an army. For some weeks the pope was besieged in
Nocera, where he showed himself at a window three or four times a-day,
pronouncing with bell and lighted candle the sentence of excommunication
against his besiegers. He even talked of deposing Charles in punishment for his
ingratitude. The old man’s perverseness, self-will, and irritability became
intolerable even to the cardinals of his own promotion; and some of them
submitted to an able, but somewhat unscrupulous, lawyer, Bartoline of Piacenza, a set of questions, among which was this—whether, if a pope should
conduct himself in such a way as to endanger the weal of Christendom by
negligence, obstinacy, and engrossing all power, to the exclusion of the advice
of the cardinals, these would not be warranted in placing him under the charge
of curators. Bartoline replied in the affirmative,
and other opinions to the same effect were obtained, although some of those who
were consulted thought otherwise. Urban, on being informed of this proceeding
by a cardinal who was not concerned in it, caused six of the cardinals to be
thrown into a dungeon which had been formerly used as a cistern, and after a
time brought them to trial before his consistory. By the application of
torture, they were driven to confess anything that was required; and while
Butillo stood by, laughing immoderately at their agonies and shrieks, his uncle
walked up and down in the adjoining garden, calmly reciting his canonical
hours in a loud tone, so that the executioners might be aware of his presence,
and might do their work with vigour. The cardinals were then remanded to their
prison, where they suffered from hunger and thirst, from darkness, stench, and
vermin; one of them, De Sangro, whose place of
confinement was seen by Theodoric of Niem, had not
room to stretch himself in any direction.
At length
Urban, for whose surrender 10,000 florins had been offered, was rescued from
his uneasy position by Thomas of San Severino, and hurried, with his prisoners,
across the country to a place on the Adriatic coast, between Trani and Barletta, where he had arranged that a Genoese
fleet should be ready to receive him. The bishop of Aquila, who was unable from
illness to ride so fast as the rest of the party, was killed on the way by the
pope’s commands The six cardinals were carried to Palermo, and thence to Genoa;
and there five of them were put to death, with circumstances of mystery which
have given rise to a variety of reports—that they were beheaded in prison, that
they were buried alive, or that they were put into sacks and cast into the sea.
The sixth, Adam Easton, cardinal of St. Cecilia, was spared at the intercession
of his sovereign, Richard II, but was degraded from his dignity, and was kept
in rigorous imprisonment until after the death of Urban, by whose successor he
was reinstated. Two other cardinals, alarmed by the fate of their fellows, made
their way from Genoa to Avignon, where they were admitted into the rival
college by Clement; one of them, Pileo de Prata, archbishop of Ravenna, having publicly burnt his
official hat at Pavia. Within little more than a year after his arrival at
Genoa, Urban quarrelled with the doge, to whom he had been indebted for his
safety; and he left the city in the middle of December 1386 for Lucca. There he
was urged by envoys from the princes of Germany to take measures for ending the
schism; but he answered that he was the true pope, and could not throw doubt on
his title. From Lucca he removed to Perugia, but he was compelled to leave that
place by the scandal which had been occasioned by his nephew Butillo’s licentiousness, and in August 1388 he returned to
Rome.
Charles of
Durazzo, having firmly established himself in the kingdom of Naples, set off,
in compliance with an invitation from a party in Hungary, to assert his claims
to the throne of that country, where Mary, the daughter of king Lewis,
notwithstanding a law which excluded females from the crown, had been chosen
“king” on her father’s death in 1382. Charles had sworn that he would not
disturb the daughters of Lewis in their inheritance; but Mary was persuaded to
resign, and he was solemnly crowned in her stead. He was not, however, long
allowed to enjoy his new acquisition. Through the contrivance of the late
king’s widow he was treacherously attacked by assassins, and he died of his
wounds soon after; when the Hungarian crown again fell to Mary, who had been
betrothed to Sigismund, son of the emperor Charles IV, Urban made difficulties
as to allowing Christian burial to Charles, and refused to invest his son Ladislaus, a boy only ten years old, in the Neapolitan
kingdom; but by thus indulging his enmity against Charles and his family, he
encouraged the interest of his own rival, who favoured the claims of the
younger Lewis of Anjou to the Neapolitan crown. The kingdom was for a time a
prey to anarchy, while the effect of the schism in weakening the papacy aided
the designs of John Galeazzo Visconti—a deeply politic and utterly unscrupulous
man, who had deposed and poisoned his uncle Bernabò—to gain a predominating
influence in Italy. Urban, on his return to Rome, had been coldly received, and
he afterwards increased his unpopularity with the citizens. With a view at
once of conciliating them and of bringing money into the treasury of the
church, he announced a jubilee. Out of tenderness (as he professed) to those
who might be too severely tried by the interval of fifty years between such
solemnities, the time was to be reduced to thirty-three years, the length of
the Saviour’s earthly life; and by this calculation he determined that the next
celebration should fall in the year 1390. But some weeks before the beginning
of that year, the pope, who had been severely shaken by a fall from his mule,
died; and benefits of his preparations were reaped by his successor.
From time to
time attempts had been made to put an end to the schism. Thus in 1381 the
university of Paris, disgusted by Clement’s proceedings, gave an opinion that a general council should be called for this
purpose. In 1387, Clement, feeling himself pressed by the authority of the
university, professed himself willing to refer the question to a council, and
offered, if Urban would submit to him, to give him the highest place among the
cardinals. Urban also professed his readiness to submit to a council; but he
added a condition which made the offer nugatory—that he himself should in the
meantime be acknowledged as the only pope. Clement is said to have induced
persons of influence in the French court, by frequent and costly presents, to
refrain from exerting themselves for the closing of the schism; and, as the
princes of Latin Christendom had been guided by their former political
connexion in the choice of sides as to the question of the papacy, it is
remarked by a writer of the time, Richard of Ulverstone,
that but for the quarrels of nations the schism would neither have been so
lightly begun nor so long kept up.
On the 1st
of November the cardinals of Urban’s party chose as his successor Peter Tomacelli, cardinal of St. Anastasia, who took the name of
Boniface IX. The new pope, according to some authorities, was only thirty years
of age; but others, with greater probability, make him fourteen years older. He
is described as possessed of some showy personal qualities, but without any
learning or any such knowledge of affairs as would have fitted him for his
position—although this last defect was afterwards in some degree remedied by
experience.
The schism,
by throwing on western Christendom the cost of maintaining a second pontifical
court, added greatly to the burdens which had before been matter of complaint.
Clement VII endeavoured to swell his income by the most unscrupulous means, and
the grievances of his administration excited loud outcries from the church of
France. He surrounded himself with a body of no less than thirty-six cardinals,
for whom he provided by usurping the patronage of all the church-preferment
that he could get into his hands. A new kind of document was introduced under
the name of gratia expectativae by which the
reversion of a benefice was conferred, and the receiver was authorized to take
possession as soon as a vacancy should occur. The old resources—such as
reservations, tenths, dispensations of all kinds, and the jus exuviarium (which was now exercised on the property of
abbots as well as on that of bishops)—were worked to the uttermost, and were
developed in ways before unknown. Promotion was bestowed for money or other
improper considerations, without regard to the merit or fitness of the
receivers; and, as learning was no longer regarded as a qualification for
preferment, schools and colleges were broken up, and even the university of
Paris found itself comparatively deserted by students. While the French church
and people groaned under these evils, the pope, by bestowing a part of the
spoil on princes and powerful nobles, contrived to secure their connivance but
a royal edict of 1385 in some degree, although very imperfectly, corrected the
abuses which had arisen.
While the
French pope was endeavouring to swell his revenues by simony and rapacity,
Urban VI was honourably distinguished by his freedom from such practices; and
his successor, Boniface, is said to have so far regarded the opinion of the
elder cardinals that for the first seven years of his pontificate he refrained
from open simony. But when the old men were dead, he entered on a course of
rapacity grosser and more shameless than anything that had ever been known.
Boniface reserved to himself the first year’s income of all bishoprics and
abbeys. Persons who aspired to preferment of this kind were required to pay for
it in advance, and, if unprovided with ready money, they were obliged to borrow
at extravagant interest from the brokers who hung about the papal court. Unions
of benefices were simoniacally made, and men utterly
ignorant were allowed, if they paid sufficiently, to be exempt from the laws
against pluralities. Spies were sent throughout Lombardy and other countries of
Boniface’s obedience, to discover whether any incumbents of rich benefices
were ill, and to give early notice of any vacancy to their employers. The
“spoils” of prelates and cardinals were plundered before the owners were
actually dead. The same reversions were sold repeatedly, the last buyers having
their papers marked for preference, but as this practice became so well known
that after a time purchasers could not be found on such terms, a form of
precedence over all other preferences was devised in order to attract and
assure them, and was, of course, sold at a much higher priced The pope affected
to check these abuses by enacting rules, and found a new source of profit in
granting exemptions from his rules. By a like policy he revoked the
indulgences, privileges, and other benefits which he had irregularly bestowed,
and made the revocation a ground for fresh exactions. Even after the first
year’s income of a benefice had been paid in order to secure the presentation,
the purchaser was liable to see it carried off by a later comer who was willing
to pay more highly; for in such cases the pope professed to believe that those
who had made the lower offers intended to cheat him. The system of corruption
became continually more ingenious and refined. Members of mendicant orders
were allowed, on payment of a hundred gold florins, to transfer themselves to
orders which did not profess mendicancy; and the world was astonished at seeing
such payments made by persons who were bound by their rules to possess nothing.
The traffic in indulgences was carried out more thoroughly than before. The
pope himself was not above accepting the smallest gains, and his mother, who is
described as the greediest of women, with his three brothers, found
opportunities of enriching themselves. The theory which some had maintained at
an earlier time, that a pope could not become guilty of simony, was brought
forward by Boniface’s friends as the only plea by which his practices could be
justified. Among those who obtained preferment by such means as were then necessary
were many worthless and unfit persons, and for a long time afterwards the
clergy of the “Bonifacian plantation, which the heavenly Father planted not”, were
noted as the least reputable of their class. In some countries, such as England
or Hungary, the extravagance of the charges exacted by the Roman court on
appointment to ecclesiastical dignities produced an effect which Boniface had
not reckoned on, as the clergy of those countries ceased to resort to Rome, and
the connexion of the national churches with the papacy was practically
suspended.
JUBILEE OF 1390.
Boniface, at
his accession, found the jubilee of 1390 prepared for him by his predecessor; and,
notwithstanding the difficulties of the time—the separation of France from the
Roman papacy, and the consequent absence of French pilgrims, with the disturbed
state of affairs, which placed extraordinary hindrances in the way of
travellers—a large number of visitors appeared, and great sums were contributed
to the papal treasury. In consideration of the impediments which made the
journey hazardous, Boniface sent emissaries into the kingdoms which acknowledged
him, with a commission to offer the benefits of the jubilee and a dispensation
from the necessity of visiting Rome in person; and although it is said that
much of the money paid for this indulgence was embezzled by the collectors, it
brought in a large addition to the profits of the jubilee—which, while a
portion of them was bestowed on the repairs of the Roman churches, were mostly
retained for the pope’s own use. The difficulty as to Naples, which Urban had
left to his successor, was overcome by Boniface’s acknowledging Ladislaus as king, and thus securing himself against the
risk that the kingdom might fall under the spiritual obedience of the Avignon
pope, who had crowned the younger Lewis of Anjou as its sovereign. Boniface
also complied with the wishes of Ladislaus by
sanctioning his groundless and scandalous divorce and re-marriage, and by
crowning him as king of Hungary. But in that country Mary and her husband
Sigismund were so firmly established that Ladislaus withdrew from the attempt to dispossess them.
With his own
subjects Boniface had serious discords, which obliged him to leave Rome for
Perugia in 1393; and from that time he lived in provincial towns until the
approach of the jubilee of 1400, when the Romans, considering that the absence
of the pope would probably reduce the number of pilgrims and the profits of the
celebration, made overtures for his return. Boniface, although he had already
benefited by the calculation which fixed a jubilee for 1390, was very willing
to fall back on the scheme which allowed him to celebrate a second jubilee
within ten years; and, feeling the importance of his presence to the Romans,
he took advantage of it to make stipulations which, among other things, removed
the democratic bannerets from a share of the government and placed the control
of it in the pope’s own hands. The jubilee was attended by great multitudes;
the French had been eager for it, and flocked to Rome, notwithstanding their
king’s prohibition, and in defiance of the dangers with which the journey was
beset from robbers and from the rude and licentious soldiery who swarmed in
Italy. From those who were unable or unwilling to undertake the expedition,
Boniface contrived to draw large contributions by allowing them, on the payment
of offerings, to commute it for the visitation of certain churches in their own
neighbourhood. By the wealth derived from the jubilee, and by the produce of
the exactions already described, the pope was enabled to repair the fortress of
St. Angelo and the harbour of Ostia, to fortify the Capitol and the Vatican, to
recover some portions of the papal territory, and to gain such a power over
Rome itself as no one of his predecessors in late times had enjoyed.
Early in his
pontificate Boniface endeavoured, by repeated letters and missives, to draw the
French king into renouncing the obedience of Clement. The university of Paris
was diligent in endeavouring to heal the schism, and in January 1394 obtained
leave from the duke of Berri, who was then in power during one of the king’s
attacks of lunacy, to give its judgment on the subject. A chest was set to
receive the opinions of members of the academic body, and it is said that upwards
of ten thousand papers were thrown into it. The plans proposed in these
opinions were found to be reducible to three—that both popes should abdicate;
that they should agree, by a compromise, on a list of persons to whose
arbitration the matter should be committed; and that it should be referred to a
general council. On this basis the judgment of the university was drawn up by
Nicholas of Clemanges (who was styled the “Cicero of
his age”), with the assistance of Peter d'Ailly June
and Giles Deschamps; and it was submitted to the king, who had again become
capable of attending to business. But Charles, although he thanked the members
of the university for their pains, was persuaded by cardinal de Luna and other
friends of Clement to desire that they would not concern themselves further
with the matter; and the professors suspended their teaching until their
representation should receive due attention. The judgment was forwarded to pope
Clement, who declared it to be defamatory of the apostolic see, full of venom
and detraction, and unfit to be read; but on finding that his cardinals were
inclined to the opinion of the university, he was thrown into an agitation
which in a few days put an end to his life on the 16th of September 1394.
On this,
Charles of France, at the instigation of the university of Paris, and with the
hope of bringing the schism to an end, wrote two letters to the cardinals of
the Avignon court, desiring that they would not be in haste to elect a new
pope. But his first letter found them already assembled in conclave, although
not yet shut in; and suspecting its purport, they resolved to leave it unopened
until the election should have been decided. Each member of the college
took an oath that, if elected, he would labour for the extinction of the
schism, even to the extent of resigning, if such a step should be for the
benefit of the church, or if the cardinals, or a majority of them, should think
it expedient; and they chose Peter de Luna, cardinal of St. Mary in Cosmedin, who styled himself Benedict XIII. The new pope, a
Spaniard, had been noted for his ability as a negotiator; he had obtained for
Clement the adhesion of Castile, and at Paris had raised up a party in opposition
to the university. Although he was one of those who had begun the schism by the
election of Clement at Fondi, he had been accustomed
to lament that step, to blame Clement for the policy by which the separation
was continued, and to profess an eager desire for the reunion of the church at
whatever sacrifice. But it soon became evident how little he was disposed to
act sincerely on his former professions. He had at the election avowed an
opinion that the oath which was proposed could not bind the pope except so far
as every Catholic was bound by right and conscience; and although he still continued
to speak as before—declaring that, if he himself only were concerned, he would
put off the papacy as readily as if it were a cloak, that he would rather spend
his remaining days in a desert than give occasion for prolonging the schism—he
was now able to put his own interpretation on his late engagement.
The
university of Paris took continually a more active part in endeavouring to heal
the schism. It offered its advice to Benedict, and requested him to exert
himself for the union of the church; but the letter received only an evasive
reply. The leaders of the university, Peter d'Ailly,
Nicolas of Clemanges, and John Gerson, were opposed
alike to the papal despotism and to any schemes which would have proposed to
remedy this by a revolution in the system of the church. But in the meantime
the increasing pressure of the evils which arose out of the schism drove others
into speculations as to the means of healing it which touched the very
foundations of the papal power.
On the
Festival of the Purification, 1395, a national council was held at Paris. The
king was prevented from attending by an attack of his terrible malady; but the
princes of the royal house were present, and among the clergy were the titular
patriarchs of Alexandria and Jerusalem, seven archbishops, and a great number
of bishops, with representatives of the monastic orders and of the
universities. Simon de Cramault, patriarch of
Alexandria and administrator of the diocese of Carcassonne, presided. Before
this assembly was read the judgment of the university in favour of the plan
that both popes should resign. It was adopted by a majority of 87 to 22;
and after it had been formally reported by the prelates to the king, a mission,
headed by the dukes of Berri, Burgundy, and Orleans, proceeded to Avignon, for
the purpose of laying before Benedict the various courses which had been
proposed with a view to end the schism, and of recommending the way of cession
as the speediest and most dignified. At the same time a letter of similar
purport was addressed to Benedict by the university of Paris. The cardinals,
although it is said that high words passed among them, for the most part
declared themselves in favour of the proposed scheme; but Benedict, after much
delay and many evasions, professed to think that a conference between himself
and his rival would be more hopeful; while to one who visited him he declared
that he would rather be flayed alive than resign, and he wrote letters of
remonstrance both to king Charles and to the duke of Burgundy. The
representatives of the university were indignant at the rudeness which they
experienced from the pope’s servants and at his refusal to receive them
publicly, and the embassy left Avignon in disgust,—the duke of Berri, in the
name of the rest, refusing an invitation to the pope’s table. The proposal of a
conference was received with general disfavour, as it was suspected that such a
meeting would result in an agreement for the partition of Christendom between
the two popes, and consequently would prolong the schism.
Still eager
to bring the schism to an end, the king of France endeavoured to enlist other
princes in the same cause, while the university of Paris entered into
correspondence with universities of other countries on the subject. From
Cologne a letter had been received, exhorting the Parisians to labour for
peace, but showing an inclination to the side of Boniface. From Oxford came a
declaration in favour of a general council; but king Richard of England
preferred the scheme of a cession, and wrote to both popes in recommendation of
it. The university of Toulouse maintained, in opposition to that of Paris, that
not even a general council has authority to judge the pope and in this, as in
other matters, the Dominicans held against the Parisian university, from which
they had been excluded some years before on account of their resistance to the
doctrine of the immaculate conception. Provoked by opposition, Benedict
condemned some members of the university to the loss of their preferments;
whereupon the academical body appealed against him to a future, sole, and real
pope; and when he declared appeals from the pope to be unlawful, it repeated
the act, asserting that schismatical and heretical
popes were subject in life to the judgment of general councils, and after death
to that of their own successors.
In March
1398 the emperor Wenceslaus and the king of France met at Reims, with a view to
settling the termination of the schism. It was agreed that abdication should
be recommended both to Benedict and to Boniface, with a view to the
appointment of a new pope, who should be chosen by the cardinals of both parties;
and, if this recommendation should be neglected, each of the sovereigns
undertook to depose the pope to whom he had before adhered. Peter d'Ailly, now bishop of Cambray, was sent to the courts of
Rome and Avignon with a charge to announce this resolution; but the mission was
ineffectual, as each pope, although he did not absolutely reject the proposal,
insisted that his rival should be the first to resign.
Another
national council was held at Paris in May 1398, under the presidency of the
patriarch of Alexandria. The question was proposed, whether, if Benedict
should obstinately refuse to resign, the French should continue to acknowledge
him, or whether they should withdraw their obedience, either entirely, or in so
far as regarded the patronage and temporalities which he had usurped? A
committee of twelve, chosen equally from among the friends and the opponents of
Benedict, drew up a statement of the reasons, on the one hand, for adhesion,
and on the other hand for total or partial withdrawal. After a discussion of
twelve days, two hundred and forty-seven members out of three hundred
pronounced for a total withdrawal; and, some weeks later, this resolution was
confirmed by the king, who had then recovered in some degree from an attack of
madness. The subjects of the crown were forbidden to obey Benedict, or to pay
any of the ecclesiastical revenues to him. The king declared that capitular and
monastic elections should be free from the control which popes had exercised
over them, and he annulled the “expectative” presentations which Benedict had
granted. But Benedict, on being informed of the resolutions of the council,
declared that nothing should make him resign the dignity which God had been
pleased to bestow on him.
On this, the
marshal of France, Boucicault, was sent with a force to Avignon, where the
citizens admitted him within their walls, while the cardinals withdrew across
the Rhone to the French town of Villeneuve, leaving one of their number, whose
tastes and habits were military, in command of Avignon. The pope was besieged
in his palace, but on each side there was an unwillingness to proceed to
extremities; the besiegers, although they tried to enter the papal fortress by
various ways, refrained from attempting to take it by storm; and Benedict, in
the hope of profiting by the intrigues of the parties which surrounded the
throne of the unfortunate Charles VI, refrained from uttering the usual
denunciations against the French.
The plans
which had been arranged for bringing the influence of sovereigns to bear on the
popes, and compelling them to resign, were foiled by the deposition of Richard
of England in 1399, and by that of the voluptuary Wenceslaus, who in the
following year was set aside, as having shown himself unworthy of his office by
alienation of the imperial territory and rights, by cruelty, misgovernment, ill
behaviour towards the church, gross personal misconduct, and general neglect of
his duties. The king of Aragon, on being requested by Benedict to assist him,
had answered, “Does the pope think that, in order to keep up his tricks, I
shall go to war with the king of France?”. But he exerted himself as a
mediator, and through his influence a compromise was arranged after Avignon had
been besieged for seven months. The pope, who had been reduced to great
distress, was to be allowed to receive provisions into the palace, but a strict
watch was kept lest he should escape with his treasures; and this state of
partial imprisonment continued from April 1399 until March 1403, when Benedict,
by the aid of a Norman gentleman, Robinet de Braquemont,
escaped from Avignon, and made his way down the Rhone to Chateau Renaud. There
he was under the protection of Lewis of Sicily and Provence, and his cardinals
returned to their obedience.
A.D. 1398-1403. RUPERT, KING OF THE ROMANS.
Rupert,
count palatine of the Rhine, had been chosen king of the Romans on the
deposition of Wenceslaus; and Boniface, although he acted with caution, had
given the electors reason to suppose that he would sanction the change. But
Rupert, although personally far superior to Wenceslaus, found the force of
circumstances too strong to admit of his asserting the rights of the empire
with effect; for the princes of Germany, by weakening the power of the crown,
had in reality caused the anarchy for which they now blamed the existing
sovereign. On going into Italy, to which he had been
urgently invited by the Florentines, he found that his citations were little
heeded, while his authority was openly treated with contempt by John Galeazzo
of Milan, who declared that he had received his duchy from a legitimate
emperor, and would not give it up. Discouraged by such manifestations of the
temper of the Italians, by a defeat in an encounter with Galeazzo near Brescia,
and by the defection of some princes who had accompanied him across the Alps,
Rupert returned to Germany without having advanced beyond Padua, and without
having obtained even a promise of the imperial crown from the pope. Boniface,
however, soon after condescended to confirm the election; for, while his own
position was in jeopardy, he continued to hold the lofty language of Hildebrand
and of the Innocents. The death of John Galeazzo, who was carried off by a
plague in September 1402, threw the north of Italy for a time into frightful
anarchy; but although circumstances seemed to invite Rupert to a second Italian
expedition, and Boniface granted him a tenth of the ecclesiastical income for
the expenses of his coronation, the clergy refused to pay this impost, and the
king felt himself compelled to remain at home.
In the
meantime circumstances had favoured Benedict. The king’s brother, the duke of
Orleans, espoused his cause, in the hope of being able to use the papal name as
a counterpoise to the influence of his kinsmen, the dukes of Berri and
Burgundy. The most eminent theologians—Peter d'Ailly,
Nicolas of Clemanges (who had even become the pope’s
secretary), and John Gerson—were on his side. The university of Toulouse, which
had always been with Benedict, urged a return to his obedience. Even in the
university of Paris, the French and Picard nations were for a return, while the
Normans were against it and the Germans were neutral. It was urged that the
withdrawal of obedience had been ineffectual, inasmuch as no one of the powers
which acknowledged the rival pope had taken a like step; that Benedict had
deserved well by accepting the scheme of abdication, while Boniface had
rejected it. A national assembly resolved that France should return to the
obedience of Benedict, and the king, who was enjoying an interval of reason,
was brought forward to take part in the solemnity by which the return was
celebrated. It was agreed that Benedict should resign in case of Boniface’s
resignation, deposition, or death; that ecclesiastical appointments which had
been made during the suspension of obedience should be ratified; and the pope
promised that he would speedily call a general council, and that he would carry
out the resolutions which it might decree. But he soon showed an inclination to
evade these terms, and the royal authority was found necessary to enforce the
article as to the confirmation of benefices.
In 1404
Benedict sent a mission to his rival with proposals for a conference. But
Boniface refused to allow any equality of terms,—speaking of himself as sole
pope, and of Benedict as an antipope; and, although the envoys had a safe
conduct from the Romans, and even from Boniface himself, he required them to
leave the city. “At least”, said they, provoked by this treatment, “our master
is not a simoniac”; and it is said that the words affected the pope so strongly
as to produce an illness which carried him off in three days. Thus had occurred
one of the contingencies in which Benedict had pledged himself to resign; and
the Roman cardinals asked his representatives whether they were furnished with
authority for that purpose. The envoys could only reply that their commission
did not reach so far; but they entreated that the cardinals would refrain from
any fresh election. This request, however, was treated as a jest, and the
cardinals proceeded to choose Cosmato Migliorati, cardinal of Holy Cross, who took the name of
Innocent VII. Every one of the electors had bound himself by oath that, if
chosen, he would labour in all possible ways for the healing of the schism,
and, if necessary, would even resign his office; but the value of such oaths
had by this time come to be generally understood.
Innocent
VII. was a native of the Neapolitan kingdom. He had been eminent as a
canonist, had been employed by Urban VI as collector of the papal revenue in
England, and had afterwards been promoted to the bishopric of Bologna. In
himself he was a mild and unassuming old man, free from the pontifical vice of
rapacity, an enemy to the pontifical practice of simony, and most especially
desirous of a quiet and easy life. He attempted to begin a reform by making his
secretaries dismiss their concubines; but the greed and the ambition of his
kinsmen were too strong for him, and abuses which Innocent had at first
reprobated were afterwards adopted into his own practice. His short
pontificate, while uneventful in other respects, was full of trouble for
himself. The Romans attempted to recover the power which Boniface had wrested
from them; the Colonnas renewed the turbulence by
which their family had been marked under earlier pontificates; above all, Ladislaus of Naples played an equivocal and alarming part.
To the scheming and perfidy of John Galeazzo Visconti, Ladislaus added the quality of personal courage; he was animated by an ambition which
exceeded that of John Galeazzo, so as even to aspire to the imperial dignity;
and, while affecting to protect the pope, there was reason to believe that,
with a view to his own interest, he secretly incited the citizens of Rome to
rebellion. In August 1405 Innocent was driven to Viterbo, chiefly in consequence
of the act of his nephew, who had treacherously put to death eleven deputies of
the Romans; and for a time John Colonna, who professed to be in the interest of
Avignon, was master of Rome, being ironically styled John the Twenty-third. But
after some months the Romans found it expedient to recall their pope, offering
him all the power which had been enjoyed by Boniface. Innocent returned in
March 1406. He denounced Ladislaus as a perjured
traitor, declared him to be deprived of the kingdoms which he held under the
Roman see, and proclaimed a crusade against the Colonnas. Ladislaus, in order to propitiate the pope,
surrendered the castle of St. Angelo to him, and a treaty was concluded by
which the king took an oath of fealty, and was appointed standard-bearer of the
Roman church. But before this measure had produced any considerable effect,
Innocent died on the 6th of November in the year of his return. It is said that
he had intended to call a general council with a view to the reunion of the
church, but that the troubles of his pontificate prevented the execution of
this design.
The Roman
cardinals, after some hesitation whether they should elect a successor, went
through the form of choosing a pope under a promise that he would resign if the
benefit of the church should require it, and that he would invite his rival of
Avignon to join with him in this sacrifice of private interest to the cause of
unity; and thus, says Leonard of Arezzo, the person to be elected was to regard
himself rather as a proctor for resigning the papacy than as a pope. The
election fell on Angelo Corario, cardinal of St. Mark
and titular patriarch of Constantinople, who styled himself Gregory XII.
Gregory was a man of seventy, greatly respected for piety, learning, and
prudence. It was he who had proposed the engagement by which the cardinals had
bound themselves before the election; and it was believed that the straightforward
honesty which was supposed especially to mark his character would secure his
zealous performance of the obligation. Theodoric of Niem,
however, who held an office in his court, speaks of him as a dissembler, a wolf
in sheep’s clothing; and although this unfavourable representation may
have been partly caused by some personal enmity, the writer’s statements have
an appearance of truth which has won general belief for them. Gregory began by
professing an intense desire for the reunion of the church. He renewed the oath
by which he had bound himself to resign for the sake of this objects He wrote
to urge the duty of cession on Benedict in terms which were entirely
inoffensive, except that the Avignon pope’s right to the title was questioned
in the superscription; and Benedict, adopting his rival’s style of address,
offered in return to take his cardinals with him to a conference, and to resign
if Gregory would do the like. Gregory professed himself to be like the true
mother, who was ready to give up her child rather than suffer it to be divided;
he declared that for the sake of re-establishing unity in the church he was
willing to go to any place, however remote; that if ships were not to be had,
he would put to sea in a little boat; that if he could find no horses, he would
go on foot with a staff in his hand. It was only feared that he might not live
long enough to carry his noble designs into effect. But even if these
professions were sincere, Gregory was under influences which made it impossible
for him to act on them. His nephews and other relations exerted themselves to
prevent an abdication which would have destroyed their importance and their
wealth while Ladislaus of Naples was resolved to
oppose a reconciliation which was likely in any case to tell against him, and
which, if it should be followed by the establishment of a French pope, would
have involved the acknowledgment of a French pretender to the Neapolitan
throne. Ladislaus, therefore, harassed Rome by a
succession of attacks which—perhaps through an understanding with Gregory or
with his nephews—were so timed and conducted as to afford pretexts for delaying
the attempts at a reconciliation; he even got possession of the city in April
1408, and remained there until the end of June. Benedict, in answer to Gregory’s
overtures, proposed a meeting, and after much negotiation, and many attempts at
evasion on the part of the Roman pope, it was agreed that it should take place
at Savona, on the Gulf of Genoa, between Michaelmas and All Saints’ Day 1407.
The terms were arranged with elaborate precaution for the security of the
parties, and Gregory at length set out as if for the purpose of fulfilling his
engagement. But when he had reached Lucca, he professed to feel apprehensions
and difficulties which must prevent his appearance at Savona; and Benedict, on
being informed of this, endeavoured to gain for himself the reputation of
greater sincerity by going on as far as Porto Venere, near Spezzia.
As Benedict advanced, Gregory retreated. It was, says Leonard of Arezzo, as if
one pope, like a land animal, refused to approach the shore, and the other,
like an inhabitant of the sea, refused to leave the water. And Theodoric of Niem tells us that the project of a conference was
generally compared to a tilting-match, in which it is understood that the
champions are not to touch each other, but are merely to display themselves
before the spectators. The scandal presented by the intrigues and insincerity
of the two aged men, each of whom professed to claim the holiest office in
Christendom, with the mysterious blessings and prerogatives attached to the see
of St. Peter, excited general disgust, and it was commonly believed that they
had made a secret agreement to prolong the schism for their own benefit.
France had
again become impatient of the pretexts under which a reconciliation was
continually deferred. In July 1406, after a warm discussion in the parliament
of Paris, a letter of the university of Toulouse in behalf of Benedict had been
condemned as derogatory to the honour of the king; and it had been decreed that
the original should be burnt at Toulouse, and copies on the bridge of Avignon,
at Montpellier, and at Lyons. In November of the same year a great national
assembly was held under the presidency of the titular patriarch of Alexandria.
All agreed that a general council was necessary for the solution of the
difficulties which had arisen, and after long and full discussions it resolved
that obedience should be again withdrawn from Benedict, unless within a certain
time he should come to an agreement with his rival. The publication of this
resolution, however, was not to be immediate, but was to be determined by
circumstances. The king soon after despatched an embassy to both popes, but
neither Benedict nor Gregory could be persuaded to resign, and the agreement
for the meeting at Savona had already been concluded between them.
About the
time when the failure of that scheme became known, Benedict lost his most
powerful friend, the duke of Orleans, who was assassinated in the streets of
Paris through the contrivance of his cousin, John the Fearless, duke of
Burgundy. The irritation of the French soon after manifested itself in a
declaration of renewed subtraction from Benedict and of neutrality between the
claimants of the papacy; but although this was communicated to the two rivals,
and although the king exerted himself to draw other sovereigns into the same
policy, the document was not yet formally published. Benedict, perhaps
encouraged by the distresses which he saw gathering around his rival, replied
in April 1408 by sending to Paris two bulls. The first of these, dated eleven
months earlier, was intended to counteract the decisions of the French national
council by excommunicating all persons, of whatever rank, who should take part
against the pope, interdicting the territories of princes who should oppose
him, and releasing their subjects from allegiance; thesecond bull, dated in April 1408, was conceived in a tone rather of complaint than of
anger, but warned the king that by persistence in his unkindness towards
Benedict he would incur the penalties of the earlier bull.
But the
French were no longer disposed to endure such threats. At a great assembly of
nobles, ecclesiastics, representatives of the university, and lawyers, John Courtecuisse, an eminent divine, made a discourse in which
he charged Benedict with heresy and schism, with trifling and insincerity in
negotiating with his rival, and with having shown himself an enemy of all
Christendom by hindering the reunion of the church. The bull of excommunication
was cut by the king’s secretary into two parts, of which one was given to the
princes and councillors, and the other to the representatives of the
university, and they were then torn into small pieces and burnt. The messengers
who had conveyed the bulls were pilloried and imprisoned; the archbishop of
Reims and other dignitaries, who were suspected of having been privy to the
bull, were arrested. The neutrality of France was now proclaimed, and the pope was
publicly denounced as guilty of heresy and schism. Orders were sent to Marshal
Boucicault, governor of Genoa (which was then subject to the French crown),
that Peter de Luna should be made prisoner until he should conclude a real
peace with his rival; but Benedict took the alarm, and, after having issued
declarations against the conduct of the French king and others, he made his
escape by sea from Porto Venere and took up his abode at Perpignan.
In the
meantime Gregory had begun to distrust his own cardinals, who urged him to
resign. Fearing lest they should take some steps against him, he forbade them
to leave Lucca; and, in disregard of the engagements by which he had bound
himself both at his election and in correspondence with his rival, as well as of
the remonstrances which were addressed to him by the cardinals and by many
bishops, he announced an intention of creating four new cardinals, of whom two
were his own nephews. By this step the older cardinals were roused to action.
They refused to acknowledge those who had been obtruded on them, and, in
defiance of Gregory’s command, all but three, who were detained by sickness,
removed from Lucca to Pisa, where they sent forth protests against the pope’s
late proceedings.
The
cardinals who had been attached to Benedict now repaired to Leghorn, where they
were met by those of Gregory’s party, and the two sections joined in issuing a
summons for a council to meet at Pisa in March of the following year. In this
course they were supported by the universities of Florence and Bologna, as well
as by that of Paris. They announced their intentions to both popes, inviting
them to appear and to resign their pretensions, agreeably to the engagements
which they had made at election; otherwise, it was added, the council would
take its own course. Gregory replied by declaring the cardinals to be degraded
and excommunicate; he professed to make a new promotion to the college, and
announced an intention of holding a council of his own. But for this purpose it
was not easy to find a place. The authorities of his native state, Venice, to
whom he applied, advised him rather to send representatives to Pisa; and
various towns —even Ephesus, which was then for a time in Christian hands—were
proposed. At length, when the council of Pisa was far advanced, the Venetians
allowed Gregory’s council to be held at Cividale, in Friuli; but it was
ineffectual for any other purpose than that of showing his impotence.
Benedict
also summoned a council, which met at Perpignan in November 1408, and was
attended by a considerable number of prelates, among whom four had been
decorated by him with the empty title of patriarch. But this assembly, instead
of seconding his wishes, almost unanimously advised him to resign, and Benedict
soon found himself deserted by all but a few of his partisans, who themselves
urged him to abdicate or to send representatives to the council which had been
summoned by the cardinals. His indignation vented itself in furious threats
against those who had thwarted him, and in declaring them all, from the
cardinals downwards, to be deprived of their dignities and excommunicated.
The emperor
Rupert had promised to Boniface IX that he would accept no other solution of
the question by which the church was divided than the suppression of the papacy
of Avignon; and Gregory had conciliated him by declaring that, while the right
of summoning general councils belonged to the pope, the emperor, as general
advocate of the church, was more entitled to take such a part than the cardinals.
At a great assembly, which was held at Frankfort in January 1409, a cardinal
appeared on behalf of the Pisan cardinals, and cardinal Antony Corario, Gregory’s nephew, as representative of his uncle.
Rupert, whose leaning to the interest of Gregory was manifest, agreed to send
representatives to Pisa, but declared that he would not forsake the pope unless
convinced that Gregory had forfeited his support by misconduct. But in this
feeling the majority of the assembly did not concur.
The
obstinacy with which the rival popes clung to their pretensions, the manifest
insincerity of their professions as to a desire for unity, the charges with
which they mutually blackened each other, produced an increasing effect on the
minds of men; and, as the hope of their voluntary resignation vanished, the
idea of a general council as an expedient for healing the schism gained ground.
Among those who, after having favoured the scheme of resignation, adopted that
of referring the matter to a council, the most eminent for abilities, reputation,
and activity was John Charlier, whose surname is
usually superseded by the name of his native place, Gerson, a village near Rethel, in Champagne. Gerson, born in 1363, had studied
under Peter d'Ailly and Giles Deschamps, and in 1395
had succeeded his old master d'Ailly as chancellor of
Paris and professor in the university. The opinions which he had now formed as
to the manner of ending the schism were expressed in various writings,
especially in a tract “Of the Unity of the Church”, and in one “De Auferibilitate Papae”. He
believed the authority of the church to reside in the whole catholic body, and
in a general council as its representative. He supposed that, although the
power of convoking general councils had in later times been exercised by the
popes alone, the church might resume it in certain circumstances; that this
might be properly done in the case of a division between rival popes; and that
in such a case a council might be summoned, not only by the cardinals, but by
faithful laymen. He held that, in case of necessity, the church could subsist
for a time without a visible head; he greatly mitigated the pretensions which
had been set up in behalf of the papacy; and, on the whole, he expressed far
more distinctly than any one who had written since the appearance of the false
decretals, that theory of the church to which the name of Gallican has been
given in later times. Yet Gerson had been unable to take part with the
university in its extreme proceedings, and had incurred obloquy by the
moderation of his counsels at the national assembly of 1406. And, although his
influence was strongly felt in the Pisan council, he himself was not present at
it.
The council
of Pisa met on the 25th of March 1409, in the cathedral of that city, which
three years before had been sold by its doge to its old rivals and enemies, the
Florentines. Among those who took part in it (although many of them did not
arrive until later) were twenty-two cardinals and four titular patriarchs, with
archbishops, bishops, abbots (including the heads of the chief religious
orders), envoys of many sovereign princes, proctors for cathedral chapters, and
a host of masters and doctors who represented the new and powerful influence
of the universities. Henry IV of England, who had laboured for the extinction
of the schism, and had practically enforced his counsels by detaining the
pope’s revenues from England until a reconciliation should be effected, had
taken order for the representation of his kingdom; and at the head of the
English members was Robert Hallam, bishop of Salisbury. As the cardinals, in
their need of support, were desirous to avoid the risk of provoking jealousies
between various classes, it was arranged that all the members should sit
together as one house, and that there should be no distinction as to the
privilege of voting. Guy de Maillesec, bishop of
Palestrina, presided as senior cardinal.
At the
opening of the council a sermon was preached by Peter Philargi,
cardinal of the Twelve Apostles and archbishop of Milan, who lamented the
distractions of the church, and exhorted his hearers to take measures for the
restoration of unity. At the first session it was asked by proclamation at the
doors of the cathedral whether Angelo Corario or
Peter de Luna were present, either in person or by proxy; and as the question,
after having been repeated at the second and third sessions, received no
answer, the council, in its third and fourth sessions, pronounced both the
rivals to be contumacious.
The emperor
Rupert, although favourable to the interest of Gregory, had sent the
archbishop of Riga, the bishops of Worms and Verden,
and others, as his ambassadors. At the fourth session, the bishop of Verden brought forward twenty-three objections to the
course of proceedings; and it was proposed, in the emperor’s name, that the
council should be adjourned to some other place, where Gregory might be able to
attend. But this proposal, which was evidently intended to break up the
assembly, found no favour; and at a later session the German objections were
powerfully exposed by Peter de Ancorano, an eminent
doctor of Bologna. Meanwhile Rupert’s ambassadors, finding the tone of the
council unpromising for their master’s policy, had withdrawn, after having
made an appeal to a future general council, maintaining that Gregory was the
only legitimate pope; and, as Wenceslaus acknowledged the council, he obtained
its recognition in return, although his want of energy allowed this advantage
to remain unimproved as an aid towards recovering the imperial dignity. At the
fifth session thirty-eight charges were brought forward against the rival
claimants of the papacy, and at the tenth session a commission which had heard
evidence in support of these charges made its report. The opinions of the
universities of Paris, Angers, Orleans, Toulouse, Bologna, and Florence were
alleged in favour of the proposed course, and at the fifteenth session it was
declared that both were guilty, as notorious schismatics, obstinate and
incorrigible heretics, perjurers, and vow-breakers; that by these and other
offences they had scandalized the whole church, and had rendered themselves
unworthy of any dignity. The sentence of the council, which was solemnly
pronounced by the titular patriarch of Alexandria, while his brethren of
Antioch and Jerusalem stood on each side of him, condemned both Benedict and
Gregory to be deposed and cut off from the church; the sentences uttered by
them were declared to be null, their nominations of cardinals since the spring of
the preceding year, when they had ceased to labour for union by means of
cession, to be invalid; and it was added that, if either of them should despise
this sentence, he and his partisans should be coerced by the secular power.
Thus, although the cardinals, who summoned the council, could not have entered
on the investigation of the schism without exposing themselves to fatal
questions,—inasmuch as every member of the college had either shared in the
election of one or other of the rivals, or owed his appointment to one or other
of them,—the council itself assumed the right to decide the matter, in absolute
disregard of the pretension which had been maintained for centuries, that the
pope could not be judged by man except in the case of manifest heresy.
At the
eighteenth session some envoys of the king of Aragon appeared, and one of them,
on speaking of Benedict as pope, was assailed with hisses and mockery. The
council, however, out of respect for the king’s intercession, agreed to give an
audience to certain representatives of Peter de Luna; but on the entrance of
these, an outcry was raised against them “as if they had been Jews”; and when
one of them, the archbishop of Tarragona, gave the title of pope to Benedict,
there was a general outburst of derision, with cries that the speaker was the
envoy of a heretic and schismatic. The archbishop was silenced, and, with his
companions, immediately left Pisa.
It had
become evident to all discerning men that the extinction of the schism would be
no sufficient cure for the prevailing evils, unless accompanied by a reform of
the church, “both in head and in members”. With a view to this, each of the
cardinals, before proceeding to the election of a pope, pledged himself that,
if he should be chosen, he would continue the council until a “due, reasonable,
and sufficient reformation” should be effected; and it was agreed that, if the
election should fall on any one who was not then present, a like pledge should
be required of him. On the 15th of June, twenty-two cardinals entered the
conclave, and, after eleven days of deliberation, they announced that their
choice had fallen on the cardinal-archbishop of Milan, who, as we have seen,
had preached at the opening of the council. Peter Philargi was a native of Candia, and had never known his parents or any other relation.
When begging his bread in childhood, he attracted the notice of a Franciscan
friar, and, in consequence of this patron's kindness, he became a member of
the same order. He had studied at Paris and at Oxford, and was much esteemed
for his theological learning. As pope, he took the name of Alexander V.
CHAPTER VI.
WYCLIF.
We have seen that, ever since the submission of John of England to Innocent
III, a spirit of disaffection towards the papacy had been growing in the minds
of the English people, who held themselves degraded by their sovereign’s
humiliation; that the popes throughout the thirteenth century had unwisely
provoked this spirit by their exorbitant claims on the English church, and by
their shameless interference with the disposal of English preferment; and
that, although the feeble Henry III was afraid to place himself at the head of
the nation as the representative of its feelings towards the papacy, the
strong will and hand of Edward I were exerted in opposition to the Roman
usurpations. Under Edward II the crown of England again became weak; but the
antipapal spirit continued to increase among the people, and was swollen by the
circumstance that the popes at this time took up their residence at Avignon,
and became subservient to the interest of France. While the college of
cardinals was full of Frenchmen, Edward II was unable to obtain, by repeated
entreaties, that a single Englishman might be promoted to it, even although a vacancy
had been made through the death of an English cardinal. It was found that, in
the great war which arose out of the pre tensions of Edward III to the French
crown, the popes, while affecting neutrality, were always favourable to the
opposite side. Edward, able, vigorous, and successful in war, was not disposed
to imitate the submissiveness of his feeble and unfortunate father; and the
growing power of the commons in the legislature was strongly adverse to the
assumptions of the papal court.
Even the privileges
of the English clergy were now becoming less than before. The representation of
their grievances presented to Edward II in 1316, and known by the title of Articuli Cleri, shows a great practical abatement of the
system which Becket had endeavoured to establish; and the answer which was made
in the king’s name, while it admitted some points, refused to concede others,
and treated some of the alleged grievances as imaginary. The immunity of the
clergy from secular authority, for which Becket had contended, was greatly
infringed. When Adam of Orleton, bishop of Hereford,
was brought before his peers in parliament, on account of his share in the
political intrigues which had resulted in the deposition and murder of Edward
II, he was carried off, without having pleaded, by the archbishops of
Canterbury, York, and Dublin, as if his clerical privilege exempted him from
the jurisdiction of the house. But Edward III, instead of relinquishing the
proceedings against the bishop, or transferring them to an ecclesiastical
tribunal, caused him to be tried by a common jury of the county in which his
see was situated, and, on his conviction, confiscated his property. When
Stratford, archbishop of Canterbury, was embroiled with the same king, the
ground on which he rested was not that of the clerical immunities, but his
privilege as a lord of parliament—a circumstance significant of the change
which had taken place in the minds of men. When Simon Langham, archbishop of
Canterbury, had been created a cardinal by Urban V, without having previously
consulted the king, Edward seized the temporalities of the see, and Langham
submitted to spend the rest of his days in exile, without venturing to
remonstrate in the tone of Becket, or, like him, securing for himself the sympathy
of all Latin Christendom.And in the civil
distractions which marked the end of the fourteenth century in England, the
treatment of great prelates was yet more regardless of the pretension to
exemption from secular judgment. Even the claim of freedom from taxes had been
practically decided against the clergy by Edward I, in declaring them to be
out of the protection of the law; and all that they retained of privilege in
this respect was the right of assessing their own order in convocation.
Collisions
frequently took place between the papacy and the English crown. The popes took
it on themselves to nominate bishops, in disregard alike of the right of
chapters to elect, and of that of the sovereign to permit and to confirm the
election: and in conferring the spiritual character on new bishops, they
omitted to request, as had formerly been customary, that the sovereign would
invest them in their temporalities. But in order to meet this, the kings
compelled the bishops to renounce by oath all things in the papal letters which
might be contrary to the rights of the crown, and to acknowledge that the
temporalities were held of the sovereign alone. And this system of imposing
contradictory obligations continued to later times.
The attempts
to burden the benefices of the English church with foreigners, who were
unacquainted with the language, who were wanting in qualities suitable for
their office, and probably never set foot in the country,—who, perhaps, might
also be in the interest of France and opposed to that of England,—such
attempts, in proportion as they became more impudent, were more strongly
resented. Thus, when Clement VI took it on himself to provide for two cardinals
by English benefices to the value of 2,000 marks a-year, his agents were ordered
to leave the kingdom; and he was
sternly warned against attempting by his own authority to assume the patronage
of bishoprics, or to bestow patronage on any who would not reside on their
preferments. The encroachments and abuses of the papal court were now met by
the legislature with the statutes of provisors and praemunire, which enacted
heavy penalties against receiving presentations from the pope, and against
appealing from the king’s court to any foreign tribunal.
Among the
causes of offence during this time, the mendicant orders were conspicuous for
their assumptions and their rapacity. They attempted, by acting as confessors
and otherwise, to engross all spiritual power, to the prejudice of the secular
clergy; to divert to themselves the income which the seculars were entitled to
expect from the administration of penance and other sacraments. They attempted
to get into their own hands all the teaching of the universities, where they
enticed young men of promise to enter their ranks, even in defiance of the will
of parents; and it is said that, in consequence of this, the number of students
at Oxford was reduced from 30,000 to 6,000, as men chose that their sons should
become tillers of the ground rather than that they should be thus carried off
by the friars. By these and other practices, the mendicants raised up
determined enemies, of whom the most noted was Richard Fitzralph,
an eminent teacher of Oxford, and afterwards archbishop of Armagh. Fitzralph inveighed against the prominent faults of the friars—their
pride, their greed, their notorious disregard of their rules, their usurpations
on the parochial clergy. He tells them that all the privileges which they
laboured to acquire for themselves were such as were attended with temporal
gain; that they showed no eagerness for those unpaid duties in which they might
have usefully assisted. Fitzralph carried his
complaints against the mendicants to Avignon ; but he was strongly opposed by
the interest which their money acquired for them in the papal court, where the
funds supplied by the English clergy for the support of his cause were soon
exhausted; and while the question was yet undecided, he died there in 1361.
In many
respects, therefore, the practical grievances of the Roman system had provoked
the angry discontent of the English people; and by this feeling the minds of
many had been prepared to welcome an attack on the doctrine of the church, as
well as on its administration. The opposition to the doctrines of the church of
Rome, however formidable it had been in some instances, had never yet been of
such a kind as to be fitted for attracting general sympathy. Sometimes it had
been carried on by enthusiasts, who were evidently weak or disordered in
judgment; sometimes by men whose opinions were so utterly remote from the
traditional system, that they could have little chance of acceptance with those
who had been trained in it; nor had any one of the sects which arose during the
middle ages been able to gain a footing in England. A reformer of a new and
more dangerous kind was now to arise—a man who, before appearing in that
character, had gained a high reputation in literature and philosophy; one who
was fitted either to address himself to the learned, or to adapt his teaching,
in language and in style of argument, to the understanding of the common
people; a reformer whose opinions were not, indeed, free from extravagances,
but yet were professedly grounded on Scripture, and appealed from the
prevailing corruptions to the standard of an older time.
The earlier
part of John Wyclif’s life is involved in much obscurity; and such discoveries
as have lately been made respecting it have resulted rather in disencumbering
the story of errors which had long prevailed than in the establishment of any
new truths. His birthplace was probably somewhere in the neighbourhood of
Richmond, in Yorkshire : the year usually given for his birth, 1324, is perhaps
somewhat later than the true date. He studied in the university of Oxford; but
the statements that he was educated at Queen’s college, and that he took a
prominent share in Fitzralph’s controversy with the
mendicants, are not warranted by any sufficient evidence.®The first certain notice of him belongs to the year 1361, when he appears as master
or warden of Balliol college; and this preferment he exchanged in the same year
for the parish of Fillingham, near Lincoln, to which
he was presented by his college. It would seem, however, that with the bishop’s
permission he continued to reside for the most part at Oxford. The statements
which were long received as to the offices and benefices held by Wyclif are
very perplexing, especially as they seem to show a glaring contradiction
between his own practice and the opinions which he professed as to the
possessions of the clergy. But it now appears that the reformer has been
confounded with another person of the same name, or one nearly resembling
it,—and that to this other John Wyclif or Whytecliff are perhaps to be referred the fellowship of Merton college, the living of
Mayfield, and the mastership of Canterbury Hall—to
the loss of which last preferment, by a papal sentence in 1370, Wycli’s entrance on the career of a reformer has often been
ascribed by his enemies. By others among those who have wished to charge him
with interested motives, it has been supposed that his zeal was awakened by
disappointment as to a bishopric in the year 1364; but his earliest appearance
as a reformer has been more truly referred to the time when he became a doctor
in divinity, and in right of this degree began to read lectures in the
university. He was already eminent as a philosophical and scientific teacher,
and, having adopted the theory of Realism (which had for a time been
discountenanced by the authority of Ockham and other popular masters), he had
produced a treatise “On the Reality of Universals”, which was regarded as
marking an epoch in the history of opinion. If a book entitled “The Last Age of
the Church” were really Wyclif’s, it would prove that he was at one time
affected by the ideas of abbot Joachim and the fraticelli.
But it seems to be certain that this was never the case; and the tract in
question is clearly the work of a Franciscan.
In 1366
Urban V demanded from England thirty-three years’ arrears of the tribute which
king John had bound himself to pay to the Roman see. At a former time, John
XXII had obtained from Edward II a similar payment of arrears as a condition of
his favour in the conflict with Robert Bruce; and throughout the earlier years
of Edward III’s reign the money had been regularly paid. But during the costly
war with France it had again fallen into neglect; and when in 1357 a claim was
made by Innocent VI, the king answered by declaring himself resolved to hold
his kingdom in freedom and independence. On the renewal of the claim nine years
later, the parliament, headed by the bishops (who gave their opinion before the
lay peers), resolved that king John had had no right to bind his people or
future generations to such subjection. Wyclif, who was already one of the
king’s chaplains, appears to have been consulted by the government on this
question; and in answer to a challenge by a doctor who belonged to some
monastic order, he defended in a determination at Oxford the course which had
been taken in answer to the Roman claim.
The
employment of ecclesiastics in secular offices was denounced by Wyclif as an
abuse; and of this system the most conspicuous representative was William of
Wykeham, bishop of Winchester, a man whose dignities had been won by his own
talents, and whose name is honourably preserved to this day by the great
foundations on which his wealth was munificently spent. Against him, therefore,
the efforts of a party in the state were chiefly directed. While Edward III,
towards the close of his long and glorious reign, had fallen under the
domination of a worthless woman, and his son Edward, the favourite hero of the
nation, was sinking under long disease, the king’s next surviving son, John of
Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, headed the party of the old feudal aristocracy.
Lancaster was a man of corrupt life, of selfish ambition, closely allied with
Wyclif’s enemies, the mendicant friars, and bent on humiliating the clergy,
whereas Wyclif’s object was to purify them. Yet the two co-operated towards
what was nominally a common object, and, with the aid of the commons, Wykeham
was in 1371 driven from office and impeached, while other ecclesiastics were
also deprived of their secular employments, and the bishop was not summoned to
the next parliament.
In July 1374
Wyclif was sent to Bruges, with the bishop of Bangor and others, for the
purpose of conferring with some envoys of the Roman court on certain points as
to the relations of the English church and the papacy, while the duke of
Lancaster and other representatives of England were engaged in political
negotiations at the same place with French princes, bishops, and nobles, and
with prelates appointed by the pope to mediate between the two nations. The
English commissioners complained of the levying of exactions unparalleled in
any other country, of the reservations of benefices, and of the pope’s
interference with the election of bishops; while on the other side it was urged
that papal bulls were not received in England as in other kingdoms, and that
the representatives of the pope were not freely admitted. After much
discussion, a compromise was agreed on, of which the chief articles were, that
the pope should give up his claim to reservations, and that the king should no
longer confer benefices by the writ of Quare impedit.
In this arrangement the statute of provisors was over-ridden by the royal
prerogative. Nothing was, however, concluded as to the important subject of
elections; and in the following year we already find a renewal of the
complaints as to the encroachments of the Roman court in the matter of
reservations. The “good parliament”, as it was called, of that year, while it
took up the cause of William of Wykeham and his fellows, and procured their
restoration to the royal council, showed itself resolutely hostile to the
corruptions of the Roman administration. It was said that the money drawn by
the pope from England was five times as much as the taxes paid to the crown;
and a formidable list of English preferments held by cardinals and other members
of the papal court was exhibited. Such representations were frequent; the
statute of provisors was twice re-enacted, and each time with increased
severity; but the popes continued to violate these statutes, and to carry on
the usurpations by which the mind of the English nation had been so long
provoked.
In the end
of the year 1375 Wyclif was presented by the crown, in right of a patron who
was under age, to the rectory of Lutterworth in Leicestershire—a parish which
was his home throughout the remainder of his life, though his residence there
was varied by frequent visits to Oxford. The experience which he had gained at
Bruges had probably made him more fully acquainted than before with the faults
of the Roman system. He had satisfied himself that the pretensions of the
papacy had no sufficient foundation; and this conviction he published
indefatigably, in learned lectures and disputations, in sermons, and in tracts
which for the first time set before the humbler and less educated classes, in
strong and clear English prose, the results of inquiry and thought in
opposition to the existing state of the church. He denounced the pope as
“anti-Christ, the proud worldly priest of Rome, and the most cursed of clippers
and purse-carvers.” He inveighed against the pride, the pomp, the luxury of
prelates, against their enmity to the power of sovereigns, against the claims
of the clergy to immunity from secular jurisdiction, their ignorance, their
neglect of preaching, the abuse of the privilege of sanctuary to shelter
notorious criminals. He held the temporal lords were entitled to resume such
endowments of the church as were abused ; and that it was for the temporal
lords to judge of the abuse as well as to execute the sentence, and probably
also to benefit by the forfeiture.
It was
natural that such opinions should give great offence to those who were
attacked, especially as the political connexion of Wyclif with the duke of
Lancaster invested them with a more alarming character. Wyclif was summoned to
appear before the primate and the bishop of London in St. Paul’s church on the
23rd of February 1377; and the character of the prosecution is shown by the
fact that, although errors of doctrine had already been laid to his charge,
those which were now brought forward related entirely to political and social
questions. The reformer had with him two powerful supporters, the duke of
Lancaster and Lord Percy, earl marshal, and the scene was one of great
violence. Instead of the proposed inquiry, there was an exchange of reproachful
words between Wyclif’s friends and the bishop of London—William Courtenay, a
son of the earl of Devon—while Wyclif himself appears to have been silent
throughout, as if ashamed of the unruly conduct of his protectors. Lancaster
threatened to bring down the pride not only of Courtenay, but of all the
prelacy of England : he charged him with relying on the power of his family,
but told him that, instead of being able to help him, they would “have enough
to do to defend themselves”; and when the bishop replied with dignity that he
trusted not in his kinsfolk, nor in any man else, but in God alone, the duke,
unable to find an answer, declared that he would rather drag him out of the
church by the hair than endure this at his hand. The Londoners who were
present, furious at this insult to their bishop and to the privileges of their
city, broke out into tumult, and it was with difficulty that Wyclif and his
friends escaped. It happened that on the same day a proposal was made in
parliament to transfer the government of the city from the lord mayor to a
commission of which Percy was to be the head, and the report of this increased
the exasperation of the mob, who next day attacked and plundered Lancaster’s
palace of the Savoy, barbarously murdered an ecclesiastic who was mistaken for
the earl marshal, and might have committed further outrages but for the
interposition of the bishop of London, who hastened to the scene of the tumult
and succeeded in appeasing it.
Before the
meeting at St. Paul’s, nineteen articles of accusation against Wyclif had been
submitted to Gregory XI, and in
the end of May 1377 the pope addressed bulls to the king, to the archbishop of
Canterbury and the bishop of London, and to the university of Oxford,
reproving the ecclesiastical and academical authorities for their supineness,
and requiring an investigation of the case. Wyclif was said to have revived the
errors of Marsilius and of John of Jandun—to have maintained doctrines subversive of
ecclesiastical and civil government—to have denied the force of papal commands
and the power of the keys—to have asserted that excommunication is a nullity,
unless a man be excommunicated by himself—that the endowments of the church
may be taken away if abused, and that the clergy, including even the pope
himself, may be accused and corrected by the laity. In the letter addressed to
Oxford it was ordered that such teaching should be suppressed in the
university, and that the chancellor should arrest Wyclif and bring him before
the primate and the bishop of London. But before these documents could reach
England an important change took place through the death of Edward III, who was
succeeded by his grandson Richard, then only eleven years old.
The
university authorities of Oxford, jealous of its independence, showed no
eagerness to carry out the papal commands; but the archbishop and the bishop of
London required the chancellor to present Wyclif before them for trial. In the
meantime a new parliament made strong representations against the encroachments
of the papacy, and consulted certain authorities on the question whether the
king were not entitled to prevent the exportation of treasure from the realm,
although the pope might have required it to be sent to him. To this Wyclif,
always a partisan of the crown as against the claims of the papacy, answered
that for the defence of the country such a seizure would be warranted by the
law of Christ, even although the pope’s requisition should be made on the
ground of the obedience due to him, and should be enforced by the penalty of
his censures.
By the death
of Edward the duke of Lancaster's influence was lessened, and the clergy felt
themselves stronger than before. In December Wyclif was cited to appear again
at St. Paul’s within thirty days; but the place of hearing was changed to the
archbishop’s chapel at Lambeth, where, early in the following year, Wyclif was
required to answer to the nineteen articles charged against him. But
immediately after the proceedings had been opened, a message was received from
the young king’s mother, desiring that the bishops would carry the inquiry no
further; and while the latter were deliberating whether this order should be
obeyed, a mob of Londoners, now favourable to Wyclif, as from special
circumstances they had lately been opposed to him, broke into the chapel and
compelled them to withdraw.
Wyclif had
already replied to the charges against himin three
tracts, of which one would seem to have been intended for the clergy and for
academic readers, while another was laid before parliament, and the third is a
vehement attack on some opponent, whom he styles a “medley divine”. The
obscurity and over-subtlety which have been imputed to these papers arise in
part from the scholastic method of argument. Wyclif endeavours to explain and
to justify, on grounds of scripture and of canon-law, such of the questioned
opinions as he admits to be really held by him, and to obviate the
misconceptions which his language might be too likely to produce. He speaks of
himself as a sincere son of the church, and as willing to retract wherever he
can be convinced that he is wrong—a profession which, as it is often repeated
by other reformers of the period, may be presumed to have been in their minds
something more than a nugatory truism. Wyclif was not further censured at this
time than by being warned to avoid the danger of misleading the ignorant; and
he thought himself at liberty to put forth ten new propositions, which were
chiefly directed against the interference of spiritual persons with secular
power and possessions.
The death of
Gregory XI put an end to the commission under which the late proceedings had
taken place; but the great schism which followed, while it was favourable to
Wyclif by supplying him with fresh arguments against the papacy, and by
weakening the power of the clergy everywhere, yet told against him by removing
so much of the cause for the anti-papal feeling of the English as had arisen
from the connexion of the late popes with France; for England, as we have seen,
acknowledged the Roman line of popes, and disowned that of Avignon. Wyclif
himself had at first hailed the election of Urban VI as a reforming pope; but
he found his hopes disappointed, and, after some observation of the schism, he
declared that the church would be in a better condition if both the rival popes
were removed or deposed, forasmuch as their lives appeared to show that they
had nothing to do with the church of God.
In his
preaching at Oxford and elsewhere, Wyclif vehemently attacked the mendicant
orders, which he declared to be the great evil of Christendom. He charged them
with fifty errors of doctrine and practice. He denounced them for intercepting
the alms which ought to belong to the poor; for their unscrupulous system of
proselytizing; for their invasion of parochial rights; their habit of deluding
the common people by fables and legends; their hypocritical pretensions to
sanctity; their flattery of the great and wealthy, whom it would rather have
been their duty to reprove for their sins; their grasping at money by all sorts
of means; the needless splendour of their buildings, whereas parish-churches
were left to neglect and
decay.
That these
complaints were well grounded there can be no doubt; but it must be remembered
that the faults which Wyclif rioted were for the most part deviations from the
intentions of those by whom the orders had been founded. Indeed, Wyclif himself
had much in common with those founders. He held that tithes and other
endowments were in their nature eleemosynary; that the clergy ought to receive
only so much as might be necessary for their support; he insisted on the idea
of apostolic poverty which had been advocated by Arnold of Brescia and by many
sectaries—not considering that the effect of reducing all clerical income to
that which is merely necessary will not be a removal of all secular temptations
to enter into the ministry of the church, but will leave such temptations as
can attract only an inferior class of men. In his earlier days he had distinguished
the mendicants favourably from the other monastic orders; and it was probably
not until their faults had been brought home to him by special circumstances
that he entered on a declared opposition to them. In order to counteract the
efforts of the friars and to spread his own opinions, he instituted a
brotherhood of his own, under the name of “poor priests”, who were to go about
the country barefooted, roughly clad in russet frocks,penetrating,
as the mendicants had done, to the humblest classes of the people, and giving
such elementary religious instruction as they could. These simple teachers
were employed under episcopal authority throughout the vast diocese of Lincoln,
and perhaps elsewhere; but they appear to have been suppressed in a later stage
of Wyclif’s career. Wyclif refused to admit the monastic pretensions in favour
of a life of contemplation and prayer; he regarded the idea of such a life as
selfish, and held that the clergy ought rather to labour in preaching, as being
a work beneficial to others.
In 1379
Wyclif, while residing at Oxford, had a dangerous illness, in which it is said
that four doctors, belonging to the mendicant orders, visited him with the
design of bringing him to express contrition and to retract his sayings against
their brethren; but that he astonished and scared them away by declaring, in
scriptural phrase, “I shall not die, but live and declare the evil deeds of
the friars” : and he was able to keep his word.
He now
entered on a new and important portion of his work—the translation of the Holy
Scriptures ’into the vernacular tongue. In the prologue to the version by his
follower John Purvey, the venerable examples of Bede and king Alfred are cited
in favour of such translations; but whatever means of attaining a knowledge of
Scripture through their native tongue may have been open to the English in
earlier ages, they had for centuries been without such aids, and in the
meantime the reading of Scripture had been forbidden, as being dangerous to
the unlearned. Of late, however, renewed attempts had been made to exhibit the
sacred writings in an English form. About the beginning of Edward III’s reign,
William of Shoreham, vicar of Chart Sutton in Kent, rendered the Psalter into
English prose; and he was soon after followed by Richard Rolle, “the hermit of Hampole”, who not only translated the text of the Psalms,
but added an English commentary. But no other book of Scripture appears to have
been rendered into our language for centuries before the time when Wyclif undertook
a version of the whole. How much of the gigantic labour was done by his own
hands it is impossible to determine; but to him we must refer at least the
general merit of the design and the superintendence of the entire work.
The effect
of thus bringing home the word of God to the unlearned people is shown by the
indignation of a contemporary writer, who denounces Wyclif as having made the
gospel “common, and more open to laymen and to women who can read than it is
wont to be to clerks well learned and of good understanding; so that the pearl
of the gospel is scattered and is trodden under foot of swine”; and he applies,
as if prophetical of Wyclif’s labours, some passages in which William of St.
Amour had denounced the “everlasting gospel” of an earlier party. It is said
that the bishops attempted in 1390 to get the version condemned by parliament,
lest it should become an occasion of heresies; but John of Gaunt “with a great
oath” declared that the English would not submit to the degradation of being denied
a vernacular Bible, while other nations were allowed to enjoy it; and other
nobles added that, if there were danger of heresy from having the Scriptures in
English, there had been more heresies among the Latins than among the people of
any other language. The attempt at prohibition, therefore, failed, and the
English Bible spread far and wide, being diffused chiefly through the exertions
of the “poor priests,” whom Wyclif employed to publish his doctrines about the
country, and furnished with portions of his translation as the text which they
were to expound, and the foundation on which they were to rest their preaching.
Soon after
having engaged in the translation, Wyclif, who had thus far shown himself as a
reformer only in matters relating to ecclesiastical and civil government, and
as to the powers of the clergy, or as a maintainer of philosophical opinions
which differed from those generally accepted, went on to assail the doctrine
of the church in the matter of the Eucharist, by putting forth certain
propositions, which he offered to maintain in public disputation. This,
however, the authorities of Oxford would not allow; the chancellor, William
Berthon, with some doctors, condemned Wyclif’s opinions, whereupon he appealed
to the king—an act which naturally excited the anger of the clergy, as being an
attack on the church’s right of judgment. His old patron the duke of Lancaster,
who took no interest in such questions, charged him to refrain from teaching
his doctrine as to the Eucharist, but Wyclif, instead of obeying this order,
put forth a “confession” in which he asserted and defended his opinion. He
maintained that the sacrament of the altar was not a mere sign, but was at
once figure and truth; that all teachers since the year 1,000 had erred, with
the sole exception of Berengar,—the devil having been
let loose, and having had power over the “master of the Sentences” and others.
He distinguished various modes of being, and said that the body of Christ was
in the consecrated host virtually, spiritually, and sacramentally, but that it
was not substantially, corporally, or dimensionally, elsewhere than in heaven;
that, as St. John the Baptist, on becoming the Elias, did not cease to be
John—as one who is changed into a pope still remains the same man as before—so
it was with the bread and wine of the sacrament. And he severely reprobated the
holders of the current doctrine as being “followers of signs and worshippers of
accidents”. It was, he said, beyond the reach even of almighty power to cause
the existence of accidents without any subject. Thus an important addition was
made to the subjects of controversy between Wyclif and the ruling party in the
church; and in order to set forth his views in a popular form, he produced a
treatise which is known as his “Wicket”.
In the same
year took place the rising of the peasantry under Wat Tyler—a movement similar
to those which somewhat earlier had been designated in France by the name of
Jacquerie. It was the policy of Wyclif’s enemies to connect him with this
insurrection, by representing it as the effect of his teaching;and one of the leaders, a priest named John Ball, declared in his confession that
he had been two years a follower of Wyclif, whom he described as the chief
author of the revolt. But, in truth, this connexion was imaginary. The fury of
Tyler’s followers was especially directed, not against the clergy (as would
have been the case if the impulse had been derived from Wyclif), but against
persons in secular authority and administrative office, against lawyers, gentlemen,
and men of wealth, especially those who had become rich by commerce. It was not
on account of his spiritual office, but as chancellor of the kingdom, that
archbishop Simon of Sudbury was beheaded on Tower Hill. Ball, instead of having
learnt his principles from Wyclif, had, for twenty years before this outbreak,
been notorious as a preacher of communism and revolution; he had been censured
by three successive primates, and at length, for his irregularities, had been
committed to the archbishop’s prison at Maidstone, from which he was released
by the rioters. Another priest, who, under the name of Jack Straw, was
prominent as a leader, held opinions akin to those of the fraticelli.
There were no demonstrations against the popular superstitions of the time; the
insurgents were in alliance with Wyclif’s enemies, the friars, and were furious
against his patron the duke of Lancaster, whose palace of the Savoy underwent a
second spoliation and serious damage at their hands. In the suppression of this
rebellion, a conspicuous part was borne by Henry Spenser, bishop of Norwich,
who had obtained his see as a reward for military services rendered to Urban V
in Italy. He took the field in armour, delivered Peterborough from the insurgents,
contributed to discomfit them in the neighbouring counties, and, when peace had
been restored, made over the local ringleaders to execution, after having, in
his episcopal character, administered to them the last consolations of
religion.
For Wyclif the
result of the insurrection was unfavourable, as the place of the murdered
primate was filled by his old enemy Courtenay, who was not likely to
distinguish in his favour between political and doctrinal innovations.
Immediately after having received his pall, the new archbishop brought the
question of Wyclif’s opinions before a council of bishops, and other
ecclesiastics (mostly belonging to the mendicant orders), with some lawyers,
which met at the Dominican convent in Holborn. As the session was about to
begin, a shock of an earthquake was felt, and some of the members in alarm
proposed an adjournment: but the archbishop, undisturbed by the omen, declared
that it signified the purging of the kingdom from heresy.Wyclif was not present, nor does it appear that he had been cited to defend himself;
but twenty-two propositions were brought forward as having been maintained by
him—ten of them being branded as heretical, while the others were only
designated as errors. Among the heresies were the assertions that the material
substance of bread and wine remains in the sacrament of the altar; that
accidents do not remain in it without a subject; that Christ is not in it
“identically, truly, and really, in His proper bodily substance”; that the
ministrations of bishops and priests who are in mortal sin, and the claims of
evil popes over Christ’s faithful people, are null; that contrition supersedes
the necessity of outward confession; that God ought to obey the devil; that
since Urban VI no one was to be received as pope, but the Christians of the
west ought to live, like the Greeks, under their own laws; and that it was
contrary to Holy Scripture for clergymen to hold temporal possessions.
Among the
propositions noted as erroneous were several relating to the effect of
excommunication; the assertions already mentioned as to the power of secular
persons to take away ecclesiastical endowments, with others of like tendency;
and some denials of the utility of the monastic life.
The council
held five sessions, and in the meantime the archbishop wrote to Oxford,
denouncing the preaching of uncommissioned persons,
and ordering that the opinions of Wyclif should be suppressed in the
university. The council condemned the doctrines which were brought before it,
and three of Wyclif’s most prominent followers—Philip Repyngdon,
Nicolas Hereford, and John Ayshton—after having been
examined before the primate, were sentenced to various punishments. The
archbishop brought the matter before the house of lords, and an order was
obtained from the crown, by which the sheriffs were required to assist the
officers of the bishops in arresting heretics. But in the following session,
the bill which the lords had passed in accordance with the archbishop’s wishes
was disowned by the commons, who declared that they had never assented to it,
and prayed the king that it might be annulled; chiefly, it would seem, in
consequence of a petition which Wyclif had addressed to the king and to the
parliament.
The
reforming party was now attacked in Oxford, which was its chief stronghold. The
chancellor, Robert Rygge, although he had subscribed
the former condemnation, was inclined to favour the Wyclifites,
and to maintain the exemption of the university from the power of the
archbishop and bishops. He appointed Repyngdon, and
others of like opinions, to preach on some public occasions. On being required
by the archbishop to publish a denunciation of Wyclifism,
he declared that to do so might endanger his life. And when a Carmelite, named
Stokes, appeared at Oxford, with a commission to carry out the archbishop’s
mandate, it is said that the chancellor made a display of armed men, so that
the friar withdrew in terror, without having executed his task. Rygge was, however, compelled to appear in London, with the
proctors of the university, and to ask pardon on his knees for having favoured Wyclifism. He was commanded by the archbishop to allow no
new doctrines to be taught or held; and, in obedience to a royal order (which
had, perhaps, been obtained by representing Wyclif’s opinions as connected with
the late revolutionary movements), he published the suspension of Repyngdon and Hereford. The bishop of Lincoln, Bokyngham, within whose diocese Oxford was situated,
exerted himself vigorously for the suppression of Wyclifism in the university. Repyngdon, Hereford, and Ayshton recanted, after having in vain attempted to gain
the intercession of the duke of Lancaster; but their explanations were not
deemed sufficient, and it was not without much trouble that they procured their
restoration. Hereford, in order
to clear his orthodoxy, went to Rome, where he was committed to prison by
Urban VI, who, in consideration of the support which he had received from
England, was unwilling to inflict the extreme punishment of heresy on any
Englishman. Having recovered his liberty through a popular outbreak while the
pope was shut up in Nocera, Hereford returned to England, where he was again
imprisoned by the archbishop of Canterbury, and was denounced by the bishop of
Worcester as a preacher of Lollardy in 1387; and ended his days as a Carthusian
monk. Repyngdon became one of the bitterest
opponents of the party to which he had once belonged; and his zeal was rewarded
with the bishopric of Lincoln, and with the dignity of cardinal. According to
some writers, Wyclif himself appeared before the archbishop and other prelates
at Oxford, and explained himself in terms which are treated by his enemies as
evasive; and it would seem that his explanation was accepted by his judges as sufficient
to justify them in dismissing him.But the party at
Oxford never recovered from the effects of these proceedings.
The
remaining two years of Wyclif’s life were spent in his parish of Lutterworth;
and such was the effect of his labours in the surrounding country, that,
according to the writer who is known by the name of Knyghton,
a canon of Leicester, “You would scarce see two in the way, but one of them was
a disciple of Wyclif.” During this period of his life his pen was actively
employed. When the warlike bishop Spenser, of Norwich, led into Flanders a
rabble of disorderly recruits, to fight as crusaders for pope Urban against
pope Clement, Wyclif sent forth a pamphlet “On the Schism” and one “Against the
pope’s Crusade.” In these he denounces the system of indulgences in general,
and the abuse of holding forth such privileges as an inducement to enlist in
such an enterprise, the taking of arms by the clergy, the nature of the war
itself, the secular and unchristian motives from which it originated, and the
share which the mendicant friars had taken in promoting it.And to this time belongs one of his most remarkable works— the “Trialogue,” which,
as its name intimates is in the form of a conversation between three persons,
bearing the Greek names of Aletheia, Pseustis, and Phronesis—Truth, Deceiver, and
Thoughtfulness. In this book Wyclif lays down a rigid doctrine of predestination.
He exposes the popular errors of reliance on the saints, declaring Christ to be
a better, readier, and more benign mediator than any of them; he mentions
without disapproval the opinion of some who would abolish all festivals of the
saints, and who blame the church for canonizing men, inasmuch as without
revelation it can no more know the sanctity of the persons so honoured than
prester John or the sultan. In like manner he reprobates indulgences, on the
ground that the prelates who grant them pretend foolishly, greedily, and
blasphemously to a knowledge which is beyond their reach. He maintains the
superiority of Holy Scripture to all other laws; if there were a hundred popes,
and all the friars were turned into cardinals, their opinion ought not to be
believed, except in so far as it is founded on Scripture. It is chiefly in the
last book of the Trialogue that Wyclif shows himself as a reformer. He states
his doctrine of the Eucharist, which, he says, had been held by the church
until Satan was let loose. As to the hierarchy, he says that the only orders
were originally those of priest and deacon, that bishops were the same with the
priests, and that the other orders were the inventions of “Caesarean” pride.The pope he considers to be probably the great
antichrist, and the “Caesarean” prelates to be the lesser antichrists, as being
utterly opposite to their pretensions as Christ’s vicar and his representatives.He declares himself strongly against the
endowments of the church; he tells the story of the angel’s lamentation over
the gift of Constantine, to which he traces all the corruptions, abuses, and
decay of later times; he holds that the error of Constantine and others, who
thought by such means to benefit the church, was greater than that of St. Paul
in persecuting it; nay, he says that the princes who endowed the church are
liable to the punishment of hell for so doing. And, as a simple remedy for the
evils of the case, he recommends that the king, on getting the temporalities
of a bishopric or of an abbacy into his hands through a vacancy, should avoid
the mistake of restoring them to the next incumbent. He denies the necessity of
confession, and attacks the penitential system, as also indulgences and the
sacrament of extreme unction. And he is severe against the clergy—more
especially against the monks, canons, and friars. These last he traces to
antichrist, and declares to be the means of spreading all heresies; he even
charges their idle and luxurious lives with rendering the land less productive
and the air unwholesome, and so with causing pestilences and epidemics.
Although
Wyclif’s last years appear to have been wholly passed
in his retirement, his constant and varied activity, and the influence which he
exercised, were not to be overlooked; and it has been supposed that in 1384 he
received a citation to appear before Urban VI. The paper which is commonly
regarded as his answer does not clearly state the grounds on which he excused
himself; but he had been disabled by illness, and especially by a stroke of
palsy. On the 28th of December 1384, as he was engaged in the service of the
church, he was struck down by a second attack of the same sort: and on the last
day of the year he expired. His enemies found a pleasure in relating that his
seizure took place on the festival of St. Thomas of Canterbury, the champion
and martyr of the hierarchical claims, and that he died on the festival of St.
Sylvester, the pope on whom the first Christian emperor was supposed to have
bestowed those privileges and endowments which Wyclif had pertinaciously
assailed.
It is
remarkable that, although Wyclif had many points in common with the Waldenses,
he never shows any trace of acquaintance with the history of that party, but
seems to have formed his opinions in entire independence of them. Attempts have
been made to connect him with the school of Joachim of Fiore; but although the
constant use of the word gospel may naturally recall to our minds the
“everlasting gospel” of the earlier party,—although there was in both parties a
tendency to apocalyptic speculations, and although Wyclif’s followers were
infected with that fondness for prophecies, partly of a religious and partly of
a political tendency, which had prevailed widely from the time of Joachim
downwards,—it would seem that these resemblances are no proof of any real
connexion.
Wyclif
opposed, either entirely or in their more exaggerated forms, most of the
corruptions and superstitions which had grown on the church—such as the system
of indulgences, the reliance on the merits of the saints, the trust in supposed
miracles; and if he held the doctrine of purgatory, and allowed the utility of
prayers and masses for the departed, he was careful to guard against the
popular errors connected with these beliefs. He denied the usual distinctions
of mortal and venial sin. He regarded confession as wholesome, but not as
necessary; he limited the priestly power of absolution to that of declaring
God’s forgiveness to the truly contrite, and blamed the clergy for pretending
to something more than this. He denied the effect of excommunication, unless
when uttered for just reason, in the cause of God, and agreeably to the law of
Christ. He opposed compulsory celibacy, and the practice of binding young
persons to the monastic life before their own experience and will could guide
them in the choice of it. With regard to marriage he is said to have held some
singular opinions—that it had been instituted as a means of filling up the
places of the fallen angels, and that the prohibition of marriage even between
the nearest relations had no other foundation than human law. He admitted the
seven sacraments, but not as all standing on the same level; and he found fault
with confirmation, as involving a pretension on the part of bishops to give the
Holy Spirit in a new way, and thus to do more than give that Holy Spirit who
was bestowed in baptism. He objected to the prevailing excess of ceremonies,
although he admitted that some ceremonies were necessary and expedient.As to the splendour of churches, he rejects the
authority of Solomon—an idolatrous and lascivious king under the old
covenant—forasmuch as our Lord himself prophesied the destruction of the
Temple. He did not condemn images absolutely, but the abuses connected with the
reverence for them. He also found fault with the elaborate music which had come
into use in the church, declaring it to be a hindrance to study and preaching,
and ridiculing the disposal of money in foundations for such purposes.
As to the
constitution of the church, Wyclif held that God had not bestowed on any man
that plenitude of power which was claimed by the papacy; and, while he did not
refuse to style the pope Christ’s vicar, he considered that the emperor was
also His vicar in the temporal sphere; that even the pope might be rebuked, and
that even by laymen. With some of the schoolmen he held (as we have seen) that
bishops and priests were one and the same order; but it does not appear that he
countenanced the practice of some of his followers, who claimed for presbyters
the power of ordination. We have already seen that he wished the clergy to cast
themselves, like those of the first days, on the oblations of the faithful for
maintenance; that he would have allowed them to enjoy only so much as was
absolutely necessary, and held it to be the duty of secular lords to take away
from them such endowments as were abused. But he disavowed the idea that this
was to be done arbitrarily, and limited the exercise of the right by the
conditions of civil, ecclesiastical, and evangelical law. And, although his
enemies are never found to charge him with inconsistency, he confessed that his
own practice had been short of his theory,—that he had spent on himself that
which ought to have been given to the poor.
In some
respects Wyclif seems to have been justly chargeable with the use of language
which was likely not only to be misunderstood by his opponents, but to mislead
his partisans. Thus the proposition that “Dominion is founded in grace” seems
to imply a principle of unlimited anarchy and fanaticism, but is explained in
such a manner as to lose much of its alarming character. Wyclif’s conception of
dominion was altogether modelled on the feudal system. He believed that God, to
whom alone dominion could properly belong, had granted in fee (as it were)
certain portions of His dominion over the world, on condition of obedience to
His commandments, and that such grants were vitiated by mortal sin in the
holders. But this Wyclif admitted to be an ideal view, which must be modified
in order to accord with the facts of the case; and by way of corrective he
advanced another proposition, of at least equally startling appearance—that
“God ought to obey the devil.” In other words, as God suffers evil in this
world—as the Saviour submitted to be tempted by the devil—so obedience is due
by Christians to constituted authority, however unworthy the holders of it may
be. The wicked, although they could not have dominion in its proper sense,
might yet have power, so as to be entitled to obedience. And thus there is no
ground for the imputations which have been cast on him by his enemies as if he
had advocated the principles of insurrection and tyrannicide. Wyclif considered
that, while the pope and the king are each supreme in his own department, every
Christian man holds of God, although not “in chief”; and that hence the final
court of appeal is not that of the pope, but of God. In like manner, when he
asserted that one who was in mortal sin could not administer the sacraments,
the proposition was softened by an explanation—that a man in such a condition
might administer the sacraments validly, although to his own condemnation.
Wyclif’s
opinions as to the doctrine of the Eucharist have been already stated. On
predestination and the subjects connected with it, his views were such that his
admirers are said to have given him a name derived from that of St. Augustine.
He held that all things take place by absolute necessity; that even God himself
cannot do otherwise than he actually does; that no predestined person could be
finally obdurate or could be lost; that no one who was “foreknown” would have
the gift of final perseverance, or could be saved; and that while in the body
we can have no certainty who those are that belong to the one class or to the
other. Yet with these opinions it is said that he professed to reconcile a
belief in the freedom of man’s will, so that in this respect he expressed his
dissent from the teachers whom he most revered, as Augustine and Bradwardine. Philosophy mingled largely with his theology;
he maintained that true philosophy and true theology must go together; and
thus, as his own views were strongly realistic, he concluded that the
nominalists could not receive the truth of Holy Scripture.
A document
is extant which professes to be a testimonial in favour of Wyclif, granted by
the university of Oxford in 1406; but it is very inconsistent with what is
known as to the disposition of the university authorities towards his memory at
that time, and it is supposed to have been forged by a noted Wyclifite named Peter Payne, who published it in Bohemia.
After
Wyclif’s death the Lollards (as his followers were called) rapidly developed
the more questionable part of his opinions. They became wildly fanatical
against the Roman church and the clergy. Some of them denied the necessity of
ordination, maintaining that any Christian man or woman, “being without sin,”
was entitled to consecrate the eucharist; or they took it on themselves to
ordain without the ministry of bishops. Some declared the sacraments to be mere
dead signs; and, whereas Wyclif had held a sabbatical doctrine as to the Lord’s
day, they denounced the observance of that day as a remnant of Judaism. With
such opinions in matters of religion were combined extravagances dangerous to
civil government and to society; and prophecies, which were in great part of
political tendency, were largely circulated among the Lollards.
Notwithstanding
the defection of some of the most eminent clergy of the party, it still
numbered among its members many persons of distinction, who encouraged the
preachers in their rounds, gathered audiences to listen to them, and afforded
them armed protection. But its main strength lay among the humbler classes.
London was a stronghold of Lollardism, as were also
the counties of Leicester and Lincoln, where Wyclif’s personal influence had
been especially exerted.
In 1394 the
Lollards affixed to the doors of St. Paul’s and Westminster Abbey placards in
which the clergy were attacked and the current doctrine of the sacraments was
impugned; and they presented to parliament a petition, in which the
peculiarities of their system were strongly enounced. The bishops took such
alarm at these movements that they urgently entreated the king to hurry back
from Ireland in order to meet the new dangers which had arisen; and during the
remaining years of Richard’s power active measures were taken for the
discouragement of Lollardism. In 1396 Boniface IX
entreated the king to assist him in suppressing heresy, as being dangerous
alike to the church and to the crown; and in the same year archbishop Arundel,
immediately after his elevation to the primacy, held a synod, in which eighteen
propositions, attributed to Wyclif, were condemned. The democratic and
communistic opinions which had become developed among the party, while they
attracted the poorer people, must have tended to alienate those of higher
condition, and thus were, on the whole, disadvantageous to its progress.
But most
especially the Lollards suffered from the change which placed Henry of
Lancaster on the throne instead of Richard. Archbishop Arundel, their bitter
enemy, had a powerful hold on the new king, whom he had greatly aided to attain
the crown; and Henry, in his feeling of insecurity, was eager to ally himself
with the clergy, the monks, and the friars—so that under the descendants of
Wyclif’s old patron, John of Gaunt, the condition of the Wyclifites became worse than it had previously been. Henry in his first year sent a
message to the convocation, that it was his intention “to maintain all the
liberties of the church, and to destroy heresies, errors, and heretics to the
utmost of his power”;and in the following year, after
a representation by the clergy to parliament as to the necessity of checking
the growth of heresy, was passed the statute De haeretico comburendo. By this it was enacted that any one
whom an ecclesiastical court should have declared to be guilty, or strongly
suspected, of heresy, should, on being made over to the sheriff with a
certificate to that effect, be publicly burnt.
The first
victim of this statute is supposed to have been William Sautre,
priest of St. Osyth’s, in London, who had before been
convicted in the diocese of Norwich, and suffered as a relapsed heretic in
1401, chiefly for the denial of transubstantiation.When the parliament in 141 o asked for a mitigation of the statute, the king
answered that it ought to be made more severe.There is a succession of measures intended for the repression of the Lollards. In
1407 an ordinance was passed which condemns their opinions as to church
property, and seems to connect the party with those who used the name of the
deposed king as if he were still alive. In the following year a synod assembled
in London, under the presidency of the archbishop, decreed that Wyclifs books should not be read, unless allowed by one of
the universities, and that no English versions of the Scriptures should be
made, because of the difficulty of securing a uniform sense, “as the blessed
Jerome himself, although he had been inspired, avers that herein he had often
erred.” It was ordered that at Oxford the authorities should inquire, once a
month or oftener, whether Wyclif’s opinions were held by any members of the
university; and in 1412 two hundred and sixty-seven propositions from his works
were condemned there, “as all guilty of fire.” The pope, John XXIII, at
Arundel’s request, confirmed this sentence; but he rejected the archbishop’s
proposal that Wyclif’s bones should be dug up and burnt.
During the
reign of Henry IV the statutes against Lollardism were but partially enforced; but Henry V (whatever may have been his conduct in
those earlier years, as to which we have received an impression too strong to
be effaced by any historical evidence) showed himself, when king, strictly
religious according to the ideas of the time, and conscientious, even to bigotry,
in the desire to signalize his orthodoxy and to suppress such opinions as bore
the note of heresy. Under the influence of his Carmelite confessor, Thomas
Netter, one of the bitterest controversial opponents of Wyclifism,
the laws were now rigorously executed. The victims were of all classes; but the
most conspicuous for character and for rank was Sir John Oldcastle, who, in
right of his wife, sat in parliament as Lord Cobham. Oldcastle, who seems to
have been a man of somewhat violent and impetuous character, had been highly
distinguished in the French wars, and had been on terms of intimacy with Henry
in his earlier days. Having taken up the opinions of Wyclif with enthusiastic
zeal, he endeavoured, by encouraging itinerant preachers and otherwise, to
spread these doctrines among the people; and it was feared that his military
skill and renown might make him dangerous as the leader of a fanatical and
disaffected party. The king himself undertook to argue with him; but Cobham,
knowing his ground better, withstood the royal arguments. After having been
called in question by the archbishop of Canterbury for his opinions (as to
which he appears, while denying transubstantiation, to have consistently
maintained that the very body and blood of Christ are contained under the form
of the eucharistic elements), he was excommunicated. He then made his escape
from London, and for some years lived obscurely in Wales; but he afterwards reappeared,
and, as he was supposed to be concerned in revolutionary designs, was arrested,
and was brought to the bar of the house of lords. The sentence which had before
been pronounced against him on a mixed charge of heresy and treason was read
over in his hearing, and, as he made no defence, he was forthwith, in pursuance
of that sentence, hanged and burnt in Smithfield on the 18th of December 1417.
CHAPTER VII.
BOHEMIA.
The reforming tendencies which
appeared in Bohemia towards the end of the fourteenth century have been traced
to the ancient connexion of that country with the Greek church, from which it
is assumed that peculiar usages—such as the marriage of the clergy, the use of
the vernacular tongue in the offices of the church, and the administration of
the eucharistic cup to the laity—had been continued through the intermediate
ages. But this theory, which was unknown to the Bohemian reformers of the time
with which we are now concerned, appears to be wholly unsupported by historical
fact. Nor, although some Waldenses had made their way into the country, does it
appear that the reforming movement which we are about to notice derived any
impulse from that party.
The first
person who became conspicuous as a teacher of reformation in Bohemia was not a
native of the country, but an Austrian—Conrad of Waldhausen,canon of the cathedral of Prague, and pastor of a parish near the city. Conrad
appears to have adhered in all respects to the doctrine which was considered
orthodox in his time, and his burning zeal was directed against practical
corruptions of religion. He denounced, with indignant eloquence, the mechanical
character of the usual devotions; the abuses of indulgences and relics ; the
practice or simony in all forms, among which he included the performance of
charitable duties for money, such as that of tending the sick; and on this
ground, among others, he censured the mendicant friars. But he also assailed
the principle of their system altogether, offering sixty groats to any one who would prove from Scripture that the Saviour
gave his sanction to the mendicant life; and he strongly opposed the practice
of devoting young persons—in some cases even children yet unborn—to the
cloister, without allowing them the power of choice. He required usurers to
disgorge the gains which they had unjustly acquired; whereas the friars used to
quiet the consciences of such persons by teaching them that the iniquities of
usury might be sanctified by bounty to the church. Yet Conrad, although he
strenuously opposed the corruptions of monasticism, set a high value on the
idea of the monastic life. His power as a preacher is said to have been very
extraordinary; sometimes he found himself obliged to deliver his sermons in
market-places, because no church was large enough to contain the multitude of
hearers. He carried away from the mendicants all but a handful of “beguines”;
even Jews crowded to listen to him, and he discountenanced those who would have
kept them off. Conrad was favoured by the emperor Charles ; and, although the
Dominicans and Franciscans combined against him, and in 1364 exhibited
twenty-nine articles of accusation to the archbishop of Prague, he continued
his course without any serious molestation until his death in 1369.
Contemporary
with Conrad of Waldhausen was Militz,
a native of Kremsier, in Moravia. Militz had attained the dignity of archdeacon of Prague, and, in addition to other
benefices, possessed some landed property; he stood high in the favour of
Charles IV, and was greatly respected in his ecclesiastical character. But the
desire after a stricter religious life arose within him, and, resigning all the
advantages of his position, he withdrew to the poverty and obscurity of a
parish priest’s life in a little town or village. After a time he reappeared
at Prague, and, unlike Conrad of Waldhausen, who had used
only the German language, he preached in Latin to the learned, and in the
vernacular to the multitude. At first, his Bohemian sermons had little effect
on account of his somewhat foreign pronunciation; but this difficulty was
gradually overcome, and Militz was heard four or five
times a day by enthusiastic audiences. Usurers were persuaded by his eloquence
to give up their gains, and women to renounce the vanities of dress; and so
powerful was he in exhorting prostitutes to forsake a life of sin, that under
his teaching a part of the city which had been known as Little Venice acquired
the title of Little Jerusalem. Like Conrad, Militz attacked the mendicant system; but, whereas Conrad had confined himself to
practical subjects, Militz plunged into apocalyptic
speculations. Seeing in the corruption of the church a proof that antichrist
was already come, he wrote a tract in which he fixed the end of the world
between 1365 and 1367; he even told Charles IV to his face that he was the
great antichrist, yet he did not by this forfeit the emperor’s regard. In 1357 Militz felt an irresistible impulse to set forth his
opinions to Urban V, who was then about to remove to Rome. He arrived there
before the pope, and by announcing his intention of discoursing on the coming
of antichrist, provoked an imprisonment in the convent of Ara Coeli; but he was able to justify his orthodoxy before
Urban, and was allowed to return to Prague. From this time he abandoned
apocalyptic subjects, but was unwearied in his labours as a preacher; and he
established a school for preachers, at which 200 or 300 students were trained
under one roof, but without any vow or monastic rule. Some years later, twelve
charges against him were brought before Gregory XI,—among other things, that he
disparaged the clergy from the pope downwards; that he denounced their
possession of property; that he denied the force of excommunication; and that
he insisted on daily communion. In order to meet these charges, Militz repaired to Avignon, but while his case was pending
he died there in i374.
Among the
pupils of Militz was Matthias of Janow,
a young man of knightly family, who afterwards studied for six years at Paris,
and thence was styled “Magister Parisiensis”. In 1381
Matthias became a canon of Prague, and he was confessor to the emperor Charles.
The influence of Matthias, unlike that of Conrad and of Militz,
was exerted chiefly by means of his writings. One of these—a tract, “Of the
Abomination of Desolation”, mainly directed against the mendicant friars—has
been sometimes ascribed to Hus, and sometimes to Wyclif. His chief work, “Of
the Rules of the Old and New Testaments” (which is described as an inquiry into
the characters of real and false Christianity), has never been printed at full
length. Matthias went considerably beyond those practical measures of reform
with which his predecessors had contented themselves; indeed it may be said
that the later reformer Hus rather fell short of him in this respect than
exceeded him. Matthias professed to regard Holy Scripture as the only source of
religious knowledge, and declared himself forcibly against human inventions and
precepts in religion. He was strongly opposed to the encroachments of the
papacy on the church; he regarded the pope rather as antichrist than as
Christ’s vicar; and he describes antichrist (whom he declares to have come
long ago), in terms which seem to point at the degenerate and worldly
hierarchy. He denounced the clergy in general for the vices which he imputed to
them, and appears to have reprobated the greatness of the distinction which was
commonly made between the clergy and the laity. Matthias was especially zealous
for frequent communion of the lay people. He denied the sufficiency of what was
called spiritual communion : “If we were angels”, he said, “it might possibly
be enough; but for our mixed nature of body and soul an actual reception of the
sacrament is necessary”; and this he deduced from the doctrine of the
incarnation itself. Those (he said) who receive but once a year come to the
sacrament in a spirit of bondage, and cannot know the true Christian liberty.
It was supposed in later times that Matthias had advocated the administration
of the eucharistic cup to the laity; but this appears to be a mistake. For some
of the opinions imputed to him—among other things, for insisting on daily
communion of the laity—he was condemned by a synod held at Prague in 1388, and,
having submitted to make a retractation, was suspended for half a year from
ministering beyond his own parish church.But he
appears to have continued his teaching with little change, and to have been
suffered to remain unmolested until his death in 1394.
As to the
orthodoxy of these men (who, although not the only Bohemian reformers of their
time, were the most distinguished among them) there have been various opinions
within the Roman church, as the Bohemian writers generally maintain that they
were sound in faith, and in favour of this view (which is commonly rejected by
writers of other nations) are able to point to the fact that they all lived and
died within the communion of Rome.
Thus far the
reforming movement in Bohemia had been wholly independent of any English
influence. Indeed no country of Europe might seem so unlikely to feel such
influence as Bohemia—far removed as it is on all sides from any communication
with our island by sea, and with a population wholly alien in descent and in
language from any of the tribes which have contributed to form our nation. Yet
by the accession of Charles of Luxemburg to the throne of Bohemia, and by the
marriage of his daughter Anne with Richard of England, the two countries were
brought into a special connexion. The princess, whose pious exercises and study
of the Scriptures were afterwards commemorated in a funeral sermon by
archbishop Arundel,had been so far affected by the
reforming movements of her own land (where each of the three men who have been
mentioned above had enjoyed the favour of her father), that she brought with
her to England versions of the Gospels in the Germanand Bohemian tongues as well as in Latin; and when, after her death, her Bohemian
attendant returned to their own country, it would seem that they carried with
them much of Wyclif’s doctrine. A literary intercourse also grew up between the
countries. Young Bohemians studied at Oxford; young Englishmen resorted to the
university which Charles had founded in the Bohemian capital. Wyclif was
already held in high honour there on account of his philosophical and physical
works, which were regarded without any suspicion on account of his religious
teaching; thus Hus said in 1411 that Wyclif’s writings had been read at Prague
by himself and other members of the university for more than twenty years.
John Hus,
the most famous, if not the most remarkable, of the Bohemian reformers, was
born in a humble condition at Hussinecz, a village
near the Bavarian frontier, in i369, the year of Conrad of Waldhausen’s death. His education was completed at Prague, where it would seem that he was
influenced by the teaching of Matthias of Janow; and
among the writers whom he most revered were St. Augustine and Grossetete. By such studies he was prepared to welcome some
theological writings of Wyclif, which were introduced into Bohemia in 1402. In
his earlier years he had been devoted to the prevailing fashion of religion; at
the jubilee of 1393 he had gone through all the prescribed devotions in order
to obtain the indulgence, and had given his last four groschen to the priest
who heard his confession; and, although he had already adopted Wyclif’s
philosophical principles, he was at first so little attracted by his theology
that he advised a young student, who had shown him one of the books, to burn it
or to throw it into the Moldau, lest it should fall
into hands in which it might do mischief. But he soon found himself fascinated;
Wyclif’s books gave him new light as to the constitution of the church and as
to the reforms which were to be desired in it, and from them his whole system
of opinion took its character. It would seem, however, that on the important
question of transubstantiation he never adopted Wyclif’s doctrine, but adhered
throughout to that which was current in the church. When, at a later time, the
testimonial in favour of Wyclif, under the seal of the university of Oxford,
was produced in Bohemia by Peter Payne and Nicolas von Faulfisch,
Hus eagerly caught at its supposed authority; but in this he seems to have been
a dupe, not an accomplice, of the forgery.
Hus became
noted, as even his enemies allow, for the purity of his life, his ascetic
habits, and his pleasing manners. In 1402 he was chosen as rector of the
university, and in the same year he was ordained to the priesthood, and was
appointed preacher at a chapel which had been founded eleven years before with
an especial view to preaching in the vernacular tongue, and to which the
founders—a merchant and one of the king’s councillors—had given the name of
Bethlehem (the house of bread), on account of the spiritual food which was to
be there distributed. Soon after this, Hus became confessor to the queen,
Sophia, and acquired much influence at the court of Wenceslaus. He was also
appointed synodal preacher, and in this character had the privilege of
frequently addressing the clergy, whom he rebuked with a vehemence which was
more likely to enrage than to amend them. He charged them with ambition and
ostentation, with luxury and avarice, with contempt and oppression of the poor
and with subserviency to the rich; with vindictiveness, which is said to have given
rise to a proverb, “If you offend a clerk, kill him, or you will never have
peace”; with usury, drunkenness, indecent talking, concubinage, and
incontinency; with gaming, betrayal of confession, and neglect of their
spiritual duties. He denounced them for exacting fees, for simoniacal practices, for holding pluralities : thus, on one occasion, when requesting the
prayers of his hearers for a deceased ecclesiastic, he said, “Saving the judgment
of God, I would not for the whole world choose to die with so many and valuable
benefices”. It was a natural result of such preaching that Hus raised up
against himself much bitter enmity on the part of his brethren.
In 1403, Zbynko of Hasenburg was appointed
to the see of Prague, which, through the influence of king John, had been
detached from the province of Mayence, and invested
with metropolitical dignity by Clement VI. The new archbishop, although a man
of the world, so that he took part in warlike enterprises, was desirous of
reforming ecclesiastical abuses; and for a time Hus enjoyed his favour. It was
by Zbynko that the office of synodal preacher was
conferred; and he even invited Hus to point out any defects which he
might observe in his administration.
The
archbishop’s confidence in Hus was especially shown by appointing him, with two
others, to investigate an alleged miracle, which had raised the village of Wilsnack, in Brandenburg, to a sudden celebrity. The church
there had been burnt by a robber knight, and the priest, in groping among the
ruins, had found in a cavity of the altar three consecrated wafers of a red
colour, which was supposed to be produced by the Saviour’s blood. The bishop of Havelberg and the archbishop of Magdeburg, within
whose jurisdiction Wilsnack was situated, took up the
tale; innumerable cures were said to have been wrought by the miraculous host;
by making vows to it, prisoners had obtained deliverance, and combatants had
gained the victory in duels; and the offerings of the pilgrims whom it
attracted were enough to rebuild the whole village, with a new and magnificent
church. The Bohemian commissioners, however, detected much imposture in the
alleged cures; and Hus set forth a tract, “On the glorified Blood of Christ”,
in which he combated the popular superstitions as to relics and the craving
after miracles, and strongly denounced the frauds of the clergy, who for the
sake of money deluded the credulous people. In consequence of this archbishop Zbynko forbade all resort from his own diocese to Wilsnack, although the miraculous hosts continued to
attract pilgrims until they were burnt by a reforming preacher in 1552.
But it soon
became evident that the archbishop and Hus must separate. Hus’s attacks on the
clergy were renewed, and charges of Wyclifism were
formally brought against him. The archbishop complained to the king; but
Wenceslaus is said to have replied, “So long as Master Hus preached against us
laymen, you rejoiced at it; now your turn is come, and you must be content to
bear it.”
In the
university also Hus became involved in quarrels. The founder, Charles IV, had
divided it, after the example of Paris, into four nations—Bohemians, Saxons,
Bavarians, and Poles. But as two of these were German, and as the Polish
nation, being more than half composed of Silesians, Pomeranians, and Prussians,
was under German influence, the Bohemians found that in their own university
they were liable to be overpowered in the election of officers, and in all
sorts of other questions, by the votes of foreigners. Hence a feeling of hostility
grew up, and extended itself even to matters of opinion, so that, as the
Germans were nominalists, the Bohemians were realists, and were inclined to
liberal principles in religion. Into these differences Hus eagerly threw himself,
and he found his most zealous supporter in a layman of noble family, named
Jerome. Jerome was a man of ardent and impetuous character, restless and
enterprising, gifted with a copious eloquence, but without discretion to
guide it. He had travelled much—to England, to Russia, to Jerusalem—sometimes
affecting the character of a philosopher and theologian, sometimes that of a
knight and man of the world, and in many places meeting with strange
adventures; he professed to have graduated as a master of arts at Prague,
Heidelberg, Cologne, and Paris. He himself states that, when in England, he was
induced by the celebrity of Wyclif’s name to make copies of the Dialogue and of
the Trialogue; and he was zealous for the English reformer’s doctrines.
It was a law
of the Bohemian university that, while doctors and masters were at liberty to
lecture without restraint, bachelors were required to use as texts the lectures
of some reputed teacher of Prague, Oxford, or Paris; and in this manner
Wyclif’s writings came to be much employed and known there. But this naturally
excited opposition, and in forty-five propositions ascribed to Wyclif—partly
derived from the council of the earthquake, and partly a new selection—were
condemned by the nations which predominated in the university. Hus declined to
join unreservedly in this condemnation; he called in question the genuineness
of the propositions, and declared that, although no devoted follower of
Wyclif, he believed the Englishman’s writings to contain many truths. Others
took a similar part, and the impugned articles found a defender in Stanislaus
of Znaym, who afterwards became one of Hus’s
bitterest enemies. The contest went on. In 1405 the archbishop was desired by
Innocent VII to be zealous in suppressing the heresies which were said to be
rife in Bohemia; and in consequence of this he uttered denunciations against
the adherents of Wyclif, especially with regard to his eucharistic doctrine. In
1408 Stephen, a Carthusian, and prior of Dolan, put forth a formal treatise
against Wyclif’s opinions, and in the same year the forty-five propositions
were again condemned by the university.
Wenceslaus,
although deeply angered at the part which the popes had taken as to his
deposition from the empire, was unwilling that his kingdom should lie under the
imputation of heresy, more especially as such a charge would have interfered
with the hope which he still cherished of recovering his lost dignity. In 1408,
therefore, he desired the archbishop of Prague to inquire into the state of
religion; and the result was that the archbishop, with a synod, declared
Bohemia to be free from the taint of Wyclifism. But
he ordered that all copies of Wyclif’s writings should be given up for
examination and correction—an order, which, even if seriously meant, appears to
have been ineffectual; and it was forbidden that Wyclif’s propositions should
be taught in the university in their heretical sense (for as to the real
meaning of some of them there was a dispute), and that any one should lecture
on his Trialogue or on his work on the eucharist.
The part
which the university had taken in the late proceeding incited Hus and Jerome to
attempt an important change in its constitution; and their plans were favoured
by the circumstances of the time. The council of Pisa was about to meet.
Wenceslaus, influenced by France and hoping to recover the empire, took part
with it, while the university, under the dominating influence of the German
nations, adhered to Gregory
XII.
Hence the king was disposed to fall in with Hus’s scheme; and in January 1409
he decreed that the Bohemian nation should for the future have three votes in
the university, while the other three nations collectively should have but one
vote; in like manner (it was said), as the French had three votes at Paris, and
the Italians at Bologna. It was in vain that the Germans petitioned against
this; and, after having solemnly bound themselves by an engagement that, if the
decree should be carried out, they would withdraw from Prague and would never
return, they found themselves obliged to fulfil their threat. Out of more than
7000 members of the university, only 2000 were left; of the 5000 seceders, some
attached themselves to existing universities, such as Cracow, while others
founded the universities of Ingolstadt and Leipzig. Hus was again chosen rector
of the Bohemian university; but, while stories to his discredit were sedulously
spread in foreign countries by those who charged him with having expelled them
from Prague, he found that his success had also raised up against him many
enemies at home, especially among those citizens of Prague whose interests had
suffered through the withdrawal of the foreign students.
Hus had been
zealous for the council of Pisa, as promising a better hope of reform than any
that was to be expected from a pope, and he exerted himself actively in
detaching those whom he could influence from the party of Gregory XII. By this
he drew on himself, in common with others who had opposed Gregory, a sentence
from the archbishop of suspension from preaching and from all priestly
functions; while, on the other hand, many of the clergy who adhered to Gregory
were severely treated by the king. The prohibition of preaching was unheeded by
Hus, who seems to have believed that his ordination gave him a privilege as to
this of which he could not be deprived. The chapel of Bethlehem resounded with
his unsparing invectives against the vices of all classes of men; and cardinal
Peter d’Ailly seems to have had reason for telling
him, long after, that he had done wrong in denouncing the faults of cardinals
and prelates before audiences which were not qualified to understand or to
judge of such topics, and could only be inflamed by them. Fresh charges were
now brought against him—that by his preaching he fomented quarrels between the
Bohemians and the Germans; that he abused the clergy and the archbishop, so
that a mob excited by him had once beset the archiepiscopal palace; that he
persisted in his attacks notwithstanding all warnings, and drew people from
their parish churches to listen to them; that he had spoken of Wyclif as a
venerable man, who had been called a heretic because he spoke the truth,and had expressed a wish that his soul might be with
that of Wyclif; that he denied the power of the church in punishing;
that he mocked at the authority of the church and her doctors; that he denied
the validity of ministrations performed by one who was in mortal sin; and that,
without distinguishing between exactions and free gifts, he condemned as a heretic
any priest who received money in connexion with the administration of a
sacrament. As to some of these points it would seem that he was not really
chargeable with anything more than the indiscretion of using language which was
almost certain to be misunderstood. Thus he declared that in his words about
Wyclif’s soul he had not taken it on himself positively to affirm the English
doctor’s salvation; and he admitted that God’s sacraments are validly
administered by evil as well as by good priests, forasmuch as the Divine power
operates alike through both.
Archbishop Zbynko at length found himself obliged to yield as to the
council of Pisa, and to acknowledge his pope, Alexander V. The change was
unfavourable to Hus, as the pope was now more likely to listen to the
archbishop’s representations. In consequence of these, Alexander addressed to Zbynko a bull, stating that the errors of the condemned
heresiarch Wyclif were reported to be rife in Bohemia, and desiring him to
forbid all preaching except in cathedral, parochial, or monastic churches. In
compliance with this bull, the archbishop ordered that preaching in private
chapels should cease, and it was understood that Bethlehem chapel was
especially aimed at. The bull was received with great indignation by the
Bohemian nobles. Hus declared that it had been surreptitiously obtained; that
he could not, out of obedience either to the archbishop or to the pope, refrain
from preaching; he appealed “from the pope ill-informed to the pope when he
should be better informed”; he contended that Bethlehem chapel did not fall
under the prohibition, and, in reliance on the deed of foundation and on his
appeal, he continued to preach as before.
A fresh
order was issued by the archbishop that all copies of Wyclif’s writings should
be delivered up; and a commission of doctors, being appointed to examine them,
condemned not only the Dialogue and the Trialogue, with the treatises on the
Eucharist, on Simony, and on Civil Dominion, but a work on the Reality of
Universals, and other writings of a purely philosophical nature. It was
announced that there was to be a great bonfire of Wyclif’s books. The
university petitioned the king against this, and Zbynko assured him that it should not be carried out without his consent. But in
violation of this promise, and under the pretence that Wenceslaus had not
expressly forbidden the burning, the archbishop soon after surrounded his
palace with guards, and caused about two hundred volumes of Wyclif’s writings,
with some works of Militz and others,—many of them
precious for beauty of penmanship and of binding—to be committed to the flames,
while Te Deum was chanted and all the
bells of the churches were rung “as if for the dead”. Two days later Hus and
his associates in the late protest were solemnly excommunicated. Yet the
condemned books had not been all destroyed, and fresh copies were speedily
multiplied.
By these
proceedings a great excitement was produced. The archbishop, while publishing
his ban in the cathedral, was interrupted by a serious outbreak; and there
were fights in which some lives were lost.The archbishop
was derided in ballads as an “alphabetarian”, who had burnt books which he
could not read. Hus, in his sermons, condemned the burning in a more serious
strain. It had not, he said, rooted out any evil from a single heart, but had
destroyed many good and holy thoughts; it had given occasion for disorder,
hatred, even bloodshed. He also set forth a treatise in which he maintained,
on the authority of fathers and ecclesiastical writers, that the books of
heretics (under which name he would not include any one who did not contradict
Holy Scripture “by word, writing, or deed”), ought not to be burnt, but read.He declared, with reference to the archbishop’s
prohibitions and censures, that he must obey God, and not man; and he, with
some friends, announced that on certain days they would publicly defend certain
of Wyclif’s books against all assailants.
On the
election of John XXIII as pope, Hus renewed his appeal; and the king and queen
wrote letters in his favour, requesting that the prohibition of preaching
except in churches of certain kinds might be withdrawn, so that there should be
no interference with Bethlehem chapel. Commissioners were appointed to inquire
into the case, and Hus was cited to appear at Bologna; but he was advised
by his friends that his life would be in danger, as plots were laid to cut him
off by the way. It seemed to him that to expose himself to death without any
prospect of advantage to the church would be a tempting of God; he therefore
contented himself with sending advocates to plead his cause,
while the king, the queen, and the nobles of Bohemia, the university of Prague
and the magistrates of the city, entreated the pope by letters that he might be
excused from obeying the citation in person, and might be allowed to carry on
his ministry as before. The representatives whom Hus sent to Bologna were unable
to obtain a hearing; some of them were imprisoned and otherwise ill treated; and Cardinal Brancacci,
the last commissioner to whom the affair was referred, pronounced against
him—excommunicating him with all his adherents, and decreeing that any place in
which he might be should be interdicted. Archbishop Zbynko soon after uttered an interdict against Prague, whereupon Wenceslaus, in anger,
punished some of the clergy for obeying it, while both he and his queen
continued their intercessions with the pope in behalf of Hus, and entreated
that the orthodoxy of Bohemia might not be defamed through misrepresentations.
After a time, the archbishop, finding that he was unable to make head against
the opposing influences, and that pope John was not likely to give him any
effective support, became desirous of a compromise. A commission of ten
persons, appointed by the king to consider how peace might be restored, advised
that the archbishop should report Bohemia to be free from the infection of
heresy, and should request the pope to recal the citation
of Hus with the excommunication which had been pronounced against him. To this Zbynko consented; but, although a letter to the pope had
been prepared, the execution of the plan was prevented by the archbishop’s
death, when on his way to invoke the support of the king’s brother, Sigismund
of Hungary, in the religious distractions of Bohemia.
In September
1411 Hus addressed to the pope a letter which was intended to vindicate himself
against the misrepresentations which had been made of his opinions. He denies
having taught that the material bread remains in the sacrament of the altar;
that the host, when elevated, is Christ’s body, but ceases to be so when
lowered again; that a priest in mortal sin cannot consecrate; that secular
lords may refuse to pay tithes, and may take away the possessions of the
clergy. He also denied that he had caused the withdrawal of the Germans from
Prague; it was, he said, the effect of the resolution which they had taken in
the belief that without them the university could not subsist. He maintained
that Bethlehem was not a private chapel, explained his reasons for not
complying with the citation to the papal court, and entreated that he might be
excused on this account, and might be released from the consequences which had
followed.
The
successor of Zbynko was Albic of Uniczow,
who, before entering into holy orders, had been the king’s physician. The dean
of Passau, who conveyed the pall for the new archbishop, was also the bearer of
a papal bull, by which a crusade was proclaimed against Ladislaus,
king of Naples, as being excommunicate, with large offers of indulgences and
other privileges. Wenceslaus allowed this bull to be published in Bohemia,
although he was soon disgusted by the impudent pretensions and proceedings of
those who undertook the publication, as well as by the serious drain of money
which was paid for commutation of personal service. The German clergy of
Prague obeyed the papal orders; but Hus and Jerome vehemently opposed the bull,
denouncing it as an antichristian act that, for the non-fulfilment of the
conditions 0n which the kingdom of Naples was held under the papacy, a crusade
should be proclaimed against a Christian prince, and that indulgences should
be prostituted by the promise of absolution as a reward for money or for
bloodshed. A new and formidable commotion arose. Some who had hitherto been
associated with Hus—especially Stephen of Palecz, an
eminent doctor of theology—now took the papal side; and thus a breach was made
in the party which had until then been bound together by community of national
feeling and of philosophical and religious opinion. Palecz became one of the bitterest among the opponents of Hus; he and other doctors of
the university wrote against him, and denounced all opposition to the bull; but
Hus persisted in his course, and, when some preachers inveighed against him in
the churches, they were interrupted by the laity, who in general favoured the
reformer. Hus offered to maintain his opinions in disputation, on condition
that, if proved to be wrong, he should be burnt, provided that the other party
would submit to the same fate in case of defeat. But as they offered to
sacrifice only one out of the many who were banded against the solitary champion,
he declared that the terms were unequal, and nothing came of his strange
challenge.
The exciting
discourses of Hus and Jerome were heard with enthusiasm by the students, who
showed their zealous sympathy by escorting them home at night. But this was not
enough for some of their friends, who caused the bull to be paraded about the
city, fixed to the breasts of a prostitute who was seated in a cart, and
afterwards to be burnt at the pillory. The chief contriver of this scene was Woksa of Waldstein, one of the
king’s courtiers; but the impetuous Jerome was so far favourable to it that it
was generally ascribed to him, and afterwards became the foundation of one of
the charges against him at Constance.
Wenceslaus
now forbade all language of insult against the pope, and all resistance to his
bulls, under pain of death. But
Hus continued his preaching, and the excitement became more alarming. One day,
as a preacher of the crusade was setting forth his indulgences in a church, he
was interrupted by three young men, belonging to the class of artisans, who
told him that he lied, that master Hus had taught them the vanity of such
privileges, and that the pope was antichrist for proclaiming them. The three
were carried before the magistrates of the city, and next day were condemned to
die, in accordance with the king’s late decree. Hus earnestly interceded for
them, declaring that, if any one were to be put to death, he was himself more
guilty than they; and the council appears to have promised that their lives
should be spared. But when the popular agitation had been thus calmed, the
young men were hastily executed. The passions of the multitude were now stirred
to the uttermost. When the executioner proclaimed, in the usual form,
“Whoso doth the like, let him expect the like!”, a general cry burst forth, “We
are all ready to do and to suffer the like!” Female devotees dipped their
handkerchiefs in the blood of the victims, and treasured it up as a precious
relic; some of the crowd even licked the blood. The bodies were carried off by
the people, and were borne with solemn pomp to interment in the chapel of
Bethlehem, which thence took the name of the Three Saints or Martyrs. Hus
himself did not hesitate to speak of them as martyrs in sermons and writings;
and, although he had not even been present at the funeral procession, he
continued to the end of his life to be charged with having been the author of
the movement.
The
agitation at Prague continued. Hus combated the abuse of indulgences with
untiring zeal, in sermons, disputations, and tracts; he denied that any human
judge could with certainty forgive sins, and maintained that an excommunication
unjustly uttered was no more to be dreaded than the ban of the Jewish
synagogue. The parties became more violent and exasperated; the Germans were
for pulling down Bethlehem chapel, while, on the other side, Hus had often to
lament the discredit brought on his cause by partisans whose zeal was neither
tempered by discretion nor adorned by consistency of life. Archbishop Albic,
feeling himself unequal to contend with the difficulties of the case,
exchanged his see for a lower but more tranquil dignity, and was succeeded by
Conrad of Vechta, a Westphalian, formerly bishop of
Olmütz, who, after having acted as administrator of the diocese for some
months, was enthroned in July 1413.
The
university of Prague had again condemned the forty-five propositions ascribed
to Wyclif in July 1412; the clergy of the city had addressed to the pope a
letter against Hus; and on the festival of the Purification, 1413, it was
decreed by a council at Rome, under John XXIII, that all Wyclif’s works, of
whatever kind, should be burnt, inasmuch as, although there might be truth in
some of them, it was mixed with error. Hus was excommunicated and anathematized
for his disregard of citations to the papal court. Every place in which he might
be was to be interdicted; all who should countenance him were to be partakers
in his condemnation; and it was ordered that the sentence should be everywhere
published with the most solemn forms of the church. The new archbishop
proceeded, with the king’s consent, to carry out these decrees, pronouncing an
interdict on all Prague except the royal quarter, and ordering that Bethlehem
chapel, as being the centre of the reforming movement, should be demolished.
Hus protested against his condemnation; he set forth an appeal to the Saviour,
in very earnest terms, and, after having caused a protest to be engraved on the
walls of Bethlehem chapel, he withdrew from the tumults of Prague, at the
king’s request, and with an assurance that Wenceslaus would endeavour to bring
about a reconciliation with the clergy. For a time he lived in retirement,
partly in the castles of nobles who favoured his opinions, but chiefly in the
neighbourhood where the Hussite town of Tabor was afterwards founded. He kept
up a lively correspondence with his followers at Prague, whom he exhorted not
to allow the old place of his ministrations to be destroyed; and,
notwithstanding the sentences which had been pronounced against him, he
continued his preaching, which, wherever he went, aroused a strong indignation
against the system of the Roman church, with its corruptions of doctrine and of
practice. His pen, too, was actively employed in the production of writings in
Latin, Bohemian, and German; and to this time belongs the treatise ‘Of the
Church’, which is the most important of his works.
Resting on
the rigid doctrine of predestination, Hus says that to be in the church is not
the same as to be of the church. Some are in the church both in name and
reality; some neither in the one nor in the other, as the foreknown heathen;
some in name only, as the foreknown hypocrites, some in reality, although
nominally they are without, as those predestined Christians whom the officers
of antichrist profess to exclude by ecclesiastical censures. No one can be
assured of his predestination, except through special revelation, so that it
is surprising how the worldly clergy can have the confidence to claim the true
membership of the church. Christ alone is head of the church; St. Peter was not
its head, but was chief of the apostles. The pope is the vicar of St. Peter, if
he walk in his steps; but if he give into covetousness, he is the vicar of
Judas Iscariot. The pope and cardinals are not the body of the church; but they
are the chief part of it as to dignity, if they follow Christ in humility. The
pope owes his pre-eminence to Constantine, whose alleged donation Hus believes
as firmly as he believes the tale of pope Joan. He reprobates the flattery
which was commonly used towards the pope, and denounces the luxury and other
corruptions of the cardinals. He disowns the charge of disobedience to the
church, justifies himself as to the matters which had brought him under
censure, and declares that excommunications, interdicts, and other sentences,
if unjustly pronounced, are of no effect, and are not to be regarded. God
alone, he says, knows to whom sin is to be forgiven; and Christ is the only
true Roman high-priest, whom all are bound to obey in order to salvation.
This
treatise was written in consequence of the proceedings of a synod at Prague,
where Hus was represented by John of Jessinitz, a
doctor of canon law; but there was no definite result; and it was followed up
by other writings against the chiefs of the ecclesiastical party. While Hus had
been compelled to leave Prague, Jerome, too, withdrew, probably of his own
accord, and betook himself again to travel—in the course of which he made his
way into Russia.Before his return, Hus had already
set out to present himself before the council of Constance.
CHAPTER VIII.
FROM THE ELECTION OF POPE ALEXANDER V TO THE END OF THE COUNCIL OF
CONSTANCE.
A.D. 1409-1418.
The hopes of union and of reformation which had been
connected With the council of Pisa were not to be realized. Both Gregory XII
and Benedict XIII continued to maintain their claims to the papacy, so that
instead ef two popes there were now three, or, in the
language of a writer of the time, the church had received a third husband in
addition to those who already claimed her affections. Soon after the election
of Alexander V, Gerson addressed to him a discourse on the duties of his
office; but Alexander was not inclined to benefit by this advice. Although a
learned theologian, he was altogether without the strength of character which
is requisite for government. His easiness of disposition led him to grant all
that was asked of him. Himself careless as to matters of business, he advanced
many Franciscans to places for which they were unfitted by their want of pratical habits; in order to provide for the multitude of
applicants, he increased the offices of his court to such a degree that they
fell into contempt; and although, having no kindred, he was free from the temptations
of nepotism, he was lavish in gifts, especially to the order of which he had
been a member, and in whose society he continued to live. Such was his
profusion in his new dignity, that he spoke of himself as having been rich as a
bishop, poor as a cardinal, but a beggar as pope.Instead of attempting at once the work of reform, he professed to reserve it for a
council which was to meet in 1412; and on the 7th of August 1409 he dissolved
the council of Pisa.Soon after this Alexander
displayed his partiality for his associates, and added to the subjects of
discord which already existed in the church, by a bull, in which he authorized
the members of the mendicant orders to receive tithes, and not only to hear
confessions and to give absolution everywhere, but to administer the other
sacraments, without regard to the rights of bishops or of parish priests; and
the parochial clergy were charged to read in all churches this annihilation of
their own rights, under pain of being punished as contumacious and obstinate
heretics. Immediately a great ferment was excited. While the Augustine friars
and the Franciscans took advantage of it, and the latter especially displayed
much elation on account of their new privileges, the Dominicans and the
Carmelites disowned it, as something which they had not asked for and of which
they had no need. The university of Paris, headed by Gerson, sent envoys to the
papal court for the purpose of inspecting the original document, as if nothing
less than such evidence could be enough to warrant its genuineness; and, as it
professed to be issued with the consent and advice of the cardinals, the envoys
waited on the members of the college individually, whom they found unanimous in
disavowing all concern in it. By this bull were rescinded no less than seven
bulls of former popes. The papal privilege was met in France by the expulsion
of the Franciscans and Augustinians from the university of Paris, and by a
royal order, issued at the request of the university, forbidding the parochial
clergy to let the mendicants hear confessions or preach in their churches.
Gregory XII,
after his attempt to hold a council at Cividale, had withdrawn to Gaeta, where
he lived under the protection of Ladislaus, to whom
it is said that he sold his rights to the sovereignty of Rome and the papal
states. Ladislaus got possession of the city; but
after a time it was regained for Alexander by the legate of Bologna,
Balthazar Cossa, who was aided by Lewis of Anjou, by the Florentines, and by an
insurrection within Rome itself. Alexander was driven from Pisa by a
pestilence; but instead of complying with the invitation of the Romans, who
sent him the keys of their city, he was constrained by Cossa, whose ascendency
over him was absolute, to make his way across the Apennines through snow and
ice to Bologna, where he arrived on the Epiphany, and died on the 3rd of May
1410. His end was generally explained by the ready supposition of poison, and
this was supposed by many to have been administered through the contrivance of
the legate.
On the 16th
of May—the third day after the conclave had been formed—Cossa was chosen as
pope by seventeen cardinals, and took the name of John the Twenty-third. The
accounts of his earlier life are such that we can hardly conceive how, if they
may be believed, he should have been able to gain influence as an ecclesiastic,
and eventually to attain the papal chair by the votes of his brother cardinals;
yet all contemporary writers agree in the substance of the story, and the very
blackest parts of it were brought against him without contradiction at the council
of Constance. Born of a noble Neapolitan family, Cossa had early entered into
the ranks of the clergy; but his clerical profession had not prevented him from
engaging in the piratical warfare between Naples and Hungary; and in this stage
of his life he acquired a habit, which afterwards adhered to him, of waking by
night and sleeping by day. After having resided for some time at Bologna, where
he affected the character of a student, he was made archdeacon of that city by
Boniface IX, who afterwards transferred him to Rome and appointed him papal
chamberlain. In this office Cossa exercised his genius in devising new forms of
corruption for the benefit of the ecclesiastical revenues. To him is ascribed
the system of sending out preachers to vend indulgences with the most impudent
pretensions, while he himself was notorious for enriching himself bysimony and bribes. In 1403 he was sent back to Bologna
as cardinal-legate—partly, it is said, with a view of removing him from the
neighbourhood of his brother’s wife, with whom he carried on a scandalous
intercourse.
At Bologna
he established a despotic and tyrannical power. The people were ground by
taxation, monopolies, and plunder: licenses were sold for the exercise of
infamous occupations—of usury, keeping of gaming-houses, prostitution.His cruelty towards those who offended him was so widely exercised, that it is said
to have visibly thinned the population of the city; his lust was so inordinate,
that within the first year of his legation two hundred maidens, wives, or
widows, and a multitude of consecrated nuns, are said to have fallen victims to
it. He is charged with having bribed the cardinals to desert Gregory, whose
arms he defaced on the public buildings of Bologna before setting out for the
council of Pisa; and in that council he took a prominent part, although, on
being proposed for the papacy, he found it expedient to put forward Alexander,
as one whom he might make his tool, and who was not likely to stand long in his way.At Bologna, the conclave was subject to the
legate’s control, and various stories are told as to the manner in which he
carried his own election, by the use of bribery and of terror; but as, in
the course of the later proceedings against him, no charge was brought on this
point, these stories may perhaps be safely rejected.
John began
his pontificate by promulgating rules for his chancery which sanctioned the
worst of the existing corruptions, and by uttering curses, according to usage,
against his rivals Gregory and Benedict. The growing power of Ladislaus gave just ground for alarm; and John had a
personal cause of dislike against him for having condemned two of the pope’s
own brothers to death as pirates—from the execution of which sentence they had
with difficulty been rescued by the intercession of Boniface IX. John declared
the king to be excommunicate and deposed, and proclaimed a crusade against him
with those offers of indulgences which, as we have seen, excited a commotion in
Bohemia; and, in conjunction with Lewis of Anjou, he carried the war against Ladislaus into southern Italy. At Rocca Secca,
near Ceperano, the pope and his allies gained a
victory; but Lewis was unable to follow up this advantage, and found himself
obliged to return to Provence, from which he made no further attempt on Italy.
After a time
John found it expedient to enter into negotiations with Ladislaus,
who agreed to abandon Gregory XII, but exacted heavy conditions—that the pope
should disallow the claim of Lewis of Anjou to Naples, and that of Peter of
Aragon to Sicily; that he should acknowledge Ladislaus as king of both territories, should declare him standard-bearer of the Roman
church and empire, and should pay him a large sum of money. Gregory, finding
himself obliged to leave the king’s territories, made his way from Gaeta by
sea—not without danger from hostile ships—to Rimini, where he found a refuge
with Charles Malatesta, the only potentate who still adhered to him; and
through this friend he carried on for a time negotiations with pope John—each
of the rivals endeavouring to persuade the other to resign by liberal offers
of compensation.
As if in
fulfilment of the engagements into which his predecessor Alexander had entered,
John affected to summon a council to meet at Rome in 1412, with a view to the
reform of the church. But the number of bishops who attended was very scanty,
and the only result seems to have been a condemnation of Wyclif’s writings,
which were burnt on the steps ot St. Peter’s. The
council broke up without any formal dissolution, in consequence of the troubles
in which the pope was involved.
At Rome John
had been received with acclamations and festive displays; but he soon made
himself detested by the heaviness of the taxation which he imposed. The richer
citizens were drained of their money; officials of all kinds were compelled to
pay largely for their places; a rate was levied on trades and mechanical
occupations; the coin was debased; the duties on wine were increased to such a
degree that the growers found themselves driven from the Roman market. On this
account, and because Ladislaus did not support the
pope in an attempt to extort a second payment of fees from prelates and others
who had held office under Gregory, a fresh rupture took place. The king got posession of Rome by surprise, while John fled to Viterbo
and thence to Florence and Bologna. The palaces of the pope and cardinals were
plundered; many of the churches were turned into stables. The castle of St.
Angelo, after having held out for some time, was treacherously surrendered;
and Ladislaus overran the whole country as far as
Siena.
In the
distress to which he was now reduced, John found himself obliged to turn, as
his only resource, to Sigismund, the emperor-elect. At the death of Rupert, in
May 1410, it had seemed as if the empire, like the church, were to be
distracted between three claimants; for, while some of the electors wished to
bring forward the deposed Wenceslaus again, one party chose his brother, king
Sigismund of Hungary, while another party chose Jobst or Jodocus,
marquis of Moravia. But Jodocus, who is said to have
been ninety years old, was speedily removed by death, and Sigismund received
the votes of those who had before stood aloof from him—among others that of
Wenceslaus himself, with whom he was formally reconciled. For a time
Sigismund’s energies were chiefly occupied by a war with the Venetians for the
possession of Dalmatia; but a truce of five years, concluded in 1413, set him
free to attend to the affairs of the empire and of the church. Sigismund was
the most powerful emperor since the days of Frederick II, and at this time his
influence was the stronger because France and England were about to renew
their great struggle, and France, in addition to its dangers from the foreign enemy,
was a prey to the bloody feuds of the Burgundian and Orleanist factions. The emperor’s noble presence, his accomplishments and knightly
deportment, his love of splendour and magnificence (although this was
continually restrained by pecuniary difficulties arising out of the imprudence
of his youth), procured him general popularity. The faults of his earlier
days—among which faithlessness, harshness, and excessive love of pleasure are
noted—appeared to have been abandoned as the great dignity which he had
attained brought with it a deep feeling of duty and responsibility. Most
especially he was desirous to heal the schism of the church. As king of
Hungary, he had acknowledged John, and at his election to the empire the
archbishop of Mayence had exacted from him an oath
that he would not accept the crown from any other pope than John or a successor
of the same line. With regard to Ladislaus,
Sigismund’s interest was one with that of John; for Ladislaus,
in addition to the ambitious projects which he had formed as to Italy, directly
claimed Sigismund’s kingdom of Hungary, and even had views on the imperial
dignity.
With a view
to the reunion of the church, Sigismund urged on John the necessity of a
general council. If such an assembly were to meet, the question as to the place
of its meeting was important for John’s interest. He himself told his
secretary, Leonard of Arezzo, that it must not be in any place where the
emperor was too powerful; that, while professing to give full powers to the
commissioners whom he was about to send to Sigismund, he intended secretly to
limit their choice to certain Italian cities : but at taking leave of the
commissioners, acting on a sudden impulse, he professed entire confidence in
them, and destroyed the list of places. On finding that they had agreed to fix
on Constance, a town beyond the Alps and within the imperial dominions, he
burst out into bitter reproaches against them, and cursed his own folly in
having departed from his first resolution.At Lodi he
had a meeting with the emperor, and urged on him that the council should be
held in some city of Lombardy; but Sigismund, who had already issued his
summons, was not to be diverted from his purpose. The plea that the patriarchs
and cardinals would be unwilling to cross the Alps was met by the answer that
the ecclesiastical electors of the empire would be equally unwilling to do so
in the opposite direction.
Sigismund,
in respectful terms, exhorted the pope to amend the courses by which he had
scandalized Christendom, especially as to simony; and John promised
compliance. The emperor accompanied him as far as Cremona on his return towards
Bologna. The French reformers, finding that the influence of their own nation
had been insufficient to heal the schism, had now turned their hopes towards
the emperor, and Gerson had urged the assembling of a council on him as a duty
of his office which could not be neglected without mortal sin. In accordance
with this view, Sigismund, as temporal head of Christendom, had sent forth his citation
for a general council, while John, as pope, was persuaded to do the like. The
time fixed in both documents, as if by independent authority, was the first of
November in the following year. The emperor invited both Gregory XII and
Benedict to attend, with their adherents, but refrained from giving to either
of them the title of pope.
John was
already committed to the council, when he was informed that Ladislaus,
against whom he was endeavouring to enlist troops, had suddenly died at
Naples. By this event his position was rendered easier, and less dependent on
the alliance of Sigismund, so that he entertained the idea of taking up his
abode at Rome instead of fulfilling his promise to appear at Constance. Some
of his friends endeavoured to alarm him by telling him that, if he should go to
Constance as pope, he would return as a private man. But the cardinals, fearing
lest he should plunge into hazardous schemes for recovering the whole of the
church’s territory, insisted on the fulfilment of his promise, and he
unwillingly set forth from Bologna.In passing through
the Tyrol, he had an interview with duke Frederick of Austria,whom he knew to be hostile to Sigismund; and it was agreed that in case of necessity
the pope might reckon on the duke’s protection. As John was descending the
Arlberg he was upset in the snow, and vented loud curses on his own folly in
having set out on such an expedition; and when he arrived in sight of
Constance, its appearance drew from him the exclamation, “So are foxes caught”.
Almost from
the beginning of the schism the cries for a reform of the church had been loud
and frequent. Nicolas of Clemanges, then rector of
the university of Paris, had led the way in 1394 by a forcible appeal to the
king of France; and about 1401 appeared a tract ‘Of the Corrupt State of the
Church,’ which has been usually, although perhaps wrongly, ascribed to him. In
this the condition of things is painted in very dark, and perhaps somewhat
exaggerated, colours. The writer enlarges on the decay of the church from the
simplicity of its primitive days. The three great vices of the clergy he
declares to be luxury, pride, and greed; vices which prevail among every class
from the pope downwards. He censures the popes for their usurpation of
patronage, for the unworthy bestowal of it on ignorant and useless men, whereby
the whole order of clergy had fallen into contempt, and for the exactions by
which they oppressed the clergy. He is severe on the corruptions of the Roman
court; on the pride of cardinals, their monstrous pluralities, their simony and
venality, their unedifying manner of life. Bishops neglect their dioceses and
hang about the courts of princes, under the false pretence of being needed as
their counsellors; they are intent on getting money by discreditable means, and
spend their time in frivolous and indecent amusements. Canons imitate in their
degree the faults of the bishops. Monks are so much worse than others as by
their profession they ought to be better; and mendicants vitiate the good
deeds which they claim by their unseemly boasting of them, so that they are the
Pharisees of the church, and our Lord’s condemnations of the Jewish Pharisees
are applicable to them. In conclusion the writer warns of dangers which are at
hand, and declares that the only safety for the church is in humiliation and amendment.Peter d'Ailly, now
cardinal and archbishop of Cambray, agreed with other writers in desiring
reform, but saw greater practical hindrances in the way; and in 1410 he put
forth a tract, ‘Of the Difficulty of Reformation in a General Council’, urging
the vacancy of the empire, the disorganized condition of the church, and the
danger that the cardinals might not agree in an election, or might increase the
existing perplexities. To this a reply was made in a treatise ‘On the Ways of
Uniting and Reforming the Church in a General Council,’ which has been commonly
(but perhaps incorrectly) attributed to Gerson. The writer is strongly opposed
to the assumptions and to the corruptions of the papacy. He considers that the
necessity of the case is so strong as to overpower all ordinary difficulties.
The pope, he says, is not above the gospel; he received his office for the
general good, and for the general good he ought to resign it, if necessary. The
popes should be urged to cession; and if this cannot be obtained, it would be
legitimate to pursue the great object even by the use of fraud, violence,
bribery, imprisonment, and death. In such a question all Christians, even to
the lowest in station, are interested; all, and more especially those in high
authority, are entitled to interfere. The emperor, as general advocate of the
church, ought to call a general council, and a new pope ought to be chosen, who
must neither be one of the existing claimants, nor a member of the college of
cardinals; for cardinals ought, in the writer’s opinion, to be always regarded
as ineligible on account of the danger of collusion, which might lead to the
choice of unsuitable men. And the work concludes with suggesting some reforms
which the future council ought to take in hand.
The
influence of the school to which these writers belonged had been apprehended by
John, and he had endeavoured to gain them by bestowing large privileges and
other benefits on the university of Paris, and by raising Peter d’Ailly, as one of its most eminent members, to the
dignity of cardinal.
The eyes of
all Christendom were now turned with intense interest to the expected council.
It was not merely to decide between the claims of rival popes, but was to
settle the question whether a pope or a general council were the highest
authority in the church. As the time of meeting drew near, multitudes of every
class poured into Constance, and the arrivals continued for some months after
the opening of the council. Of the ecclesiastical members, some appeared in
plain and simple style, and others in pomp which displayed the union of secular
wealth with ecclesiastical dignity. Among the latter class John of Nassau, the
primate of Germany, distinguished himself by entering the city in complete
armour, attended by a splendid train of 352 men, with 700 horses. The whole
number of ecclesiastics present, with their attendants, is reckoned at 18,000.
During the sittings of the council there were usually 50,000 strangers within
the walls of Constance; sometimes twice that number, with 30,000 horses. Among
those who were attracted to the great ecclesiastical assembly by the hope of
gain were persons of all sorts—merchants and traders, lawyers in great numbers
and in all their varieties, artists and craftsmen, players, jugglers, and
musicians to the number of 1700, and no less than 700 avowed prostitutes.
John had
obtained from the magistrates of Constance certain privileges as to
jurisdiction. He ordered the arms of his rival Gregory to be torn down from the
lodgings of Gregory’s representative, the cardinal of Ragusa; and when this act
was afterwards called in question, the majority of the council justified it on
the ground that such a display ought not to have been made within the
territories where John was acknowledged, nor unless Gregory himself were
present.
On the 5th
of November the council was opened with a solemn service; and on the 16th the
first general session was held. Among the members of the council (of whom,
however, many did not arrive until later) were the titular patriarchs of
Constantinople, Antioch, and Jerusalem, twenty-two cardinals, twenty
archbishops, nearly a hundred bishops and thirty-three titular bishops, a
hundred and twenty-four abbots, and two hundred and fifty doctors, with many
secular princes or representatives of princes.
Of the
Italian prelates, the most active in the council was Zabarella,
cardinal-archbishop of Florence; of those from the northern kingdoms, the
leaders were Peter d’Ailly and the bishop of
Salisbury, Robert Hallam, who had already borne a conspicuous part in the
council of Pisa.
The
treasures which John had at his disposal enabled him to exercise much
influence. He contrived, by underhand movements, to divide the interests of the
various nations, and to distract them from an agreement in action; and it is
said that he made himself master of secrets through informants who resorted to
him by night, and whom he was accustomed to absolve formally from the guilt of
perjury which they incurred by their revelations.
Very early
in the proceedings of the council there were indications of a spirit which it
was impossible for John to misinterpret. Thus, when it was proposed by some
Italians, on the 7th of December, that the council of Pisa should be
confirmed—a step by which the new assembly would have bound itself to the pope
of the line there established—it was resolved, in opposition to this proposal,
that the council should be regarded as a continuation of that of Pisa, and
therefore could not confirm its acts; and it was evident that the intention was
not to decide between the rival claimants of the papacy, but to persuade all
three to a cession of their claims, and to elect a new pope to the vacant
office.
On the
morning of Christmas-day, before dawn, Sigismund, who had lately received the
German crown at Aix-la-Chapelle, arrived at Constance, having crossed the lake
in a boat: and forthwith he proceeded to assist at a solemn mass which was
celebrated by the pope. Habited in a dalmatic, and with the crown on his head,
he read (according to the privilege of his office) the gospel of the decree
which went out from Caesar Augustus; and the words were heard as betokening an
assertion of the imperial superiority over the papacy. John put into his hand
a sword for the defence of the church: and the emperor swore that he would
always labour for that end to the utmost of his power. But, although this
engagement was sincerely made, Sigismund was firmly resolved to pursue his own policy,
instead of lending himself to the pope’s schemes; and it was in vain that John,
knowing the necessities by which he was encumbered in the attempt to maintain
the state of imperial dignity, endeavoured to propitiate him by presents or
loans of money.
Three days
later, cardinal d’Ailly preached before the emperor,
from the text, “There shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the
stars”. The sun he interprets as representing the papacy, the moon as the
imperial power, the stars as the various estates of the church. There can, he
holds, neither be real reform without union, nor real union without reform. The
pope, if he deviate from the likeness of the sun by entering ill, by living
ill, by ruling ill, is but a false image of the sun. There cannot be three suns, but only one true sun. The emperor attends the
council, not that he may be over it, but that he may benefit it; not to define
spiritual and ecclesiastical matters by royal authority, but to maintain by his
power those things which the synod shall determine. The members of the
council—the stars—are assembled by the call of the supreme pontiff, who alone
has the right to convoke general councils. The stars are to have their share of
influence, as well as the sun and the moon. The power of decreeing and defining
belongs, not to the pope alone, but to the whole general council; and to assert
the contrary is a flattery of the pope which deserves to be severely
reprobated.
In order to
avoid disputes as to precedence, it was arranged that the members of the
council should sit promiscuously, and that this should not be regarded as
infringing on the privileges of any one.But questions
arose as to the right and as to the manner of voting. In earlier councils the
power of voting had been restricted to bishops and abbots; but d’Ailly argued that it ought now to be extended to other
classes; that the precedents of ancient councils showed much variety; that as
the present questions did not relate to the church’s faith or to the
sacraments, the examples of former times were not binding; that the titular
bishops, of whom many were present at the council, were not entitled to be held
of the same account with the bishops of the earlier church; that the learning
possessed by doctors of theology and of civil and canon law—a class which had
arisen out of the universities, and had, therefore, been unknown in the days
of the older councils—was of such value as to render them fitter to be members
of a council than an ignorant bishop or abbot; and that the representatives of
princes, of absent prelates, and of capitular churches, ought also to be
admitted. Fillastre, cardinal of St. Mark, in arguing
on the same side, maintained that many parish priests were, both by the weight
of their character and by the importance of their charges, more to be regarded
than some bishops; and he declared “that an ignorant king or prelate is but a
crowned or mitred ass”. The arguments for extending the right of voting
prevailed, to the disadvantage of John, who had relied on the numbers of his
titular bishops. But his interest was yet more seriously affected by a novelty
which was introduced as to the manner of voting. Hitherto the decisions of
councils had been determined by a majority of the whole body. But as John had
at his command a host of insignificant prelates—titulars,
officials of his court, and needy occupants of petty Italian sees—it was
proposed, in order to counteract this undue influence, that each nation should
debate by itself, and that the final decision should be given by the
representatives of the several nations, which were thus to be on an equality.
This proposal, derived from the arrangements of the university of Paris, was
carried by the emperor’s influence; and the four nations—Italian, French,
German, and English—proceeded to their separate deliberations. Their meetings
were held in the refectories and chapter-houses of the various convents in the
town, while the general sessions of the council took place in the cathedral.
Cardinal Fillastre, who, as dean of Reims, had formerly been a
zealous champion of the papacy, sent forth a paper, in which, after a consideration
of other expedients, it was proposed that each of the rival popes should cede
his claims, and should receive valuable preferment in the church by way of
consolation. On becoming acquainted with this scheme, John is said to have been
violently angry; but stronger measures were at hand.
A paper of
charges against John was produced before the council—it is supposed, by an Italian.These charges were in part so dark and monstrous
that it was said that they ought to be kept secret, out of reverence for the
papal office, and in order to avoid the general scandal of Christendom. John,
who through his secret informants became aware of the movement, was inclined to
admit some of the accusations, to deny others, and to take his stand on a
supposed principle that a pope could not be deposed except for heresy; but he
was persuaded by his confidential advisers to await the progress of events. In
the meantime the German, French, and English nations, without knowing that he
had any suspicion of the charges, resolved that he should be advised to resign
his dignity; and John, alarmed by intelligence which he had secretly gained,
agreed to the proposal, with the condition that his rivals should also resign.
Immediately after having entered into this engagement, he began to attempt an
escape from it; he rejected two forms of cession which were proposed by the
council, and the council rejected a form of his proposing; but at length he was
induced, at the second general session, to swear before the high altar of the
cathedral, after having himself celebrated mass, that he would freely resign
the papacy if the other claimants would also resign, or if in any other way his
resignation might extinguish the schism and restore peace to the church. This
promise was received with unbounded joy; the emperor kissed John’s feet, and
thanked him in the name of the council, and the patriarch of Antioch added the
thanks of the whole church. Te Deum was sung, and the bells of the cathedral announced the happy event
to the world. When, however, John was asked to put his engagement
into the form of a bull, he refused with vehement anger; but on being requested
by Sigismund in person, he saw that further resistance would be useless, and on
the 7th of March he issued a bull of the desired tenor.
It was
Sigismund’s wish that the council should settle the religious difficulties
which had arisen in Bohemia, as well as the great schism. He therefore
requested his brother Wenceslaus to send Hus to Constance, and promised him a
safe-conduct. Hus, who had always professed to desire the opportunity of
appealing to a general council, willingly accepted the summons. He presented
himself before a synod held by the archbishop of Prague in August 1414, and
publicly challenged any one to impugn his faith, on condition of suffering, in
case of defeat, the same penalties which would have fallen on Hus if convicted.The challenge was not accepted, and Palecz describes the Hussite party as so exasperated that
it was unsafe to call them by their leader’s name. The archbishop, on being
questioned by the nobles who befriended Hus, declared that he had no charge of
heresy to bring against him, but that as he had been accused by the pope, he
must make his excuses to the pope; and they wrote to Sigismund, requesting that
Hus might be allowed to defend himself freely, lest Bohemia should be unjustly
discredited. Hus obtained certificates of his orthodoxy from the king, from the
archbishop, and from the papal inquisitor for Bohemia—Nicolas, bishop of
Nazareth, to whom he had submitted himself for examination. Yet in truth his
position was one which it is now hardly possible to understand; for while he
believed himself to be a faithful adherent of the system established in the
church, his opinions were, in some respects, such as later experience has shown
to be altogether subversive of it.
On the eve
of setting out for the council he showed some signs of misgiving. He was warned
by friends not to trust the promised safe-conduct; and some letters which he
wrote by way of farewell indicate a foreboding that he might never be allowed
to return. On the nth of October, without waiting for the arrival of the
safe-conduct, Hus began his journey under the escort of three noblemen
appointed by the Bohemian king, John and Henry of Chlum,
and Wenceslaus of Dubna. As he passed through the
towns of Germany, he offered to give an account of his faith, and engaged in
frequent discussions. Notwithstanding the old national quarrel as to the
university of Prague (which was afterwards revived as a charge against him), he
was well received everywhere, especially at Nuremberg; nor was there any
attempt to enforce the interdict which had been pronounced against any place in
which he might be.
On the 3rd
of November Hus arrived at Constance, and two days later (on the very day of
the opening of the council) he received the promised safe-conduct, which
Sigismund had granted at Spires on the 14th of October. In answer to an
application by John of Chlum, John XXIII declared
that Hus should be safe at Constance if he had slain the pope’s own brother;
and he suspended the interdict and ban, although he desired that Hus should
refrain from attendance at mass, lest some excitement should arise. But Hus
never ceded his right to perform the priestly functions, and he continued to
celebrate mass as before. In the meantime two of his bitterest enemies
arrived at Constance,—Stephen of Palecz, whose breach
with him has been already mentioned, and one Michael of Deutschbrod,
who, after having been a parish priest at Prague, had become a projector of
mining speculations, but had since been appointed by the pope to the office of
proctor in causes of faith, and thence was commonly styled De Causis. These and other adversaries posted upon the
doors of churches bills denouncing Hus as an excommunicated and obstinate
heretic; they supplied the pope, the cardinals, and other members of the
council with extracts maliciously selected from his writings; they circulated
tales and rumours against him, representing his errors as of the darkest kind,
and yet as so popular in Bohemia that, if he were allowed to return, the lives
of the clergy would not be safe there.
Proposals
were made by which Hus might probably have been allowed to escape easily; but
he had always insisted on a public hearing, and he looked for the expected
arrival of the emperor. By the industrious exertions of his enemies, and by a
false report that he had attempted a flight from Constance, the authorities
were persuaded to place him under restraint. On the 28th of November he was
decoyed into the pope’s residence, and was thence removed for custody to the
house of the precentor of the cathedral; and on the 6th of December he was
transferred to a dungeon in the Dominican convent, where the stench and other
inconveniences soon produced a serious illness, so that his medical advisers
prescribed a removal. Meanwhile his friend John of Chlum protested loudly against his imprisonment as an insult to the emperor, who had
granted a safe-conduct. He reproached the pope to his face, and, by an appeal
to Sigismund, procured an order that Hus should be set at liberty; and as
this was disregarded, he affixed to the church doors on Christmas-eve, when the
emperor was approaching the city, a protest in Latin and in German against the
treachery which had been practised towards Hus, and the neglect of the
emperor’s warrant for his liberation.
While
confined in his noisome prison, without access to books, and almost at a loss
for the means of writing, Hus composed some tracts on religious subjects, at
the request of his keepers and for their instruction, and was required to draw
up answers to a set of charges brought against him by Palecz and Michael de Causis, the pope having on the first
of December appointed certain commissioners for the investigation of his case.
These charges were partly grounded on extracts unfairly made from his treatise
‘Of the Church’ and other books, partly on the evidence of unguarded letters
which had been intercepted. On being questioned as to the articles, he
explained the sense in which he believed them; but on being asked whether he
would defend them, he answered “No,” and added that he stood at the
determination of the council. He declared his wish to adhere to the church, to
the tradition of the fathers, and to the canons, except where these were
opposite to Scripture; and he professed himself willing to retract any errors,
and to be instructed by any ma—of course, with the secret condition that the
instruction should agree with his previous convictions. As being accused of
heresy, he was not allowed the assistance of an advocate; whereupon he told
the commissioners that he committed his cause to Him who would shortly judge
them all, as his advocate and proctor.
With regard
to the treasury of the merits of the saints, their intercession, and the power
and dignity of the blessed Virgin, he expressed himself in accordance with the
current theology of the time. As to the eucharistic presence, he held that it
was enough for a simple Christian to believe the verity of the Saviour’s body
and blood; but for himself he acknowledged the change denoted by the name of
transubstantiation, and made use of the term itself. This change he held to be
wrought by Christ himself through the medium of the priest; and therefore that
a wicked priest might consecrate effectually, although to his own condemnation.
One of the charges against him related to the administration of the cup to the
laity. The necessity of this had been maintained by one James (or Jacobellus) of Misa, a parish priest of Prague, after Hus
had set out for Constance; and Hus, on having his attention drawn to the
question, declared the practice to be scriptural, primitive, and desirable, but
would not affirm the necessity of it.
Unfortunately
for Hus, the liberal or reforming party in the council was not disposed to
favour him. The Parisian school, while bent on limiting the power of the
papacy, insisted on strictness of orthodoxy, and regarded Hus as likely, by
opinions which to them seemed extravagant and revolutionary, to bring danger
and discredit on their own projects of reforms; moreover, as nominalists, they
were opposed to the realism of his philosophical tenets. Gerson had written to
the archbishop of Prague, urging him to use severe measures against the errors
which had arisen in Bohemia, and, if ecclesiastical censures should be
insufficient, to have recourse to the secular arm. He had obtained from the
Theological faculty of Paris a condemnation of twenty propositions extracted
from Hus’s writings; and in forwarding this condemnation to the Bohemian
primate, he had spoken of the doctrine that one who is in mortal sin has no
dominion over Christian people as one against which “all dominion, both
temporal and spiritual, ought to rise, in order to exterminate it rather by
fire and sword than by curious reasoning”. From Gerson and his party,
therefore, no sympathy was to be expected by the Bohemian reformer.
Sigismund,
on receiving from John of Chlum the first notice of
Hus’s imprisonment, was indignant at the violation of his safe-conduct, and
threatened to break open the prison. After reaching Constance he was still so
much dissatisfied on this account, that he even withdrew for a time from the
city; but it was represented to him that, if he persisted in such a course, the
council must break up, and he shrank from the thought of not only endangering
his own reputation for orthodoxy, but rendering all his labours void and
perpetuating the division of Christendom. He was plied with arguments and with
learning from the canon law, urging that his power did not extend to the
protection of a heretic from the punishment due to his errors; that the letter
which he had granted ought not to be used to the injury of the catholic faith;
that he was not responsible, inasmuch as the council had granted no
safe-conduct, and the council was greater than the emperor.It would seem, too, that his feelings with regard to Hus were altered by the
reports which reached him, so that he came to regard the Bohemian reformer as a
teacher of mischievous errors, both in politics and in religion. The king of
Aragon wrote to him that “faith is not broken in the case of one who breaks his
faith to God”; and unhappily the emperor consented to violate truth, honour,
and humanity by declaring that the council was at liberty to take its own
course as to inquiries into charges of heresy. At a later time he attempted to
palliate this concession by alleging the importunities with which he had been
assailed, and the difficulties of his position.
The consent
which pope John had given to the violation of the imperial safe-conduct in the
case of Hus was to recoil on himself; and it was in vain that, when the council
proceeded against him, he appealed to the promises which had been made to him.
In the hope of propitiating the emperor (of whom it is said that he habitually
spoke in very contemptuous terms), he bestowed on him the golden rose, which
was the special mark of papal favour;but Sigismund
was not to be diverted from his purpose by this gift, which, instead of keeping
it, he dedicated to the blessed Virgin in the cathedral of Constance. Strict
orders were issued that no one should be permitted to leave the town; and John,
after some urgency, was brought to promise that he would not depart until after
the council should have ended its sessions. Some differences of opinion now
began to show themselves between the nations. The Germans and the English were
bent on sacrificing John for the unity of the church; Hallam, bishop of
Salisbury, told him to his face, in the emperor’s presence, that a general
council was superior to the pope, and the speech met with no rebuke from
Sigismund, to whom John complained of it. But the Italians had always been
with John, and the French now began to show a milder disposition towards
him—chiefly, it would seem, from a spirit of opposition to the English members,
whose king was at this very time preparing to carry his arms into the heart of
France
In the hope
of effecting some diversion, John proposed that the council should remove to
Nice, or some place in its neighbourhood, or that he himself should repair to
the same region for a conference with his rival Benedict; but these schemes
met with no favour, and he found himself driven to another course. On the
evening of the 20th of March, while the general attention was engrossed by a
tournament given by duke Frederick of Austria (whom, as we have seen, John had
before engaged in his interest), the pope escaped from Constance in the
disguise of a groom, and fled to Schaffhausen, which was within the duke’s
territory. Thence he wrote to the council that he had no intention of evading
his engagements, but had left Constance in order that he might execute them
with greater liberty and in a more healthful air; and he declared that duke
Frederick had not been privy to his flight.
On the 23rd
of March, when the council was about to send envoys to the fugitive pope,
Gerson delivered a discourse in which the principles of the reforming party
were strongly pronounced. The Head of the church, he said, is Christ; the pope
is its secondary head. The union between Christ and the church is inseparable,
but the union of the church and the pope may be dissolved. As the church, or a
general council which represents it, is directed by the Holy Ghost, even a pope
is bound to hear and to obey such a council under pain of being accounted as a
heathen and a publican. A pope cannot annul its decrees, and, although it may
not take away the pope’s power, it may limit that power. A general council may
be assembled without the consent or mandate of a lawfully elected and living
pope—among other cases, if he should himself be accused, and should refuse to
call a council; and also if there be a doubt between rival claimants of the
papacy. And the pope is bound to accept the decisions of a council with a view
to the termination of a schism.
About the
same time the university of Paris sent two papers of conclusions, which,
although not fully adopted by the council, were of great use to it. In these
papers it was laid down that the pope could not dissolve the council, and that
any attempt to do so would bring him under suspicion of schism, if not of
heresy; that the church is more necessary, better, of greater dignity, more
honourable, more powerful, more steady in the faith, and wiser than the pope,
and is superior to him; that the pope holds his power through the church and as
its representative; and that the council may judge and depose him, even as it
may be necessary to take a sword out of the hand of a madman.
The language
of Gerson’s sermon became known to John on the same day by means of the envoys
to whom it had been addressed. In the hope of breaking up the council, he
immediately summoned his cardinals, with the members of his household and the
officials of his court, to join him; and seven cardinals, with many of the
inferior persons, obeyed the summons. Yet it would seem that the pope was made
a coward by his conscience; for, instead of hurling anathemas at his opponents
in the lofty style of Hildebrand, he could only have recourse to complaints and
evasions. He wrote to the king of France, to the duke of Orleans, to the
university of Paris, and others, querulously setting forth his grievances
against the emperor and the council.
There was
indeed reason to fear that the council would be unable to continue its
sessions; some were even afraid that it might end in a general tumult and
plunder; but Sigismund, by firmly exerting his authority and influence,
succeeded in keeping the great body of the assembly together, and in holding
them to the pursuit of the object for which they had met. At the third general
session, on the 26th of March, it was affirmed that, notwithstanding the
withdrawal of the pope, or of any others, the sacred council was not dissolved,
but remained in its integrity and authority; that it ought not to be dissolved
until it should have effected the extirpation of the
schism and a reform of the church in faith and morals, in head and members;
that it was not to be transferred to any other place; and that none of the
members should leave Constance without its permission until its proceedings
should be duly concluded.
In a general
congregation, on the 29th of March, Gerson proposed a strong censure against
John on account of his flight; but the cardinals succeeded in averting it. At
the fourth session, on the following day, it was resolved that the council’s
power, derived immediately from Christ, was superior to all dignities,—even to
that of the pope, who was bound to obey it in matters relating to the faith and
to the extirpation of the schism. When this document came to be read aloud by
cardinal Zabarella, he was persuaded by his
brother-cardinals to leave out such parts as were most strongly antipapal; but,
as the nations complained loudly of this, the omitted passages were at the next
session read out by the archbishop of Posen. At the same session it was resolved
that Sigismund should be requested to bring back John, who, in alarm at the
intelligence which he daily received as to the proceedings of the council, had
removed on Good Friday from Schaffhausen to the castle of Lauffenburg.There,
in the presence of witnesses, he executed a written protest, declaring that his
concessions had been made through fear of violence, and therefore were not
binding; and he wrote to the council, alleging the same motive for his flight.
From Lauffenburg he withdrew further to Freiburg, in
the Breisgau, where a deputation from the council, headed by two cardinals,
waited on him, with a request that he would appoint proctors to carry out the
promised act of resignation. The pope received them in bed, and answered
roughly, but promised to send proctors after them.From Freiburg he sent to the council a statement of the terms on which he was
willing to resign—that he should be legate throughout all Italy for life, and
should have a like authority in the region of Avignon, with an income of 30,000
florins, and a share with the other cardinals in the emoluments of the capella. But the council regarded the proposal as a
proof that John intended to trifle with them by requiring extravagant and
impossible conditions. Frederick of Austria was cited to answer for his
complicity in the pope’s flight, and, as he did not appear, was put under the
ban of the empire as a traitor to it, the council, and the church.His neighbours, both ecclesiastical and secular, were summoned to chastise him,
and, in conjunction with the imperial forces, they overran his territories, so
that he was compelled to sue at the emperor’s feet for forgiveness, to promise
that he would give up the pope, and to receive submissively by a new
investiture a portion of his former dominions, to be held at the imperial
pleasure.
From
Freiburg John, still wishing to be at a greater distance from the council,
proceeded to Breisach and to Neuenburg, but
Frederick, in fulfilment of his engagement to bring him back, desired that he
would return to Constance; while the papal officials, finding no prospect of
advantage in adhering to John, deserted him and rejoined the council.
In the
meantime argument ran high in that assembly. The patriarch of Antioch, although
hostile to John personally, asserted the papal pretensions in their extremest form—quoting from Gratian a dictum that if the
pope, by his misconduct and negligence, should lead crowds of men into hell, no
one but God would be entitled to find fault with him. But to this d’Ailly replied in a tract, which was afterwards embodied
in his larger treatise ‘Of Ecclesiastical Power’, maintaining the authority of
the general council over the pope, and taxing the patriarch with having been
one of the flatterers who, “by feeding John with the milk of error, had led him
to his ruin”. Wearied and irritated by John’s evasions and artifices, the
council, at its seventh session, cited him to appear in person within nine
days, in order to answer charges of heresy, schism, simony, maladministration,
notorious waste of the property of the Roman and other churches, and diminution
of their rights; of incorrigibly scandalous life; and of having attempted, by
his clandestine flight, to hinder the union and reformation of the church. John
proposed that, instead of appearing, he should appoint three cardinals as his
proxies; but those whom he named declined the task, and the council resolved
that in a criminal case proxies could not be admitted. Witnesses were examined
in support of the charges.On the 13th of May, there
seemed to be a chance of a diversion in John’s favour, as Sigismund received
letters informing him that the Turks were ravaging Hungary, in alliance with
the Venetians; but his answer was that, even if he should lose the whole
kingdom, he would not forsake the church and the council. On the 14th the pope
was cited, and, as he did not answer, was pronounced contumacious; on the
following day sentence of suspension was publicly pronounced against him; and
the council resolved to proceed to deposition, if it should be necessary. A
fresh examination of witnesses—thirty-seven in number—was then undertaken, and
some of John’s wrongful bulls and grants were put in evidenced.The heads of accusation were seventy-two, but there was much of iteration among
them. Some of them were not read aloud, out of regard for decency and for the
reverence due to the papacy. Carrying back the inquiry to his earliest years,
the indictment charged him with having been rebellious to his parents, and
given to all vices from his youth. He was said to have got his preferments by
simony; to have been guilty of gross maladministration as legate; to have
contrived the death of Alexander V. As pope, he was charged with having
neglected the duties of religion; with rape, adultery, sodomy, incest; with
corruption of every sort in the bestowal of his patronage. He was styled a
poisoner, a murderer; he had denied the resurrection of the dead and eternal
life; he had intended to sell the head of St. John the Baptist, from the church
of St. Sylvester, to some Florentines for 50,000 ducats. It was alleged that
his misconduct was notorious and scandalous to all Christendom; that he had
obstinately neglected the admonitions which had been addressed to him from many
quarters; that he had dealt deceitfully with the council, and had absconded
from it by night in the disguise of a layman.The evidence was considered to be so strong that his deposition was resolved on, as
being guilty of simony, maladministration of his office, dilapidation of the
church’s property, and scandalous life.His seal was
broken; all Christians were released from allegiance to him; and he was
condemned to be kept in custody until the election of a new pope, to whom the
further disposal of him was to be left. It was decreed that no election should
take place without the consent of the council, and that no one of the existing
claimants should be eligible.
John had
been brought back by duke Frederick to Radolfszell,
near Constance, whence, on the 26th of May, he addressed a letter to the
emperor, reminding him of favours which the pope professed to have done to him
in helping him to the crown, in seconding his wishes as to the council, and in
other ways, and imploring him to observe his promise of a safe-conduct. But
Sigismund, instead of being softened by this letter, appears to have been
rather irritated by the contrast between its tone and that which he knew to be
employed by John in speaking and writing of him to others. On the second day
after the sentence of the council had been passed, it was announced to John by
a deputation of five cardinals. He listened to it with submission and calmness,
begging only that regard might be had to his dignity in so far as might be
consistent with the welfare of the church. He voluntarily swore that he would
never attempt to recover the papacy, and, stripping off the insignia of his
office, he declared that he had never known a comfortable day since he had put
them on.
The ex-pope
was made over to the care of the elector palatine; for it was considered that
the iniquities which had been proved against him, and his attempt to escape,
had annulled the imperial safe-conduct. For some years he was detained as a
prisoner, chiefly at Heidelberg; and this continued even after the council, at
its first session under Martin V, had decreed that he should be transferred transferred by the emperor and the elector to the pope. At
length, however, by the payment of a large sum to the elector, he obtained
leave to go into Italy, where at Florence he made his submission to the new
pope, and from him received the dignity of cardinal-bishop of Frascati. But
within a few months he died at Florence, without having taken possession of his
see.
The council
had, after John’s flight from Constance, again directed its attention to the
case of Hus, who, having been discharged from the custody of the pope’s
servants, was made over to the bishop of Constance, and by him was kept in
chains at the neighbouring castle of Gottheben. The
Parisian reforming party, as has been already said, was resolved to assert its
own orthodoxy by disavowing all sympathy with one whose ideas it regarded as
crude, unsound, and revolutionary; and when a new commission was appointed for
the examination of his case—the flight of pope John having vitiated the
authority of the earlier commissioners—d’Ailly, as a
member of it, took a strong part against him. Reports of James of Misa’s
practice as to administration of the Eucharist in both kinds were received from
Prague, and were circulated in exaggerated forms. It was said that Hus’s
principles as to endowments had been carried out by the spoliation of many
Bohemian churches.The bishop of Leitomysl,
one of Hus’s bitterest and most persevering enemies, represented that in
Bohemia the sacramental wine was carried about in unconsecrated bottles, and that the laity handed it to each other; that laymen of good
character were considered to be better authorized to administer the sacraments
than vicious priests; that cobblers presumed to hear confessions and to give
absolution.
The Bohemian
and Moravian nobles protested strongly and repeatedly both against the
treatment of Hus and against the imputations which were thrown on the faith of
their nation. They urged that Hus might be allowed a free hearing, while he
himself made requests to the same purpose, and declared that he was willing to
be burnt rather than to be secluded; and as the proposal of a hearing was
supported by Sigismund, the reformer was transferred from Gottlieben to the Franciscan convent at Constance, and on the 5th of June was brought
before the council. Worn by long imprisonment, by the severities by which it
had been aggravated, and by serious illness of various kinds, he was called on
to answer the questioning of all who might oppose him, while, as being
suspected of heresy, he was denied the assistance of an advocate. An attempt
had been made, before his admission, to get him condemned on account of certain
passages which his enemies had extracted from his writings; but this had been defeated
by the exertions of John of Chlum and Wenceslaus of Dubna, who requested the emperor to intervene.
On the first
day of Hus’s appearance, the uproar was so great that he could not find a
hearing; on the second day, Sigismund himself attended, to preserve order—a
task which was by no means easy. Of the charges brought against him, Hus
altogether denied some, while he explained others, and showed that his words
had been wrongly construed. In the doctrine of the eucharistic presence, he
agreed with the current teaching of the church, and differed from that of
Wyclif, with whom it was sought to connect him. D’Ailly, a zealous nominalist,
endeavoured to entrap him by a scholastic subtlety as to the ceasing of the
universal substance of bread after the consecration; to which Hus replied that,
although the substance ceases to be in the individual piece of bread, it
remains as subject in other individual pieces. An English doctor suggested that
the accused was equivocating like Berengar and
Wyclif; but Hus declared that he spoke plainly and sincerely. Another
Englishman protested against the introduction of irrelevant philosophical
matters, inasmuch as Hus had cleared his orthodoxy with regard to the sacrament
of the altar.
Much was
said as to the connexion of Hus’s doctrines with those of Wyclif, which the
council had lately condemned under forty-five heads; indeed an English
Carmelite, named Stokes, with whom Hus had formerly been engaged in
controversy, sarcastically told him that he need not pride himself on his
opinions as if they were his own, since he was merely a follower of Wyclif. Hus
explained that he had found himself unable to join in the late condemnation on
all points; thus, he would not say that Wyclif erred in censuring the donation
of Constantine, or in regarding tithes as alms and not as an obligatory
payment. On being pressed as to having expressed a wish that his own soul might
be with that of Wyclif, he explained that he had said so in consequence of the
reports which had reached him as to Wyclif’s good life, and before his writings
were known in Bohemia; nor had he intended to imply a certainty of Wyclif’s
salvation. As to the opinion that a priest in mortal sin could not consecrate,
he stated that he had limited it by saying that one in such a state would
consecrate and baptize unworthily. But when he was charged with holding that a
king, a pope, or a bishop, if in mortal sin, was no king, pope, or bishop, his
answers were such as to provoke from Sigismund an exclamation that there had never
been a more mischievous heretic, as no man is without sin. Much was said on
predestination and the subjects connected with it; as to which Hus seems to
have drawn his opinions from Wyclif.
The question
of the papal supremacy brought out the uncritical nature of Hus’s views. He
traced the pope’s pre-eminence to the supposed donation of Constantine ; and,
although D’Ailly told him that he would do better to refer it to the sixth
canon of Nicaea (as that canon was then commonly understood), he still adhered
to his belief in the donation. In answer to a charge of having urged his
followers to resist their opponents by force of arms, Hus denied that he had
recommended the material sword; and it would seem that some words of his as to
the spiritual armour of the Christian had been misinterpreted.
The affair
as to the expulsion of the Germans from Prague was brought forward, and was
urged by Palecz and by another Bohemian doctor; but
as to this it appears that Hus was able to satisfy his judges. He was also
questioned, among other things, as to having said that, unless he had
voluntarily come to Constance, he could not have been compelled to do so by all
the authority of the council and of the emperor. In explanation of these words
he said that he might have been safely concealed among the many castles of the
nobles who were friendly to him; and this was eagerly confirmed by John of Chlum, while cardinal d’Ailly angrily cried out against Hus’s audacity.D’Ailly told
him that he had done wrong in preaching to the people against cardinals and
other dignitaries, when there were no such persons to hear him; to which Hus
could only reply that his words had been meant for the priests and learned men
who were present.
At the end
of a trial which lasted three days, Palecz and
Michael de Causis solemnly protested that they
had acted solely from a sense of duty, and without any malice towards the
accused; and d’Ailly then again repeated an opinion
which he had often expressed in the course of the proceedings—that Hus had been
treated with much consideration, and that his opinions were less offensively
represented in the charges than they appeared in his own writings. Exhausted by
illness and fatigue, Hus was led back to prison, receiving as he passed a
pressure of the hand and some words of comfort from John of Chlum.
The emperor, who had in vain urged the prisoner to retract, then declared that
any one of the errors which had been brought home to him would have been enough
for his condemnation; that, if he should persist in them, he ought to be burnt;
that his followers ought to be coerced, and especially that his disciple who
was then in custody—Jerome of Prague— should be speedily dealt with.
After his
third appearance before the council, Hus was in prison for nearly a month.
During this time attempts were made by many persons—among them by cardinal Zabarella—to persuade him to abjure the errors which were
imputed to him. It was urged on him that by so doing he would not admit that he
had ever held the errors in question; that in England excellent men who were
wrongly suspected of Wyclifism had made no scruple
as to abjuring it. But Hus regarded the matter in a more solemn light, and
thought that to abjure errors which were falsely laid to his charge would be
nothing less than perjury. He regarded his fate as sealed, although he still
professed himself willing to renounce his opinions if any others could be
proved to be truer; and he wrote pathetic letters of farewell to some of his
Bohemian friends. On the 30th of June he was visited by Palecz,
to whom, as having been his chief opponent, he expressed a wish to confess; but
another confessor, a monk and doctor, was sent, who behaved with great
tenderness to him, and gave him absolution without requiring any recantation of
his opinions. At a later interview, Palecz wept
profusely, and Hus entreated his forgiveness for any words of reproach which
he might have used against him.
On the 6th
of July, at the fifteenth session of the council, Hus was again brought
forward—having been detained outside the church until the mass was over, lest
his presence should profane the holy action. The bishop of Lodi, James Arigoni, a Dominican, preached on the text, “Our old man is
crucified with Him that the body of sin might be destroyed” (Rom. VI. 6),
applying the words to the duty of extirpating heresy and simony. The acts of
the process against Hus were then read, ending with an exhortation to Sigismund
to perform the sacred work of destroying the obstinate heretic by whose
malignant influence the plague of error has been so widely spread. To the
charges was now added a new article—that he had supposed himself to be a fourth
person in the Godhead; but this he disavowed with horror as an idea that had
never entered his mind. He declared that he had come to Constance freely, in
order to give an account of his faith, and under the protection of the imperial
safe-conduct; and as he said these words, he turned his eyes on Sigismund, who
blushed deeply. He frequently interrupted the reading of the charges against
him, in order to protest his innocence; but the cardinals d’Ailly and Zabarella reduced him to silence. He appealed to
the Saviour, and it was stigmatized as an attempt to overleap all the order of
ecclesiastical jurisdiction. But Hus continued to protest and to appeal, and
he added a prayer for the forgiveness of his enemies, which called forth
derision from some members of the council.
The ceremony
of degradation from the priesthood followed. Hus was arrayed in the vestments
of the altar, and the various articles symbolical of the priestly authority and
of the inferior orders of the ministry were severally taken from him by
bishops, while at every stage he made some remark by way of protest. As to the
tonsure, a question arose whether it should be obliterated by shaving, or by
clipping the surrounding hair. “Lo”, said Hus, addressing the emperor, “these
bishops cannot agree even as to the way of mocking me!” When the degradation
was completed, a tall paper cap, painted with hideous figures of devils, was
placed on his head, and a bishop said to him, “We commit thy body to the
secular arm, and thy soul to the devil.” “And I”, said Hus, “commit it to my
most merciful Lord, Jesus Christ”. As he was led away to death, he passed a
spot where a heap of his books, which had been condemned by the council, was
burning amidst the merriment of the crowd. At this sight he smiled, and
repeated a remark which he had before made as to the condemnation of his Bohemian
writings by persons who could not read them. In answer to a question, he
professed a wish to confess; but, as the confessor insisted that he should
begin by acknowledging and renouncing his errors, Hus said that confession was
not necessary, as he was not in mortal sin.
On reaching
the place of execution, he entreated that the bystanders would not believe him
guilty of the errors which were imputed to him. After he had been bound to the
stake, he was once more asked by duke Lewis of Bavaria whether he would recant;
but he remained firm and suffered with unshaken constancy, uttering to the last
cries for mercy, professions of faith in the Saviour, and prayers for the
forgiveness of his enemies. His ashes and the scorched remnants of his clothes
were thrown into the Rhine, lest they should be venerated as relics by his
adherents.
The death of
Hus has usually been regarded as a deep stain on the reputation of the council
which decreed it, and of the emperor who, notwithstanding the assurance of
protection which he had given to the reformer, consented to his doom. But
attempts at exculpation have often been made in the interest of the Roman
church; and even very lately it has been argued, by a writer whose moderation
and candour are usually no less to be admired than his ability and learning,
that there was no breach of faith in prosecuting Hus to the death,
notwithstanding the safe-conduct which he had received. The name of
safe-conduct, indeed, appears to have been used in two senses—sometimes
signifying the escort which accompanied Hus from Bohemia, and sometimes the
passport which, although promised, did not reach him until after his arrival at
Constance; and this double meaning will explain some difficulties which have
been raised as to the emperor’s proceedings. It is pointed out that the
passport did not profess more than to secure for Hus an unmolested journey to
and from Constance; that Sigismund did not undertake, and could not have
undertaken, to assure him against the consequences of an accusation of heresy;
that the violation of the safe-conduct amounted to nothing more than the arrest
of Hus before trial or conviction; that the Bohemians do not charge the emperor
with breach of a written engagement, but only with having taken part against
Hus, whereas they had reckoned on him as a friend. Yet even according to this
view, the arrest of Hus, which is admitted to have been a breach of the
safe-conduct, instead of being followed by his liberation, in compliance with
the protests of his friends and with Sigismund’s own declarations, led to his
being immured in one loathsome dungeon after another, to his being loaded with
chains, ill fed, and barbarously treated; and, when reduced to sickness and
debility by such usage, and deprived of all literary means of defence, he was
required to answer to the capital charge of heresy. Even on this supposition,
therefore, the wrong by which the safe-conduct was violated was one which, in
its consequences, subjected the accused to cruel sufferings, and destroyed the
fairness of his trial.
But in truth
it seems clear that the safe-conduct was supposed to imply much more than is
here allowed. The excitement which arose on Hus’s arrest is not to be accounted
for by the mere informality of that act, nor is it easy to reduce the
complaints of his Bohemian partisans within the limits which the apologists of
the council mark out. Hus himself plainly declares his understanding of the
matter to have been, that, if he should decline to abide by the sentence of the
council, the emperor would remit him in safety to Bohemia, there to be judged
by the king and the ecclesiastical authorities; he complains that the
safe-conduct had been violated, and mentions warnings which he had received
against trusting to it—warnings which were suggested, not by any idea that the
instrument itself might be defective, but by the apprehension that it might be
treacherously set aside.
That this
must be explained away by speaking of Hus as inconsistent, is, like the denial
of Sigismund’s having blushed on being reminded of the safe-conduct, a necessity
of the cause which is to be defended. And how, unless there was some deception
in the case, should the king of Aragon and the council have asserted principles
which would justify the blackest perfidy towards one who was accused of
heterodoxy? Why should it have been necessary to urge that a safe-conduct could
not protect a heretic, unless Sigismund, as well as Hus, had supposed that the
document in question would avail? Why should the council have attempted to get
over it by the false and unsuccessful assertion that Hus had not received it
until a fortnight after his arrest? Why, if the safe-conduct was not supposed
to assure the safety of Hus at Constance, as well as on the way, were such
efforts made to extort the recal of it from the
emperor?
But, although
the means by which his condemnation was brought about were iniquitous, and
although there was much to blame in the circumstances of his trial, we can
hardly wonder at the condemnation itself, according to the principles of his
age. Hus set out from Bohemia with a confident expectation of being able to
maintain his soundness in the faith; yet it is not easy to suppose such a
result possible, if the nature of the tribunal be considered. The attestations
of orthodoxy which he carried with him were probably in part influenced by the
desire of the authors to clear their country from the imputations which had
been cast on it, and were therefore not likely to tell strongly in his favour.
In every point, except that of the eucharistic doctrine, Hus was but an echo of
Wyclif, whose opinions had long been proscribed—whose English followers had
been condemned to the stake by the church and the state alike. He did not,
seemingly, understand how greatly his principles were opposed, not only to the
system of the Roman court, but to the very being of the hierarchy. Much of his
language sounded very dangerous : and if the sense, when explained by him, was
more harmless than it seemed, it might reasonably be asked what likelihood
there was that this sense would be understood by the simple hearers to whom
the words had been addressed. It would seem that his demeanour had in it
something which suggested the suspicion of obstinacy or evasion; and his
continual professions of willingness to renounce his opinions, if he could be
convinced that they were wrong, must have appeared to his judges as merely
nugatory; for no one surely would avow that he deliberately prefers error to
truth.
JEROME OF PRAGUE
At the time
when Hus set out from Prague, his old associate Jerome was absent on one of
those expeditions in which his religious zeal and his love of adventure alike
found a frequent exercise. On learning, at his return, the fact of his friend’s
imprisonment, Jerome resolved to join him at Constance, where he arrived on the
4th of April 1415. Finding that Hus had as yet been unable to obtain a hearing,
he withdrew to a little town in the neighbourhood, and publicly announced by a
placard his readiness to defend his faith, if the council would grant him a
safe-conduct for going and returning; and he added that, if he should be
convicted of heresy, he was willing to bear the punishment. But as his petition
was refused, he complied with the solicitations of his friends, and set out
towards Bohemia, carrying with him letters testimonial from his countrymen who
were at Constance. The council, however, at its sixth session, cited him to
answer for himself; he was arrested, and was carried back in
chains
to Constance, where at length the council granted him a safe-conduct, but with
the significant reservation, “as much as is in us, and as the orthodox faith
shall require, yet saving justice”. On the 23rd of May, Jerome, immediately
after his arrival, and laden as he was with heavy chains, was examined before a
general congregation of the council. Men who had been acquainted with his old
adventures at Vienna and Heidelberg, at Paris and Cologne, gave evidence
against him; among them was Gerson, who told him that at Paris his conceit of
his eloquence had led him to disturb the university by many scandalous
propositions as to universals and ideas. At the end of the day he was committed
to the care of the archbishop of Riga, and was imprisoned in a tower, where he
was chained more cruelly than before, and for two days was kept on a diet of
bread and water. At the end of that time, however, Peter Mladenovicz discovered the place of his confinement, and was allowed to supply him with
better nourishment.
After having
been subjected to several examinations, Jerome, worn out by the hardships of
his imprisonment, was brought on the 11th of September to condemn the errors
imputed to Wyclif and Hus—with the reservation that, although mistaken and
offensive, they were not heretical—that he did not commit himself to the truth
of the imputations, and that he intended no disrespect to the characters of the
teachers, or to the truths which they had delivered. This qualified submission,
however, was not enough for the council; and at the nineteenth general
session, on the 23rd of September, a fresh declaration was extorted from him,
in which he more explicitly abjured the tenets of Wyclif and Hus, and even
included in the abjuration an opinion as to the reality of universals. At this
same session it was decreed, with an exact reference to the circumstances of
Hus’s case, that no safe-conduct granted by any secular prince, by whatsoever
sanction it might have been confirmed, should prejudice the catholic faith or
the church’s jurisdiction, so as so hinder the competent spiritual tribunal
from inquiring into and duly punishing the errors of heretics or persons
charged with heresy, even although such persons might have been induced to
present themselves at the place of judgment by reliance on the safe-conduct,
and otherwise would not have appeared; and that the granter of such a document,
if he had done his part in other respects, was in no way further bound. By
another document (which, however, may perhaps have been nothing more than a
draft) it is declared that in the matter of Hus the king of the Romans had done
his duty, and that no one should speak against him under pain of being held
guilty of favouring heresy and of treason. Jerome, by abjuring the opinions
which had been imputed to him, had entitled himself to liberty; but, although
cardinal d’Ailly and others insisted on this,
suspicions as to the sincerity of the prisoner’s recantation arose, and were
strengthened by a tract which Gerson put forth on the subject of “Protestation
and Revocation in Matters of Faith”. Fresh charges, derived from Bohemia, were
urged against him by Palecz and Michael de Causis; and when d’Ailly, Zabarella, and others, indignantly resigned their office as
judges, a new commission was appointed, before which Jerome was again
April—May, examined. He was accused of various outrages against monks and
friars; of having denied transubstantiation; of having caused the canon of the
mass to be translated or paraphrased into Bohemian verse, so that mechanics
supposed themselves able to consecrate by chanting it; of having in the course
of his travels allied himself with the Russian schismatics in opposition to the
Latins; of having lived luxuriously and riotously while in prison. Some of
these charges Jerome denied; and in his answers he showed much dexterity and
readiness, not unmixed with asperity and contempt towards his opponents. At
his final examination, being allowed to defend himself, he delivered an
eloquent speech. The display of authorities which he produced for his opinions
excited admiration in those who considered that for 340 days he had been
immured in a gloomy dungeon.He related the course of
his life and studies. He explained the case of the university of Prague, and
the unfair influence which the Germans had exercised in it.He declared that no act of his life had caused him such remorse as his abjuration
of Hus and Wyclif, with whom he now desired to make common cause in all things,
except Wyclif’s doctrine of the Eucharist. He professed himself ready to share
the fate of Hus, whose offence he represented as having consisted, not in any
deviation from the faith of the church, but in his having attacked the abuses
and corruptions of the hierarchy. He replied with courage and readiness to the
many interruptions with which he was assailed; and the speech concluded with a
commemoration of worthies, both heathen and scriptural, who had laid down
their lives for the truth.
Urgent
attempts were still made to persuade Jerome to fall back on the recantation
which he had formerly made; Zabarella especially
showed a friendly interest in him, and visited him in prison for the purpose of
entreating him to save himself. But all such efforts were fruitless, and
Jerome suffered at the stake on the 30th of May 1416, enduring his agony with a
firmness which extorted the admiration of men so remote from any sympathy with
his character as the scholar Poggio Bracciolini (who
was himself a witness of the scene) and the ecclesiastical politician Aeneas
Sylvius Piccolomini.
On the 4th
of July 1415, two days before the death of Hus, Gregory XII, the most sincere
of the rival popes in desiring the reunion of the church, resigned his dignity.
For this purpose he had given a commission to Charles Malatesta, lord of
Rimini, whose labours at Pisa and elsewhere for the healing of the schism have
already been mentioned; and, in order to avoid an acknowledgment of the council
as having been called by John XXIII, he affected to regard it as assembled by
the emperor alone, and to add his own citation as pope, that it might entertain
the proposed business. Malatesta accordingly appeared at the fourteenth
session, and formally executed the act of resignation whereupon the council
decreed that no one should proceed to choose a pope without its sanction, and
that it should not be dissolved until after an election should have been made.
The ex-pope became cardinal-bishop of Porto, and legate for life in the Mark of
Ancona, with precedence over all the other members of the college. His
cardinals were allowed to retain their dignities; and two years later, while
the council was yet sitting, Angelo Corario died at
the age of ninety.
Benedict
XIII was still to be dealt with. Aragon and Scotland continued to adhere to
him, and his pretensions were unabated. He had proposed a meeting with
Sigismund at Nice, and John XXIII had endeavoured to avert this by offering to
confer in person with his rival; but the council, remembering the failure of
the conference of Savona, had refused its consent. It was now resolved that the
emperor, as representative of the council, should treat with Benedict. On the
15th of July, Sigismund, kneeling before the high altar of the cathedral,
received the solemn benediction of the assembly; and three days later he set
out with four cardinals for Perpignan, where he had invited Benedict to meet
him. At Narbonne he was joined by Ferdinand of Aragon, whose ambassadors had
been in treaty with the council. But at Perpignan he found himself
disappointed. Benedict had taken offence at being addressed as cardinal,
whereas he held himself to be the sole legitimate pope; nay, even as a
cardinal, he asserted that, being the only one who had been promoted to the
sacred college before the schism, he was entitled to nominate a pope by his own
voice alone. In accordance with the letter of an agreement, he remained at
Perpignan throughout the month of June; but when the last day of that month
came to an end at midnight, he immediately left the place, and pronounced
Sigismund contumacious for having failed to appear.On the 19th of August he was at Narbonne, where he condescended to state his terms
to the emperor’s representatives. But these and other proposals on the part of
Benedict were so extravagant that it was impossible to accept them; and
Benedict, after some movements, shut himself up within the rocky fortress of Peñiscola, in Valencia, where the archbishop of Tours and
others sought an interview with him, but were unable to persuade him to resign.Sigismund succeeded in detaching from him the king
of Aragon, with other princes who had thus far supported him; and these, in
person or by their representatives, formally renounced him at Narbonne on the
13th of December 1415. The act was publicly declared at Perpignan on the
Epiphany following by the great Dominican preacher St. Vincent Ferrer, in whose
reputation for sanctity the cause of the Spanish pope had found one of its
strongest supports, but who now, in disgust at Benedict’s obstinacy, turned
against him, and zealously exerted himself to promote the reunion of the
church.
Sigismund
then proceeded to visit the courts of France and of England, endeavouring to
reconcile the enmity which had lately arrayed the nations against each other on
the field of Agincourt (Oct. 25, 1415), and to unite western Christendom in a
league against the Turks; and on the 27th of January in the following year he
reappeared at Constance, where he was received by the council with great
demonstrations of honour.In the meantime the
representatives of the Spanish and Portuguese kingdoms had been admitted, into
the council as a fifth nation the agreement of Narbonne was confirmed, and
measures were urged forward against Benedict Articles were drawn up, in which
the charge against him was grounded chiefly on his breach of his engagements as
to resignation, and he was cited to appear within a certain time. The envoys
who were intrusted with the delivery of the citation at Peniscola found him angry and obstinate, and brought back nothing but evasions and
pretexts for delay.After having been repeatedly cited
in due form at the door of the cathedral, he was pronounced contumacious on the
first of April.Further articles were drawn up, and,
after long formal proceedings, sentence of deposition was pronounced against
him, as having been guilty of perjury, of scandal to the whole church, of
favouring and nourishing schism, and of heresy, inasmuch as he had violated
that article of the faith which speaks of “one holy catholic church.” The
delivery of this judgment was followed by a jubilant chant of Te Deum; the bells of the churches were rung,
and the emperor ordered that the sentence should be proclaimed with the sound
of trumpets throughout the streets of Constance.
Thus the
papacy was considered to be entirely vacant, as the three who had pretended to
it had all been set aside. But the question now arose, whether the council
should next proceed to the election of a new pope, or to discuss the
reformation of the church, which had been much agitated during the time of the
emperor’s absence. On the one hand it was urged that, as the church had long
been suffering from the want of an acknowledged head, the papacy should be
filled without delay. On the other hand it was represented that the reforming
designs of the council of Pisa had been ineffectual because reform had been
postponed to the election of a pope; that, since a reformation of the church
ought to include the head as well as the members, a pope, by exerting his
influence on those who naturally desired to stand well with him, might be able
to put a stop to any movement for reform; that the chair of St. Peter, after
the pollutions which it had lately undergone, ought to be cleansed, before any
man, even the holiest, could sit in it without fear of contamination. The
emperor, supported by the German and English nations, urged that the council
should enter on the question of reform. The cardinals, with the Italians in
general, pressed for the election of a pope, and drew to their side the
Spaniards, who were new to the affairs of the council, and the French, whose
eagerness for reform was now overpowered by their enmity against the English.
The contest was keenly carried on, both with tongue and with pen. Prayers were
put up for the good success of the council in its designs, sermons were
preached in exposition of the various views, and from each side a formal
protest was made against the course which was proposed by the other; while
invidious imputations were freely cast on the emperor and his adherents, as if,
by maintaining that the church could be reformed without a head, they made
themselves partakers in the heresy of Hus.
Still
Sigismund stood firm, notwithstanding the taunts and insults which were
directed against him, until at length he found his supporters failing him. Such
of the French and Italians as had been with him fell away. By the death of
Hallam, bishop of Salisbury, on the 4th of September, he lost his most esteemed
auxiliary, while the English were deprived of a leader whose wisdom and
moderation had guided them in the difficulties of their circumstances; and—partly,
it would seem, in obedience to an order from their sovereign—they joined the
growing majority. Two of the most important German prelates were bribed into a
like course;—the archbishop of Riga, who, having been hopelessly embroiled with
the Teutonic knights, was to be translated by the council to Liege; and the
bishop of Chur, to whom the see of Riga offered at once an increase of dignity
and an escape from his quarrels with Frederick of Austria. Finding that any
further resistance would be useless, Sigismund yielded that the choice of a
pope should precede the discussion of reform; but it was stipulated by him and
the German nation that the future pope should, in conjunction with the
council, make it his first duty to enter on a reform of the church, and that
until this should have been effected the council should not be dissolved.
At the
thirty-ninth session, October 9, 1417, it was decreed that a general council
should be held within the next five years, and another within the following
seven years ; that within every period of ten years for the time to come there
should be a general council; that the pope might shorten the interval, but
might not prolong it; and that for a sufficient cause (such as the occurrence
of a schism) a council might be convoked at any time.But when the Germans desired that the future pope should be pledged to the
observance of these rules, they were told by the cardinals that a pope could
not be so bound.
Dissensions
still continued to vex the council. The Aragonese, on joining it, had objected
to the acknowledgment of the English as a nation—maintaining that they ought
to be included with the Germans; and in this they were aided by cardinal d’Ailly, whose patriotism showed itself on all occasions in
a vehement opposition to the English; while these stoutly asserted the importance
of their nation and church by somewhat daring arguments, and put forward the
venerable name of Joseph of Arimathea in opposition to that of Dionysius the
Areopagite. The Castilians had contests of their own with the Aragonese; and
they had even left Constance, in the belief that the council was hopelessly
entangled, when they were brought back by the emperor’s command. The cardinals
asked for leave to withdraw, and met with a refusal; Sigismund is said to have
intended to arrest some of the most troublesome among them; and the members of
the college displayed themselves in their scarlet hats, as a token of their
readiness to become martyrs in the church’s cause. In the midst of these
difficulties it was announced that Henry Beaufort, bishop of Winchester, and
uncle to the king of England, was at Ulm, on his way to the Holy Land; and the
English representatives suggested that by his reputation and authority, by his
known influence with the emperor, and by his zeal for the peace of the church,
he might be able to appease the differences which had arisen. The emperor with
his own hand wrote to invite the bishop to Constance, where he was received
with great honour; and by his mediation and advice he succeeded in effecting a
reconciliation between the parties.
Beaufort had
recommended that the election of a pope should at once be taken in hand; and
new questions arose as to the right of sharing in it. Some wished to exclude
the cardinals altogether, as having abused their privilege in time past; while
the cardinals asserted that the right of voting belonged to them exclusively,
but were willing to concede that, on this occasion only, representatives of the
nations should be associated with them, and that the choice should be subject
to the final approbation of the council. In the meantime there were discussions
as to the points in which a reform was desired. Among them were the duties of
the pope, and the limits of his authority; the prevention of double elections
to the papacy; the composition of the college of cardinals, in which it seemed
desirable that the Italians should not be too strong reservations, annates,
expectancies, commendams, simony, dispensations, non-residence
; the qualifications and duties of bishops; the abuses of the monastic and
capitular systems ; the nature of the causes that should be treated in the
Roman court; the question of appeals; the offices of the papal chancery and
penitentiary; indulgences; the alienation of church property; the cause, for
which a pope might be corrected or deposed, and the manner of procedure in
such cases.
Of these
subjects, that of annates caused the greatest difference of opinion. The
cardinals were in favour of the exaction, while the French nation denounced it
as a novelty which dated only from the pontificate of John XXII. On this
question, cardinal d’Ailly, who had formerly been
opposed to the tax, now took part with his brethren of the college. With regard
to the question of papal collation to benefices, it was remarked that, while
many bishops, who were usually supporters of the papal interest, opposed it in
this case from a wish to recover patronage for their own order, the
representatives of universities sided with the pope, as being more likely than
the bishops to favour the claims of learning in the bestowal of preferment. In
the course of these discussions much heat was occasionally displayed. At one
meeting, the wish to delay the election of a pope was denounced as a Hussite
heresy, and the emperor, in disgust at the pertinacity of the opposition, arose
and left the hall. As the patriarch of Antioch and others of his adherents
followed, a cry arose, “Let the heretics go!”, and Sigismund, on being informed
of the insult, knew that it was intended against himself.
At length,
on the 30th of October, the preliminaries of the election were settled : that
six representatives of each nation should be associated with the cardinals as
electors; and that a majority of two-thirds among the cardinals, and in each
nation should be necessary to the choice of a pope. The day was fixed for the
8th of November, when high mass was celebrated, and the bishop of Lodi (whose
eloquence had been less creditably displayed in the cases of Hus and Jerome)
preached from the text, “Eligite meliorem”—descanting
on the qualities requisite for the papacy, and exhorting the electors to make
choice of a pope different from those of the last forty years—one worthy of the
office and bent on the reform of the church. The electors—twenty-three cardinals
and thirty deputies of the nations—swore to the emperor that they would perform
their duty faithfully, and were then shut up in conclave within the Exchange of
Constance, under the guardianship of the master of the knights of Rhodes. Their
deliberations lasted three days, during which companies of people—Sigismund
himself, and the highest ecclesiastical dignitaries, among them—frequently
gathered round the building, imploring with prayers, and with hymns chanted in
low tones, the blessing of God on the election. At first, each nation was
disposed to set up a candidate of its own; but gradually this was abandoned,
and on St. Martin’s day an overwhelming majority, if not the whole body of
electors, agreed in a choice, which was forthwith announced through an aperture
made in the wall of the Exchange—“We have a pope—Lord Otho of Colonna!”. The
news spread at once throughout the city, and produced an enthusiasm of joy; at
last the schism which had so long distracted Christendom was ended. All the
bells of Constance sent forth peals of rejoicing. A multitude, which is
reckoned at 80,000, flocked from all quarters to the scene of the election. The
emperor himself, disregarding the restraints of state, hurried into the room
where the electors were assembled, and fell down before the pope, who raised
him up, embraced him, and acknowledged that to him the peaceful result was
chiefly due. For hours together crowds of all classes thronged to the
cathedral, where the new pope was placed on the altar and gave his benediction.In honour of the day on which he was elected,
he took the name of Martin V; and, after having been ordained deacon, priest,
and bishop on three successive days, he was anointed and crowned as pope on the
21st of November.
Martin was
now about fifty years of age. He belonged to the highest nobility of Rome,had been trained in the study of canon law, and had
been created cardinal of St. George by Innocent VII. He had held to Gregory
XII until the council of Pisa declared against that pope, and he had been one
of the last to forsake John XXIII. His morals were irreproachable, and the
prudence and moderation of his character were much respected. It is, however,
said of him by Leonard of Arezzo, that whereas before his elevation he had been
noted rather for his amiability than for his talents, he showed, when pope,
extreme sagacity, but no excess of benignity.
Very soon
Martin began to give indications that those who had chosen him in the hope of
reform were to be disappointed. Almost immediately after his coronation he set
forth, as was usual, the rules for the administration of his chancery; and it
was seen with dismay that they differed hardly at all in substance from those
of John XXIII; that they sanctioned all the corruptions which the council had
denounced—such as annates, expectancies, and reservations ; nay, that this
last evil was even aggravated in the new code. And now that western Christendom
had one undoubted head, a man in whom high personal character was added to the
dignity of his great office, the authority of the council waned before that of
the pope. The emperor himself was superseded in the presidency of the assembly,
and Martin’s power over it increased, while his address was exerted to prevent
all dangerous reforms. He set forth a list of matters as to which a reform
might be desirable; he constituted a reformatory college, made up of six cardinals,
with representatives of the various nations, and at the forty-third session of
the council some decrees were passed as to exemptions, simony, tithes, the life
of the clergy, and other such subjects. But it was found that the several
nations were not agreed as to the changes which were to be desired; and Martin
skilfully contrived to take advantage of their jealousies so as to break up
their alliance by treating separately with each for a special concordat. When
the French urged Sigismund to press for reformation, he reminded them that they
had insisted on giving the election of a pope precedence over the question of
reform, and told them that they must now apply to the pope, since his own
authority in such matters had ended when the election was made.
The Germans
had presented two petitions for reform; among other points they urged that the
cardinals should be fairly chosen from the various nations, and that their
number should be limited to eighteen, or at the utmost should not exceed
twenty-four. They also desired that means should be provided for the correction
of a pope, so that popes might be punished and deposed by a general council,
not only for heresy, but for simony, or any other grave and notorious offence.
On this it would seem that no new enactment was considered to be necessary.
Martin, however, put forth some proposals for a reform of the curia, in which,
while he eluded some of the chief points in the German scheme, he agreed that
the number of cardinals should be reduced, so as not to exceed twenty-four,
that a regard should be paid to their qualifications, and that the dignity
should be distributed in fair proportions among the various nations. He
promised also an improved disposal of his patronage, and a redress of various
crying grievances. To the Germans the promise as to the cardinalate appeared to
hold out an important boon; for the instances in which Germans had been
admitted to that dignity were exceedingly rare; but the hopes excited by
Martin’s concession were very imperfectly realized, as the number of German
cardinals has never been great.
The
Spaniards, in ridicule of the faintness with which reform was taken in hand,
put forth a satirical ‘Mass for Simony’. The piece was composed in the usual
form of such services, and included prayers for the removal of the evil, with a
lesson from the Apocalypse, descriptive of the woman sitting on the scarlet-coloured
beast.
The
concordats into which Martin had entered did not find much acceptance with the
nations for which they were intended. That with England appears to have passed
without notice. In France, although the kingdom was then in the depth of the
weakness caused by internal discords and by the English invasion, the spirit of
ecclesiastical independence, hallowed by the saintly renown of Lewis IX, and
strengthened by the policy of Philip the Fair, and by the ascendency of later
French sovereigns over the court of Avignon, was strongly manifested. The king
was made to declare himself desirous to obey the council, but with the
limitation “so far as God and reason would allow”. The concordat was rejected
by the parliament of Paris; the principles of the pragmatic sanction were
maintained; and the dauphin, who governed in his father’s name, refused to
acknowledge Martin, whose election he supposed to have been carried by the
hostile influences of Germany and England, until after the pope’s title had
been examined and approved by the university of Paris.
Among the
subjects which engaged the attention of the council, was a book in which John
Petit, a Franciscan, had some years before asserted the right of tyrannicide
in justification of the treacherous murder of the duke of Orleans by John “the
Fearless”, duke of Burgundy.Petit himself had died
in 1410, and is said to have professed on his death-bed regret for the doctrines
which he had published; but his book had been examined, and eight propositions
extracted from it had been condemned by an assembly of theologians, canonists,
and jurists, under the presidency of the bishop of Paris, in 1414.
The matter
was brought before the council of Constance in June 1415 by Gerson, who had
taken an active part in the earlier stages; and it occupied much time,
during which he and cardinal d’Ailly exerted all
their powers to obtain a condemnation of the atrocious opinions which Petit had enounced. The contest was obstinately and hotly
waged, with the pen as well as with the tongue; Petit’s defenders were stigmatized as Cainites and heretics, while they retaliated by
comparing Gerson to Judas, Herod, and Cerberus, and by taunting him with
favours which he had formerly received from the Burgundian family.The influence in favour of Petit was so powerful, that his book escaped with the
condemnation of only one especially outrageous proposition, while his name was
unmentioned in the censure; and even this sentence was afterwards set aside on
the ground of informality. It is noted that among the defenders of Petit’s book was Peter Caucher,
vidame of Reims, who afterwards, as bishop of Beauvais, gained an infamous
celebrity by his part in the condemnation of the Maid of Orleans.
Another
book, the work of a Dominican, John of Falkenberg, was brought before the
council, on the ground that the author, who wrote in the interest of the
Teutonic knights, had grossly attacked the king of Poland, and had declared it
to be not only lawful, but highly meritorious, to kill him and all his people.Before the election of Martin, this book had been
condemned to the flames by the committee on matters of faith; but the sentence
had not been confirmed in a general session, and the Poles found that Martin,
although he had himself subscribed the earlier condemnation, was resolved as
pope to do away with its effect. Being thus denied redress, they appealed to a
general council, but Martin declared that no such appeal from a pope could be
allowed. On this Gerson put forth a tract in which the new pope’s declaration
was shown to be opposed to the principles on which the council had acted. But
Martin, whether acquainted with Gerson’s tract or not, proceeded in direct
opposition to his views. In answer to the allegations of the Poles, that the
book contained “most cruel heresies” and therefore ought to fall under the
censure of an assembly which had for one of its chief objects the extirpation
of heresy, he declared that he approved of all that the council had done as to
matters of faith. He enjoined silence on the complainants, under a threat of
excommunication, and, although they still persisted, even to the last session
of the council—styling Falkenberg’s opinions a “doctrine of devils”—their
struggles to obtain a condemnation were fruitless.
At the forty-fourth
session, Pavia was named as the place where the next general council should be
held. The French representatives, who disliked this proposal, absented
themselves from the meeting at which it was to be brought forward.
The
forty-fifth and last session was held on the 22nd of April 1418, when the pope
bestowed his absolution on all the fathers of the council, with their
followers, and on all other persons who had been present on account of business
connected with it. The emperor had been rewarded for his labours by a grant of
a year’s ecclesiastical tithe from his dominions; and, although some German
churches engaged a Florentine lawyer, Dominic de Germiniano,
to oppose this grant as informal, illegal, and oppressive, such was the
ascendency of the pope over the council that the advocate, instead of carrying
out his commission, was fain to conclude his pleading with a proposal that the
impost should be collected in a way less burdensome than that which had been
originally intended.
Although
Sigismund had endeavoured to prolong the pope’s stay in Germany, and the French
had urged him to settle at Avignon, his answer to such solicitations had been
that Rome and the patrimony of St. Peter required his presence. On the 16th of
May, he left Constance with a magnificent display of pomp. Arrayed in his most
splendid robes of office, he rode under a canopy which was supported by four
counts, while the emperor and the elector of Brandenburg walked beside him, and
held his bridle on either side. Frederick of Austria, with other secular
princes and nobles, twelve cardinals, and a vast train of ecclesiastics of all
grades, followed; and it is said that the whole cavalcade amounted to 4o,ooo.
The scene might be regarded as symbolical of the victory which the papacy had
gained. The council which had deposed popes had been mastered by the pope of
its own choosing; the old system of Rome, so long the subject of vehement
complaint, had escaped untouched; and no mention had been made of any reform in
doctrine.
While the
pope was thus triumphant, Gerson, the great theologian of the council, withdrew
from it to obscurity and exile. Paris was in the hands of the English, and of
the ferocious duke of Burgundy, to whom he had made himself obnoxious. The
university of which he had been the glory, and which had sent him forth at the
head of its representatives, could no longer receive him; and he was glad to
accept an asylum from the duke of Bavaria. The offer of a professorship at
Vienna drew from him a poem of thanks to Frederick of Austria; but he remained
in his seclusion until, after the assassination of the duke of Burgundy on the
bridge of Montereau, in September 1419, he removed to
Lyons, where he spent the last ten years of his life in devotion, study, and
literary labour. The latest of his works was a commentary on the Canticles; and
three days after having completed it he died, at the age of sixty-six, on the
12th of July, 1429.
CHAPTER IX.
THE GREEK CHURCH—CHRISTIANITY IN ASIA— CONVERSIONS.
During the last
period of the Byzantine empire, the relations of the Greek church with the
papacy were mainly governed by political circumstances. The emperors, in their
need of assistance against the Mussulmans, who pressed continually more and
more on them, made frequent solicitations to the Christians of the west, and,
in order to recommend their cause, they professed a zeal for the reconciliation
of the churches. But in this they were supported only by a small courtly party,
while the mass of the Greeks held the Latins in abomination; and, as the
material aid, for the sake of which the desire of unity had been professed, was
not forthcoming, such concessions as were made by the emperors or their
representatives were usually disavowed with abhorrence by their people. Such,
as we have seen, had been the result of the reconciliation which had been
formerly concluded at the council of Lyons in 1274; and, in their resentment on
account of the subsequent breach, Benedict XI and Clement V encouraged Charles
of Valois to assert by arms a claim to the throne of Constantinople, in right
of his wife. Clement gave to the enterprise the character of a crusade,
bestowed the privileges of crusaders on all who should take part in it, and
assigned to Charles a tenth of the ecclesiastical revenues of France in order
to furnish him with means. But nothing came of this project.
At a later
time, Andronicus II and his grandson of the same name (who, after having been
his colleague, assumed the whole government in 1328) were driven by fear of the
Ottoman Turks to make overtures to the popes and to the western princes.In 1333 the younger Andronicus sent a message to
John XXII by two Dominicans who were returning from the east; and in
consequence of this two bishops were sent from Avignon to the court of
Constantinople. But the Greeks, in distrust of the sophistical skill which they attributed to the western theologians, refused to have
anything to do with what they styled the Latin novelties; and the mission had
no effect.In 1337 Benedict XII, wrote to Andronicus
for the purpose of confirming him in his desire of ecclesiastical unity; and
two years later, Barlaam, a Basilian monk of Calabria, who had acquired great
favour in the Byzantine court, appeared at Avignon with a knight named Stephen
Dandolo, bearing recommendations from the kings of France and Sicily. The
instructions of these envoys charged them to labour for the reunion of the
churches, while the need of assistance against the Turks was mentioned as a
secondary and comparatively trifling matter. But it was requested that the aid
might be sent at once, because the emperor would be unable, so long as the war
should last, to assemble the eastern patriarchs for the general council which
was proposed as a tribunal for the decision of the questions by which east and
west were divided. Even the Jews, said Barlaam, although the most ungrateful of
mankind, after having been miraculously fed by the Saviour, wished to make Him
a king; and, in like manner, assistance of this kind would prepare the minds of
the Greeks to welcome the proposals of religious union. The pope, however,
declined the project of a general council, on the ground that the doctrine of
the Holy Spirit’s procession had already been settled by some of the greatest
councils—even including (he said) the general council of Ephesus—and that he
could not allow it to be again brought into question. The proposal of a
compromise, by which each party should for the present be allowed to hold its
own opinions, was rejected, on the ground that the faith of the catholic church
could be but one. Other expedients suggested by Barlaam found no great favour;
nor was any hope of aid held out, except on condition that the Greeks should
first renounce their errors, and should send some of their number to be
instructed in the west.
Barlaam, on
returning to the east after this fruitless mission, became involved in a
strange controversy with some monks of Mount Athos and their supporters. These
monks, who were styled hesychasts (or quietists), imagined that by cultivating
an ascetic repose they might attain to behold the light of the Godhead. They
are described as fixing their gaze on the central part of their own persons, in
the hope that through the contemplation both their spiritual and their bodily
eyes would be enlightened by the divine radiance. Barlaam, it is said,
designedly chose out one of the more simple monks, whom the imperial chronicler
John Cantacuzene describes as little superior to an
irrational animal, and, by affecting the character of a disciple, drew from him
answers which showed a very gross apprehension of spiritual things; whereupon
he denounced the whole community, as if the views in question were shared by
all its members.At Thessalonica, where he first
broached the subject, he was confronted by Gregory Palamas,
a monk of Mount Athos, who enjoyed an extraordinary reputation for ascetic
sanctity; and, having fled in fearof the rabid monks
to Constantinople, where he persuaded the patriarch John to assemble a synod
for the consideration of the matter, he there again found Palamas his opponent. The question of the light which the mystics of Mount Athos
supposed themselves to see brought on a discussion as to the light which shone
around the Saviour at His transfiguration. This light Palamas maintained to be uncreated; while Barlaam argued that, if so, it must be God,
forasmuch as God alone is uncreated. But, he continued, since no man hath seen
God at any time, the hesychasts must hold the existence of two Gods—one, the
invisible maker of all things; the other, the visible and uncreated light. The
decision of the council was adverse to Barlaam, who, according to John Cantacuzene, when he saw that the case was going against
him, consulted the grand domestic (Cantacuzene himself), acknowledged himself to have been in error, and was joyfully embraced
by Palamas. But if this account be true, his
submission must have been insincere; for he soon after removed to Italy, where
he joined the Latin church, and wrote some letters in its behalf, which
contrast strongly with his arguments of an earlier time as a champion of the
Greeks. Through the interest of Petrarch, whom he had assisted in the study of Plato,he was promoted to the bishopric of Gerace in 1342; and his equivocal reputation as a divine is
combined with a more creditable fame as one among the chief revivers of Greek
letters in the west.
The
controversy begun by Barlaam was kept up by his pupil Gregory Acindynus; but repeated judgments were pronounced against
their opinions, and at a great synod, held at Constantinople in 1350, it was
declared, with a show of patristic authority, that the light of Mount Tabor was
uncreated, although not of the substance of God, while Barlaam and Acindynus were cut off from the body of the church, and
were declared to be incapable of forgiveness after death.
The death of
Andronicus III, in 1341, left the empire to his son John Palaeologus, a boy
nine years old, who was under the guardianship of the grand domestic, John Cantacuzene. After a time Cantacuzene,
alarmed by the intrigues of a party which included the empress-mother and
patriarch John of Apri, endeavoured to seize the
empire, as the only means of securing his own safety; but he was driven into
exile, from which he delivered himself by the fatal measure of calling the
Turks into Europe as his allies—giving his daughter in marriage to their leader Orkan, on condition that she should be allowed to
preserve her religion. The empire was now shared by John Palaeologus, his
mother, Anne of Savoy, and Cantacuzene, who became
the father-in-law of the young prince and held the chief power in his own
hands. While Cantacuzene was in exile, the
empress-mother had addressed a letter to Clement VI, expressing a strong desire
to unite her subjects with the church in which she had herself been brought up,
and entreating the pope to send her assistance in the meantime. Cantacuzene now sent ambassadors to the court of Avignon;
and the reception which they met with from Clement led him to believe that a
reconciliation was certain, and that a crusade was to be undertaken in his
behalf. But, although he repeatedly protested to the envoys whom Clement sent
to Constantinople that he would gladly give his life for the re-union of the
churches, he declared that the guilt of the separation lay on the Latins, who
had caused it by their innovations and assumptions; and that he would not
submit his conscience to any less authority than that of a council fairly
gathered from the whole church.The pope is said by Cantacuzene to have expressed his willingness to try this
course; but the negotiation was broken off by the death of Clement, and by the forced abdication of the
emperor, who spent his last years as a monk on Mount Athos, where he employed
himself in composing an uncandid history of his own time.
But John
Palaeologus, when thus rid of his guardian, was of all Greek emperors the most
inclined to make concessions to Rome. As the son of a western princess, whose
influence over him still continued, he felt nothing of the bigoted prejudice
with which the Greeks in general regarded the Latins; and his dangers both from
the Turks and from Cantacuzene’s son made him ready
to seek for assistance from the west on any terms. In 1355 he made overtures to
Innocent VI, offering to send his son Manuel to the pope, to have him
instructed in Latin under the superintendence of a legate, and to establish
schools for teaching Latin to young Greek nobles; and promising, if he should
fail as to any of these proposals, to abdicate in favour of his son, who should
then be wholly under the control of the pope. A Carmelite, Peter Thomasius, was thereupon sent to the Byzantine court, and
made an easy convert of the emperor. In 1366 John subscribed in Hungary a form
of faith agreeable to that of the Latin church, and professed homage to the
pope; he renewed his assurances to Urban V; and in 1369, while Constantinople
was under siege by Amurath, the pope’s return from
Avignon was adorned by the presence of the eastern emperor as well as by that
of the emperor of the west at Rome. John acknowledged the Roman supremacy, and
the double procession of the Holy Spirit; he did homage to the pope in St.
Peter’s by bending the knee, and by kissing his feet, hands, and mouth; he
assisted at a mass celebrated by Urban; and he performed that “office of a
groom” which the Christians of the west had been persuaded to connect with the
memory of Constantine the Great. But all these compliances were ineffectual as
to the object for which they were made. The pope’s exhortations to the knights
of Rhodes, to the king of Cyprus, to the Venetians and the Genoese, that they
should help the emperor against the enemies of Christendom, were unheeded. It
was in vain that John endeavoured to enlist the great condottiere Hawkwood in his service. He himself, on his way homewards,
was arrested for debt at Venice; and he found himself at last obliged to
conclude a humiliating treaty with the Turks.
The advance
of these assailants continued without check. In 1395 Bajazet,
who from the brilliant rapidity of his movements acquired the name of Ilderim (lightning), penetrated into Hungary, and
boasted an intention of subduing Germany and Italy, and of feeding his horses
with oats at the high altar of St. Peter’s at Rome. The princes and nobles of
France were roused by an embassy from king Sigismund of Hungary to hasten to
his aid against the infidel invaders; and a brilliant array of 100,000 men set
out, vaunting that, if the sky should fall, they would support it on the points
of their lances, and indulging in visions of carrying their victorious arms
even to the deliverance of Jerusalem. But the foolhardy confidence of these
crusaders—their luxury, licentiousness, and want of discipline—proved fatal to
the enterprise. Disdaining the advice of Sigismund, which was founded on his
knowledge of the Turkish mode of warfare, they were utterly defeated at the
battle of Nicopolis. Some of their leaders were
slain; others, among whom was the count of Nevers (afterwards noted as John the
Fearless, duke of Burgundy), were made prisoners, and were detained for ransom,
before the arrival of which not a few of them had perished under the cruel
usage of their captors.The failure of this expedition
roused much indignation against the rival popes, whose pretensions distracted
western Christendom, and made any combined action of its nations impossible.
In 1391 John
Palaeologus was succeeded by his son Manuel, who was able to obtain the
services of John le Maingre, one of the most
distinguished soldiers in the late unfortunate crusade, and afterwards famous
under the name of Boucicaut. By his advice Manuel,
who had already applied by letter both to Boniface IX.and to the French king, undertook in 1400 a journey into western Europe for the
purpose of begging assistance. Both in France and in England he was received
with great honours; but although Charles VI, in addition to bestowing a pension
on him until his fortunes should improve, promised him 1200 fighting men for a
year, and although Henry IV vowed a crusade, and taxed his people as if for the
relief of the Greek empire,no effective aid was to
be gained. Manuel, by adhering to his own religion, by refraining from all
interference in the controversy between the popes, and by passing through Italy
in the year of jubilee without visiting Rome, offended Boniface IX, who charged
him with irreverence towards an image, and discouraged the idea of assisting
him. He had been forced to submit to terms dictated by Bajazet;
and but for the overthrow of that conqueror by Timur, at the battle of Angora,
while Manuel was yet in the west, the fall of the Byzantine empire would probably
have been no longer delayed.
During this
time there was frequent correspondence between the popes and the Armenian
church, and projects of union were entertained with a view to an alliance
against the Mussulman power. But the Armenians failed to satisfy the popes
entirely as to their orthodoxy; and the help which they obtained from the west
was insufficient to protect them against their assailants. In 1367 Armenia
fell under the yoke of the Mamelukes; and the Christians were soon after
exposed to persecution at the hands of the conquerors.
In other
quarters also, where the Mahometans extended their
conquests, the Christians suffered severely, and many were put to death for
their religion, while others apostatized.
The period
which we are surveying was disastrous for the Christianity of the further east.
Although the popes continually flattered themselves with the hope of gaining
the Mongols, who were now pushing their conquests far and wide, these for the
most part embraced the religion of Islam; and the hopes of conversion which
from time to time were held out by the envoys of Asiatic princes, on condition
of an alliance against their Mussulman or other enemies, invariably proved to
be delusive.
In China,
where, as we have already seen, the Franciscan John of Monte Corvino laboured
until about the year 1330, the propagation of the gospel was carried on with
much success, chiefly by other members of the same order. But in 1369 the
Chinese drove out the Mongols, and established a system of jealous exclusion of
all foreigners; in consequence of which the Christianity of China soon became
extinct.
The great
Asiatic conqueror Timur (or Tamerlane) appears to have observed an equivocal
policy in matters of religion, and is described by some as friendly to
Christians; but, whatever his own belief may have been, he outwardly, and as a
matter of policy, at least, conformed to Islam. At the end of the period, a few
scattered communities, chiefly Nestorian, were all that remained to represent
the Christianity of Asia.
In Europe
the end of the fourteenth century witnessed the conversion of the last
considerable people which had until then professed heathenism. Lithuania, under
its great-prince Jagello, had by conquests from
Russia become a kingdom in all but name. In 1382 Jagello,
whose mother had been a Christian, made proposals of marriage to Hedwig, who
by the death of her father, Lewis, king of Hungary and Poland, had become
heiress of the latter kingdom. He offered that he and all his people should be
baptized, and that his territories should be united with Poland. The advantages
of this arrangement outweighed both the contract into which she had already entered
with an Austrian prince, and her personal dislike of Jagello. Jagello was baptized by the name of Ladislaus. Bishoprics were established at Wilna and in seven other towns; and the king set vigorously
about the fulfilment of his promise as to the conversion of his people. These
were at first unwilling to change their religion; but when they saw temples and
altars overthrown, the sacred groves cut down, and the serpents which had been
objects of worship killed, their faith in their old gods was shaken, and they
rushed to baptism in such multitudes that it was found necessary to lead them
in companies to the bank of the river, where a whole band was sprinkled at
once, and all the members of it received the same baptismal name. Ladislaus himself travelled about the country, teaching the
Lord’s prayer and the decalogue; and the work of conversion was forwarded by
the white woollen dresses, of Polish manufacture, which were bestowed on the neophytes.Although, however, the profession of Christianity
thus became general in Lithuania, Aeneas Sylvius cites a Camaldolese monk, named Jerome of Prague, who visited the country in the beginning of the
fifteenth century, as testifying that the worship of fire and of serpents was
still widely kept up in it.
The conversion
of the Finns and of the Laplanders is also referred to this period; but it
would seem to have hardly reached more deeply than to the reception of baptism,
and of the priestly benediction in marriage.
CHAPTER X.
SECTARIES—MYSTICS.
While the
church was agitated by thereforming movements of
Wyclif and Hus, some of the older parties which had incurred its condemnation
continued to exist, and to draw on themselves fresh censures and penalties.
The Cathari, although almost extinguished in southern France by
the wars of the thirteenth century, and by the relentless vigilance of the
inquisition, were very numerous in Bosnia and the neighbouring regions; and
the popes found little inclination on the part of successive kings of Hungary
to exert themselves for the suppression of the sect.
The
Waldenses also, as appears from the records of the inquisition of Toulouse,
were among the victims of that tribunal. They are found in other parts of
France, as also in Germany, where many of them suffered death as heretics; and
it appears to have been in the beginning of this time that they made their way
in considerable numbers into the valleys of Piedmont,where fanciful history and impossible etymology represent them as having lived even
from the time of the apostles. In the years 1402-3, the famous Spanish
Dominican Vincent Ferrer was employed in that region for the conversion of the
sectaries, among whom he says that there were Cathari as well as Waldenses; but, although his eloquence is said to have been accompanied
by miraculous circumstances—that the most distant persons in his audience heard
him as distinctly as the nearest, and that his preaching was understood by all,
although they might be ignorant of the language in which he spoke— its force
was not sufficient to root out the opinion against which it was directed. There
were much persecution of the Waldenses in Northern Italy during the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries, and in consequence of this many fled to Apulia and
Calabria, where their settlements continued to exist, until in 1560 they were
exterminated by a massacre which is one of the blackest crimes connected with
the suppression of the reformation in Italy.
BEGHARDS
Other
parties of separatists from the church were spoken of under the general name of beghards, which in Italy, Spain, and southern France,
commonly designated fraticelli, but in Germany and
Flanders the sectaries of the “Free Spirit”. Of these Cologne was the chief
seat, and many of them suffered there and in other towns of the Rhine country.
The secret progress of their pantheistic and immoral doctrines was favoured by
the difficulty of distinguishing between such beghards and the harmless devotees who were confounded with them under a common name;
while the more dangerous class studied to conceal their peculiarities by
affecting a likeness in dress and manners to those beghards and beguines whom the popes by repeated declarations endeavoured to preserve
from molestation. It is, indeed, probable that societies of beghards which were originally orthodox became gradually
corrupted by the secret introduction of unsound opinions. The name of Lollards,
which eventually marked the followers of Wyclif, is found as early as 1309,
when it seems to be applied to the sect of the Free Spirit in Holland and
Brabant, and was used indifferently with that of beghard.
Another name given to sectaries of the same kind was that of turlupins; those who were so styled in the Isle of France,
about the year 1372, are described as having held that nothing which is natural
is matter for shame; and a woman of the sect, Mary of Valenciennes, is spoken
of by Gerson as having written a book “with almost infinite subtlety” on the
text, “Have charity, and do what thou wilt.”
The popes
laboured to secure the co-operation of the secular power for the suppression of
heresy. We have seen how, in a former age, the emperor Frederick II attempted
to rescue his own reputation for orthodoxy by the severity of his laws and
proceedings against sectaries; and in other cases the opposite motive of a
desire to stand well with the papacy led to a course which was practically the
same. Thus the emperor Charles IV, in the code which has from him the name of
Carolina, ordered that obstinate heretics should be made over by the secular to
the ecclesiastical authorities, in order to be burnt, and that receivers of
heretics should forfeit their property; but the opposition of the Bohemians
was so decided that these severe laws could not be put into execution.
The
inquisition was now extended in Germany, France, Spain, Poland, and other
countries. Boniface VIII had endeavoured to regulate its proceedings, and Clement
V, at the council of Vienne, found himself obliged to admit that in many cases
the inquisitors had given just cause of complaint. He therefore decreed that
the bishops should be associated with these, who had until then been
independent of the episcopal power; and while each of the orders was authorized
to proceed in some respects without reference to the other, the cooperation of
both bishops and inquisitors was in some cases required. In some countries,
such as England, however, the inquisition was never able to establish itself;
and elsewhere, as in the south of France, it found itself hampered by the
unwillingness of the secular authorities to assist, by their interference with
its sentences, or even by their direct opposition. To the questions of heresy
which had engaged the labours of the inquisitors was added in Germany the duty
of inquiring into the practice of witchcraft. The belief and the fear of this
unhallowed art became rife, and secular authorities, as well as those of the
church, concerned themselves with discovering and punishing those who were
supposed to be guilty of it. Multitudes of wretches suffered in
consequence—many of them after having confessed the commission of monstrous and
impossible crimes.One writer reckons the number of
sorcerers who were burnt within a century and a half at 30,000, or more, and
believes that but for this wholesome severity the entire world would have been
ruined by magical practices.
The practice
of associating for penitential flagellation, which had been suppressed in the
thirteenth century on account of the fanatical excesses connected with it,was still revived from time to time. In seasons of
public calamity, when trust in the ordinary resources of the church was shaken,
this exercise was again and again taken up by multitudes as a more powerful
means of propitiating the wrath of heaven. The appearance of a flagellant party
after the ravages of the Black Death, and the condemnation of flagellancy by Clement VI, have been already related. One
Conrad Schmidt, a Thuringian, on finding the principle of flagellation thus
discountenanced by the church, developed it into a system hostile both to the
clergy and to their doctrines. He taught that flagellation was a baptism of
blood; that it superseded the sacraments and other rites of the church, which
were said to be ineffectual on account of the vices of the clergy; that salvation
was possible for such persons only as should flog themselves at least on every
Friday at the hour of the Saviour’s passion; that this was the new faith which
saved all, whereas the old faith of the gospel condemned all; that the Saviour,
toy changing water into wine, had signified that in the last days the baptism
of water was to be superseded by the baptism of blood. The party claimed to
represent the flagellants of sixty years before, from which time it was that
they supposed the ministry and sacraments of the church to have lost their
power. They had wild prophetical fancies—that Conrad Schmidt himself and one of
his associates, who was burnt as a heretic, were Enoch and Elijah—the souls of
those ancient saints having been infused into them at their birth; and that at
the last day, which was fixed for the year 1364, Schmidt was to be the judge of
the quick and the dead. With these and other strange opinions were combined the
principles of dissimulation and evasion which are imputed to many kinds of sectaries;
the flagellants were confounded with other parties under the general name of beghards; and their rule required them to conform outwardly
to the church, and to punish themselves by stripes in secret for this
compliance.1! In 1372 Gregory XI. instructed an inquisitor in
Germany that these people should be treated as heretics on account of their
denial of the sacraments;and this order was carried
out at various times by burning many of them. Perhaps the most remarkable
persecution was that of 1414, when about ninety of Schmidt’s adherents were
burnt at Sangershausen in Thuringia, and many others
in other German towns.
In Italy
also the same fanaticism appeared from time to time. And in 1399 a great
movement—excited by two priests who are variously described as having come from
Spain, from Provence, and from Scotland—began in Lombardy, whence it proceeded
southwards to Florence, Rome, and Naples. The penitents professed to have
received a revelation from the blessed Virgin that her Divine Son’s wrath was provoked
by the sins of mankind. They were dressed in white, and the numbers of their
various companies, in which persons of all ranks were mixed, are reckoned at
from 10,000 to 40,000. They chanted the Stabat Mater with vehement supplications
for mercy; they declined all sustenance except bread and water, fasted much,
and refused to make use of beds during the time of their pilgrimage. When one
company had finished its devotions at Rome, it was succeeded by another.
Multitudes were drawn to join the penitents; there was a profuse show of
contrition in confessing of sins, enemies were reconciled, and in other ways
there was much amendment of life. But Boniface IX condemned the movement as
being opposed to the discipline of the church; and its good effects soon passed
away. About the same time there was a fresh outbreak of flagellation in
Flanders, and Henry IV of England issued a proclamation by which it was ordered
that, if any of the party should arrive in an English port, they should not be
suffered to land.
A few years
later, St. Vincent Ferrer appeared as the leader of a party of flagellants; and
from the fact of his countenancing such a movement we may infer that it was
free from the fanatical excesses, and from the enmity to the clergy, which had
marked the flagellants of earlier days. He seems, however, to have been
convinced by the arguments of Gerson, and he wrote to the council of Constance
that he submitted to the authority of that assembly in all things, and
abandoned the manner of devotion which had been called in question.
Very
different in character from these wilder movements was the mysticism which now
appeared as prevailing widely in Germany. The origin and growth of this may be
in no small degree referred to the peculiar troubles of the time. The clergy
sank in estimation, and hence many persons of a religious disposition, as well
as others, became inclined to disparage the outward forms of religion. The
abuse of the sentence of interdict, which was now often pronounced for reasons
merely political—a sentence which involved multitudes of innocent persons in
suffering for the alleged guilt of their superiors, and which, by denying the
ordinary means of grace, drove the awakened cravings of the soul to seek for
sustenance elsewhere—contributed greatly to foster the mystic tendency. And
the expectation that the end of all things would speedily come, the eager study
of such prophecies as those of St. Hildegard and abbot Joachim, the readiness
to believe in visions and new revelations, affected the mind in a similar way.
Some of
these mystics styled themselves “Friends of God”—a name derived from the
Saviour’s words “Henceforth I call you not servants; but I have called you
friends.” They abounded chiefly on the upper Rhine, especially at Basel and
Strasburg; but they had also correspondence with brethren in Switzerland,
Italy, and Hungary, at Cologne, and in the Low Countries. It has been disputed
whether the name designated an organised society, connected with the Waldenses
or other sectaries who were avowedly separated from the church; but this idea
seems to be now abandoned. The “friends of God ” were not a sect, although
liable to be mistaken for sectaries, and involved by the vulgar in the general
odium of beghardism. The visions and revelations on
which they relied are foreign to the character of the Waldensian system.While judging the clergy freely, they did not
venture to question the doctrine of the church. They were devoted to the
blessed Virgin, they reverenced saints and relics, they held the current belief
in purgatory. Their love of symbolism enabled them to reconcile the ordinary
faith and worship with the peculiarities of their own system, which they
regarded as additional, but not contradictory, to that of the church.
In this
society were included monks and clergy, nobles, merchants, men and women of all
classes, even down to tillers of the soil. They had priests to administer the
Eucharist, but in other respects they did not attach importance to ordination.
Thus Nicolas of Basel, a layman, who had founded the party, was regarded as its
chief, and as its most enlightened member; and one of its characteristics was
the principle of submission to certain men whose superior sanctity had raised
them to the highest class, and invested them with oracular authority, “as in
God’s stead”. The “friends,” while professing to be purely scriptural,
interpreted the Scriptures allegorically and mystically, and some parts of
their system were concealed from the lower grades of believers by being disguised
in a symbolical form. They denounced the subtleties and the dryness of
scholasticism, and regarded the mixture of philosophy with religion as pharisaical. Their preachers were distinguished by the
warmth, the earnestness, and the practical nature of their discourses; instead
of contenting themselves, as was then common, with warning against the grossest
sins by the fear of hell, they rather dwelt on the blessedness of heaven, and
exhorted to the perfection of the Christian life, and to union with God. They
taught that these objects were to be sought by entire resignation to the Divine
will; if such resignation were attained, men would pray neither for heaven nor
for deliverance from hell, but for God Himself alone. Hence they did not, like
the monks, break away from their earthly ties, but regarded these as the
providential conditions under which their work was to be carried on; and
although some of them gave themselves to contemplation, the principle of
resignation to God’s will became an incentive to action for others, whom it
taught to regard themselves as instruments for the fulfilment of that will. It
was held that the highest reach of love was to prefer the salvation of another
to our own.
On the same
principle of resignation, it was taught that all temptations ought to be
welcomed; even sensual temptations were to be regarded as a check on spiritual
pride, and to be without temptation was a token of being forsaken by God. All
bodily discipline was represented as designed for spiritual purposes, and as
marking a stage after passing through which such things would not be necessary
for the believer. But sufferings of God’s sending were always to be gladly
accepted.
NICOLAS OF BASEL
The history
of Nicolas, the founder of this remarkable society, is for the most part very
obscure. His very name is discoverable by inference only, and in his accounts
of himself there is so large a mixture of visionary, marvellous, and
allegorical matter, that it is impossible to determine how much is intended to
be accepted as literal truth. He was born about 1308, the son of a merchant, to
whose business he succeeded; but the companionship of a young knight induced
him to withdraw from trade, and for a time to engage in the amusements of the
world. On the eve of the day appointed for his marriage, he prayed for
direction before a crucifix; when it seemed to him that the figure inclined
towards him, and, in obedience to this sign, he resolved to give up the world
and to follow the Saviour. He did not, however, renounce his wealth, but
keeping it in his own hands he devoted it to religious purposes. He appears to
have had at first four associates, and eventually the number of those admitted
to the highest grade was thirteen. From Basel the headquarters of the party were
removed in 1374-5 to a mountain within the Austrian-Swiss territory, where he
built a house on a site which is said to have been miraculously indicated by a
vision, and by the leading of a dog; and thence Nicolas kept up, by means of
correspondence and of secret intelligencers, a watchful superintendence over
his widely-spread connection. “The great friend of God in the Hill-country,” as
he was styled, threw around himself an air of mystery; and when he went forth
to work on persons who had been marked out as fit subjects for his influence,
he was able, by means of his private information, to astonish and awe them by a
knowledge of their concerns which they readily believed to be supernatural. In
1377, when the return of Gregory XI from Avignon appeared to open prospects of
reform, Nicolas and one of his brethren repaired to Rome, and sought an
interview with the pope, whom they urged to heal the evils of the church. On
Gregory’s professing himself unequal to such a work, Nicolas threatened him
with death within a year, and foretold the coming schism; and his predictions
were, of course, fulfilled. At length Nicolas, after many years of labour, was
burnt as a beghard at Vienna, probably in the year
1393.
ECKART
It was from
the Dominican brotherhood that most of the great teachers of mysticism came
forth. The first of them, Henry Eckart, became provincial of the order for
Saxony in 1304, and lived at Cologne. With Eckart, the great object of
endeavour is represented to be the union and identification of the soul with
God, whom he speaks of as the only being. By contemplation, he says, the divine
part of the soul may become one with God, and son to Him; the soul is
transformed into God even as the eucharistic bread and wine are changed into
the body and blood of the Saviour. The word which Eckart used to denote the
desire of this union was poverty, by which was expressed the fact that man has
nothing of his own in order to attain to the pure knowledge of God, all joy and
fear, all confidence and hope, must be laid aside; for all these are of the
creature, and are hindrances to union. Eckart’s mysticism was largely indebted
to the works of the pretended Dionysius the Areopagite, and had much in common
with Neoplatonism. His language often runs into manifest pantheism; but,
although in this respect he bears a likeness to the sectaries of the Free
Spirit, he was in no way connected with them, but differed essentially from
them in his ardent desire for the salvation of the soul, and in his freedom
from the impurity which stained their teaching. There was, however enough to
draw on him the suspicion of heterodoxy; and, after a previous examination by
the authorities of his order in 1324, the matter was taken up by the archbishop
of Cologne, who in 1327 censured twenty-eight propositions extracted from his
writings. These Eckart retracted in so far as they might be contrary to the
doctrine of the church; but a more special retractation was required, and
against this demand he appealed to the pope. By this step he appears to have
secured himself from further trouble, until his death in 1329; but in that same
year he was condemned by John XXII, as having held twenty-eight erroneous
propositions. It would seem, however, that the Dominicans exerted themselves in
favour of his memory; for although the pope, in the following year, by the bull
‘In agro Dominico’, renewed
his censure of the propositions, it may be supposed that by omitting to connect
the name of Eckart with them, he intended (in so far as retractation was possible
for a pope) to withdraw the charge against him.
TAULER
Notwithstanding
the suspicions which had been cast on Eckart’s orthodoxy, his writings
continued to be the chief study of the later mystics, among whom John Tauler was the most famous. Tauler was born at Strasburg in 1294, and at the age of eighteen entered the Dominican
order. He studied for some time at Paris, although it is not known whether it
was to that university that he owed his degree of doctor in theology; and in
the course of his studies he showed a preference for the mystical and spiritual
writers—the pseudo-Dionysius, the school of St. Bernard, and, above all, St.
Augustine—over the scholastic authors who were then of greatest authority. On
returning to his native city he fell under the influence of Eckart and other
mystics, which was then powerful at Strasburg; yet, unlike Eckart, he was
inclined rather to practical work than to speculation, and he often denounces
the mistaken contemplativeness and the passive quietism which he regarded as perversions of the true mysticism; for in this he held
that love for man ought to go hand-in-hand with the aspiration after union with
God.
Strasburg
was then agitated by the differences between the pope and the emperor Lewis, so
that, while the bishop adhered to the pope, the citizens, by siding with the
emperor, incurred the sentence of interdict. In consequence of this, the clergy
were divided: while some shut up their churches, others, in defiance of the
interdict, deemed it their duty to continue their pastoral labours. In such
circumstances it was natural that persons of all classes should be drawn
together by the desire of finding some satisfaction for their spiritual needs,
to which the church appeared to deny the means of support; and thus the
association of the “friends of God” became greatly increased in numbers. Among
the clergy who remained at their posts was Tauler,
although the brethren of his order in general left the town. The circumstances
of the time gave him prominence; he became famous as a preacher, and in that
character he extended his labours on the one side to Basel (where, as at
Strasburg, the imperialist citizens had been laid under an interdict by the
bishop), and on the other side to Cologne; the fame of his eloquence even made
its way across the Alps into Italy.
In 1346 he
was visited by a layman, who had listened to several of his sermons and
expressed a wish to confess to him. Tauler heard the
confession, and administered the sacrament of the altar to the stranger, who
afterwards visited him again, and requested him to preach on the manner of
attaining the highest perfection which is possible in this life. Tauler complied, although reluctantly, and addressed to a
crowded audience an earnest exhortation to renunciation of self and of
self-will. Once more the layman, who had taken notes of the sermon, appeared,
and told Tauler that he had come a distance of thirty
miles, not so much to hear him as to give him advice; that he, the famous
preacher, who had already reached his fiftieth year, was still but a man of
books, a mere Pharisee. Tauler, although startled and
shocked by such words, warmly thanked his monitor for having been the first to
tell him of his faults, and entreated his further counsel. The stranger prescribed
some ascetic exercises; he himself, he said, had gone through such things, but
had now outgrown them, so as to need them no longer; and he further charged Tauler to abstain for two years from preaching, from
hearing confessions, and from study, shutting himself up in the seclusion of
his cell. Submission to the dictates of those who were supposed to possess
spiritual experience was, as we have seen, a characteristic of the “friends of
God”, and Tauler obeyed. The monitor was no other
than Nicolas of Basel, who, in his watchful observation of all who might be
supposed likely to sympathize with him, had marked Tauler during a visit which the preacher had lately made to Basel, and had undertaken
the journey to Strasburg for the purpose of gaining him. Tauler struggled through the prescribed exercises, being upheld by the counsels of
Nicolas, and even assisted by his money, while his former friends mocked at him
for the change which had taken place; but when, at the end of the two years, he
attempted to resume his preaching, and his fame had drawn together a great
audience, his utterance was choked by his feelings; he burst into tears, and
found himself unable to proceed. It was supposed that he had lost his senses,
and his superiors forbade him the pulpit. Nicolas of Basel, on being consulted,
told him that perhaps he had not yet overcome his love of self, and advised him
to remain silent for some time longer; after which, by the direction of
Nicolas, Tauler asked and obtained leave to preach in
Latin before the brethren of his order. In this he acquitted himself so as to
raise general admiration, and the late prohibition was taken off. He resumed
his public preaching, which was now marked by a warmth and a depth unknown in
his earlier time : such was the effect of his first sermon that twelve persons
were struck down as if dead. He strenuously urged reformation, nor did he spare
the faults of the clergy, so that with them he became unpopular, and he and his
associates were stigmatized as beghards. In addition
to labouring as a preacher, Tauler wrote some German
tracts, of which the most celebrated is one on ‘The Imitation of the Saviour’s
Life of Poverty’; and he acted as the spiritual director of many persons—among
whom Rulman Merswin, a
wealthy retired merchant, and author of a book entitled ‘The Nine Rocks’ is
especially mentioned.
The great
pestilence of 1348 raged with such violence at Strasburg that 16,000 persons
died in the city alone. The interdict was still in force, and the clergy in
general, professedly out of obedience to it, refrained from the exercise of
their ministry. In these circumstances, Tauler and a
few others, among whom was Ludolf of Saxony, prior of
the Carthusian convent, stepped forward, arguing that it was contrary to
Scripture and to reason that, for the political offence of one man, multitudes
of innocent persons should be excluded from the means of grace and from the
benefit of the Redeemer’s sufferings. They tended the sick, aided them with
spiritual counsel, administered the last consolations of religion, and buried
the dead with the offices of the church. But by these and other things the
bishop of Strasburg was offended, so that when Charles IV visited the city, and
reconciliation with the church was offered to the inhabitants, Tauler was required, as a suspected beghard,
to give an account of his faith before the emperor. The result is not recorded;
but it was probably in consequence of this that he withdrew to Cologne, where
he laboured zealously to correct the prevailing habits of luxury, and to
counteract the teaching of the professors of the Free Spirit. The time of his
return to Strasburg is unknown; but he was there in 1361, when, feeling the
approach of death, he invited Nicolas of Basel to visit him. In compliance with
this request, Nicolas repaired to Strasburg, and during an illness of many
weeks Tauler was sustained by the comfort of
intercourse with the man whose influence had determined the course of his maturer spiritual life, and whom he now desired to draw up
a narrative of their early intercourse, from notes which Tauler had made long before. Tauler died on the 16th of June
1361, in a garden-house of the convent in which his sister was a nun, and he
has been blamed by a severe mystic for the weakness of indulging his human
affections by allowing himself her society.
Tauler was styled by his admirers the Illuminated (or
Enlightened) Doctor. His sermons, which are the most important part of his
remaining works, are characterized by deep earnestness and by an evangelical
tone which, as Luther mentions, was symbolized by his monument, on which he was
represented as pointing to the Lamb of God. He taught that outward austerities
were to be regarded not for their own sake, but as a discipline for beginners,
and would fall away of themselves from the believer in proportion as his faith
became matured; that without a right heart, penance, confession, absolution,
with all the intercessions of the blessed Virgin and the saints, are of no
avail. While he would have all the laws of the church observed, he attaches no
importance to the outward works, and even says that the believer must sometimes
appear to break the laws—a principle which was, of course, liable to be
perverted, as it was by the sectaries of the Free Spirit. And, while he regards
the holy Eucharist as the chief means of union between the believer and his
Lord, he teaches that in this also the inward feeling must be regarded rather
than the outward form. Although fond of recondite meanings, he is free from all
parade of learning; in one sermon, he announces his intention of giving up the
practice of using Latin quotations, except in discourses addressed to learned
hearers. The writings of Tauler had much influence on
the mind of Luther, who warmly expressed his obligations to them. It has been
said by Herder, that to read two of Tauler’s sermons
is to read them all;yet, as has been well observed,
even the monotony which unquestionably runs throughout them may have tended in
practice to deepen the impression of his teaching.
SUSO
Another
famous mystic, Henry von Berg, who is more generally known by the name of Suso, was a Dominican of Constance, and died in 1365, in
his seventieth year. In an autobiography, which is probably in part imaginary,
he tells us that from the age of eighteen to that of forty he disciplined
himself by strict observances of devotion, by severe ascetic exercises, and
even by tortures, such as that of wearing under his dress a wooden cross
studded with thirty nails, of which the points were turned towards his flesh.
At length, when he had reduced himself by this treatment to such a degree that
a continuance of it must have been fatal, he was told by an angel that he had
studied long enough in the lower school, and was to be transferred to the higher,
in which his sufferings would not be of his own infliction, but would come on
him plentifully from men and devils. The object of all he represents as being
an entire abandonment and resignation of self to the Divine will, in imitation
of the Saviour’s example. On expressing a wish to set to work, he is told that
the less one does, the more hath he really done—that men ought not to act for
themselves, but to cast themselves wholly on God’s promises. There are stories
not only of visions, but of miracles. The book was drawn up by Suso for the instruction of a “spiritual daughter”, whom he
warns that she is soon to die; and he relates that, after her death, he had a
vision of her as “passing gloriously into the pure Divinity.” The principle of
self-abandonment is again inculcated in Suso’s book
‘Of the Eternal Wisdom’, where the Saviour is introduced as conversing with His
servant, and recounting the bodily and spiritual sufferings of His passion. Suso is without the manly strength of Tauler,
and is distinguished chiefly by the poetical and figurative tone of his
writings.
RUYSBROEK
The
mystically speculative tendency of Eckart revived in the anonymous author of
the ‘German Theology’, which is supposed to be a work of this time, and in John Ruysbroek, who was distinguished by the title of Ecstatic
Doctor. Ruysbroek, who is characterizedby John of Trittenheim as “a man reputed to be devout,
but of little learning’, had been a secular priest at Brussels until the age of
sixty, when he withdrew to the monastery of Grontal,
of which he became prior. He professed that he never wrote a word except by
inspiration of the Holy Spirit and in the especial presence of the Divine
Trinity; and it is related that, when he found the influence of divine grace
strong on him, he used to retire to write in the depths of a wood—where his
canons, uneasy at his long absence, once found him surrounded by a supernatural
light, imperfectly conscious, but “inebriated by the glow of the divine
sweetness.” Ruysbroek died in 1381, at the age
of eighty-eight. His works were written in Flemish, but were translated into
Latin. Gerson, who, as a nominalist, was alarmed by their mystic realism,
denounced them as pantheistic, and on this account became involved in a
controversy with John of Schonhofen, a canon of Grontal, who, among other things, charged him with having
too much relied on the Latin translation.
Gerson
himself endeavoured to unite mysticism with scholasticism, so as to exclude the
dangers of unrestrained imagination and fanaticism; and to him has been
attributed by some writers the authorship of the most celebrated devotional
book of the middle ages— the treatise ‘Of the Imitation of Christ’. But
this supposition appears rather to have been suggested by the patriotic desire
of French writers to claim for one of their own countrymen a work so justly
admired than to rest on any solid basis of facts. And the slightly different
name of John Gerson, which has been put forward by other writers on the ground
of inscriptions in some manuscript copies of the book, would seem to be really
nothing more than a mistake for that of the famous chancellor of Paris. The
popular opinion, which ascribes the ‘Imitation’ to Thomas Hamerken of Kempten, a canon regular of Zwoll, who died in
1471, appears, therefore, to be the most probable. The tone of the ‘Imitation’
is strongly mystical, yet no less practical—setting forth religious practice as
the way to insight into divine things. Thoroughly monastic in spirit, it has
the characteristic excellences and defects of monastic piety; while it is full
of wise guidance for the soul in the ways of humility, purity, and
self-renunciation, the religion which it inculcates is too exclusively directed
towards the perfecting of the individual in himself, too little solicitous for
his relations with the brotherhood of mankind. Its conception of the way of
life is too limited, and does not enough regard the endless variety of
circumstances in which men are placed, with the task before them of working out
their salvation under the conditions assigned to them by the divine providence.
Yet the vast and unequalled popularity of the book has not been confined to
those who would sympathize with its monastic peculiarities, but has extended to
multitudes of persons remote in feeling and in belief from all that is
specially distinctive of medieval religion.
The teaching
of the mystics, by leading men from a reliance on outward observances to an
inward spiritual life, prepared the way for the Reformation, and Luther speaks with
warm admiration of Tauler and of the German Theology.
But between the two systems there was the important difference, that whereas
the mystics sought after immediate union with the Saviour through conformity to
him in humility and spiritual poverty, the characteristic doctrine of Luther
was that of free justification by faith, while his system insisted on the
necessity of those sacramental means which the mystics regarded as
comparatively unimportant.
CHAPTER XI
SUPPLEMENTARY.
The Hierarchy.
In the earlier part of the time
which we are now surveying, the pretensions of the papacy, although they could
not in substance be carried higher than before (inasmuch as they already
included supremacy both in spiritual and in temporal things), were more
extravagantly developed in detail. For this questionable service the popes were
indebted to the flattery of curialist writers, and of
friars specially devoted to their interest, such as Augustine Trionfi and Alvar Pelayo,—who maintained, for example, that
the pope could not sin by corruption or simony in the bestowal of preferment,
forasmuch as he is above law, so that actions which are sinful in others are
not so in him.
In their
relations with secular powers the popes were often gainers. The claim advanced
by John XXII in the case of Lewis of Bavaria—that an elected emperor should not
have authority to govern until after having been examined and approved by the
pope—was something even beyond the pretensions of Boniface VIII; but in the
contest with Lewis the popes had the advantage, and their candidate, Charles
IV, succeeded peacefully on his rival’s death. The right to bestow kingdoms
had been already asserted as to Hungary on the extinction of the Arpad dynasty,
although the Hungarians would not allow that the pope was entitled to do more
than to confirm the national choice; and in other cases, princes who were
desirous to secure themselves in the possession of a doubtful crown requested
the papal sanction, as was done by the great Robert of Scotland shortly before
his death.
But on the
whole the popes lost more than they gained. Their claims to domination, after
having been carried beyond endurance by Boniface VIII, began immediately
afterwards to recede by the withdrawal of the bulls which had offended Philip
the Fair; and that line of investigation into the sources of the papal rights
which was begun in the imperial interest by such writers as Marsilius of Padua and William of Ockham, was afterwards forced by the great schism on
churchmen whose natural feeling would have been averse to it. Even such men
were compelled, by the inextricable confusion which arose out of the
pretensions of rival popes, to ask whether there might not be some means of
arbitrating between them. In these circumstances the universities—especially
that of Paris—gained an authority which was very dangerous to the papacy; and
in various quarters new and startling opinions were propounded. By some, it was
maintained that the pope was not essentially necessary to the church; others
denied him the possession of the “two swords”, referring to the benefits which
the church had derived from the intervention of Theodoric the Goth and of Otho
I, and tracing the schism, with all the other evils of the time, to the
secularity of the popes. And whereas the popes had endeavoured to absorb the
rights of the whole episcopate, the episcopate was now set up as an aristocracy,
in opposition to the monarchy of the pope. There was a tendency to limit the
papal power; and the circumstances of the time appeared to force on the other
members of the church the task of judging those who claimed to be its head.
The notions that popes could not be deposed except for heresy—that the
occupant of the chief see was exempt from earthly judgment—were denied and
refuted. If, argues the writer of a treatise which has been commonly ascribed
to Gerson, an hereditary king may be deposed—(for this he assumes as a thing
beyond question)—much more may a pope, who is chosen by cardinals—one whose
father and grandfather were perhaps unable to find beans to fill their bellies.
When, he adds, the case of a pope is in question, it is not for him, but for
cardinals, bishops, and secular princes to assemble a general council; and such
a council is superior to the pope and may control him, while he has no power to
dispense with its canons. The church, according to Gerson and others of the
same school, may compel a pope to resign. These principles were, as we have
seen, carried into effect at the council of Constance.
On the other
hand, the power of the empire had never recovered itself since the time of
Frederick II. Dante, at the beginning of the period, speaks of one of the two
suns by which Rome had formerly been enlightened as having been extinguished by
the other. The endeavours of Henry VII to restore the ancient rights of his
crown were cut short by an untimely death; and all that he had
achieved was forfeited by the faults or the misfortunes of his successors. The
transfers of the empire from one family to another, while they added strength
and importance to the electoral princes of Germany, weakened the imperial
authority; the emperor or king of the Romans, who had paid dearly for his
office and had no assurance as to the succession, was under the strongest
temptation to regard his own immediate interest alone, and to sacrifice the
permanent interests of his crown. At Constance, indeed, Sigismund was able to
exercise influence as advocate of the church; but the decline of the imperial
authority from its former greatness was shown by the fact that he found it
necessary to call in the aid of John XXIII for the assembling of the council,
as the European kingdoms had ceased to acknowledge the supremacy of the empire.
In France
the opposition between the papacy and the crown was removed by the settlement
of the popes at Avignon, which rendered them subservient tools of the
sovereign. But this subserviency, in addition to the degradation of the papacy,
had the effect of exciting the jealousy of the English, which was shown in many
forms of resistance, while the popes found themselves obliged to meet it by
compromise, lest the nation should be provoked to throw off their authority.
To this time
belongs the completion of the Canon Law. Clement V ordered the determinations
of the council of Vienne, with other decrees which he had issued, to be
collected into five books, which from him derive the name of Clementines. Among these it is noted that under the head of
Oaths he takes the opportunity of declaring the oath sworn to the holy see by
Henry VII to be a real oath of fealty; and that under the head of the Liberty
of the Church he withdraws the bull Clericis Laicos. After having published these books
in a consistory of cardinals, Clement sent them in 1313 to the university of
Orleans, which he had founded; but, although he lived a year and a half longer,
he did not communicate them in the usual manner to the other universities, and
it is said by a writer who lived two centuries later, that, from a feeling of
their contrariety in many respects to Christian simplicity and to the freedom
of religion, he gave orders on his death-bed that they should be abolished. If
it be true that Clement had such scruples, they were not shared by his
successor, John XXII; for this pope sent the Clementines to Paris and Bologna in 1317, that they might serve as a text for lectures.
The Clementines were the last addition to the body of
ecclesiastical law which was put forth with the fulness of papal sanction. At
an earlier time such decretals as did not appear in Gratian’s compilation had
been styled Extravagants. After the
publication of Gregory IXth’s five books, the same
name was used to designate such more recent decretals as had not yet been
included in any authorized collection; and it has since become the general
title of the decretals issued by John XXII and his successors, as these were
never collected or communicated to the universities by papal authority. The
selection of the documents which are classed under this head is attributed to Chapuis, who edited the Canon Law in 1500.
The new
legislation was in the same spirit with that which had gone before it. Although
strong assaults were sometimes made on portions of the false decretals, no one
ventured to attack them as a whole; and so long as these retained their
authority, any attempts of councils to limit the power of the pope were likely
to be nugatory.
ANNATES
The popes of
this time not only maintained their older claims as to money, patronage, and
the like, but endeavoured to enlarge on them. Thus John XXII imposed the tax of
annates 0r first-fruits—a payment for which there had been some shadow of
precedent in the demands made by bishops (sometimes with papal sanction), from
those who were presented to benefices by them; although in earlier times such
exactions had been condemned by the church and its most eminent teachers, such
as Chrysostom in the east and Gregory the Great in the west. John in 1319
extended it to ill benefices, both elective and non-elective, fixing the amount
at half the income of the first year, and professing that the law was to be
for three years only; but it appears to have been renewed, and the exaction was
yet further enforced by Boniface IX.The popes also
claimed the income of bishoprics, etc., during vacancy (fructus medii temporis), and,
although Alexander V and Martin V professed to give up this claim, they still
retained the first-fruits. The “right of spoils”, which had been
denounced by popes when claimed by temporal sovereigns, was now asserted for
the papacy, and with a view to this and other purposes their collectors and
spies were sent into various countries. Fees of all sorts were raised in
amount, and new occasions for exacting them were invented. A writer of the
time speaks of the papal court as drawing gold even out of flint; and an
English chronicler describes the charges on appointments as so heavy that in
many cases the payers never recovered from them. The luxury of the court of
Avignon required an increase of means, while the popes were unable to collect
the revenues of their Italian states; and when, in consequence of the schism,
western Christendom was burdened with the cost of two papal establishments, the
exactions became more exorbitant than ever. All the old means of raising money
were strained to the uttermost; new devices were invented for the same purpose,
and each of the rival courts was glad to borrow the ideas of the other in this
respect. Every pope at the beginning of his pontificate set forth a code of
chancery-rules, in which, adopting the devices of his predecessors for
extracting money from the benefices of the church, he usually added such
further orders of the same tendency as his own ingenuity or that of his
advisers could suggests The censures of the church were prostituted as means to
compel the payment of money. While there was an affectation of checking
pluralities in general, an exception was made in favour of the cardinals, so
that a cardinal might enjoy the monstrous number of four or five hundred
benefices.
Such things
were not allowed to pass without remonstrance. In England, where the patience
of the nation was most severely tried by them, there were frequent and
indignant manifestations of discontent, and statutes were enacted with a view
of checking the practices of the papal court. The laity cried out loudly, in parliamem and elsewhere, charging the depopulation and
impoverishment of the country on the Roman exactions, and on the draining of
the wealth of English benefices by foreigners. It was complained that such
persons were in many cases enemies of the English crown, that they betrayed the
secrets of the realm; and on such grounds the foreign holders of English
benefices were frequently deprived, and if they were found in the country
(which they rarely honoured with their presence) were obliged to quit it. Laws
were passed to prevent the holding of English preferment by aliens. Complaints
were made by parliament that the money drawn from England under the name of
annates and other papal dues was employed in the interest of the national
enemies; and in 1404 an act was passed by which bishops were forbidden to submit
to the increased rate of payments which the Roman court had begun to exact.
Papal collectors were required, on landing in England, to swear that they
would do nothing to the prejudice of the crown or of the kingdom; and
sometimes, when returning with the spoil of England, they were compelled to
disgorge it before embarking.There were frequent
orders against the introduction of papal documents injurious to the dignity of
the crown, especially of such as assumed the disposal of patronage; and
the statutes of provisors and praemunire were enacted in order to check the
Roman aggressions in this kind. The first act of provisors, passed in 1350-1,
after setting forth the manner in which the popes had usurped patronage, and
the ill results which had followed, decrees that elections to bishoprics and
other elective dignities shall be free, agreeably to the grants of the
founders; that no reservation, collation, or provision of the court of Rome to
the contrary shall take effect, but that in such cases the king shall present,
as his progenitors did before free election was granted; forasmuch as such
election was granted on condition that it should be preceded by the royal
licence and followed by the royal assent, and, if these conditions fail, the
right of presentation reverts to the original state. By the statute of
praemunire, in 1353, it was enacted that any one who
should carry to a foreign tribunal matter which was cognizable in the king’s
court, or who should try to impeach in any foreign court a judgment which had
been pronounced by the king’s court, should be cited to answer before the king
or his representatives, and in case of non-appearance should be outlawed,
should forfeit his property, and be committed to prison. The provisions of
these two acts were repeatedly enforced by later legislation; and the headship
of religious houses was placed on the same footing as other dignities with
regard to the king’s right of presentation. The popes affected to set such laws
at nought, and to maintain their claims to patronage; Boniface IX went so far
as to order that the antipapal acts should be erased from the English
statute-book, and there were continual attempts to evade the force of the
prohibitions. But the parliament, the clergy, and the whole nation, stood firm
in their union against the papal encroachments; and at last the utmost that the
popes could do, by way of saving appearances, was to accept the English king’s
nomination of the persons in whose behalf the pretended rights of the papacy
were to be exercised. The resistance of the English to the papal pretension to
confer the temporalities of sees has already been mentioned. But in the weaker
kingdom of Scotland this pretension seems to have been unopposed. Thus John
XXII in 1323 presented John of Lindsay, a canon of Glasgow, to the bishopric of
that see, professing to give him the temporalities as well as the spiritual
charge; and he nominated an Italian to the prebend which had been formerly held
by the new bishop. But Lindsay, on returning from the papal court to Scotland,
was required to admit a nominee of the king to this prebend; and he submitted,
both he and the nominee protesting that the admission should not interfere
with the papal rights. Yet while in this lesser matter the crown prevailed, it
is remarkable that no objection was raised against the pope’s claim to bestow
the temporalities of the bishopric.
In other
countries also sovereigns sometimes imitated the English example of resistance
to the papacy. Thus Philip of Valois seized the revenues of ecclesiastical
absentees, although at the entreaty of his queen he afterwards restored so much
of them as belonged to cardinals. Alfonso XI of Castille endeavoured to
withstand the papal claim of provisions; and Sigismund (afterwards emperor),
provoked by Boniface IX’s acknowledgment of his rival, Ladislaus,
as king of Hungary, forbade all exercise of patronage by the popes in that
kingdom.
The
exaggerated pretensions which the clergy had set up as to rights of
jurisdiction, and of exemption from secular authority, tended to react to their
own disadvantage. In Germany, where the ecclesiastical class feeling of the
prelates was modified by their position as great secular lords, it was
established that in temporal matters the appeal should be to the emperor alone
: and this was declared, not only by Lewis of Bavaria, but by Charles IV in his
golden bull.
In France,
where the liberties of the national church had been affirmed and secured by the
pragmatic sanction and by the “establishments” of St. Lewis, and where the
popes were controlled in some degree by the fact of their residence at Avignon,
the crown was able to hold its ground against the ambition of the papacy. The
sovereigns were in general disposed to favour the hierarchy as far as
possible, in order to secure the influence of the bishops; but the nobles were
always at strife with the clergy, and on both sides there were continual complaints
of aggression and encroachment. Thus, at a session of the parliament of Paris,
held under Philip of Valois in 1329, Peter of Cugnieres,
a knight and one of the king’s counsellors, after discoursing on the text,
“Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that
are God’s”, brought forward sixty-six articles as to which he asserted that the
clergy had encroached on the rights of the laity. These articles related to
such things only as could show no warrant of law or privilege; for example,
there was no complaint as to the exemption of the clergy from secular judgment,
but it was complained that the tonsure was so bestowed as to confer this
exemption on unfit persons—on boys and on married men, on some who were
illiterate, and on others who were disqualified by character. At a second
session of the same body, Peter Roger, archbishop elect of Sens (afterwards
pope Clement VI), stood forward as the champion of the clergy, and replied to
the articles in order, declaring that, although there are two swords—the
spiritual and the temporal— both might be in the hands of one and the same
person. Thus, he said, it was in ancient Israel; thus it was in the case of
Melchizedek, and in Him who is a priest afterthe order of Melchizedek; and so, too, it was in St. Peter, as appeared from the
punishment of Ananias. Our Lord would have both swords in the possession of the
church; He did not charge the apostle to cast away his sword, but to sheathe
it; by which was meant that the church, although having all jurisdiction,
should refrain from the exercise of it in cases of blood. The king, hampered by
his fear of the danger which threatened him from England, was unable to carry
out with firmness the policy which his wishes suggested. At a later session it
was declared in his name, and by the mouth of Peter of Cugnieres himself, that Philip was resolved to maintain the rights of the church
unimpaired. The king was content with the promise of the bishops that they
would redress the grievances which were alleged; but when the bishop of Autun, Peter Bertrandi (who had
answered Cugnieres’s articles at great length),
insisted on the grievances of the clergy, and asked for a clearer declaration
in their favour, he was told that the clergy had a certain time allowed them
for reform, and that, if they neglected this opportunity, the king would apply
such remedies as should please God and the peopled
The
parliament of Paris strongly opposed the hierarchical claims, not only
restraining the bounds of the ecclesiastical judgments, but asserting a sort of
oversight of them, and assuming to itself the right of judging in some kinds of
cases which had hitherto been regarded as belonging to ecclesiastical cognizance;and the clergy continued to complain that laymen
inflicted grievances on them, especially by interfering with their supposed
rights of jurisdiction.
In England
there were frequent collisions as to the rival claims of the ecclesiastical and
the secular courts. When the clergy complained to Edward II, in 1309, that
clerks arrested on suspicion of crime were not immediately made over to their
ordinaries, “as of right ought to be done”, but were kept in the secular
prison, the king replied that such clerks should be given up to their ecclesiastical
superiors on demand, but with the condition that they should be brought before
the king’s judges for trial “as heretofore hath been customary”. So, in
answering the petition known as Articuli cleri Edward says that, when a matter should come before both the spiritual and the
temporal courts—as in the case of violently laying hands on a clerk—the king’s
court shall treat it “as to that court itself shall seem expedient, the
ecclesiastical judgment notwithstanding”. Even that weak prince found it
necessary to remonstrate again and again with the popes on account of
encroachments in this and in other respects; and, under his successors,
such remonstrances were both frequent and forcible.
In 1344,
Edward III, in consideration of a large subsidy from the clergy, granted that
no archbishop or bishop should be impeached before the king’s justices for any
crime, unless by special order from the crown— a concession which, while
relaxing the exercise of the royal authority for the time, implies an assertion
of its right. In the end of the century, Richard II condemned archbishop
Arundel to perpetual banishment and to forfeiture of his property, and Henry
IV, although desirous to keep well with the clergy on account of the defect in
his title to the crown, proceeded without hesitation against such of the order
as opposed him. He put to death, by secular judgment, some Franciscans and
other priests who had plotted in behalf of a pretender to the name of the
dethroned Richard. Merks, bishop of Carlisle, was deprived of his see, and had
difficulty in escaping with life. The king brought Scrope,
archbishop of York, to trial for high treason, and when the chief justice, Sir
William Gascoigne, refused to act as judge, saying that the king himself had no
right to condemn a bishop to death, a less scrupulous person, Sir William Fulthorpe, was found for the work, and the archbishop,
having been found guilty, was beheaded. Archbishop Arundel, who had been
restored to Canterbury on the change of dynasty, had contented himself with
urging that his brother primate should be reserved for the pope’s judgment; and
although Innocent VI anathematized those who had been concerned in the
archbishop’s death, the sentence was ineffectual, so that Gregory XII found it
expedient to release them on condition of their expressing sorrow for their
offence.
In 1354,
archbishop Islip complained in parliament that the secular judges frequently
exceeded their authority by trying and condemning to death “the Lord’s
anointed”—clergymen, and monks in holy orders. To this the king himself and
others replied that the privileges claimed by the clergy were an encouragement
to crime; that when criminal clerks were made over to their bishops, their
prison life, instead of being a punishment, became a time of relaxation and
good living, with all the temptations which arise out of idleness; and that
the sight of such things incited others to crime. The primate seems to have
found these statements irresistible, and gives orders that the treatment of
clerical delinquents in prison shall be more severe, especially as to diet,
which, even on Sundays, is never to be more luxurious than bread, vegetables,
and small beer. But the clergy still found that their claims were not
respected. The convocation of Canterbury, in 1399, while it admitted that the
privilege of the clergy ought not to avail them in cases of treason,
complained that for offences of other sorts they were sometimes hanged like
laymen, and petitioned that the king would order them, if convicted in secular
courts, to be made over to the custody of the bishops, according to their
rights.
In other
countries also the assumed immunities of the clergy were controlled by the
secular power. Thus in France, when Guichard, bishop
of Troyes, was charged with having poisoned or enchanted the king of Navarre’s
mother, he was long imprisoned in the Louvre, without any regard to the
privileges of his order. Even as to the monastic bodies, the French kings
firmly asserted their rights of jurisdiction. Thus in 1350, king John, having
received complaints of cruelties exercised on delinquent monks by their
superiors, ordered that redress should be made; and when the Dominicans and
Franciscans objected to this, as an invasion of the pope’s authority, they were
told that they must either submit or leave the kingdom. Again, in 1412 a royal
commission was appointed to inquire into the affairs of the black monks of
Languedoc ; and when the archbishops of Narbonne and Toulouse, with a council,
charged the commissioners to desist under pain of excommunication, the king’s
council refused to hear the representatives of the two archbishops, because
they had assembled their council without the royal license.
The papal
judicature was so extended as in great measure to supersede all other tribunals
of the church. The Roman curia now entertained all sorts of cases in the first
instance, often where one only of contending parties wished to resort to it,
and in disregard of the protests of the other party; and it frequently happened
that cases, while pending, were transferred to the papal judgment from the
episcopal courts in which they had been commenced. By this the authority and
estimation of the bishops was much diminished; and other things, such as the
enormous extension of the system of dispensations and exemptions, tended to
the same effect. By arrogating to themselves the functions of the bishops, the
popes reduced these to what a writer of the time describes as the condition of
mere painted images; and many of them, finding themselves without the honour
and the influence which had formerly belonged to their order, were tempted to
neglect of duty and to selfish enjoyment, while they endeavoured to indemnify
themselves for their degradation by behaving tyrannically to their clergy.
In France
the independence of the bishops appeared to have been secured by the pragmatic
sanction of St. Lewis; but it was again sacrificed by the concordat of
Constance, and the authority which they had seemed likely to acquire, by means
of the councils in which they sat in judgment on popes, was frustrated by the
policy of the popes, who contrived to entangle them in differences with their
sovereigns.
The popes,
too, had in their hands the power of reconciling the bishops to much loss of
dignity by means of the system of commendams.The practice of “commending” vacant preferments—such as the headship of a
monastery—instead of filling them up with proper incumbents, was as old as the
eighth or ninth century, but had then been forcibly exercised by secular
princes in favour of laymen or others, and had been reprobated by the
ecclesiastical authorities. At a later time, however, it came to be largely
used by popes, who found in it a means of attaching to their interest persons
who might otherwise have been inclined to insubordination. At first, vacant
preferments, if there were some hindrance to filling them up immediately, were
commended to the care of some competent person, and the abuse of the system was
guarded against by limitations of the time for which such commendations might
be granted. But afterwards such restrictions were set aside, so that the
commendation might be for the whole lifetime of the receiver; nor were the
popes bound by any limits as to the number of the preferments which might thus
be accumulated on a single person. If an archbishop complained of the cost of
his pall, or a bishop of the amount of his first-fruits, they might be
indemnified at the expense of the church by receiving the commendation of
wealthy sees or abbacies. In the case of some of the more important prelates,
this system was carried to a great excess. Thus Baldwin of Treves held at
different times the sees of Spires and Worms in commendam with his archbishopric, and for nine years
(during a part of which he was also administrator of Worms) even the
archbishopric of Mayence, the seat of the German
primacy, was commended to him. The cardinals held much preferment in this way,
and in some cases even women received the commendation of benefices.
Clement V,
who had used this system largely, was touched with compunction in a dangerous
illness, and on his recovery put forth a bull revoking and annulling all such
grants; but it would seem, from the complaints of the younger Durandus and of another bishop, at the time of the council
of Vienne, that little practical amendment followed John XXII endeavoured, by
his bull Execrabilis (a.C.
1318), to check the practice of commendation and other abuses of pluralities;
but later popes again had recourse to it, and it furnished the means of evading
various laws of the church. Thus a benefice with cure of souls might be
bestowed in commendam on a person who would
have been incapable of holding it as incumbent—a boy, for example, or one who
had not been ordained to the priesthood. Or by the union of benefices the laws
against pluralities might be defeated—the holder being presented to one as the
“principal benefice”, and the others being “commended” to him with it. Or a
cure of souls was united with a sinecure, and, when the sinecure was bestowed
on a person unqualified for a charge of souls, the cure followed it by virtue
of the union.
In
consequence of such practices, chiefly, the inequality between different grades
of the clergy now became especially glaring. Theodoric of Niem tells us that, while some of them were greater than secular princes, others
were in a condition more abject than that of the common people. And Nicolas of Clemanges renews the old complaint of Agobard,
that members of the priesthood are employed in low offices under secular masters—as
cooks, butlers, stewards, as waiters at table or as ladies’ footmen, “not to
say worse.”
There was a
general disposition to put some restraint on the increase of ecclesiastical
wealth. In England the statutes of mortmain were directed to this purpose, as
we have seen in an earlier period. In Germany there were various local
enactments—as that clergymen should not acquire real property, or should hold
it only for a limited time; and that they should not be employed to draw up
wills, as it was supposed that they might unduly influence the minds of the
testators. At Paderborn it was decreed in 1379 that any citizen who at a
funeral should offer more than the price of one mass should be fined—an order
which seems to imply not only a wish to limit the receipts of the clergy, but a
doubt of the efficacy of such services for the benefit of departed souls.
But the
attacks on the wealth of the clergy were not limited to such measures as these. Marsilius of Padua and William of Ockham, whose
rigour of principle was exasperated by their feeling that, as imperialists,
they had the great force of the clergy against them, proposed to take away all
endowments; and the principle of such endowments was afterwards denounced by
Wyclif and Hus. The wealth of the English hierarchy, contrasting strongly with
Wyclif’s ideal, became a mark for frequent attacks. When Henry IV, in 1404, was
urgently in want of money, the house of commons represented to him that the
clergy held a third part of the English soil, and yet lived in idleness while
the laity shed their blood for their country. On this, archbishop Arundel threw
himself at the king’s feet, and reminded him that the clergy had given a tenth
for the national service oftener than the laity had given a fifteenth that they
contributed the services of their retainers to the royal forces, and that,
instead of being idle, they also contributed their prayers. By this speech the
attack was defeated; and the king assured the clergy that he intended to leave
the church in as good a condition as he had found it, or better. Two years
later, a scheme of church-reform was drawn up, setting forth on one hand the
amount of land and revenues held by the clergy, and on the other hand the
number of earls, knights, esquires, and hospitals that might be maintained out
of these resources, with a proposal for reducing the clergy to such a number
as might be necessary for the performance of their functions. But again the
king took part with the clergy, and the attack was unsuccessful.
The nobles
had in earlier times endeavoured to get exclusive possession of the preferment
in some chapters, and such attempts were continually carried further. Thus, at
Strasburg, no one was admissible to a canonry unless he could show sixteen
quarterings of nobility; and, although Gregory IX had reprobated this system,
other popes allowed it, and may have found their account in thus securing the
support of the nobles who benefited by it. The claim of high birth, indeed, was
commonly admitted, even by reforming churchmen, as a ground for preferment; and
an English satirist, while complaining that persons of low origin are advanced
to ecclesiastical dignities which lift them above the secular nobles, adds that
these ought rather to secure such preferments for their own kindred or for
gentlemen. The canonries being regarded merely as sources of income, were very
commonly held by persons who declined to proceed beyond the minor orders of the
ministry, and who were utterly unlearned. In order to guard against such evils,
Clement V decreed that no one below the order of subdeacon should have a voice
in a chapter, and that those who were promoted to canonries should enter into
the “holy” orders within a year, under certain penalties. And a council at
Lucerne, in 1351, ordered that no one ignorant of grammar should be appointed
to such preferments. The reforming committee of the council of Constance
described the canons who owed their position to their birth as being rather
like soldiers than ecclesiastics, and ordered that academic doctors should be
mixed with them in certain proportions and it did away with another abuse by
ordering that no one under eighteen years of age should be capable of such
preferments.
Throughout
this time there are continual outcries as to the faults of the clergy, partly
continued from former ages, and partly provoked by the development of new
evils. In all grades there are complaints of rapacity, luxury, and neglect of
duty, while it is said that many of the clergy devote themselves to secular affairs,
and become altogether laic in their habits. The cardinals are taxed with
extravagant pride, which regards not only bishops (whom they commonly styled episcopelli), but primates and patriarchs, with
contempt; their life and that of their households is described as unedifying,
and they are accused of utterly neglecting the monasteries and other
preferments which they hold in plurality—sometimes even to the number of 400 or
500. The bishops are charged with want of learning and of other qualifications for
their office, with non-residence, secularity, simony; it is said that for the
sake of money they bestow orders on a multitude of men who are utterly
illiterate, lax in their habits, and unfit for the sacred ministry; and if the
text “Freely ye have received, freely give”, be quoted to them, their reply is
that they had not received freely. It is said that those of Germany devolved
their work on titular bishops, who paid for their appointments and “gnawed” the
clergy and people by their exactions. Similar complaints are made of the
archdeacons; and the canons are described as worthy of their bishops—as sunk in
voluptuousness and vice. There are, as before, decrees of councils against the
fighting and hunting propensities of the clergy, against indecencies in the celebration of the Divine
offices; prohibitions of secular occupations1 and diversions; with
unsavoury evidence as to the results of enforcing celibacy, and continued
re-enactments of the canons which had been found so ineffectual for good. Some
of the more enlightened divines, such as Zabarella,
began to suggest the expediency of removing the restrictions on marriage; but
even Gerson was strongly against this, and the old laws, with the evils which
resulted from them, continued.
Notwithstanding
the impulse given to learning by the universities, the great mass of the clergy
was still grossly ignorant, and this is a frequent subject of complaint.
Cardinal d’Ailly suggested at the council of
Constance that, in order to remedy in some degree the ignorance which was
common among the priesthood, some plain instructions as to faith and morals,
the sacraments, and the mode of confession, should be drawn up both in Latin
and in the vernacular languages.
In all
varieties of shapes a desire for reform was expressed—in the treatises of such
theologians as Gerson, d’Ailly, and Nicolas of Clemanges; in the writings of those Franciscans, such as
William of Ockham, who were driven into the imperial interest by the contrast
between their ideas of apostolical simplicity and the corruptions of the court
of Avignon; in the solemn verse of Dante, and in the indignant letters of
Petrarch; in popular poems, stories, and satires, such as the ‘Songe du Vergier’, in France, the
free tales of Boccaccio,the downright invectives of
Piers the Ploughman, and the living pictures of Chaucer; in the critical spirit
which grew up within the universities; in the teaching of Wyclif, Hus, and
their followers; in the utterances of men and women whose sanctity was believed
to be accompanied by the gift of prophecy. The cry for a general council, which
in former times had been raised only in the way of appeal from the papacy by
its opponents, was now taken up by the truest members of the church, not only
with a view to ending the schism which had long distracted western Christendom,
but in order to that reformation of which the necessity was felt by all but
those whose interest was bound up with the corruptions of the existing system.
Yet even among the many who sincerely wished for reform, there were some who believed
that it would come better from the pope than from a council; and the hopes
which had been fixed on the council of Constance met with scanty fulfilment in
its decrees, and with still less in the execution of them.
Monasticism.
Although
during this time a feeling was often expressed that the number of persons
professing the monastic life was already too great, and although restrictions
had been placed on the indefinite multiplication of orders, some new
communities were now formed, such as the Jesuates,
the congregation of the Blessed Virgin of Mount Olivet, the Alexians or Cellites, the order of St. Bridget of Sweden, the
brotherhood of Canons-regular of the Common Life (founded at Deventer by Gerard
Groot, which was distinguished by the care which it bestowed on the education
of students intended for the priesthood), and no less than four orders which
took their name from St. Jerome. But no one of these societies was so
remarkable either for its constitution or for the extent of its success as to
require a more particular detail.
The older
orders, which possessed endowments, and had already shown themselves affected
by the temptations of wealth, continued to decline more and more from the
rigour of their original profession. Thus the Benedictines gave themselves up
to enjoyment—resting on their historical fame, and careless to add to the long
list of popes and bishops and learned men who had already adorned their
brotherhood. They contributed nothing to the intellectual movements of the
time; the few writers whom the society now produced, instead of attempting to
distinguish themselves in scholastic philosophy, were content to employ their
labour on subjects of morality or practical religion. Even in the
mother-monastery of the order, the great and venerable abbey of Monte Cassino,
Boccaccio is said to have found the library without a door, herbage growing
through the windows, the books thickly covered with dust, and the volumes
cruelly mutilated by the monks, who, for the sake of some trifling gain, erased
the writing from the leaves, and turned them into little books of devotion, or pared away the ample margins and
made them into charms for sale to women.And when
Urban V, on a vacancy in the headship, attempted to introduce a better system
into the house, he found himself obliged to borrow a fit instrument either from
the Camaldolites, or from the reformed brotherhood of
Mount Olivet. Attempts to revive the Benedictine rule were made by Clement V,
and by Benedict XII, who had intended to carry his reforms into other monastic
orders; but Clement VI, in the first year of his pontificate, absolved them
from the penalties which had been imposed by his predecessor.
In other
monastic societies a similar degeneracy was noted. Thus, at the council of
Pisa, bishop Hallam, ot Salisbury, complained of the
bad state of discipline into which the English Cistercians had fallen; and the
abbot of Citeaux, unable to deny the fact, alleged the schism of the church as
the cause of it. At the same council, the prior of Canterbury, while speaking
well of the Cluniacs of England, described those of
some French monasteries which he had visited as ignorant, as neglectful of
discipline and of the monastic habit, as having no proper vestments even for
use in the services of the church, and as being altogether more like mere
cultivators of the soil than monks; and from many quarters there is a
concurrence of evidence as to a general decay of discipline and learning, with
an increased love of selfish and sensual enjoyments. In some cases the monastic
rule which forbade individual property was openly violated; the common life of
the refectory and of the dormitory fell into disuse; the monks had their
separate dwellings, and any abbot who attempted to bring them back to a better
observance of their rule was met by violent opposition. So generally did laxity
of morals prevail among the monastic communities, that, according to the writer
of the tract “On the corrupt State of the Church”, any monk who led a correct life
became the laughing-stock of the rest. The same writer describes nunneries as
abodes of the grossest profligacy; he adds that, on account of the degeneracy
of the monkish societies, the promise, “All these things shall be added unto
you,” is no longer fulfilled to them; and we meet with strong dissuasives against that liberality in gifts and bequests
on which the monks of earlier days had securely relied. In England, both
William of Wykeham, bishop of Winchester in the end of the fourteenth century,
and William of Wayneflete, who held the same see in
the middle of the fifteenth, allege the prevailing degeneracy of the monks as
their motive for bestowing their wealth on the foundation of colleges rather
than of convents.
The system
of commendation was very mischievous in its effects on monastic discipline. The
popes, by assuming the power to bestow abbacies in commendam on their cardinals, deprived many monasteries of a resident head. In such cases
the revenues were diverted from their proper objects, the number of monks was
reduced to a very few, who, instead of being bound to the observance of their
rule, received a small stipend, and were allowed to spend it wherever they
pleased; and the poor were deprived of their accustomed alms. In some cases it
is complained that a monastery was burdened with an abbot who was disqualified
by his previous training—a secular priest, or a member of some other order; and
charges of simony are as rife with regard to monastic appointments as to the
other promotions of the church.
The
exemption of monasteries from episcopal control was continually a matter of
complaint, especially on the part of bishops, who represented it as destructive
of ecclesiastical discipline. The subject was discussed at the council of
Vienne, where it was argued (somewhat unfairly as to the question of
monasteries) that the crimes which were then imputed to the templars had arisen
out of their exemption from episcopal authority. To this an abbot of the
diocese of Senlis replied, that exemptions were
necessary for the protection of monks against the tyranny of the bishops; and
he commended his cause to the pope by dwelling on the closeness of the
connexion between the exempt monasteries and the apostolic see. Clement was not
disposed to embroil himself with the monastic orders; and the proposal for the
abolition of exemptions, which had been made by Giles Colonna, archbishop of
Bourges, was defeated. At the council of Constance a very small measure of
reform was conceded by Martin V, in abolishing such exemptions as had been
granted since the beginning of the schism.
The
mendicant orders did not escape the accusations which were directed against
the professors of the monastic life in general. We meet with invectives against
them as luxurious and assuming, as indulging in a splendour of buildings
inconsistent with the spirit of their rules; and the collisions between their
privileges and the rights of the parochial clergy were incessant. Council after
council, and other authorities in various countries, endeavoured, but seemingly
with very imperfect success, to limit the friars in their claims to act as
preachers and confessors everywhere, and to bury the dead without restriction
in their cemeteries, and thus to deprive the secular clergy of respect, authority,
and income. Yet the mendicants continued throughout this time to enjoy more of
influence and of reputation than any of the other orders. The great
brotherhoods of St. Dominic and St. Francis were stimulated by their rivalry;
but yet a division of objects and of labour was in a manner established between
them. The Dominicans especially studied scientific theology; their Albert and
their Thomas were regarded as next in authority to the ancient doctors of the
church. They were preachers and controversialists, were much employed as
confessors and confidants of princes, and had the inquisition almost entirely
in their hands. The Franciscans, although they too had their theologians, who
were unsurpassed by any in subtlety, were on the whole more given to popular
teaching and ministrations; and they sought by all means—even by unscrupulous
impostures—to gain an influence over the great mass of the people.
The
universities of Paris and of Oxford were much disquieted by the mendicants. At
Paris, in 1321, John of Poilly, a doctor of the
Sorbonne, was required to retract certain opinions which he had uttered
against the claim of the friars to act as confessors. He held that confession
to a friar did not dispense with the necessity of again confessing the same sins
to the parish priest; that so long as the canon of the fourth council of
Lateran should be in force, the pope could not excuse from the duty of yearly
confession to the parish priest; nay, that even God himself could not do so,
inasmuch as it would involve a contradiction. Against these opinions a treatise
was written by Peter Paludanus, a Dominican, and John
of Poilly, after pope John himself had condescended
to argue with him, submitted to retract in the presence of the cardinals.
In 1409,
John of Gorel, a Franciscan, had gone so far as to
deny that curates had, by virtue of their office, authority to preach, confess,
administer extreme unction, to bury, and to receive tithes—maintaining that the
work of preaching and of hearing confession belonged more especially to the
friars. He was compelled by the Sorbonne to subscribe certain propositions of a
directly contrary tenor, and to acknowledge that the duties in question
belonged essentially to curates, and to the friars only by accidents
Attempts
were repeatedly made to check the pretensions of the mendicants. Thus the
continuator of William of Nangis relates that in the
pontificate of Clement VI the cardinals and other prelates urged that the
mendicant orders should be abolished, or that, at least, the friars should be
restrained from invading the rights of the parochial clergy; but that the pope
defeated the attempt by asking them whether, if the labours of the mendicants
should be withdrawn, they themselves would be able to make up for the loss of them.
The failure of Fitzralph, bishop of Armagh, in his
suit against the mendicants, a few years later, has already been noticed. The
bull of the Franciscan pope, Alexander V, in 1409, which appears to have been
solicited by his order in consequence of the condemnation of Gorel, the opposition of the university of Paris, and the
revocation of the bull by John XXIII—have also come before us in the course of
the history.
The
divisions which arose among the Franciscans out of the extreme ideas of
apostolical poverty maintained by those who arrogated to themselves the name of
spirituals have already fallen under our noticed In consequence of the
condemnation which John XXII had passed on such ideas, the spirituals declared
him to be the mystical antichrist, the forerunner of the greater antichrist;
that all later popes, as they had not repudiated his opinions, were heretics,
and that those who adhered to them could not be saved. On the other hand,
Gerard, the master who was appointed on the deprivation of Michael of Cesena,
attempted to procure an abrogation of the founder’s precept that the
Franciscans should not receive gifts of money; but to this John sternly refused
to consent. In consequence of these dissensions, many members forsook the
order, and joined the parties which were known as fraticelli, beghards, and the like. Many of them ran into errors
which were considered to be heretical, and suffered death at the stake.
But besides
these more violent differences, the order came to be divided into various
classes—one of which was styled zoccolanti,
from wearing wooden shoes like the peasantry. At length was established the
great division into conventuals—those who lived together in their
societies—and observants, who professed especial regard for the
integrity of the Franciscan rule. This latter section, although it had
undergone some persecution at an earlier date, was acknowledged by the council
of Constance; but we find in later times many manifestations of jealousy and
enmity between the two parties.
The
Franciscans, partly perhaps by way of compensation for their departure from
the founder’s rule, carried their reverence for him into greater and greater
extravagances. Among other things, it was said that St. Francis once a year
went down from heaven to purgatory, and released all who had died in the habit
of his brotherhood. And it was in this time that the notorious ‘ Book of
Conformities ’ was produced, and was approved by the authorities of the order.
The
Dominicans, too, while they departed from the mendicant ideal, so that some of
their writers maintained their right to hold property, were excited by the
rivalry of the Franciscans to set up for their founder pretensions which are
clearly blasphemous. Thus in the Life of St. Catharine of Siena, written by her
confessor, Raymond of Capua, who was afterwards general of the order, the
almighty Father is represented as producing from his head the coeternal Son,
and from his breast St. Dominic, declaring that his adopted son Dominic stood on
an equality with the only-begotten Son, and carrying out a parallel between the
eternal Word and the founder of the order of preaching friars.
Rites and Usages.
In matters
which concerned the worship of the church, the same tendencies which had appeared
throughout many former ages were still continued, and it was in vain that the
more enlightened teachers protested against the further developments of popular
superstition and of exaggerated ceremonials
The festival
of Corpus Christi was established by Clement V, and further privileges were
connected with the celebration by Urban VI and Boniface IX. The doctrine
embodied in this festival was supposed to be confirmed by fresh miracles,
although some of these were not unquestioned, or were even admitted to be
impostures.
The number
of masses was multiplied, partly as a means of securing fees for the clergy.
Alvar Pelayo says that St. Francis had especially wished to preserve his order
from this temptation, by prescribing that no one should celebrate more than one
mass daily, forasmuch as a single mass “filled heaven and earth”, but that the minorites, in disregard of their founder’s wishes, eagerly
caught at the opportunity of gain.
The
withdrawal of the eucharistic cup from the laity had become general, although a
special exception was sometimes made by popes in favour of royal personages; as
was the case with the kings of France—who, however, availed themselves of this
privilege only at their coronation and on their death-bed. In England both the
king and the queen at their coronation received the sacrament in both kinds;
and it is recorded that Henry V did so when dying. The story of the emperor
Henry VII’s death, whether true or false as to the alleged poisoning, implies
that the emperors were then accustomed to communicate in the eucharistic cup.
In Bohemia,
the older practice remained to a late period. But the collisions between
Bohemians and Germans in the university of Prague tended to discountenance it,
and when (as we have seen) the usage was revived by Jacobellus of Misa, the question was brought before the council of Constance by the bishop
of Leitomysl. Gerson was strongly opposed to the
administration of the chalice.A committee drew up
conclusions on the question, allowing that according to the Saviour’s
institution the chalice ought to be administered, but maintaining that the
church had both authority and reason for departing from the original method;
and in accordance with this report, the council condemned Jacobellus,
and forbade the practiced
The doctrine
of indulgences, as it had been stated by Thomas of Aquino, was for the first
time sanctioned by papal authority in the bull by which Clement VI proclaimed
the jubilee of 1350, and from that time might be regarded as generally
established in the church. The use of these privileges, which the popes
dispensed at will, was rapidly developed. Small indulgences were to be gained
every day, and by the performance of very trivial acts; and the greater
indulgences, which had originally been granted for the holy war against the
Saracens, were now bestowed on more ordinary considerations. The institution
of the jubilee had contributed greatly to advance the popularity of
indulgences; and this effect became still greater when Boniface IX professed to
extend the benefits of the jubilee to those who, instead of going to Rome in
person, should visit certain churches in their own neighbourhood, and should
pay into the papal treasury the sum which a Roman pilgrimage would have cost
them. The abuse was carried yet further by allowing the privileges of a
jubilee-year at other times, and by sending into all countries “stationers” or
“quaestuaries” to offer the benefit of indulgences at
every man’s door; and from these practices a general corruption of ideas as to
morality naturally resulted.Gerson endeavoured to
expose the mistakes of the system; he declared that the Saviour done was
entitled to grant some of the privileges which were usually proclaimed by His
ministers on earth; but the popular belief was commonly proof against
enlightenment on a matter in which the papal doctrine was so well adapted to
the desires of coarse and superstitious minds.
While the
church was lavish of its graces, it was no less prodigal of its censures; and
from the excessive employment of these arose a general disregard of them.
Froissart mentions an incident which is evidence at once of the contempt into
which such sentences had fallen through abuse, and of the independent spirit of
the English—that when the Flemings had been laid under an interdict of the most
terrible kind for siding with Edward III in 1340, the English king told them
that they need not be uneasy, “for as soon as he should again cross the sea, he
would bring them priests of his own country, who would chant masses to them,
whether the pope willed it or not; for he was well privileged to do so”.The monastic orders, although usually leagued with the
papacy, did much to nullify the force of interdicts, by leaving doors or
windows open while the services of the church were performed in their chapels,
so that the people standing without might have the benefit of their privileged
offices. Clement V, in order to prevent this evasion, charged the members of religious
societies to conform to the practice of the principal church in every place.
In former
times, popes had sometimes chosen the Thursday before Easter as a day for
pronouncing curses against persons who had specially opposed or offended them.Towards the end of the thirteenth century it became
usual to repeat on that day such sentences as had been uttered against
particular offenders; and hence in the following century grew a custom of
denouncing on Maundy Thursday a general anathema against all enemies of the
church.
The
multiplication of saints and of festivals continued, although not without
protests against the evil consequences of the excess to which it had been
carried. Archbishop Islip of Canterbury, in 1362, complained of the bad effects
which resulted from the observance of too many holy-days, and put forth a list
of festivals, which, although reduced from the number before observed, amount
to about fifty in addition to the Sundays of the year. And the archbishop
describes the manner of keeping these days as marked by coarse debauchery and
misrule. Cardinal d’Ailly, at a later time, complains
that the festivals were turned into occasions of dissipation, whereas the
working-days were not sufficient for a labouring man to earn his bread; and he
suggests that, except on Sundays, it should be allowed to work after having
attended the religious service of the day. In like manner Nicolas of Clemanges speaks of the number of festivals as excessive,
and denounces the idleness, drunkenness, and other vices to which they were commonly
perverted. He also criticizes severely the services which had been drawn up
for some of the newer festivals, and complains that the worship of God was
neglected for that of the saints—that the reading of legends had superseded
that of Scripture in the offices of the church. Cardinal Zabarella,
Henry of Hesse, and other divines of the age, bear evidence to the manner in
which festivals were abused, and urge that the number of them should be
reduced. On the other hand, however, Gerson proposed that a festival should be
instituted in honour of St. Joseph, the husband of the Saviour’s mother; and
thus to him is due the origin of a celebration which has in later times been
raised into greater importance by the overflow of the reverence directed to the
blessed Virgin.
To the
festivals in honour of St. Mary were added those of the Visitation and the
Presentation—the former commemorating her visit to her cousin Elizabeth; the
latter, a supposed presentation or dedication by her parents at the age of
three months, from which time it was imagined that she was brought up in the
Temple until her espousal to Joseph at the age of eleven. Thus the number of
festivals consecrated to the blessed Virgin was extended to seven.
The festival
of her Conception made way continually. In England it was established in 1328
by archbishop Mepham, who wrongly referred the origin
of it to his predecessor St. Anselm; in France, the observance of it was
decreed by the French “nation” in the university of Paris in 1380. The doctrine
of the immaculate conception became almost universal, except in the Dominican
order. The Franciscans had at first been divided as to this doctrine, some of
them (as Alvar Pelayo) denying it; but the opposition of the Dominicans
decided the course of the rival order, who became enthusiastic advocates of the
Immaculate Conception. At Paris, the university was swayed in behalf of this
doctrine by the authority of the great Franciscan, Duns Scotus; and when John
of Mongon (or de Montesono),
a Spanish Dominican, disputed against it at Paris, in 1387, he was condemned as
heretical by the university, as well as by the bishop of Paris. On appealing to
Clement VII, he found himself opposed at Avignon by a deputation from the
university, headed by Peter d’Ailly; and, finding
that his cause was going against him, he pretended to submit, but secretly
withdrew to his native kingdom of Aragon, where he joined the obedience of the
rival pope, and wrote in support of his claims. His excommunication by Clement
followed; but while the Franciscans maintain that this was on account of his
doctrine, the Dominicans contend that it was wholly caused by his defection
from the party of Clement. The university took up the matter strongly; it was
decreed that no one should be admitted to a degree except on condition of swearing
to the late decision, which, although directed only against the absolute denial
of the doctrine, was soon interpreted as positively favourable to it. The
academics compelled William of Valence, a Dominican, who was bishop of Evreux
and confessor to the king, to give up the defence of John of Moncon, and to subscribe their formula; and the king
resolved to have no more Dominican confessors. The Dominicans were shut out of
the university for fourteen years; they were persecuted by the bishops and by
the secular authorities; and, in consequence of having taken the unpopular
side, they were unable even to walk the streets without being molested, while
verses in ridicule of them were publicly placarded.
Miracles were alleged in behalf of the immaculate conception: as that a
Dominican of Cracow was struck dead while preaching against it; and that as
Scotus was on his way to maintain the honour of the blessed Virgin in the
schools, an image of her, which he passed, was accustomed every day to bend its
head in token of favour. St. Bridget brought to the same cause the support of
her revelations; but on this point her authority was confronted by that of the
other great prophetess of the age, St. Catharine of Siena, who held that the
cleansing of the Virgin’s nature did not take place until the soul was infused
into the body.
Arts and Learning.
The
fourteenth century saw the perfection of Gothic architecture and the beginning
of its decline, although as yet this decline had not advanced far. But in the
meantime the other arts were springing into a new life. Italian painting
advanced at one step from the elementary rudeness of Cimabue to the schools of
Giotto, Orcagna, and the masters whose combined
labours embellished the Campo Santo of Pisa; and while the productions of Italy
were carried into other lands, to excite the devotion of believers and to
serve as examples for imitation, a native style of art, admirable for religious
feeling and for sober richness of colour, began to appear in the Netherlands,
under the leadership of the brothers Van Eyck. In sculpture, too, attempts were
now successfully made to shake off the stiffness of Gothic art; perhaps the
best known example of the newer style is to be found in the bronze gates of the
Baptistery at Florence, which were begun by Andrew of Pisa in 1330, and
completed by Ghiberti in the following century.
The number
of universities was greatly increased during the fourteenth century. Among
those then founded were Orleans, Erfurt, Prague, Vienna, Heidelberg, Cracow, Pisa,
Perugia, Florence, Pavia, and Ferrara. In some of these there were at first the
faculties of arts, medicine, and law, to which theology was afterwards added;
and in some of the older universities, as at Bologna, a like addition was now
made to the original foundation. The university of Rome was dormant throughout
the time of the Avignon papacy; and, although revived for a time by Innocent
VII, it again fell into decay, until Eugenius IV. restored it in 1431.
In
consequence of the erection of universities in Germany and other northern
countries, the resort of students to Paris was much diminished, so that few
foreigners were now to be found among them. But the great French university
continued to maintain its reputation as a school, and was led by the circumstances
of the schism to exercise such an influence in the affairs of the church as was
altogether without example. Oxford had greatly advanced in importance, and
there William of Wykeham introduced a new architectural character into
collegiate buildings, and furnished an example of a society more clerical and
monastic than the colleges which had before existed.
The decree
by which Clement V, at the instance of Raymund Lull,
prescribed the teaching of Oriental languages in certain places, has already been
mentioned. But in whatever degree it may have been carried out, the schools
which it contemplated, as they were intended only for missionary purposes, did
not promote the interpretation of Scripture. The fourteenth century, however,
could boast Nicolas de Lyra, the first man who for many hundreds of years had
endeavoured to bring Hebrew learning to bear on this. It has been supposed that
Nicolas (whose surname was drawn from his native place, a village in Normandy)
was a Jew by descent; but for this there seems to be no foundation except the
fact of his acquaintance with Hebrew. He became a Franciscan in 1291, taught
theology for many years at Paris, was provincial of his order in Burgundy, and
died in 1340. His Postills extend over the whole
Bible, and were greatly prized. He held that in Holy Scripture there are four
senses—the literal, the allegorical, the moral, and the anagogical; that
the literal sense is presupposed in the others, and must be the foundation of
them; that from it alone proofs should be drawn, and that any mystical
interpretation which is inconsistent with the letter is unbecoming and
worthless; and he strongly blames those expositors who had smothered the
literal sense under their figurative interpretations. These principles were called
in question, about a century later, by Paul, bishop of Burgos, a convert from
Judaism and a member of the Dominican order, who blamed Nicolas for preferring
his own interpretations and those of the Jewish writers to the authority of the
fathers and of the great Dominican St. Thomas; but Nicolas did not lack
defenders, and his commentaries continued to be highly esteemed.
The study of
Greek was now revived, and became common in the west, where it was promoted by
learned Greeks, such as Barlaam, Leontius Pilatus
(who taught both Petrarch and Boccaccio at Florence), and at a later time
Manuel Chrysoloras, the master of Leonard of Arezzo.
The first professorship of Greek in the west was established at Florence about
1360, through the influence of Boccaccio, and Pilatus was appointed to the
chair, which in 1396 was held by Chrysoloras. The
study of the classical Latin authors was also pursued with a new spirit, and
great exertions were made for the recovery of writings which had long been
unheeded. In the writing of Latin, attempts were made by Petrarch and others,
instead of following the traditional style of the middle ages, to imitate the
refinement of the classics; and this study was afterwards carried further by
Poggio Bracciolini. Albertin Mussato wrote Latin tragedies on the ancient
model—one of them having Eccelino da Romano for its
principal character.
The
scholastic philosophy is considered to have entered on a new stage with Durandus of St. Pourçain, bishop
of Meaux, and William of Ockham, the famous English Franciscan, whose political
treatises have been already mentioned.Durandus (who,
from his readiness in solving all questions, was styled the Most Resolute
Doctor) was a Dominican, and as such was originally a zealous, adherent of
Thomas Aquinas, but afterwards strongly opposed his authority, especially with
regard to the manner in which Divine grace operates; for while Aquinas holds
that this is through the sacraments, Durandus maintains that it is by the immediate action of God.
These
teachers were noted for their want of reverence for authority; and they revived
the philosophical opinion of nominalism, which had been dormant from the time
of its unsuccessful originator, Roscellin. Ockham
rejected the idea which St. Anselm and others had cherished, of finding a
philosophical basis for the doctrines of the church, which he regarded as
matters of pure revelation; and this revelation he supposed to be still exerted
in behalf of doctrines which had not been known to the primitive church. Thus,
in discussing the question of the Eucharist, he states three opinions, of which
one is “that the substance of bread and wine remains, and that in the same
place, under the same appearance, is the body of Christ”; and he says that this
theory “would be very reasonable, unless there were a determination of the
church to the contrary, because it salves and escapes all the difficulties
which follow from the separation of the accidents from the subject”. Yet he
prefers the current opinion, that “the substance of bread and wine ceases to
be, while the accidents only remain, and under them the body of Christ beginneth to be”; and he adds, “This is made certain to the
church by some revelation, as I suppose, and therefore it hath so determined”.
The philosophy of Ockham was condemned and prohibited at Paris in 1339; but
this sentence increased its fame, and before the end of the century the
nominalism which had at first been so strongly denounced had come to be
generally accepted.
The
unbelieving philosophy which from the beginning of the thirteenth century had
existed in secret, began to appear more openly. Petrarch mentions some votaries
of this kind of philosophy whom he had met with at Venice, and describes them
as regarding all learning except their own, whether sacred or profane, with
contempt.
The science
of casuistry now came into favour as a branch of theological study. The cases
of John Petit and of John of Falkenberg, which involved the defence of
tyrannicide, afforded much exercise for the subtleties of the casuists; and in
the case of Petit it is said that the doctrine of “probability” occurs for the
first time— a doctrine which, as it was afterwards developed by the Jesuits,
supplied Pascal with matter for some of his most effective assaults on that
order. The complaints which had been made in former times as to the
unprofitable nature of the studies which were most popular, and of the pursuit
of learning for low and unworthy ends, are renewed by Gerson and others in this
age. The great work of rendering the Holy Scriptures into the vulgar tongue,
with which Wyclif’s name is associated, engaged the labours of many others in
the different western countries; so that there were translations, more or less
complete, into French, Italian, German, and Flemish. These translations were,
indeed, all in so far defective that they were made from the Latin Vulgate; but
they tended to prepare for the more satisfactory works which were to result
from that revived study of the original languages which had already begun. It
is remarkable that Gerson, in censuring “vain curiosity”, recommends that
vernacular translations of the Bible should be forbidden, at least with the
exception of the moral and historical portions.
The same age
which produced these attempts to bring the meaning of the sacred writings
within the reach of the less educated classes, was also distinguished by the
rise of a brilliant vernacular literature in various countries, especially in
Italy and in England. To this day, Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Chaucer hold
their place among those great authors whose writings need no antiquarian
considerations to recommend them to our study, but live by their own enduring
vigour and interest. In the fourteenth century, also, John Villani produced
the first important historical work which was composed in the modern language
of Italy; and Wyclif, by the treatises which he addressed to the unlearned
classes of his countrymen, earned a title to be regarded as the earliest master
of English prose.