LXIX. ness." By these institutions, the Romans were excluded CHAP. ́from the election of their prince and bishop; and in the fever of wild and precarious liberty, they seemed insensible of the loss of this inestimable privilege. The emperor Lewis A.D.1328. of Bavaria revived the example of the great Otho. After some negociation with the magistrates, the Roman people was assembled 73 in the square before St. Peter's; the pope of Avignon, John the twenty-second, was deposed; the choice of his successor was ratified by their consent and applause. They freely voted for a new law, that their bishop should never be absent more than three months in the year, and two days journey from the city; and that if he neglected to return on the third summons, the public servant should be degraded and dismissed.74 But Lewis forgot his own debility and the prejudices of the times: beyond the precincts of a German camp, his useless phantom was rejected; the Romans despised their own workmanship; the antipope implored the mercy of his lawful sovereign;75 and the exclusive right of the cardinals was more firmly established by this unseasonable attack. Had the election. been always held in the Vatican, the Absence of the popes rights of the senate and people would not have been viola- from I am at a loss to appreciate the knowledge or authority of an anonymous Italian, whose history (Conclavi de Pontifici Romani, in 4to, 1667) has been continued since the reign of Alexander VII. The accidental form of the work furnishes a lesson, though not an antidote, to ambition. From a labyrinth of intrigues, we emerge to the adoration of the successful candidate: but the next page opens with his funeral. 72 The expressions of cardinal de Retz are positive and picturesque : On y vequt toujours ensemble avec le même respect, et la même civilité que l'on observe dans le cabinet des rois, avec la même politesse qu'on avoit dans la cour de Henri III. avec la même familiarité que l'on voit dans les colleges: avec la même modestie, qui se remarque dans les noviciats; et avec la même charité, du moins en apparence, qui pourroit être entre des freres parfaitement unis. 73 Rechiesti per bando (says John Villani) senatori di Roma, e 52 del popolo, et capitani de' 25. e consoli (consoli?), et 13 buone huomini, uno per rione. Our knowledge is too imperfect to pronounce, how much of this constitution was temporary, and how much ordinary and permanent. Yet it is faintly illustrated by the ancient statutes of Rome. 74 Villani (1. x. c. 68...71. in Muratori, Script, tom. xiii. p. 641...645.) relates this law, and the whole transaction, with much less abhorrence than the prudent Muratori. Any one conversant with the darker ages must have observed how much the sense (I mean the nonsense) of superstition is fluctuating and inconsistent. 75 In the first volume of the Popes of Avignon, see the second original Life of John XXII. p. 142...145. the confession of the antipope. p. 145...152. and the laborious notes of Baluze, p. 714, 715. Rome. LXIX. CHAP. ted with impunity. But the Romans forgot, and were forgot ten, in the absence of the successors of Gregory the seventh, who did not keep as a divine precept their ordinary residence in the city and diocese. The care of that diocese was less important than the government of the universal church; nor could the popes delight in a city in which their authority was always opposed and their person was often endangered. From the persecution of the emperors, and the wars of Italy, they escaped beyond the Alps into the hospitable bosom of France; from the tumults of Rome they prudently withdrew to live and die in the more tranquil stations of Anagni, Perugia, Viterbo, and the adjacent cities. When the flock was offended or impoverished by the absence of the shepherd, they were recalled by a stern admonition, that St. Peter had fixed his chair, not in an obscure village, but in the capital of the world; by a ferocious menace that the Romans would march in arms to destroy the place and people that should dare to afford them a retreat. They returned with timorous obedience; and were saluted with the account of an heavy debt, of all the losses which their desertion had occasioned, the hire of lodgings, the sale of provisions, and the various expenses of servants and strangers who attended the court.76 After a short interval of peace, and perhaps of authority, they were again banished by new tumults, and again summoned by the imperious or respectful invitation of the senate. In these occasional retreats, the exiles and fugitives of the Vatican were seldom long, or far, distant, from the metropolis; but in the beginning of the fourteenth century the apostolic throne was transported, as it might seem for ever, from the Tyber to the Rhône; and the cause of the transmigration may be deduced from the Boniface furious contest between Boniface the eighth and the king of France." The spiritual arms of excommunication and inter VIII. 76 Romani autem non valentes nec volentes ultra suam celare cupiditatem gravissimam contra papam movere cœperunt questionem, exigentes ab eo urgentissime omnia quæ subierant per ejus absentiam damna et jacturas, videlicet in hospitiis locandis, in mercimoniis, in usuris, in redditibus, in provisionibus, et in aliis modis innumerabilibus. Quod cum audisset papa, præcordialiter ingemuit et se comperiens muscipulatum, &c. Matt. Paris, p. 757. For the ordinary history of the popes, their life and death, their residence and absence, it is enough to refer to the ecclesiastical annalists, Spondanus and Fleury. 77 Besides the general historians of the church of Italy and of France, we possess a valuable treatise composed by a learned friend of Thuanus, which LXIX. A.D. 1294 dict were repulsed by the union of the three estates, and CHAP. the privileges of the Gallican church; but the pope was not against the carnal weapons which Philip the Fair had courage to employ. As the pope resided at Anagni, without ....1303. the suspicion of danger, his palace and person were assaulted by three hundred horse, who had been secretly levied by William of Nogaret, a French minister, and Sciarra Colonna, of a noble but hostile family of Rome. The cardinals fled; the inhabitants of Anagni were seduced from their allegiance and gratitude; but the dauntless Boniface, unarmed and alone, seated himself in his chair, and awaited, like the conscript fathers of old, the swords of the Gauls. Nogaret, a foreign adversary, was content to execute the orders of his master: by the domestic enmity of Colonna, he was insulted with words and blows; and during a confinement of three days his life was threatened by the hardships which they inflicted on the obstinacy which they provoked. Their strange delay gave time and courage to the adherents of the church, who rescued him from sacrilegious violence; but his imperious soul was wounded in a vital part; and Boniface expired at Rome in a frenzy of rage and revenge. His memory is stained with the glaring vices of avarice and pride; nor has the courage of a martyr promo ted this ecclesiastical champion to the honours of a saint; a magnanimous sinner (say the chronicles of the times), who entered like a fox, reigned like a lion, and died like a dog. He was succeeded by Benedict the eleventh, the mildest of mankind. Yet he excommunicated the impious emissaries of Philip, and devoted the city and people of Anagni by a tremendous curse, whose effects are still visible to the eyes of superstition.78 After his decease, the tedious and equal suspense of the Translaconclave was fixed by the dexterity of the French faction. tion of the A specious offer was made and accepted, that, in the term Avignon, his last and best editors have published in the appendix (Histoire particulierė du grand Differend entre Boniface VIII. et Philippe le Bel, par Pierre du Puis, tom. vii. P. xi. p. 61...82). 78 It is difficult to know whether Labat (tom. iv. p. 53...57.) be in jest or in earnest, when he supposes that Anagni still feels the weight of this curse, and that the corn-fields, or vineyards, or olive-trees, are annually blasted by nature, the obsequious handmaid of the popes. holy see to A. D. 1309. CHAP. of forty days, they would elect one of the three candidates LXIX. who should be named by their opponents. The archbishop of Bourdeaux, a furious enemy of his king and country, was the first on the list; but his ambition was known; and his conscience obeyed the calls of fortune and the commands of a benefactor, who had been informed by a swift messenger that the choice of a pope was now in his hands. The terms were regulated in a private interview; and with such speed and secresy was the business transacted, that the unanimous conclave applauded the elevation of Clement the fifth." The cardinals of both parties were soon astonished by a summons to attend him beyond the Alps; from whence, as they soon discovered, they must never hope to return. He was engaged, by promise and affection, to prefer a residence in France; and, after dragging his court through Poitou and Gascogny, and devouring, by his expense, the cities and convents on the road, he finally reposed at Avignon,80 which flourished above seventy years the seat of the Roman pontiff and the metropolis of Christendom. By land, by sea, by the Rhone, the position of Avignon was on all sides accessible: the southern provinces of France do not yield to Italy itself; new palaces arose for the accommodation of the pope and cardinals; and the arts of luxury were soon attracted by the treasures of the church. They were already possessed of the adjacent territory, the Venaissin county, a populous and 82 79 See in the Chronicle of Giovanni Villani (1. viii. c. 63, 64. 80. in Muratori, tom. xiii.) the imprisonment of Boniface VIII. and the election of Clement V. the last of which, like most anecdotes, is embarrassed with some difficulties. 80 The original lives of the eight popes of Avignon, Clement V. John XXII. Benedict XII. Clement VI. Innocent VI. Urban. V. Gregory XI. and Clement VII. are published by Stephen Baluze (Vitæ Paparum Avenionensium; Paris, 1693, 2 vols. in quarto) with copious and elaborate notes, and a second volume of acts and documents. With the true zeal of an editor and a patriot, he devoutly justifies or excuses the characters of his countrymen. 81 The exile of Avignon is compared by the Italians with Babylon, and the Babylonish captivity. Such furious metaphors, more suitable to the ardour of Petrarch than to the judgment of Muratori, are gravely refuted in Baluze's preface. The abbé de Sade is distracted between the love of Petrarch and of his country. Yet he modestly pleads that many of the local inconveniencies of Avignon are now removed; and many of the vices against which the poet declaims, had been imported with the Roman court by the strangers of Italy (tom. i. p. 23...28), 82 The comtat Venaissin was ceded to the popes in 1273 by Philip III. king of France, after he had inherited the dominions of the count of Tholouse. Forty years before, the heresy of count Raymond had given them a pretence of seizure, and they derived some obscure claim from the eleventh century to some lands citra Rhodanum (Valesii Notitia Galliarum, p. 459.610. Longuerue, Description de la France, tom. i. p. 376...381). LXIX. fertile spot; and the sovereignty of Avignon was afterwards CHAP. purchased from the youth and distress of Jane, the first queen of Naples and countess of Provence, for the inadequate price of fourscore thousand florins.83 Under the shadow of the French monarchy, amidst an obedient people, the popes enjoyed an honourable and tranquil state, to which they long had been strangers: but Italy deplored their absence; and Rome, in solitude, and poverty, might repent of the ungovernable freedom which had driven from the Vatican the successor of St. Peter. Her repentance was tardy and fruitless: after the death of the old members, the sacred college was filled with French cardinals,84 who beheld Rome and Italy with abhorrence and contempt, and perpetuated a series of national, and even provincial, popes, attached by the most indissoluble ties to their native country. A. D. 1300. The progress of industry had produced and enriched the Institution Italian republics: the era of their liberty is the most flou-lee, or holy the jubirishing period of population and agriculture, of manufac- year, tures and commerce; and their mechanic labours were gradually refined into the arts of elegance and genius. But the position of Rome was less favourable, the territory less fruitful; the character of the inhabitants was debased by indolence and elated by pride; and they fondly conceived that the tribute of subjects must for ever nourish the metropolis of the church and empire. This prejudice was encouraged in some degree by the resort of pilgrims to the shrines of the apostles; and the last legacy of the popes, the institution of the HOLY YEAR,85 was not less beneficial to the people than to the clergy. Since the loss of Palestine, the gift of plenary indulgences, which had been applied to the crusades, remain 83 If a possession of four centuries were not itself a title, such objections might annul the bargain; but the purchase money must be refunded, for indeed it was paid. Civitatem Avenionem emit. . . . per ejusmodi venditionem pecuniâ redundantes, &c. (iida. Vita Clement VI. in Baluz. tom. i. p. 272. Muratori, Script. tom. iii. P. ii. p. 565). The only temptation for Jane and her second husband was ready money, and without it they could not have returned to the throne of Naples. 84 Clement V. immediately promoted ten cardinals, nine French and one English (Vita iv. p. 63. et Baluz. p. 625, &c.). In 1331, the pope refused two candidates recommended by the king of France, quod xx Cardinales, de quibus xvii. de regno Franciæ originem traxisse noscuntur in memorato collegio existant (Thomassin, Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. i. p. 1281). 85 Our primitive account is from cardinal James Caietan (Maxima Bibliot. Patrum, tom. xxv); and I am at a loss to determine whether the nephew of Boniface VIII. be a fool or a knave: the uncle is a much clearer character. |