a Grace Notes course History of the Christian Church VOLUME 6 The Middle Ages, the Decline of the Papacy and the Preparation for Modern Christianity from Boniface VIII to the Reformation, AD 1294 to 1517 By Philip Schaff CH601 Chapter 1: The Decline of the Papacy and the Avignon Exile, AD 1294 to 1377 History of the Christian Church Volume 6 The Middle Ages, the Decline of the Papacy and the Preparation for Modern Christianity from Boniface VIII to the Reformation, AD 1294 to 1517 CH601 Table of Contents Chapter 1. The Decline of the Papacy and the Avignon Exile, AD 1294 to 1377 ...............................2 Preface to Volume 6 .....................................................................................................................2 6.1. Introductory Survey ..................................................................................................................... 3 CHAPTER 1. THE DECLINE OF THE PAPACY AND THE AVIGNON EXILE. A.D. 1294–1377 ....................5 6.2. Sources and Literature ................................................................................................................ 5 6.3. Pope Boniface VIII. 1294–1303 .................................................................................................... 8 6.4. Boniface VIII. and Philip the Fair of France ................................................................................ 11 6.5 Literary Attacks against the Papacy ........................................................................................... 17 6.6. The Transfer of the Papacy to Avignon ..................................................................................... 24 6.7. The Pontificate of John XXII, 1316–1334 ................................................................................... 31 6.8. The Papal Office Assailed........................................................................................................... 35 6.9. The Financial Policy of the Avignon Popes ................................................................................ 40 6.10. The Later Avignon Popes ......................................................................................................... 46 6.11. The Re-establishment of the Papacy in Rome. 1377 ............................................................... 51 attracts more scholarly and earnest attention and research. Chapter 1. The Decline of the Papacy The author has had no apologetic concern to and the Avignon Exile, AD 1294 to contradict the old notion, perhaps still 1377 somewhat current in our Protestant circles, that the Middle Ages were a period of Preface to Volume 6 superstition and worthy of study as a This volume completes the history of the curiosity rather than as a time directed and Church in the Middle Ages. Dr. Philip Schaff overruled by an all-seeing Providence. He has on one occasion spoke of the Middle Ages as a attempted to depict it as it was and to allow terra incognita in the United States,—a the picture of high religious purpose to reveal territory not adequately explored. These itself side by side with the picture of words would no longer be applicable, hierarchical assumption and scholastic whether we have in mind the instruction misinterpretation. Without the medieval age, given in our universities or theological the Reformation would not have been seminaries. In Germany, during the last possible. Nor is this statement to be twenty years, the study of the period has been understood in the sense in which we speak of greatly developed, and no period at the reaching a land of sunshine and plenty after present time, except the Apostolic age, having traversed a desert. We do well to give to St. Bernard and Francis d’Assisi, St. History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 3 CH601: Volume 6, Chapter 1 a Grace Notes course Elizabeth and St. Catherine of Siena, Gerson, hope which Dr. Philip Schaff expressed in the Tauler and Nicolas of Cusa a high place in our last years of his life, that his History of the list of religious personalities, and to pray for Christian Church which, in four volumes, had men to speak to our generation as well as traversed the first ten centuries and, in the they spoke to the generations in which they sixth and seventh, set forth the progress of lived. the German and Swiss Reformations, might Moreover, the author has been actuated by no be carried through the fruitful period from purpose to disparage Christians who, in the 1050–1517. alleged errors of Protestantism, find an DAVID S. SCHAFF. insuperable barrier to Christian fellowship. THE WESTERN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, Where he has passed condemnatory PITTSBURG. judgments on personalities, as on the popes of the last years of the 15th and the earlier 6.1. Introductory Survey years of the 16th century, it is not because The two centuries intervening between 1294 they occupied the papal throne, but because and 1517, between the accession of Boniface they were personalities who in any walk of VIII. and the nailing of Luther’s Ninety-five life would call for the severest reprobation. Theses against the church door in The unity of the Christian faith and the Wittenberg, mark the gradual transition from promotion of fellowship between Christians the Middle Ages to modern times, from the of all names and all ages are considerations universal acceptance of the papal theocracy in which should make us careful with pen or Western Europe to the assertion of national spoken word lest we condemn, without independence, from the supreme authority of properly taking into consideration that the priesthood to the intellectual and spiritual interior devotion to Christ and His kingdom freedom of the individual. Old things are which seems to be quite compatible with passing away; signs of a new order increase. divergencies in doctrinal statement or Institutions are seen to be breaking up. The ceremonial habit. scholastic systems of theology lose their On the pages of the volume, the author has compulsive hold on men’s minds, and even expressed his indebtedness to the works of become the subject of ridicule. The abuses of the eminent medieval historians and the earlier Middle Ages call forth voices investigators of the day, Gregorovius, Pastor, demanding reform on the basis of the Mandell Creighton, Lea, Ehrle, Denifle, Finke, Scriptures and the common well-being of Schwab, Haller, Carl Mirbt, R. Mueller Kirsch, mankind. The inherent vital energies in the Loserth, Janssen, Valois, Burckhardt-Geiger, Church seek expression in new forms of piety Seebohm and others, Protestant and Roman and charitable deed. Catholic, and some no more among the living. The power of the papacy, which had asserted It is a pleasure to be able again to express his infallibility of judgment and dominion over all indebtedness to the Rev. David E. Culley, his departments of human life, was undermined colleague in the Western Theological by the mistakes, pretensions, and worldliness Seminary, whose studies in medieval history of the papacy itself, as exhibited in the policy and accurate scholarship have been given to of Boniface VIII., the removal of the papal the volume in the reading of the manuscript, residence to Avignon, and the disastrous before it went to the printer, and of the schism which, for nearly half a century, gave printed pages before they received their final to Europe the spectacle of two, and at times form. three, popes reigning at the same time and all Above all, the author feels it to be a great professing to be the vicegerents of God on privilege that he has been able to realize the earth. History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff 4 CH601: Volume 6, Chapter 1 a Grace Notes course The free spirit of nationality awakened during While coarse ambition and nepotism, a total the crusades grew strong and successfully perversion of the ecclesiastical office and resisted the papal authority, first in France violation of the fundamental virtues of the and then in other parts of Europe. Princes Christian life held rule in the highest place of asserted supreme authority over the citizens Christendom, a pure stream of piety was within their dominions and insisted upon the flowing in the Church of the North, and the obligations of churches to the state. The mystics along the Rhine and in the Lowlands leadership of Europe passed from Germany to were unconsciously fertilizing the soil from France, with England coming more and more which the Reformation was to spring forth. into prominence. The Renaissance, or the revival of classical The tractarian literature of the fourteenth culture, unshackled the minds of men. The century set forth the rights of man and the classical works of antiquity were once more, principles of common law in opposition to the after the churchly disparagement of a pretensions of the papacy and the dogmatism thousand years, held forth to admiration. The of the scholastic systems. Lay writers made confines of geography were extended by the themselves heard as pioneers of thought, and discoveries of the continent in the West. a practical outlook upon the mission of the The invention of the art of printing, about Church was cultivated. With unexampled 1440, forms an epoch in human advancement, audacity Dante assailed the lives of popes, and made it possible for the products of putting some of St. Peter’s successors into the human thought to be circulated widely among lowest rooms of hell. the people, and thus to train the different The Reformatory councils of Pisa, Constance, nations for the