The Historians' History of the World 08

The sensible decline of the papacy is to be dated from the pontificate of Boniface VIII, who had strained its authority to a higher pitch than any of his predecessors. There is a spell wrought by uninterrupted good fortune, which captivates men’s understanding, and persuades them, against reasoning and analogy, that violent power is immortal and irresistible. The spell is broken by the first change of success. In tracing the papal empire over mankind, we have no marked and definite crisis of revolution. But slowly, like the retreat of waters or the stealthy pace of old age, that extraordinary power over human opinion has been subsiding for five centuries. As the retrocession of the Roman terminus under Adrian gave the first overt proof of decline in the ambitious energies of that empire, so the tacit submission of the successors of Boniface VIII to the king of France might have been hailed by Europe as a token that their influence was beginning to abate. Imprisoned, insulted, deprived eventually of life by the violence of Philip, a prince excommunicated, and who had gone all lengths in defying and despising the papal jurisdiction, Boniface had every claim to be avenged by the inheritors of the same spiritual dominion. When Benedict XI rescinded the bulls of his predecessor, and admitted Philip the Fair to communion without insisting on any concessions, he acted perhaps prudently, but gave a fatal blow to the temporal authority of Rome.l

FOOTNOTES

[92] [In the enforcement of celibacy, the emperors and a large part of the laity were not unwilling to join. But when Gregory declared it a sin for the ecclesiastic to receive his benefice under conditions from a layman, he aimed a deadly blow at all secular authority.g]

[93] Floto (II, pp. 45 et seqq.) has well shown the terrible workings of this appeal to the populace. The peasants held that an accusation of simony or marriage exempted them from the payment of tithe.

[94] [“Calixtus,” says Milman,e “though by no means the first Frenchman, was the first French pontiff who established that close connection between France and the papacy which had such important influence on the affairs of the church and of Europe.”]

[95] [He was tied backwards on a camel and carried in the triumphal procession of Calixtus, who had just previously excommunicated the emperor. It was in his pontificate that the Concordat of Worms took place as described previously.]

[96] [His name was Nicholas Breakspeare, and he was the only Englishman who ever filled the papal chair.]

[97] [Under him Arnold of Brescia was robbed of his popularity and forced into exile. He was captured by officers of Barbarossa and turned over to the pope, who had him executed and his ashes cast into the Tiber. Of him Milmane says: “Arnold of Brescia had struck boldly at both powers; he utterly annulled the temporal supremacy of the pope; and if he acknowledged, reduced the sovereignty of the emperor to a barren title.”]

[98] [Or rather, from his feet, according to Roger of Hoveden’sh doubtful chronicle, which represents the pope as seated with his feet on the crown and spurning it with a kick toward the kneeling emperor.]

[99] [Reichelb calls him “Greatest without exception among the great popes of the Middle Ages.”]

[100] It may be well to state the chief points which the pope claimed as his exclusive prerogative: (1) General supremacy of jurisdiction, a claim, it is obvious, absolutely illimitable; (2) Right of legislation, including the summoning and presiding in councils; (3) Judgment in all ecclesiastic causes arduous and difficult. This included the power of judging on contested elections, and degrading bishops, a super-metropolitan power; (4) Right of confirmation of bishops and metropolitans, the gift of the pallium. Hence, by degrees, rights of appointment to devolved sees, reservations, etc.; (5) Dispensations; (6) The foundation of new orders; (7) Canonisation. Compare Eichhorn, II, p. 500.

[101] The Conti family boasted of nine popes—among them Innocent III, Gregory IX, Alexander IV, Innocent XIII; of thirteen cardinals, according to Ciacconius.j

[102] Walter von der Vogelweide, who attributes all the misery of the civil war in Germany to Innocent, closes his poem with these words (modernised by K. Simrock):

“Ich hörte fern in einer Klaus

Ein Jammern ohne Ende:

Ein Klausner rang die Hände;

Er klagte Gott sein bittres Leid;

O weh, der Papst ist allzu jung, Herr Gott, hilf deiner Christenheit.”

[103] It is remarkable that Innocent III was never canonised. There were popular rumours that the soul of Innocent, escaping from the fires of purgatory, appeared on earth, scourged by pursuing devils, taking refuge at the foot of the cross, and imploring the prayers of the faithful.