POPE. 



635 



the law of celibacy, and by the law of investiture, 

 which broke the union of bishops with their tem- 

 poral princes, and, under Innocent III., was 

 extended to a power of disposing, at pleasure, 

 of all the dignities and benefices of the church. 

 By means of their legates and nuncios, they 

 obtained the bishop's right of deciding in eccle- 

 siastical and matrimonial affairs, and the ex- 

 clusive right of canonization ; and they thus made 

 the popes the sole fountain of ecclesiastical dignity 

 and power in western Christendom. By event- 

 ually assuming the sole right of convening coun- 

 cils and national synods (whose decrees became 

 valid only by being ratified by the pope), and by 

 maintaining, with more and more boldness, their 

 claimsto infallibility, they atlength obtained complete 

 dominion over the church. Of the orders of monks, 

 especially of the mendicant orders, they created a 

 spiritual army, who, having in their hands the in- 

 quisition, the right of hearing confessions, and of 

 preaching, together with the public superintendence 

 of schools and universities, became the most useful 

 instrument of their policy, and one of the strongest 

 supports of their power. The success of these ad- 

 vances towards unlimited spiritual dominion, gave 

 them courage to strive also after temporal power. 



But the claims of the popes to worldly dominion 

 are of much later origin than the historians of the 

 court of Rome have maintained. Constantino the 

 Great gave them merely some buildings and estates 

 in and near Rome. By the gift of Pepin (see Church, 

 States of the) the pope obtained merely the dominium 

 uiile, that is, the use of lands intrusted to him. In 

 this way he became, in a manner, a vassal of the 

 Prankish kings, and afterwards of the German em- 

 perors, who exercised, without opposition, the right 

 of sovereignty over the papal dominions, and, until 

 the twelfth century, suffered no election of pope to 

 take place without their ratification. Innocent III. 

 first established the rule that Rome, the Marches, 

 and the hereditary possessions of Matilda (q. v.), 

 should do him homage, as lord paramount, in 1198 ; 

 and thus vanished the last shadow of the power of 

 the emperors over Rome and the pope. Favour- 

 able circumstances had already made several king- 

 doms tributary to the papal see. England, from 

 the time of its conversion to Christianity, was thus 

 dependent upon them ; in like manner, Poland and 

 Hungary, from the eleventh century, Bulgaria and 

 Aragon, from the beginning of the thirteenth, and 

 the kingdom of the Two Sicilies (whose Norman 

 kings had been vassals of the pope, from 1265, when 

 Clement IV. gave it to the house of Anjou through 

 hatred towards the house of Hohenstaufen. Even 

 the East would have fallen under the power of 

 Rome, if the success of the crusades (which had 

 given rise in the West to much confusion in regard 

 to the rights of citizens and private property, and 

 thereby promoted the influence of the pope) had 

 been less transitory. Innocent III. dared to depose 

 and proclaim kings, as, for instance, John of Eng- 

 land, and to threaten the whole world with excom- 

 munication. The emperor Otho IV. called himself 

 such by the grace of God and of the pope. Kings 

 were called sons of the pope ; and the fear of the 

 terrible consequences of the interdict, which they 

 pronounced, as vicars of Christ, upon disobedient 

 princes and their kingdoms, the rebellious spirit of 

 the barons, the ill regulated constitution of states, 

 and the great want of laws, subjected the rulers of 

 those times to the authority of a lord, whose court 

 was the cradle of modern politics, and whose power 

 and influence were irresistible, because supported by 

 public opinion and by superstition. It was with 

 reason, then, that popery, at that time, was called 



a universal monarchy ; the cardinals being coun- 

 sellors ; the legates in the different kingdoms of 

 Europe, viceroys ; the archbishops and bishops, 

 governors and lieutenant-governors ; the priests, 

 ministers of police and of the finances; and the 

 religious orders, the standing armies of the Roman 

 pastor ; who thus had at his beck 300,000 servants 

 of different ranks, scattered among the different na- 

 tions, entirely devoted to his interest, and power- 

 ful by the arms of religion and fanaticism. In fact, 

 this priestly government did good by accustoming 

 the rude princes and people to laws and Christian 

 manners ; and, at a time when rights were first 

 beginning to be understood, its inconsistency with 

 true independence was not felt. 



France alone, which had acquired more consis- 

 tency and power than the other monarchies of Europe, 

 by the subjugation of the great vassals, and the 

 reduction of their territories under the royal govern- 

 ment, first successfully resisted the popes. In 

 Philip the Fair, Boniface VIII., one of the boldest 

 and most able popes, found a master, and his suc- 

 cessors, during their residence at Avignon, between 

 1306 and 1376, remained under French influence. 

 The independence of the popes visibly suffered from, 

 the circumstance that they were now bound to a 

 particular political party, though they continued to 

 exercise, over all the Christian countries of the 

 West, the power which their arts and perseverance 

 had obtained. Their dignity sunk still lower when, 

 in 1378, two rival popes appeared the Italian 

 Urban VI., and a count of Geneva, chosen by the 

 French cardinals, who took the name of Clement 

 VII. Europe was divided by their quarrel, the 

 Italian being supported by Italy, Germany, Eng- 

 land and the northern kingdoms, the French pope 

 by France, Spain, Savoy, Lorraine and Scotland ; 

 and the schism long remained. The public sale ot 

 offices, the shameful extortions and the low arti- 

 fices, which most of these rival popes used against 

 each other, gave rise in England and Bohemia (see 

 Huss), to much complaint, and to demands for a 

 reform in the state of the church. The council of 

 Constance had, indeed, succeeded in putting an end 

 to the great schism, by deposing both of the rivals ; 

 but pope Martin V., who was chosen, in 1417, in 

 their place, did not correct the abuses which had 

 grown up under his predecessors, and even the most 

 express decrees for reform, passed by the council of 

 Basle, were rendered nugatory by the artifices and 

 the perseverance of Eugene IV., of the house of 

 Ursini, who was pope between 1431 and 1477. He 

 had gained the friendship of France, in 1438, by 

 the pragmatic sanction, which laid the foundation 

 of the freedom of the Gallican church ; and the 

 negotiations of ^Eneas Sylvius, ambassador of Fre- 

 deric III., with him and his successor, the excellent 

 Nicholas V., a friend to ancient literature, and the 

 protector of the learned exiles from Greece, effected 

 the concordateof Vienna, in 1448. Why the griev- 

 ances of the German nation were so little remedied 

 by this instrument, while the interest of the pope 

 was carefully attended to, the German princes, 

 whom the eloquence of the cunning negotiator 

 jEneas Sylvius had induced to accept it, first per- 

 ceived when he was chosen cardinal, and, in 1458, 

 pope, under the name of Pius II. In this concor- 

 date, the popes obtained the confirmation of the 

 annates. of the right of ratifying the election of pre- 

 lates, and, among many other privileges, that of 

 the pope's months, so called, or the right of confer- 

 ring benefices (which they exercised alternately 

 with the founders), not on the occurrence of vacan- 

 cies, but on particular months, of which six in every 

 year were reserved to the pope. By a general ex- 



