History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume II (of 2). Draper John William

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СКАЧАТЬ of Loretto occurred. The house inhabited by the Virgin immediately after her conception had been converted on the death of the Holy Family into a chapel, and St. Luke had presented to it an image, carved by his own hands, still known as our Lady of Loretto. Some angels chancing to be at Nazareth when the Saracen conquerors approached, fearing that the sacred relic might fall into their possession, took the house bodily in their hands, and, carrying it through the air, after several halts, finally deposited it at Loretto in Italy.

       Boniface VIII. elected pope. So Benedetto Gaetani, whether by such wily procurements or not, became Pope Boniface VIII., A.D. 1294. His election was probably due to King Charles, who held twelve electoral votes, the bitter personal animosity of the Colonnas having been either neutralized or overcome. The first care of Boniface was to consolidate his power and relieve himself of a rival. In the opinion of many it was not possible for a pope to abdicate. Confinement in prison soon (A.D. 1296) settled that question. Ascent of Pope Celestine to heaven. The soul of Celestine was seen by a monk ascending the skies, which opened to receive it into heaven; and a splendid funeral informed his enemies that they must now acknowledge Boniface as the unquestioned pope. Quarrel of Boniface and the Colonnas. But the princely Colonnas, the leaders of the Ghibelline faction in Rome, who had resisted the abdication of Celestine to the last, and were, therefore, mortal enemies of Boniface, revolted. He published a bull against them; he excommunicated them. With an ominous anticipation of the future – for they were familiar with the papal power, and knew where to touch it to the quick – they appealed to a "General Council." Since supernatural weapons did not seem to avail, Boniface proclaimed a crusade against them. The issue answered his expectations. Palestrina, one of their strongholds, which in a moment of weakness they had surrendered, was utterly devastated and sown with salt. The Colonnas fled, some of them to France. There, in King Philip the Fair, they found a friend, who was destined to avenge their wrongs, and to inflict on the papacy a blow from which it never recovered.

      Pecuniary necessities of Rome. This was the state of affairs at the commencement of the quarrel between Philip and Boniface. The Crusades had brought all Europe under taxation to Rome, and loud complaints were everywhere made against the drain of money into Italy. Things had at last come to such a condition that it was not possible to continue the Crusades without resorting to a taxation of the clergy, and this was the true reason of the eventual lukewarmness, and even opposition to them. But the stream of money that had thus been passing into Italy had engendered habits of luxury and extravagance. Cost what it might, money must be had in Rome. The perennial necessity under which the kings of England and France found themselves – the necessity of revenue for the carrying out of their temporal projects – could only be satisfied in the same way. The wealth of those nations had insensibly glided into the hands of the Church. The King of England compels the clergy to pay taxes. In England, Edward I. enforced the taxation of the clergy. They resisted at first, but that sovereign found an ingenious and effectual remedy. He directed his judges to hear no cause in which an ecclesiastic was a complainant, but to try every suit brought against them; asserting that those who refused to share the burdens of the state had no right to the protection of its laws. They forthwith submitted. In the nature and efficacy of this remedy we for the first time recognize the agency of a class of men soon to rise to power – the lawyers.

       The King of France attempts it. In France, Philip the Fair made a similar attempt. It was not to be supposed that Rome would tolerate this trespassing on what she considered her proper domain, and accordingly Boniface issued the bull "Clericis laicos," excommunicating kings who should levy subsidies on ecclesiastics. Hereupon Philip determined that, if the French clergy were not tributary to him, France should not be tributary to the pope, and issued an edict prohibiting the export of gold and silver from France without his license. But he did not resort to these extreme measures until he had tried others which perhaps he considered less troublesome. He had plundered the Jews, confiscated their property, and expelled them from his dominions. Is abetted by the begging friars, The Church was fairly next in order; and, indeed, the mendicant friars of the lower class, who, as we have seen, were disaffected by the publication of "The Everlasting Gospel," were loud in their denunciations of her wealth, attributing the prevailing religious demoralization to it. They pointed to the example of our Lord and his disciples; and when their antagonists replied that even He condescended to make use of money, the malignant fanatics maintained their doctrines, amid the applause of a jeering populace, by answering that it was not St. Peter, but Judas, who was intrusted with the purse, and that the pope stood in need of the bitter rebuke which Jesus had of old administered to his prototype Peter, saying, "Get thee behind me, Satan; for thou savourest not of the things that be of God, but of the things that be of men" (Mark viii. 33). Under that authority they affirmed that they might stigmatize the great culprit without guilt. So the king ventured to put forth his hand and touch what the Church had, and she cursed him to his face. At first a literary war ensued: the pope published his bull, the king his reply. and ably sustained by the lawyers. Already the policy which Philip was following, and the ability he was displaying, manifested that he had attached to himself that new power of which the King of England had taken advantage – a power soon to become the mortal enemy of the ecclesiastic – the lawyers. Device of the jubilee. In the meantime, money must be had in Rome; when, by the singularly felicitous device of the proclamation of a year of jubilee, A.D. 1300, large sums were again brought into Italy.

       The four enemies of Boniface. Boniface had thus four antagonists on his hands – the King of France, the Colonnas, the lawyers, and the mendicants. By the latter, both high and low, he was cordially hated. Thus the higher English Franciscans were enraged against him because he refused to let them hold lands. They attempted to bribe him with 40,000 ducats; but he seized the money at the banker's, under the pretence that it had no owners, as the mendicants were vowed to poverty, and then denied the privilege. As to the lower Franciscans, heresy was fast spreading among them. They were not only infected with the doctrines of "The Everlasting Gospel," but had even descended into the abyss of irreligion one step more by placing St. Francis in the stead of our Saviour. They were incessantly repeating in the ears of the laity that the pope was Anti-Christ, "The Man of Sin." Collision between the French king and the pope. The quarrel between Philip and Boniface was every moment increasing in bitterness. The former seized and imprisoned a papal nuncio, who had been selected because he was known to be personally offensive; the latter retaliated by the issue of bulls protesting against such an outrage, interfering between the king and his French clergy, and citing the latter to appear in Rome and take cognizance of their master's misdoings. The monarch was actually invited to be present and hear his own doom. In the lesser bull – if it be authentic – and the king's rejoinder, both parties seem to have lost their temper. The bull "Ausculta Fili." This was followed by the celebrated bull "Ausculta Fili" at which the king's indignation knew no bounds. He had it publicly burnt in Paris at the sound of a trumpet; assembled the States-General; and, under the advice of his lawyers, skilfully brought the issue to this: Does the king hold the realm of France of God or of the pope? Without difficulty it might be seen how the French clergy would be compelled to act: since many of them held fiefs of the king, all were in fear of the intrusion of Italian ecclesiastics into the rich benefices. France, therefore, supported her monarch. The bull "Unam Sanctam." On his side, Boniface, in the bull "Unam Sanctam" asserted his power by declaring that it is necessary to salvation to believe that "every human being is subject to the Pontiff of Rome." Philip, foreseeing the desperate nature of the approaching conflict, and aiming to attach his people firmly to him by putting himself forth as their protector against priestly tyranny, again skilfully appealed to their sentiments by denouncing the Inquisition as an atrocious barbarity, an outrage on human rights, violating all law, resorting to new and unheard-of tortures, and doing deeds at which men's minds revolt with horror. In the South of France this language was thoroughly understood. William de Nogaret. The lawyers, among whom William de Nogaret was conspicuous, ably assisted him; indeed, his whole movement exhibited the extraordinary intelligence of his advisers. It has been affirmed, and is, perhaps, not untrue, that De Nogaret's father had been burnt by the Inquisition. The great lawyer was bent on revenge. Action of the States-General. СКАЧАТЬ