XIV. CENT many of his enterprizes; but he is more especiPART ally blamed for that calamitous and unhappy war into which he entered against LEWIS of Bavaria. This powerful prince disputed the imperial throne of Germany with FREDERIC, duke of Austria; and they had been both chosen to that high dignity, in the year 1314, by their respective partisans among the electors and princes of the empire. JOHN took it for granted, that the decision of this contest came under his ghostly jurisdiction. But, in the year 1322, the duke of Bavaria having vanquished his competitor by force of arms, took upon him the administration of the empire without asking the pope's approbation, and would by no means allow, that their dispute, already determined by the sword, should be again decided by the judgment of the pope. JOHN interpreted this refusal as a heinous insult upon his authority, and, by an edict issued out in the year 1324, pretended to deprive the emperor of his crown. But this impotent resentment was very little regarded; nay, he was even accused of heresy by the emperor, who, at the same time, appealed to a general council. Highly exasperated by these and other deserved affronts, the pontif presumes, in the year 1327, to declare the imperial throne vacant a second time, and even to publish a sentence of excommunication against the chief of the empire. This new mark of papal arrogance was severely resented by LEWIS, who, in the year 1328, published an edict at Rome, by which JOHN was declared unworthy of the pontificate, deposed from that dignity, and succeeded in it by one of his bitterest enemies PETER DE CORBIERI, a Franciscan monk, who assumed the name of NICOLAS V. and crowned the emperor at Rome in a solemn and public manner. But, in the year 1330, this imperial pope voluntarily abdicated the chair of St Peter, and and surrendered himself to JOHN, who kept himC ENT. in close confinement at Avignon for the rest ofp II. his days. Thus ended the contest between the duke of Bavaria and JOHN XXII. who, notwithstanding their mutual efforts to dethrone each other, continued both in the possession of their respective dignities [p]. XXII. ac cused of he IX. The numerous tribes of the Fratricelli, Beg- John hards, and Spiritual Franciscans, adhered to the party of LEWIS. Supported by his patronage, resy. and dispersed throughout the greatest part of Europe, they attacked every where the reigning pontif, as an enemy to the true religion, and loaded him with the heaviest accusations and the bitterest invectives, both in their writings and in their ordinary conversation. These attacks did not greatly affect the pontif, as they were made only by private persons, by a set of obscure monks, who in many respects, were unworthy of his notice; but, towards the conclusion of his life, he incurred the disapprobation and censures of almost the whole Catholic church. For in the [p] The particulars of this violent quarrel may be learned from the Records published by STEPH. Baluz. in his Vitæ Pontif. Avenion. tom. ii. p. 512. S.-. -EDM. MARTENE, Thesaur. Anecdotor. tom. ii. p. 641. s.—Jo. GEORG. HERWART, in Ludovico Imperatore defenso contra Bzovium, Monachi 1618, in 4to, et CHRIST. GEWALD. in Apologia pro Ludovico Bavaro, Ingoldstad 1618, in 4to, against the same Bzovius, who, in the Annals he had published, basely aspersed the memory of the emperor. See also Luc. WADDINGUS in Annalib. Minor. tom. vii. p. 77. 106. s. &c. Whoever attentively peruses the history of this war, will perceive that LEWIS of Bavaria followed the example of PHILIP the fair, king of France. As PHILIP brought an accusation of heresy against BONIFACE, so did LEWIS with respect to JOHN XXII. The French monarch made use of NOGARET and other accusers against the one pontif. LEWIS employed OCCAM and the Franciscans in that quality against the other. Each of them insisted upon the assembling a general council, and upon the deposition of the pontifs who had incurred their displeasure. I omit other circumstances that might be alleged to render the parallel more striking. XIV. year 1331 and 1332, having asserted, in some public discourses, that the souls of the faithful, in their intermediate state, were permitted to behold CHRIST as man, but not the face of God, or the divine nature, before their re-union with the body at the last day: This doctrine highly offended PHILIP VI. king of France, was opposed by the pope's friends as well as by his enemies, and unanimously condemned by the divines of Paris, in the year 1333. This favourite tenet of the pope was thus severely treated, because it seemed highly prejudicial to the felicity of happy spirits in their unembodied state; otherwise the point might have been yielded to a man of his positive temper, without any material consequence. Alarmed by these vigorous proceedings, he immediately offered something by way of excuse for having espoused this opinion; and afterwards, in the year 1334, when he lay at the point of death, though he did not entirely renounce, he, in some measure, softened it, by saying he believed that the unembodied souls of the righteous beheld the divine essence as far as their separate state and condition would permit [q]. This declaration did not satisfy his adversaries; hence his successor, BENEDICT XII. after many disputes had been held about it, put an end to this controversy by an unanimous resolution of the Parisian doctors, ordering it to be received as an article of faith, that the souls of the blessed, during their intermediate state, did fully and perfectly contemplate the divine [9] See STEPH. BALUZII Vita Pontif. Avenion. tom. i. p. 175. 177. 182. 197. 221. 786, &c.-LUC. DACHERII Spicil. Scriptor. Veter. tom. i. p. 760. ed. Vet.-Jo. LAUNOII Historia Gymnas, Navarreni, part I. cap. vii. p. 319. tom. iv. part I. opp.-BOULAY, Histor. Acad. Paris. tom. iv. p. 235. 250.-LUC. WADDINGI Annal. Minor. tom. vi. p. 371. tom. vii. p. 145-JAC. ECHARDI Scriptor. Prædicator. tom. i. p. 599. 628. XIV. divine nature [r]. BENEDICT's publishing this C EN T. resolution could be in no way injurious to the pARTIL memory of JOHN; for when the latter lay upon his death-bed, he submitted his opinion to the judgment of the church, that he might not be deemed a heretic after his decease [s]. XII. X. JOHN dying in the year 1334, new con- Benedict tentions arose in the conclave between the French and Italian cardinals about the election of a pope; but towards the end of the year they chose JAMES FOURNIER, a Frenchman, and cardinal of St Prisca, who took the name of BENEDICT XII. · The writers of these times represent him as a man of great probity, who was neither chargeable with that avarice, nor that ambition, that dishonoured so many of his predecessors [t]. He put an end to the papal quarrel with the emperor LEWIS : and though he did not restore him to the communion of the church, because prevented, as it is said, by the king of France, yet he did not attempt any thing against him. He carefully attended to the grievances of the church, redressed them as far as was in his power, endeavoured to reform the fundamental laws of the monastic societies, whether of the mendicant, or more opulent orders; and died in the year 1342, while he was laying the most noble schemes for promoting Y 2 a yet [r] BALUZII Vit. Pontif. Avenion. tom. i. p. 197. 216. 221. 224. 236. [] All this pope's heretical fancies about the Beatific Vision were nothing in comparison with a vile and most enormous practical heresy that was found in his coffers after his death, vix, five and twenty millions of florins, of which there were eighteen in specie, and the rest in plate, jewels, crowns, mitres, and other precious baubles, all which he had squeezed out of the people and the inferior clergy during his pontificate. See FLEURY, Hist. Eccles. livr. xciv. sect. xxxix. [] See the Fragmenta Histor. Roman. in MURATORII Antiquit. Ital. tom. iii. p. 275.-BALUZII Vit. Pont. Avenion. tom. i. p. 205. 218. 240, &c.-BOULAY, Histor, Acad. Paris. tom. iv. p. 253. XIV. CEN Ta yet more extensive reformation. In short, if PART II. We overlook his superstition, the prevailing blemish of this barbarous age, it must be allowed that he was a man of integrity and merit. Clement XI. He was succeeded by a man of a quite different disposition, CLEMENT VI. a native of France, whose name was PETER ROGER, and who was cardinal of St Nereus and St Achilles, before his elevation to the pontificate. Not to insist upon the most unexceptionable parts of this pontif's conduct, we shall only observe that he trod faithfully in the steps of JOHN XXII. in providing for vacant churches and bishoprics, by reserving to himself the disposal of them, which shewed his sordid and insatiable avarice; that he conferred ecclesiastical dignities and benefices of the highest consequence upon strangers and Italians, which drew upon him the warm displeasure of the kings of England and France; and lastly, that by renewing the dissensions that had formerly subsisted between LEWIS of Bavaria and the Roman see, he displayed to the world his excessive vanity and ambition in the most odious colours. In the year 1343, he assailed the emperor with his thundering edicts; and when he heard that they were treated by that prince with the utmost contempt, his rage augmented, and he not only threw out new maledictions, and published new sentences of excommunication against him, in the year 1346, but also excited the German princes to elect HENRY VII. Son to CHARLES IV. emperor in his place. This violent measure would infallibly have occasioned a civil war in Germany, had it not been prevented by the death of LEWIS, in the year 1347. CLEMENT did not long survive him, for he died in the year 1352, famous for nothing but his excessive zeal for extending the papal authority, and for his having added Avignon, which purchased of JoAN, queen of Naples, to the "imony of St Peter. XII. |