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LXIX.

CHAP. city; and that if he neglected to return on the third summons, the public servant should be degraded and dismissed. But Lewis forgot his own debility, and the prejudices of the times; beyond the precincts of a German camp, his useless phantom was rejected; the Romans despised their own workmanship; the anti-pope implored the mercy of his lawful sovereign t; and the exclusive right of the cardinals was more firmly established by this unseasonable attack.

Absence of the Popes

Had the election been always held in the Vatican, from Rome. the rights of the senate and people would not have been violated with impunity. But the Romans forgot, and were forgotten, in the absence of the successors of Gregory the Seventh, who did not keep, as a divine precept, their ordinary residence in the city and diocese. The care of that diocese was less important than the government of the universal church; nor could the Popes delight in a city in which their authority was always opposed, and their person was often endangered. From the persecution of the Emperors, and the wars of Italy, they escaped beyond the Alps into the hospitable bosom of France; from the tumults of Rome they prudently withdrew to live and die in the

more

*Villani (1. x. c. 68-71. in Muratori, Script. tom. xiii. p. 641-645.) relates this law, and the whole transaction, with much less abhorrence than the prudent Muratori. Any one conversant with the darker ages must have observed how much the sense (I mean the nonsense) of superstition is fluc tuating and inconsistent.

In the first volume of the Popes of Avignon, see the second original Life of John XXII. p. 142-145. the confession of the anti-pope, p. 145-152. and the laborious notes of Baluze, p. 714. 715.

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LXIX.

more tranquil stations of Anagni, Perugia, Viterbo, CHAP. and the adjacent cities. When the flock was of fended or impoverished by the absence of the shepherd, they were recalled by a stern admonition, that St Peter had fixed his chair, not in an obscure village, but in the capital of the world; by a ferocious menace, that the Romans would march in arms to destroy the place and people that should dare to afford them a retreat. They returned with timorous obedience; and were saluted with the account of an heavy debt, of all the losses which their desertion had occasioned, the hire of lodgings, the sale of provisions, and the various expences of servants and strangers who attended the court. After a short interval of peace, and perhaps of authority, they were again banished by new tumults, and again summoned by the imperious or respectful invitation of the senate. In these occasional retreats, the exiles and fugitives of the Vatican were seldom long, or far distant from the metropolis; but in the beginning of the fourteenth century, the apostolic throne was transported, as it might seem, for ever, from the Tyber to the Rhône; and the cause of the transmigration may be deduced from the furious VOL. XII.

X

contest

* Romani autem non valentes nec volentes ultra suam celare cupiditatem gravissimam contra papam movere cœperunt questionem, exigentes ab eo urgentissime omnia quæ subierant per ejus absentiam damna et jacturas, videlicet in hospitiis lo candis, in mercimoniis, in usuris, in redditibus, in provisionibus, et in aliis modis innumerabilibus. Quod cum audisset papa, præcordialiter ingemuit et se comperiens muscipulatum, &c. Matt. Paris, p. 757. For the ordinary history of the Popes, their life and death, their residence and absence, it is enough to refer to the ecclesiastical annalists, Spondanus and Fleury.

LXIX.

Boniface

VIII.

A. D.

1303.

CHAP. contest between Boniface the Eighth, and the king of France*. The spiritual arms of excommunication and interdict were repulsed by the union of the three estates, and the privileges of the Gallican 1194 church; but the Pope was not against the carnal weapons which Philip the Fair had courage to employ. As the Pope resided at Anagni, without the suspicion of danger, his palace and person were assaulted by three hundred horse, who had been secretly levied by William of Nogaret, a French minister, and Sciarra Colonna, of a noble but hostile family of Rome. The cardinals fled; the inhabitants of Anagni were seduced from their allegiance and gratitude; but the dauntless Boniface, unarmed and alone, seated himself in his chair, and awaited, like the conscript fathers of old, the swords of the Gauls. Nogaret, a foreign adversary, was content to execute the orders of his master; by the domestic enmity of Colonna, he was insulted with words and blows; and during a confinement of three days his life was threatened by the hardships which they inflicted on the obstinacy which they provoked. Their strange delay gave time and courage to the adherents of the church, who rescued him from sacrilegious violence; but his imperious soul was wounded in a vital part; and Boniface expired at Rome in a frenzy of rage and revenge. His His memory is stained

with

* Besides the general historians of the church of Italy and of France, we possess a valuable treatise, composed by a learned friend of Thuanus, which his last and best editors have published in the appendix, (Histoire particuliere du grand Differend entre Boniface VIII. et Philippe le Bel, par Pierre du Puis, tom. vii. p. xi. p. 61-82.

with the glaring vices of avarice and pride; nor has CHAP. the courage of a martyr promoted this ecclesiastical LXIX. champion to the honours of a saint; a magnanimous sinner, (say the chronicles of the times), who entered like a fox, reigned like a lion, and died like a dog. He was succeeded by Benedict the Eleventh, the mildest of mankind. Yet he excommunicated the impious emissaries of Philip, and devoted the city and people of Anagni by a tremendous curse, whose effects are still visible to the eyes of superstition *.

After his decease, the tedious and equal suspense of the conclave was fixed by the dexterity of the French faction. A specious offer was made and accepted, that, in the term of forty days, they would elect one of the three candidates who should be named by their opponents. The archbishop of Bourdeaux, a furious enemy of his king and country, was the first on the list; but his ambition was known; and his conscience obeyed the calls of fortune and the commands of a benefactor, who had been in formed by a swift messenger that the choice of a Pope was now in his hands. The terms were regulated in a private interview; and with such speed and secrecy was the business transacted, that the unanimous conclave applauded the elevation of Clement the Fifth. The cardinals of both parties

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It is difficult to know whether Labat (tom. iv. p. 5357.) be in jest or in earnest, when he supposes that Anagni still feels the weight of this curse, and that the corn-fields, or vineyards, or olive-trees, are annually blasted by nature, the obsequious handmaid of the Popes.

See, in the Chronicle of Giovani Villani, (1. viii. c. 63. 64. 80. in Muratori, tom. xiii.), the imprisonment of Boniface VIII. and the election of Clement V. the last of which, like most anecdotes, is embarrassed with some difficulties.

Transla holy see

tion of the

to Avig

non,

A. D.

1309.

CHAP. were soon astonished by a summons to attend him

LXIX.

beyond the Alps; from whence, as they soon discovered, they must never hope to return.

engaged, by promise and affection, to prefer the residence of France; and, after dragging his court through Poitou and Gascogny, and devouring, by his expence, the cities and convents on the road, he finally reposed at Avignon, which flourished above seventy years †, the seat of the Roman pontiff, and the metropolis of Christendom. By land, by sea, by the Rhône, the position of Avignon was on all sides accessible; the southern provinces of France do not yield to Italy itself; new palaces arose for the accommodation of the Pope and cardinals; and the arts of luxury were soon attracted by the treasures of the church. They were already possessed of the adjacent territory, the Venaissin county, a populous and fertile spot; and the sovereignty

The original lives of the eight Popes of Avignon, Clement V. John XXII. Benedict XII. Clement VI. Innocent VI. Urban V. Gregory XI. and Clement VII. are published by Stephen Baluze, (Vitæ Paparum Avenionensium; Paris, 1693, 2 vols. in 4to.), with copious and elaborate notes, and a second volume of acts and documents. With the true zeal of an editor and a patriot, he devoutly justifies or excuses the characters of his countrymen.

+ The exile of Avignon is compared by the Italians with Babylon and the Babylonish captivity. Such furious metaphors, more suitable to the ardour of Petrarch than to the judgement of Muratori, are gravely refuted in Baluze's preface. The Abbé de Sade is distracted between the love of Petrarch and of his country. Yet he modestly pleads that many of the local inconveniencies of Avignon are now removed; and many of the vices against which the poet declaims, had been imported with the Roman court by the strangers of Italy, (tom. i. p. 23-28.).

The comtat Venaissin was ceded to the Popes, in 1273, by Philip III. King of France, after he had inherited the domi nions of the Count of Tholouse. Forty years before the

heresy

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