POPE 



319 



reverence of mankind for righteousness. He was 

 master in Italy. His strife with two emperors 

 ended in the success of his ward, Frederick II., 

 inheritor of the Sicilian throne, whom lie crowned 

 emperor. By excommunication he forced the king 

 of France to put away his paramour ; he deposed 

 John of England, and compelled him to become his 

 vassal. The kings of many nations submitted to 

 his rebukes. The Latin conquest of Constantinople 

 brought the East for a wliile under the papal 

 obedience, and a crusading army began to extirpate 

 the heretics of Languedoc. More important than 

 all was the foundation of the orders of St Dominic 

 and St FrancU, which gave the pope well-organised 

 and generally devoted forces in every land. Inno- 

 cent was the first pope that exercised full dominion 

 over the States of the Church. Their position as 

 temporal sovereigns brought his successors into 

 collision with Frederick IL, who, already king of 

 Sicily and Naples, wished to gain Central Italy. 

 Had he done so he would have made the papacy 

 dependent on himself. Gregory IX. (1227-41) and 

 Innocent IV. ( 1243-54) resisted him by every means, 

 spiritual and temporal, at their disposal. The 

 Italian cities of the Guelfic or papal party were 

 their strongest allies. Innocent declared the em- 

 peror deposed, and found allies against him in Ger- 

 many. The papal resources were strained ; money 

 was extorted from foreign countries, especially 

 from England, and the papacy lost in repute by its 

 demands. The struggle was continued against 

 Frederick's house until it was extinguished. All 

 danger of subjection to the empire was past; but 

 the papacy owed its final success to Charles of 

 Anjou, who was invested with the kingship of 

 Sicily and Naples. This gave France an interest 

 in Italy, and led to the subjection of the papacy 

 to the French king. The imperial power liaving 

 fallen, Boniface VIII. (1294-1303) sought to take 

 the emperor's place as head of Europe. His aims 

 were secular and his temper violent. National 

 monarchies were being built up in England and 

 France by strong kings. The claims of Boniface 

 were subversive of their domestic policy ; they 

 ri'fu><'<I to admit them, and he quarrelled with 

 both kings. The Italian partisans of Philip IV. of 

 France seized him ; he was brutally treated, and 

 died soon afterwards. 



I'liilip procured the election of a Frenchman, 

 Clement V. (1305-16), who resided at Avignon in 

 Provence, afterwards sold to the papacy. There 

 the papal court remained for about seventy years, 

 a period called the ' Babylonish Captivity," during 

 which the popes were much under the influence 

 of their powerful neighbour of France. A long 

 simple with the Emperor Louis IV., in which the 

 popes were successful, injured the reputation of 

 the papacy. During its course men began to 

 <ritii-i.se the character and claims of the papacy. 

 It \TIW attacked on ecclesiastical grounds by the 

 ' Spiritual Franciscans,' and by scholars like 

 Ockham, and on political by the imperial legists. 

 The court at Avignon was luxurious and venal. 

 Little revenue came from the States of the Church, 

 which fell into disorder during the pope's absence, 

 and large sums were raised from national churches 

 and by corrupt means. Fearing to lose all authority 

 in Italy, Gregory XI. returned to Rome in 1378, 

 but died there immediately afterwards. Urban 

 fl. was elected, but the French cardinals, sup- 

 lnt"il by the king of France and the Angevin 

 queen of Naples, rebelled, and elected Clement 

 VII. During the schism which ensued the obedi- 



ce of Europe was divided between rival popes. 

 order to heal the schism the cardinals revived 

 long disused authority of a general council. 

 Council of Pisa (1409) failed of its object. 



lie reformation as well as the reunion of the 



church was largely desired. In England Wyclif 

 urged apostolic poverty as the only cure for 

 abuses. His teaching was of little practical im- 

 portance, save that it helped forward the revolt 

 of Bohemia, where the Slavs regarded the Latin 

 liturgy as a badge of German superiority. Many 

 orthodox churchmen desired to see the abuses of 

 the papal court reformed and the churches of the 

 several countries preserved from undue papal inter- 

 ference. By the Council of Constance the schism 

 was closed, and Martin V. (1417-31) was elected 

 pope ; the council proved unequal to deal with 

 reform. Martin's wise administration raised the 

 papacy from its low estate ; he regained its posses- 

 sions, and made its power widely felt. The 

 Bohemian war made another council inevitable ; 

 it met at Basel in 1432, it attacked Eugenius IV. 

 (1431-47), raised up an antipope, and ended in 

 contempt. Meanwhile the Greeks, hoping for help 

 against the Turks, submitted to the holy see. In 

 another respect the papacy was specially affected 

 by the troubles of the Greeks. It readily adopted 

 the learning and culture brought by the Greeks to 

 Italy. The genius of Nicolas V. (1447-55) conceived 

 a new ideal. The 15th century was an age of splen- 

 dour ; its magnificence was conspicuous in the lives 

 not merely of princes, but even of nobles, merchants, 

 and bankers. As the papacy outstripped all earthly 

 powers in greatness, so in the mind of the pontiff 

 was Rome its seat to impose on the imagination 

 of all the world by an exterior grandeur which 

 should outshine that of the city of any earthly 

 potentate. But his was no vulgar ideal of mere 

 magnificence ; Rome to him was to be the protec- 

 tress of the arts, the home of learning, the central 

 point of culture in the Christian world ; and all this 

 was but to typify and render sensible the supremacy 

 of religion. 



Under Pius II. (1458-63) the pope again appeared 

 as the natural head of the forces of Christendom 

 united in arms against the infidel. Pius died when 

 actually setting out on a crusade, and his plans 

 failed, but they gave the papacy renewed importance 

 in the eyes of Europe. His successors, inheriting 

 generally the views of Nicolas V. in regard to Rome 

 as the material expression of papal greatness, did not 

 inherit the loftiness of his spirit. Whilst pursuing 

 the idea of surrounding the papal dignity with pre- 

 eminent splendour, some, like Paul II. (1464-71), 

 betrayed a sympathy for the pagan renaissance 

 which is unmistakable, and which cannot fail to 

 have diminished the veneration due to the head of 

 the church. Other popes, like Alexander VI. ( 1492- 

 1503 ) or Julius II. ( 1503-13 ), were bent on founding 

 in the Italian states princedoms either for their 

 relatives or for the papal chair. This is specially 

 true of Alexander (Borgia), whose earlier life had 

 been immoral, and who as pope caused scandal by 

 liis undisguised love of worldly pleasures ; whilst 

 his son Caesar, an able, unscrupulous man, made 

 matters worse by his crimes. 



Meantime the idea of reform had not slept 

 witness the activity of such a man as Cardinal 

 Nicolas of Cusa ; but efforts like his were 

 inspired by individual minds of a specially lofty 

 turn, and at most had the countenance of supreme 

 authority ; however widespread, they were local 

 and were not that general ' reformation in head 

 and members' which had been so loudly and so 

 earnestly called for. The inevitable day of reckon- 

 ing came, but in a guise which none expected. In 

 place of reform the Protestant Reformation effected 

 a ruthless breach with the past, and instead of the 

 enforcement of the law of the church that law itself 

 was repudiated. Events now convinced, but too 

 late, the most unwilling minds that what priests and 

 bishops, regulars and seculars, theologians and 

 zealous laymen had pressed for had been indeed 



