Glimpses of Church History

9.    Period 1300 – 1400 CE

 

Pope Celestine V

Pope Nicholas IV died in 1292. For nearly two years, the conclave could not agree on contenders from two great Roman families, the Colonna and the Orsini. Benedict Gaetano, an influential member of the Sacred College, a lawyer and related to both families hoped to be chosen but eventually a simple, holy hermit called  Peter who preferred to live in caves on Mount Morone, was elected in 1294, taking the name Celestine V. He was in his 80s.

 

Holy Ghost speaking!

Celestine, shocked at the licentious ways of Rome and the riches accumulated by the church, set up his seat in Naples and began giving away church possessions to the poor. He had to be stopped. The cardinals entrusted Gaetani with the task.

Gaetani bored a hole into the wall of the pope’s cell and inserted a speaking tube. Late in the night, he whispered down the tube: “Celestine, Celestine, lay down your office. It is too much for you to bear.”

After several nights of listening to the voice of the Holy Ghost (as he believed), Celestine decided to step down and returned to his hermitage. He was pope for about 5 months.

                                                                                                     Clement VI flanked by the Emperor, a king & church heads (Vatican fresco)

Pope Boniface VIII

Gaetani now claimed the papal throne as Boniface VIII in late 1294. Fearing that Celestine might re-appear, he had him locked in a castle where the old hermit died a few months later of hunger and neglect.

 

Boniface lost no time in making three of his nephews cardinals and bestowing vast possessions on them. The Colonna family, not too happy with his ways, kept questioning the legitimacy of his election. When in 1297 they ambushed a papal convoy laden with gold, the pope sent his soldiers to destroy their citadels, forcing them behind the walls of Palestrina. Boniface excommunicated the two Colonna cardinals. Papal forces next stormed Palestrina, killing some 6000 people and destroying all settlements except the Cathedral. The Colonnas fled to France. Meanwhile the French king Philip IV (the Fair) was getting impatient with the pope for not crowning him Emperor. He began taxing the clergy and withholding church revenues - despite a earlier papal bull that this was a grave offence.

 

Unam Sanctam

In 1302, Boniface penned a Bull Unam Sanctam (‘one holy’) not just to Philip but to the whole church:

‘There is but one, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church outside of which there is no salvation …

‘Both, the spiritual and material swords are in the hands of the Church. The spiritual is wielded by the Church, the material for the Church…

‘We declare that it is wholly necessary for salvation for every creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff’.

 

Philip was not moved. He spread word that the pope had usurped the throne and had Celestine locked up and murdered. On the advice of his minister, William Nogaret, it was decided to kidnap the pope and carry him back to France to stand trial.

 

‘You will die like a dog’

A year later, Boniface was working on another Bull, this time to excommunicate Philip. What he didn’t know was that Nogaret had joined forces with Sciarra Colonna, relative of the sacked cardinals. In October that year (1303), their forces stormed into Anagni, the pope’s favourite retreat. The invaders began burning the main doors of the cathedral and slaughtered all who had not yet fled. They then advanced towards the palace, killing all (bishops included) along the way. The pope’s bodyguards surrendered.

 

Sciarra made his way to the huge audience chamber. There sat the pope, 86, alone except for a single cowering cardinal. He was attired in full regalia, including a gold cross in his hands. Initially awed, Sciarra strode slowly towards the Pontiff. “Resign”, he shouted and slapped him across the face, the chamber walls echoing with the sound.. Too proud to beg for mercy, Boniface lowered his head and intoned that he was ready to die. Sciarra hesitated and then raised his sword.

 

Just then Nogaret burst in and  shouted at him that the pope was wanted in France to face a general council. Sciarra put back his sword but proceeded to strip the pope of his costly tiara and garments until he stood nearly naked, showing his body infested with lice. He was thrown into a dungeon, dark and dank. Meanwhile the people of the town got organised, drove away the invaders and rescued the pope.

 

Boniface was a changed man. The hunger and thirst in the dungeon, the darkness and isolation, the rats scampering over him had unhinged him. He kept himself locked in the Lateran for 5 weeks and there in solitude he died. His predecessor Celestine had foretold: “You leapt to the throne like a fox, you will rule like a lion, you will die like a dog.”

 

The Avignon Exile (1309-78)

The next pope, Benedict XI, died of dysentery in 8 months. There was 11 months of wrangling between the French and other cardinals deciding on his successor. In the end, the Archbishop of Bordeaux was elected as Pope Clement V. King Philip of France had a French pope at last. Clement never set foot in Rome. In order not ‘to cause pain to our dear son, the King of France’, in 1309 he moved  to Avignon, a small city in Provence which then belonged not to France but to the king of Naples.It was almost surrounded by papal territory. He agreed to be crowned at Lyon, absolved Philip and Nogaret of all wrong doing and even published a bull praising Philip for his hostile actions against Boniface. Clement created a large number of cardinals, most of them French, 5 being members of his own family. He died in 1314. It took two years to decide on his successor, John XXII.

 

John alienated the German King Louis IV who marched into Rome in 1328 and had himself crowned emperor by the fiery Sciarra Colonna. He deposed John and appointed an anti-Pope Nicholas V who lasted 18 months. In his later years, John preached some strange ideas of his own about heaven and was condemned as a heretic by several theologians. His successor, Pope Benedict XII started building the papal palace in Avignon. Though basically austere, he was smitten by the sister of Francesco Petrarch (1304-74), the great poet and scholar of the time and offered to make him cardinal if he could have her. When Francesco refused, the pope turned to his brother, Gerardo and won her.

 

The Archbishop of Rouen and Chancellor to the French King became Pope Clement VI in 1342. He turned the papal court into a sumptuous palace and lived in princely style. He used to joke: “No  one knew how to be pope before me. If the English King wants his donkey made a bishop, he has only to ask”. His tapestries came from Spain, silk from Tuscany, gold cloth from Syria. He had an eye for beautiful women, his favourite being Cecile, Countess of Turenne. Petrarch who visited Avignon described the papal court as “the shame of mankind, a sink of vice, a sewer holding the world’s filth…God is held in contempt, only money is worshipped…”.

The papal palace also housed the huge torture chamber of the Inquisition where the shrieks of ‘heretics’ could be heard and their mangled bodies seen.

 

Gregory XI returns to Rome

Clement's successor, Innocent VI, was condemned  by St Brigit of Sweden after his death. She said: "Pope Innocent, more abominable than Jewish usurers, a greater traitor than Judas, more cruel than Pilate, has been cast into hell like a heavy stone." Of the next two French popes, Urban V did leave for Rome in 1367 but civil unrest forced him to return to Avignon. The last of the French popes, Gregory XI, felt guilty about the papal absence in Rome. Catherine of Siena (1347-80), the Dominican mystic, wrote the pope many letters begging him to return, even going to Avignon in 1376 to plead her case. In the end he yielded and entered Rome in 1377. Italy was still in turmoil and when the papal legate (a future anti-pope) ordered a massacre of 8000 in Cesena in the same year, the people took arms and the pope was forced to retire to Anagni. In 1378, while a peace settlement was being worked out, Pope Gregory took ill and died in March 1378.

 

The Great Schism (multiple popes)

The conclave met in 1378 to elect the next pope. The 7 Avignon popes had created 134 cardinals, 112 of them French. The French members (11) of the conclave (16) wanted a French pope but a riotous mob of 30,000 outside chanted for an Italian. They finally broke down the door of the meeting room and stormed inside. The French gave in.

 

The Archbishop of Bari (Naples) was elected, taking the name of Urban VI. Used to life in the alleys of Naples, he proved too coarse for the pretentious French cardinals. He was also spiteful, foul-tempered and addicted to alcohol. He tongue-lashed the cardinals and bishops and threatened to end the French domination of the church. The French took his rages to be evidence of madness  and decided to elect a pope of their own, Clement VII, who promptly set out for Avignon.

 

In 1389, Pope Urban VI died with Europe in turmoil. His successor, Boniface IX, turned out to be a shameless trader in favours. Dispensing indulgences, promoting a cleric or signing documents all carried a price in gold. Boniface XI became increasingly autocratic,  even abolishing Rome’s government in 1398 and choosing his own senators. He and anti-pope Clement VII excommunicated each other. Clement died of a fit in 1394 whereupon the French cardinals elected another, Benedict XIII. But by now the French king withdrew state support for the Avignon court and the University of Paris proposed an end to the schism: both popes should resign and a fresh election held, with a general council deciding on the genuine pope.

However, the schism dragged on until 1414.

 

REFERENCES

1    Vicars of Christ, Peter de Rosa (Corgi 1994)

2    Popes through the Ages, J Brusher (New Advent 1996)

3    Chronicles of the Popes,  P  Maxwell-Stuart (Thomas & Hudson, 1997)