§ 6. The Transfer of the Papacy to Avignon.

The successor of Boniface, Benedict XI., 1303–1304, a Dominican, was a mild-spirited and worthy man, more bent on healing ruptures than on forcing his arbitrary will. Departing from the policy of his predecessor, he capitulated to the state and put an end to the conflict with Philip the Fair. Sentences launched by Boniface were recalled or modified, and the interdict pronounced by that pope upon Lyons was revoked. Palestrina was restored to the Colonna. Only Sciarra Colonna and Nogaret were excepted from the act of immediate clemency and ordered to appear at Rome. Benedict’s death, after a brief reign of eight months, was ascribed to poison secreted in a dish of figs, of which the pope partook freely.⁸⁵⁸⁵    Ferretus of Vicenza, Muratori, IX. 1013. Villani, VIII. 80. As an example of Benedict’s sanctity it was related that after he was made pope he was visited by his mother, dressed in silks, but he refused to recognize her till she had changed her dress, and then he embraced her.

The conclave met in Perugia, where Benedict died, and was torn by factions. After an interval of nearly eleven months, the French party won a complete triumph by the choice of Bertrand de Got, archbishop of Bordeaux, who took the name of Clement V. At the time of his election, Bertrand was in France. He never crossed the Alps. After holding his court at Bordeaux, Poictiers, and Toulouse, he chose, in 1309, Avignon as his residence.

Thus began the so-called Babylonian captivity, or Avignon exile, of the papacy, which lasted more than seventy years and included seven popes, all Frenchmen, Clement V., 1305–1314; John XXII., 1316–1334; Benedict XII., 1334–1342; Clement VI., 1342–1352; Innocent VI., 1352–1362; Urban V., 1362–1370; Gregory XI., 1370–1378. This prolonged absence from Rome was a great shock to the papal system. Transplanted from its maternal soil, the papacy was cut loose from the hallowed and historical associations of thirteen centuries. It no longer spake as from the centre of the Christian world.

The way had been prepared for the abandonment of the Eternal City and removal to French territory. Innocent II. and other popes had found refuge in France. During the last half of the thirteenth century the Apostolic See, in its struggle with the empire, had leaned upon France for aid. To avoid Frederick II., Innocent IV. had fled to Lyons, 1245. If Boniface VIII. represents a turning-point in the history of the papacy, the Avignon residence shook the reverence of Christendom for it. It was in danger of becoming a French institution. Not only were the popes all Frenchmen, but the large majority of the cardinals were of French birth. Both were reduced to a station little above that of court prelates subject to the nod of the French sovereign. At the same time, the popes continued to exercise their prerogatives over the other nations of Western Christendom, and freely hurled anathemas at the German emperor and laid the interdict upon Italian cities. The word might be passed around, "where the pope is, there is Rome," but the wonder is that the grave hurt done to his oecumenical character was not irreparable.⁸⁶⁸⁶    See Pastor, I. 75-80. He calls Clement’s decision to remain in France der unselige Entschluss, "the unholy resolve," and says the change to Avignon had the meaning of a calamity and a fall, die Bedeutung einer Katastrophe, eines Sturzes. Hefele-Knöpfler, Kirchengeschichte, p. 458, pronounces it "a move full of bad omen." Baur, Kirchengesch. d. M. A., p. 265, said, "The transference of the papal chair to Avignon was the fatal turning-point from which the papacy moved on to its dramatic goal with hasty step." See also Haller, p. 23. Pastor, p. 62, making out as good a case as he can for the Avignon popes, lays stress upon the support they gave to missions in Asia and Africa. Clement VI., 1342-1352, appointed an archbishop for Japan.

The morals of Avignon during the papal residence were notorious throughout Europe. The papal household had all the appearance of a worldly court, torn by envies and troubled by schemes of all sorts. Some of the Avignon popes left a good name, but the general impression was bad—weak if not vicious. The curia was notorious for its extravagance, venality, and sensuality. Nepotism, bribery, and simony were unblushingly practised. The financial operations of the papal family became oppressive to an extent unknown before. Indulgences, applied to all sorts of cases, were made a source of increasing revenue. Alvarus Pelagius, a member of the papal household and a strenuous supporter of the papacy, in his De planctu ecclesiae, complained bitterly of the speculation and traffic in ecclesiastical places going on at the papal court. It swarmed with money-changers, and parties bent on money operations. Another contemporary, Petrarch, who never uttered a word against the papacy as a divine institution, launched his satires against Avignon, which he called "the sink of every vice, the haunt of all iniquities, a third Babylon, the Babylon of the West." No expression is too strong to carry his biting invectives. Avignon is the "fountain of afflictions, the refuge of wrath, the school of errors, a temple of lies, the awful prison, hell on earth."⁸⁷⁸⁷    Petrarch speaks of it "as filled with every kind of confusion, the powers of darkness overspreading it and containing everything fearful which had ever existed or been imagined by a disordered mind." Robinson: Petrarch, p. 87. Pastor, I. p. 76, seeks to reduce the value of Petrarch’s testimony on the ground that he spoke as a poet, burning with the warm blood of his country, who, notwithstanding his charges, preferred to live in Avignon. But the corruption of Avignon was too glaring to make it necessary for him to invent charges. This ill-fame gives Avignon a place at the side of the courts of Louis XIV. and Charles II. of England.

During this papal expatriation, Italy fell into a deplorable condition. Rome, which had been the queen of cities, the goal of pilgrims, the centre towards which the pious affections of all Western Europe turned, the locality where royal and princely embassies had sought ratification for ambitious plans—Rome was now turned into an arena of wild confusion and riot. Contending factions of nobles, the Colonna, Orsini, Gaetani, and others, were in constant feud,⁸⁸⁸⁸    The children did not escape the violence of this mad frenzy. The little child, Agapito Colonna, was found in the church, where it had been taken by the servant, strangled by the Orsini. and strove one with the other for the mastery in municipal affairs and were often themselves set aside by popular leaders whose low birth they despised. The source of her gains gone, the city withered away and was reduced to the proportions, the poverty, and the dull happenings of a provincial town, till in 1370 the population numbered less than 20,000. She had no commerce to stir her pulses like the young cities in Northern and Southern Germany and in Lombardy. Obscurity and melancholy settled upon her palaces and public places, broken only by the petty attempts at civic displays, which were like the actings of the circus ring compared with the serious manoeuvres of a military campaign. The old monuments were neglected or torn down. A papal legate sold the stones of the Colosseum to be burnt in lime-kilns, and her marbles were transported to other cities, so that it was said she was drawn upon more than Carrara.⁸⁹⁸⁹    Pastor, p. 78, with note. Her churches became roofless. Cattle ate grass up to the very altars of the Lateran and St. Peter’s. The movement of art was stopped which had begun with the arrival of Giotto, who had come to Rome at the call of Boniface VIII. to adorn St. Peter’s. No product of architecture is handed down from this period except the marble stairway of the church of St. Maria, Ara Coeli, erected in 1348 with an inscription commemorating the deliverance from the plague, and the restored Lateran church which was burnt, 1308.⁹⁰⁹⁰    John XXII. paid off the cost incurred for this restoration with the price of silver vessels left by Clement V. for the relief of the churches in Rome. See Ehrle, V. 131. Ponds and débris interrupted the passage of the streets and filled the air with offensive and deadly odors. At Clement V.’s death, Napoleon Orsini assured Philip that the Eternal City was on the verge of destruction and, in 1347, Cola di Rienzo thought it more fit to be called a den of robbers than the residence of civilized men.

The Italian peninsula, at least in its northern half, was a scene of political division and social anarchy. The country districts were infested with bands of brigands. The cities were given to frequent and violent changes of government. High officials of the Church paid the price of immunity from plunder and violence by exactions levied on other personages of station. Such were some of the immediate results of the exile of the papacy. Italy was in danger of succumbing to the fate of Hellas and being turned into a desolate waste.

Avignon, which Clement chose as his residence, is 460 miles southeast of Paris and lies south of Lyons. Its proximity to the port of Marseilles made it accessible to Italy. It was purchased by Clement VI., 1348, from Naples for 80, 000 gold florins, and remained papal territory until the French Revolution. As early as 1229, the popes held territory in the vicinity, the duchy of Venaissin, which fell to them from the domain of Raymond of Toulouse. On every side this free papal home was closely confined by French territory. Clement was urged by Italian bishops to go to Rome, and Italian writers gave as one reason for his refusal fear lest he should receive meet punishment for his readiness to condemn Boniface VIII.⁹¹⁹¹    See Finke: Quellen, p. 92.

Clement’s coronation was celebrated at Lyons, Philip and his brother Charles of Valois, the Duke of Bretagne and representatives of the king of England being present. Philip and the duke walked at the side of the pope’s palfrey. By the fall of an old wall during the procession, the duke, a brother of the pope, and ten other persons lost their lives. The pope himself was thrown from his horse, his tiara rolled in the dust, and a large carbuncle, which adorned it, was lost. Scarcely ever was a papal ruler put in a more compromising position than the new pontiff. His subjection to a sovereign who had defied the papacy was a strange spectacle. He owed his tiara indirectly, if not immediately, to Philip the Fair. He was the man Philip wanted.⁹²⁹²    Döllinger says Clement passed completely into the service of the king, er trat ganz in den Dienst des Königs. Akad. Vorträge, III. 254. It was his task to appease the king’s anger against the memory of Boniface, and to meet his brutal demands concerning the Knights Templars. These, with the Council of Vienne, which he called, were the chief historic concerns of his pontificate.

The terms on which the new pope received the tiara were imposed by Philip himself, and, according to Villani, the price he made the Gascon pay included six promises. Five of them concerned the total undoing of what Boniface had done in his conflict with Philip. The sixth article, which was kept secret, was supposed to be the destruction of the order of the Templars. It is true that the authenticity of these six articles has been disputed, but there can be no doubt that from the very outset of Clement’s pontificate, the French king pressed their execution upon the pope’s attention.⁹³⁹³    Mansi was the first to express doubts concerning these articles, reported by Villani, VIII. 80. Döllinger: Akad. Vorträge, III. 254, and Hefele, following Bouteric, deny them altogether. Hefele, in a long and careful statement, VI. 394-403, gives reasons for regarding them as an Italian invention. Clement distinctly said that he knew nothing of the charges against the Templars till the day of his coronation. On the other hand, Villani’s testimony is clear and positive, and at any rate shows the feeling which prevailed in the early part of the fourteenth century. Archer is inclined to hold on to Villani’s testimony, Enc. Brit., XXIII. 164. The character of pope and king, and the circumstances under which Clement was elected, make a compact altogether probable. Clement, in poor position to resist, confirmed what Benedict had done and went farther. He absolved the king; recalled, Feb. 1, 1306, the offensive bulls Clericis laicos and Unam sanctam, so far as they implied anything offensive to France or any subjection on the part of the king to the papal chair, not customary before their issue, and fully restored the cardinals of the Colonna family to the dignities of their office.

The proceedings touching the character of Boniface VIII. and his right to a place among the popes dragged along for fully six years. Philip had offered, among others, his brother, Count Louis of Evreux, as a witness for the charge that Boniface had died a heretic. There was a division of sentiment among the cardinals. The Colonna were as hostile to the memory of Boniface as they were zealous in their writings for the memory of Coelestine V. They pronounced it to be contrary to the divine ordinance for a pope to abdicate. His spiritual marriage with the Church cannot be dissolved. And as for there being two popes at the same time, God was himself not able to constitute such a monstrosity. On the other hand, writers like Augustinus Triumphus defended Boniface and pronounced him a martyr to the interests of the Church and worthy of canonization.⁹⁴⁹⁴    Dupuy, pp. 448-465. See Finke and Scholz, pp. 198-207. Among those who took sides against the pope was Peter Dubois. In his Deliberatio super agendis a Philippo IV. (Dupuy, pp. 44-47), he pronounced Boniface a heretic. This tract was probably written during the sessions of the National Assembly in Paris, April, 1302. See Scholz, p. 386. In another tract Dubois (Dupuy, pp. 214-19) called upon the French king to condemn Boniface as a heretic. In his zeal against his old enemy Philip had called, probably as early as 1305, for the canonization of Coelestine V.⁹⁵⁹⁵    This is upon the basis of a tractate found and published by Finke, Aus den Tagen Bon. VIII., pp. lxix-c, and which he puts in the year 1308. See pp. lxxxv, xcviii. Scholz, p. 174, ascribes this tract to Augustinus Triumphus. A second time, in 1307, Boniface’s condemnation was pressed upon Clement by the king in person. But the pope knew how to prolong the prosecution on all sorts of pretexts. Philip represented himself as concerned for the interests of religion, and Nogaret and the other conspirators insisted that the assault at Avignon was a religious act, negotium fidei. Nogaret sent forth no less than twelve apologies defending himself for his part in the assault.⁹⁶⁹⁶    Holtzmann: W. von Nogaret, p. 202 sqq. In 1310 the formal trial began. Many witnesses appeared to testify against Boniface,—laymen, priests and bishops. The accusations were that the pope had declared all three religions false, Mohammedanism, Judaism and Christianity, pronounced the virgin birth a tale, denied transubstantiation and the existence of hell and heaven and that he had played games of chance.

Clement issued one bull after another protesting the innocency of the offending parties concerned in the violent measures against Boniface. Philip and Nogaret were declared innocent of all guilt and to have only pure motives in preferring charges against the dead pope.⁹⁷⁹⁷    The tract of 1308 attempts to prove some of the charges against Boniface untrue, or that true sayings attributed to him did not make him a heretic. For example, it takes up the charges that Boniface had called the Gauls dogs, and had said he would rather be a dog than a Gaul. The argument begins by quoting Eccles. 3:19, p. lxx. sqq. The bull, Rex gloriae, 1311, addressed to Philip, stated that the secular kingdom was founded by God and that France in the new dispensation occupied about the same place as Israel, the elect people, occupied under the old dispensation. Nogaret’s purpose in entering into the agreement which resulted in the affair at Anagni was to save the Church from destruction at the hands of Boniface, and the plundering of the papal palace and church was done against the wishes of the French chancellor. In several bulls Clement recalled all punishments, statements, suspensions and declarations made against Philip and his kingdom, or supposed to have been made. And to fully placate the king, he ordered all Boniface’s pronouncements of this character effaced from the books of the Roman Church. Thus in the most solemn papal form did Boniface’s successor undo all that Boniface had done.⁹⁸⁹⁸    The condemned clauses were in some cases erased, but Boniface’s friends succeeded in keeping some perfect copies of the originals. See Hefele-Knöpfler, VI. 460. When the Oecumenical Council of Vienne met, the case of Boniface was so notorious a matter that it had to be taken up. After a formal trial, in which the accused pontiff was defended by three cardinals, he was adjudged not guilty. To gain this point, and to save his predecessor from formal condemnation, it is probable Clement had to surrender to Philip unqualifiedly in the matter of the Knights of the Temple.

After long and wearisome proceedings, this order was formally legislated out of existence by Clement in 1312. Founded in 1119 to protect pilgrims and to defend the Holy Land against the Moslems, it had outlived its mission. Sapped of its energy by riches and indulgence, its once famous knights might well have disbanded and no interest been the worse for it. The story, however, of their forcible suppression awakens universal sympathy and forms one of the most thrilling and mysterious chapters of the age. Döllinger has called it "a unique drama in history."⁹⁹⁹⁹    Döllinger’s treatment, Akad. Vorträge, III. 244-274, was the last address that distinguished historian made before the Munich Academy of the Sciences. In his zeal to present a good case for the Templars, he suggests that if they had been let alone they might have done good service by policing the Mediterranean, with Cyprus as a base.

The destruction of the Templar order was relentlessly insisted upon by Philip the Fair, and accomplished with the reluctant co-operation of Clement V. In vain did the king strive to hide the sordidness of his purpose under the thin mask of religious zeal. At Clement’s coronation, if not before, Philip brought charges against it. About the same time, in the insurrection called forth by his debasement of the coin, the king took refuge in the Templars’ building at Paris. In 1307 he renewed the charges before the pope. When Clement hesitated, he proceeded to violence, and on the night of Oct. 13, 1307, he had all the members of the order in France arrested and thrown into prison, including Jacques de Molay, the grand-master. Döllinger applies to this deed the strong language that, if he were asked to pick out from the whole history of the world the accursed day,—dies nefastus,—he would be able to name none other than Oct. 13, 1307. Three days later, Philip announced he had taken this action as the defender of the faith and called upon Christian princes to follow his example. Little as the business was to Clement’s taste, he was not man enough to set himself in opposition to the king, and he gradually became complaisant.¹⁰⁰¹⁰⁰    In the bull Pastoralis praeeminentiae, 1307. Augustinus Triumphus, in his tract on the Templars, de facto Templarorum, without denying the charges of heresy, denied the king’s right to seize and try persons accused of heresy on his own initiative and without the previous consent of the Church. See the document printed by Scholz, pp. 508-516. The machinery of the Inquisition was called into use. The Dominicans, its chief agents, stood high in Philip’s favor, and one of their number was his confessor. In 1308 the authorities of the state assented to the king’s plans to bring the order to trial. The constitution of the court was provided for by Clement, the bishop of each diocese and two Franciscans and two Dominicans being associated together. A commission invested with general authority was to sit in Paris.¹⁰¹¹⁰¹    It consisted of the archbishop of Narbonne, the bishops of Mende, Bayeux, and Limoges and four lesser dignitaries. The place of sitting was put at Paris at the urgency of Philip.

In the summer of 1308 the pope ordered a prosecution of the knights wherever they might be found.¹⁰²¹⁰²    In the bull Faciens misericordiam. In this document the pope made the charge that the grand-master and the officers of the order were in the habit of granting absolution, a strictly priestly prerogative. It was to confirm the strict view of granting absolution that Alexander III. provided for the admission of priests to the Military Orders. See Lea’s valuable paper. The Absolution Formula of the Templars. See also on this subject Finke I. 395-397. Funk, p. 1330, saysder Pabst kam von jetzt an dem König mehr und mehr entgegen und nachdem er sich von dem gewaltigsten und rücksichtsiosigsten Fürsten seiner Zeit hatte ungarnen lassen, war ein Entkommen aus seiner Gewalt kaum mehr möglich The charges set forth were heresy, spitting upon the cross, worshipping an idol, Bafomet—the word for Mohammed in the Provençal dialect—and also the most abominable offences against moral decency such as sodomy and kissing the posterior parts and the navel of fellow knights. The members were also accused of having meetings with the devil who appeared in the form of a black cat and of having carnal intercourse with female demons. The charges which the lawyers and Inquisitors got together numbered 127 and these the pope sent through France and to other countries as the basis of the prosecution.

Under the strain of prolonged torture, many of the unfortunate men gave assent to these charges, and more particularly to the denial of Christ and the spitting upon the cross. The Templars seem to have had no friends in high places bold enough to take their part. The king, the pope, the Dominican order, the University of Paris, the French episcopacy were against them. Many confessions once made by the victims were afterwards recalled at the stake. Many denied the charges altogether.¹⁰³¹⁰³    These practices have been regarded by Prutz, Loiscleur (La doctrine secrète des Templiers, Paris, 1872) and others as a part of a secret code which came into use in the thirteenth century. But the code has not been forthcoming and was not referred to in the trials. Frederick II. declared that the Templars received Mohammedans into their house at Jerusalem and preferred their religious rites. This statement must be taken with reserve, in view of Frederick’s hostility to the order for its refusal to help him on his crusade. See M. Paris, an. 1244. In Paris 36 died under torture, 54 suffered there at one burning, May 10, 1310, and 8 days later 4 more. Hundreds of them perished in prison. Even the bitterest enemies acknowledged that the Templars who were put to death maintained their innocence to their dying breath.¹⁰⁴¹⁰⁴    At the trial before the bishop of Nismes in 1309, out of 32, all but three denied the charges. At Perpignan, 1310, the whole number, 26, denied the charges. At Clermont 40 confessed the order guilty, 28 denied its guilt. With such antagonistic testimonies it is difficult, if at all possible, to decide the question of guilt or innocence.

In accordance with Clement’s order, trials were had in Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Cyprus and England. In England, Edward II. at first refused to apply the torture, which was never formally adopted in that land, but later, at Clement’s demand, he complied. Papal inquisitors appeared. Synods in London and York declared the charges of heresy so serious that it would be impossible for the knights to clear themselves. English houses were disbanded and the members distributed among the monasteries to do penance. In Italy and Germany, the accused were, for the most part, declared innocent. In Spain and Portugal, no evidence was forthcoming of guilt and the synod of Tarragona, 1310, and other synods favored their innocence.

The last act in these hostile proceedings was opened at the Council of Vienne, called for the special purpose of taking action upon the order. The large majority of the council were in favor of giving it a new trial and a fair chance to prove its innocence. But the king was relentless. He reminded Clement that the guilt of the knights had been sufficiently proven, and insisted that the order be abolished. He appeared in person at the council, attended by a great retinue. Clement was overawed, and by virtue of his apostolic power issued his decree abolishing the Templars, March 22, 1312.¹⁰⁵¹⁰⁵    Per viam provisionis seu ordinationis apostolicae is the language of the bull, that is, as opposed to de jure or as a punishment for proven crimes. This bull, Vox clamantis, was found by the Benedictine, Dr. Gams, in Spain, in 1865. See Hefele-Knöpfler, VI. 625 sqq. It is found in Mirbt: Quellen, p. 149 sq. Clement asserts he issued the order of abolition "not without bitterness and pain of heart," non sine cordis amaritudine et dolore. Two other bulls on the Templars and the disposition of their property followed in May. Clement’s reasons were that suspicions existed that the order held to heresies, that many of the Templars had confessed to heresies and other offences, that thereafter reputable persons would not enter the order, and that it was no longer necessary for the defence of the Holy Land. Directions were given for the further procedure. The guilty were to be put to death; the innocent to be supported out of the revenues of the order. With this action the famous order passed out of existence.

The end of Jacques de Molay, the 22d and last grand-master of the order of Templars, was worthy of its proudest days. At the first trial he confessed to the charges of denying Christ and spitting upon the cross, and was condemned, but afterwards recalled his confession. His case was reopened in 1314. With Geoffrey de Charney, grand-preceptor of Normandy, and others, he was led in front of Notre Dame Cathedral, and sentenced to perpetual imprisonment. Molay then stood forth and declared that the charges against the order were false, and that he had confessed to them under the strain of torture and instructions from the king. Charney said the same. The commission promised to reconsider the case the next day. But the king’s vengeance knew no bounds, and that night, March 11, 1314, the prisoners were burned. The story ran that while the flames were doing their grewsome (sic) work, Molay summoned pope and king to meet him at the judgment bar within a year. The former died, in a little more than a month, of a loathsome disease, though penitent, as it was reported, for his treatment of the order, and the king, by accident, while engaged in the chase, six months later. The king was only 46 years old at the time of his death, and 14 years after, the last of his direct descendants was in his grave and the throne passed to the house of Valois.

As for the possessions of the order, papal decrees turned them over to the Knights of St. John, but Philip again intervened and laid claim to 260,000 pounds as a reimbursement for alleged losses to the Temple and the expense of guarding the prisoners.¹⁰⁶¹⁰⁶    The wealth of the Templars has been greatly exaggerated. They were not richer in France than the Hospitallers. About 1300 the possessions of each of these orders in that country were taxed at 6000 pounds. See Döllinger, p. 267 sq. Thomas Fuller, the English historian, quaintly says, "Philip would never have taken away the Templars’ lives if he might have taken away their lands without putting them to death. He could not get the honey without burning the bees." The Spanish delegation to the Council of Vienne wrote back to the king of Aragon that the chief concern at the council and with the king in regard to the Templars was the disposition of their goods, Finke, I. 360, 374. Finke, I. 111, 115, etc., ascribes a good deal of the animosity against the order to the revelations made by Esquin de Floyran to Jayme of Aragon in 1306. But the charges he made were already current in France. In Spain, they passed to the orders of San Iago di Compostella and Calatrava. In Aragon, they were in part applied to a new order, Santa Maria de Montesia, and in Portugal to the Military Order of Jesus Christ, ordo militiae Jesu Christi. Repeated demands made by the pope secured the transmission of a large part of their possessions to the Knights of St. John. In England, in 1323, parliament granted their lands to the Hospitallers, but the king appropriated a considerable share to himself. The Temple in London fell to the Earl of Pembroke, 1313.¹⁰⁷¹⁰⁷    In 1609 the benchers of the Inner and Middle Temple received the buildings for a small annual payment to the Crown, into whose possession they had passed under Henry VIII.

The explanation of Philip’s violent animosity and persistent persecution is his cupidity. He coveted the wealth of the Templars. Philip was quite equal to a crime of this sort.¹⁰⁸¹⁰⁸    Dante and Villani agree that the Templars were innocent. In this judgment most modern historians concur. Funk declares the sentence of innocence to be "without question the right one," p. 1341. Döllinger, with great emphasis, insists that nowhere did a Templar make a confession of guilt except under torture, p. 257. More recently, 1907, Finke (I. p. ix. 326 sq. 337) insists upon their innocence and the untrustworthiness of the confessions made by the Templars. He declares that he who advocates their guilt must accept the appearances of the devil as a tom-cat. Prutz, in his earlier works, decided for their guilt. Schottmüller, Döllinger, Funk, and our own Dr. Lea strongly favor their innocence. Ranke: Univ. Hist., VIII. 622, wavers and ascribes to them the doctrinal standpoint of Frederick II. and Manfred. In France, Michelet was against the order; Michaud, Guizot, Renan and Boutaric for it. Hallam: Middle Ages, I. 142-146, is undecided. He robbed the bankers of Lombardy and the Jews of France, and debased the coin of his realm. A loan of 500,000 pounds which he had secured for a sister’s dowry had involved him in great financial straits. He appropriated all the possessions of the Templars he could lay his hands upon. Clement V.’s subserviency it is easy to explain. He was a creature of the king. When the pope hesitated to proceed against the unfortunate order, the king beset him with the case of Boniface VIII. To save the memory of his predecessor, the pope surrendered the lives of the knights.¹⁰⁹¹⁰⁹    See Döllinger, p. 255, and Gregorovius. Lea gives as excuse for the length at which he treats the trial and fate of the unfortunate knights, their helplessness before the Inquisition. Dante, in representing the Templars as victims of the king’s avarice, compares Philip to Pontius Pilate.

Purgatory, xx. 91.

The house of the Templars in Paris was turned into a royal residence, from which Louis XVI., more than four centuries later, went forth to the scaffold.

The Council of Vienne, the fifteenth in the list of the oecumenical councils, met Oct. 16, 1311, and after holding three sessions adjourned six months later, May 6, 1812. Clement opened it with an address on Psalm 111:1, 2, and designated three subjects for its consideration, the case of the order of the Templars, the relief of the Holy Land and Church reform. The documents bearing on the council are defective.¹¹⁰¹¹⁰    Ehrle,Archiv für Lit. und Kirchengesch. IV. 361-470, published a fragmentary report which he discovered in the National Library in Paris. For the best account of the proceedings, see Hefele-Knöpfler, VI. 514-554. In addition to the decisions concerning the Templars and Boniface VIII., it condemned the Beguines and Beghards and listened to charges made against the Franciscan, Peter John Olivi (d. 1298). Olivi belonged to the Spiritual wing of the order. His books had been ordered burnt, 1274, by one Franciscan general, and a second general of the order, Bonagratia, 1279, had appointed a commission which found thirty-four dangerous articles in his writings. The council, without pronouncing against Olivi, condemned three articles ascribed to him bearing on the relation of the two parties in the Franciscan order, the Spirituals and Conventuals.

The council has a place in the history of biblical scholarship and university education by its act ordering two chairs each, of Hebrew, Arabic, and Chaldee established in Paris, Oxford, Bologna, and Salamanca.

While the proceedings against Boniface and the Templars were dragging on in their slow course in France, Clement was trying to make good his authority in Italy. Against Venice he hurled the most violent anathemas and interdicts for venturing to lay hands on Ferrara, whose territory was claimed by the Apostolic See. A crusade was preached against the sacrilegious city. She was defeated in battle, and Ferrara was committed to the administration of Robert, king of Naples, as the pope’s vicar.

All that he could well do, Clement did to strengthen the hold of France on the papacy. The first year of his pontificate he appointed 9 French cardinals, and of the 24 persons whom he honored with the purple, 23 were Frenchmen. He granted to the insatiable Philip a Church tithe for five years. Next to the fulfilment of his obligations to this monarch, Clement made it his chief business to levy tributes upon ecclesiastics of all grades and upon vacant Church livings.¹¹¹¹¹¹    Haller, p. 46 sqq. He was prodigal with offices to his relatives. This was a leading feature of his pontificate. Five of his kin were made cardinals, three being still in their youth. His brother he made rector of Rome, and other members of his family received Ancona, Ferrara, the duchy of Spoleto, and the duchy of Venaissin, and other territories within the pope’s gift.¹¹²¹¹²    Ehrle, V. 139 sq. The administration and disposition of his treasure occupied a large part of Clement’s time and have offered an interesting subject to the pen of the modern Jesuit scholar, Ehrle. The papal treasure left by Clement’s predecessor, after being removed from Perugia to France, was taken from place to place and castle to castle, packed in coffers laden on the backs of mules. After Clement’s death, the vast sums he had received and accumulated suddenly disappeared. Clement’s successor, John XXII., instituted a suit against Clement’s most trusted relatives to account for the moneys. The suit lasted from 1318–1322, and brought to light a great amount of information concerning Clement’s finances.¹¹³¹¹³    Ehrle, p. 147, calculates that Clement’s yearly income was between 200,000 and 250,000 gold florins, and that of this amount he spent 100,000 for the expenses of his court and saved the remainder, 100,000 or 160,000. Ehrle, p. 149, gives Clement’s family tree.

His fortune Clement disposed of by will, 1312, the total amount being 814,000 florins; 300,000 were given to his nephew, the viscount of Lomagne and Auvillars, a man otherwise known for his numerous illegitimate offspring. This sum was to be used for a crusade; 314,000 were bequeathed to other relatives and to servants. The remaining 200,000 were given to churches, convents, and the poor. A loan of 160,000 made to the king of France was never paid back.¹¹⁴¹¹⁴    Ehrle, pp. 126, 135.

Clement’s body was by his appointment buried at Uzeste. His treasure was plundered. At the trial instituted by John XXII., it appeared that Clement before his death had set apart 70,000 florins to be divided in equal shares between his successor and the college of cardinals. The viscount of Lomagne was put into confinement by John, and turned over 300,000 florins, one-half going to the cardinals and one-half to the pope. A few months after Clement’s death, the count made loans to the king of France of 110,000 florins and to the king of England of 60,000.

Clement’s relatives showed their appreciation of his liberality by erecting to his memory an elaborate sarcophagus at Uzeste, which cost 50,000 gold florins. The theory is that the pope administers moneys coming to him by virtue of his papal office for the interest of the Church at large. Clement spoke of the treasure in his coffers as his own, which he might dispose of as he chose.¹¹⁵¹¹⁵    Clement’s grave is reported to have been opened and looted by the Calvinists in 1568 or 1577. See Ehrle, p. 139.

Clement’s private life was open to the grave suspicion of unlawful intimacy with the beautiful Countess Brunissenda of Foix. Of all the popes of the fourteenth century, he showed the least independence. An apologist of Boniface VIII., writing in 1308, recorded this judgment:¹¹⁶¹¹⁶    Finke: Aus den Tagen Bon. VIII., p. Ixxxviii. "The Lord permitted Clement to be elected, who was more concerned about temporal things and in enriching his relatives than was Boniface, in order that by contrast Boniface might seem worthy of praise where he would otherwise have been condemned, just as the bitter is not known except by the sweet, or cold except by heat, or the good except by evil." Villani, who assailed both popes, characterized Clement "as licentious, greedy of money, a simoniac, who sold in his court every benefice for gold."¹¹⁷¹¹⁷    Chronicle, IX. 59. Villani tells the story that at the death of one of Clement’s nephews, a cardinal, Clement, in his desire to see him, consulted a necromancer. The master of the dark arts had one of the pope’s chaplains conducted by demons to hell, where he was shown a palace, and in it the nephew’s soul laid on a bed of glowing fire, and near by a place reserved for the pope himself. He also relates that the coffin, in which Clement was laid, was burnt, and with it the pope’s body up to the waist.

By a single service did this pope seem to place the Church in debt to his pontificate. The book of decretals, known as the Clementines, and issued in part by him, was completed by his successor, John XXII.