Z81 



CLEMENT VI. 



CLEMENT XI. 



2S3 



ceeded Benedict XI. in 1305, by the influence of Philip le Bel, who 

 induced him to remove the papal residence to France. Clement joined 

 Philip in suppressing the order of the Templars, and in condemning 

 the grand master and sixty knights to be burnt alive. Clement died 

 in April 1314, and was succeeded, after a two years' interregnum, by 

 John XXII. His decretals and constitutions were collected and pub- 

 lished in 1303, under the title of 'Liber Septimus Decretalium,' being 

 the seventh book in order of time of the decisions and rescripts of the 

 popes on matters of ecclesiastical discipline, and on matters concerning 

 laymen, which then came within the cognisance of the ecclesiastical 

 courts. They are known as the ' Clementines.' 



CLEMENT VI., a Frenchman, succeeded Benedict XII. in 1342. 

 He resided at Avignon like his immediate predecessors, and it was 

 under his pontificate that Rienzi made the attempt to re-establish the 

 republic at Home. [RiEXZi.] Clement took the part of Joanna I., 

 queen of Naples, against her brother-in-law, Lewis of Hungary, who 

 had invaded her dominions to avenge the murder of her husband. 

 Joanna, on her part, sold or gave away to the papal see the town and 

 county of Avignon, which belonged to her as sovereign of Provence. 

 Clement fixed the jubilee to be held at Rome every fifty years. He 

 died in 1352, and was succeeded by Innocent VI. 



CLEMENT VII. (Giulio de' Medici, the natural son of Giuliano 

 de' Medici, and nephew to Lorenzo the Magnificent), was made cardinal 

 by his cousin, Leo X, and was afterwards promoted, in 1523, to the 

 papal chair, then vacant by the death of Adrian VI. His pontificate 

 was full of vicissitudes and calamities to Italy. He first allied him- 

 self with Francis I. against Charles V., in order to prevent the latter 

 possessing himself of all Italy ; but he only hastened the progress of 

 the imperial arms, and saw his own capital, Home, stormed and cruelly 

 pillaged by the army of Charles, and himself besieged in the Castle 

 Sant' Angelo. He afterwards made peace with the emperor, and 

 united with him to destroy the independence of Florence, his native 

 country. Clement's quarrel with Henry VIII. of England, which 

 arose from his refusing the bull of divorce between that kint; and 

 Catharine of Aragon, led to the schism between Henry and Rome. 

 He died in 1534 after a long illness, leaving behind him a character 

 stained by avarice, harshness, and deception : he had most of the 

 failings, but none of the splendid or amiable qualities of his cousin, 

 Leo X. He was succeeded by Paul III. 



There was also an antipope in the 14th century, who was elected 

 by a party among the cardinals iu opposition to Urban VI., and who 

 assumed the name of Clement VII. [UBBAH VI. ; BENEDICT, anti- 

 pope.] 



CLKMENT VIIL (Ippolito Aldobrandini), succeeded Innocent IX. 

 in 1592. He was a man of learning, and of considerable political 

 sagacity. He succeeded in the negociations with Henri IV. of France, 

 by which that prince made public profession of Catholicism, and was 

 acknowledged king by his subjects. Clement annexed, by force, the 

 duchy of Ferrara to the papal state after the death of Duke Alfonso II., 

 disregarding the claims of the duke's cousin, Cesare d'Este, who was 

 obliged to yield, and retire to Modeua. Clement died in February 

 1605, and was succeded by Leo XI. He published a new edition of 

 the ' Vulgate,' differing in some particular* from that published under 

 Si.xtus V. in 1590. He also issued many bulls, the most remarkable 

 of which are the 28th, defining the lawful and unlawful rites and 

 usages of the Greek Church, and the 87th, concerning the practice of 

 confession and absolution in writing. 



CLEMENT IX. (Giulio Rospigliosi), of a noble family of Pistoia, 

 succeeded Alexander VII. in June 1667. He showed a conciliatory 

 spirit, hushed for awhile the controversy between the Jansenists and 

 the Jesuits [AiiXAfLu], and settled the long-pending dispute between 

 the see of Rome and the king of Portugal, on the right of nomination 

 to the vacant bishoprics, by confirming the prelates appointed by King 

 Pedro II. He took a warm interest in the war between Venice and 

 the Turks, and sent assistance of men and money to the Venetians for 

 the defence of Dalmatia and of Cnndia. The news of the loss of that 

 island, which was finally conquered by the Turks in 1669, is said to 

 have hastened the death of Clement, which occurred in December of 

 that jcar. He waa much regretted by his subjects as well as by 

 foreign princes. He embellished Rome, and was magnificent in his 

 expenditure. His nephew was made a Roman prince, and married the 

 heiress of the house of Pallavicini of Genoa. 



CI-EMENT X. (Emilio Altieri), was eighty years of age at the time 

 of hid election aa successor to Clement IX. in 1670. He entrusted the 

 affairs of the administration chiefly to Cardinal Paluzzi, a distant 

 relative, whom he adopted as his nephew, and gave him his family 

 name of Altieri, as he had no nearer relations living. He died in 1676, 

 and was succeeded by Innocent XL 



CLEMENT XI. (Gian Francesco Albaui), succeeded Innocent XII. 

 in November 1700. He was then fifty-one years of age, had been 

 made a cardinal by Alexander VII [., and had a merited reputation for 

 learn in;; and general information. He was one of the men of letters 

 who frequented the society of Christina of Sweden during her residence 

 at Home. It was with seeming repugnance, and after several days' 

 lieftiUtioii, that he accepted the papal dignity. The war of the Spanish 

 succession was then just breaking out, and Clement in vain exerted all 

 his powers of persuasion with the courts of France and of Austria to 

 prevent the impending calamity. Louis XIV., having placed his grand- 



BIOO. DIV. VOL. XL 



son Philip on the throne of Spain, demanded for him of the pope the 

 investiture of the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, whilst the emperor 

 claimed it likewise as his right. Clement delayed giving his deciaion, 

 and the intrigues of the agents of the two rival powers disturbed the 

 peace of his own capital. In 1707 the Austrians, under Marshal 

 Daun, traversed the papal state to proceed to the conquest of Naples ; 

 and the pope, unable to prevent them, stipulated only that they should 

 not pass through the city of Rome. In tho following year the pope 

 came to an open rupture with the emperor, Joseph I., whose troops 

 had taken possession of Comacchio in the papal state. After trying 

 remonstrances in vain, Clement collected an army of 25,000 men, 

 under the command of Count Marsigli ; but the papal troops retreated 

 before the Austrians, who occupied Romagna and the Marches, and 

 the pope was obliged to sue for peace, which the emperor granted in 

 January 1709. Comacchio was ultimately restored to the pope. 



Clement was tenacious of what he considered as the prerogatives of 

 his see over the clergy of other countries, and he quarrelled in 1715 

 with the House of Savoy, which then ruled over Sicily, about a tribunal 

 iu that island, called di Monarchia, which interfered with the eccle- 

 siastical immunities and the alleged rights of Rome over Naples and 

 Sicily, as fiefs of the papal see. The king, Victor Amadeus II., stood 

 firm ; and many of the Sicilian clergy, who refused to obey the 

 directions of the tribunal, were either imprisoned or obliged to 

 emigrate. About 400 of them took refuge at Rome. Clement had 

 also long and serious disputes with France. He began by his bull 

 ' Vineam Domini,' renewing the interdict which his predecessors had 

 issued against the Jansenists, and declaring their propositions about 

 grace and free will to be heretical. In 1713 he issued the famous 

 bull ' Unigenitus,' which set the whole kingdom of France, court, 

 parliament, and clergy in an uproar. This bull condemned 101 pro- 

 positions of a book by Father Quesnel, entitled ' Moral Reflections on 

 the New Testament ; ' in which that writer revived several opinions 

 of St. Augustin, St. Prosper, and other old fathers, which sounded 

 favourable to the Janseuistic dogmas of predestination and grace. 

 The Jesuits, who asserted that grace was subordinate to the will of 

 man, and who were accused by the Jansenists of Pelagian heresy, 

 stirred themselves to have Quesnel's book condemned. Several French 

 prelates, Bossuet and Cardinal Noailles among others, approved of 

 the general tenor of Quesnel's book, which contains much sound 

 moral doctrine. Cardinal Noailles had already indisposed the pope 

 against him by presiding at an assembly of the French clergy iu 1705, 

 in which the bishops were declared to be judges in matters of doctrine, 

 independent of the pretensions of the popes, who would reduce them 

 to the condition of mere registrars and executors of the papal decrees . 

 Father le Tellier, a Jesuit and confessor to Louis XIV., urged the 

 king iu favour of the bull ' Unigenitus,' which was at last registered 

 by the parliament of Paris, after much opposition, and continued for 

 years after to keep up a sort of schism between France and Rome. 



Another source of trouble to Clement proceeded from the disputes 

 concerning the Jesuit missionaries in China, who had gained consider- 

 able influence at the court of Pekin, and were accused by the other 

 missionaries of latitudiuarianism, of winking at several superstitious 

 practices in order to make proselytes, and of even countenancing 

 idolatry. Clement sent in 1702 Cardinal de Touruon as legate to 

 China ; but the cardinal on arriving at Macao was so worried by the 

 angry controversialists that he died of anxiety and disappointment. 

 Clement afterwards issued a constitution, or series of ordinances, by 

 which he regulated the course to be followed by missionaries in 

 making proselytes; and when that course failed, sent the prelate 

 Mezzabarba as his legate ; but the legate was coldly received by the 

 emperor, who was said to be prepossessed against him by the Jesuits, 

 and soon dismissed from the celestial empire. 



Clement took a warm interest in the expedition of the Pretender, 

 sou of James II., iu 1715, and furnished him with money. After the 

 failure of that attempt, the Pretender, being forsaken by France, 

 retired to Italy under the name of the Chevalier de St. George, and 

 Clement appointed the town of Urbino for his residence. He after- 

 wards negociated his marriage with Clementina Sobieski, which was 

 celebrated at Monte Fiascone, at the pope's expense, who gave to the 

 married couple a palace to reside in, with an annual pension of 12,000 

 crowns. The court of Rome did not for a long time after give up its 

 favourite scheme of regaining England to Catholicism, by means of 

 the Stuarts. 



Clement was more profitably employed in frustrating the schemes 

 of the Turks, who, having invaded the island of Corfu in 1716, were 

 threatening Italy with an invasion. The pope sent a squadron to join 

 the Venetians, he levied a contribution upon the clergy of all Italy 

 to defray the expenses of the war, and he prevailed on the emperor, 

 Charles VI., to join Venice against the Porte. This led to the brilliant 

 campaign of Prince Eugene, who defeated tho Turks at Peterwaradin, 

 and took Temeswar. The Turks were also obliged to raise the siege 

 of Corfu. 



After the fall of the intriguing Alberoni, in 1719, Clement succeeded 

 in settling his disputes with Philip V. of Spain, and his Nunzio was 

 again received at Madrid. Europe was now at peace, and Clement 

 enjoyed a short period of rest, after a long series of agitations, until 

 March 1721, when lie died, after a pontificate of more than twenty 

 years. In his private character he was amiable and generous and his 



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