Ecclesiastical Empire

CHAPTER XVII - THE PAPAL SUPREMACY—INNOCENT III TO BONIFACE VIII

IN the year 1143 the city of Rome declared itself a Republic. A patrician was elected; the Senate was restored. In March, 1144, this republic declared a separation of Church and State; and notified the pope—Lucius II—that they would recognize, and be submissive to, his authority in spiritual things, but in spiritual things only. “They declared that the pope and the clergy must content themselves, from that time, with the tithes and oblations of the people:” because “all the temporalities, the royalties, and rights of sovereignty” fell now to the temporal power vested in the patrician of the republic. Pope Lucius at the head of the armed nobles attempted to crush the new republic of Rome; and in an attempt to storm the capital he received a mortal wound, and died Feb. 25, 1145. ECE 396.1

2. The successor of Lucius II—Eugenius III—was expelled from Rome. Late in the year he recovered the city and celebrated Christmas; but in March, 1146, he was again obliged to fly, and entered it no more except only as a bishop, until his death, July 7, 1153. The successor of Eugenius III died Dec. 2, 1154, and he was immediately succeeded by Nicolas Breakspear, the only Englishman who was ever pope of Rome, who reigned as Pope. HADRIAN IV, DEC. 4, 1154, TO SEPT. 1, 1159. In the war with the new republic, Hadrian commanded all the churches of Rome to be closed; forbade all the clergy to perform any religious services whatever, except at christenings and deaths. The clergy stirred up the superstitious people who were deprived of their religious rites and festivals and processions. Easter was near; and the prospect that there should be no celebration of that great papal festival, was unbearable to the populace. They clamored for the restoration of their religion. Thus “the clergy and people compelled the Senate to yield. Hadrian would admit of no lower terms than the abrogation of the republican institutions,” and the banishment of the leaders. “The republic was at an end,” March, 1155. ECE 396.2

3. In 1156 Henry II of England asked the pope’s favor to his design of invading and subjecting Ireland. Ireland had received Christianity at the same time as had the Britons in the first centuries of the Christian era. But “the pope regarded as the surest mark of their imperfect conversion, that they followed the doctrines of their first teachers; and had never acknowledged any subjection to the see of Rome.”—Hume. ^{1[Page 397] “History of England,” chap 9, par. 2.} Therefore in the same year (1156) Hadrian IV issued a bull granting Ireland to England, with the reservation of Peter’s pence to the papacy, and commissioning Henry to take possession of the island. This he did, because, as he declared “Ireland and all islands converted to Christianity belonged to the special jurisdiction of St. Peter;” and therefore he had the right to sanction the invasion and possession of Ireland by England “on the ground of its advancing civilization and propagating a purer faith among the barbarous and ignorant people.”—Milman. ² ECE 397.1

4. During the reign of Hadrian IV there was also war between the papacy and the emperor—Frederick Barbarossa—which was used by Hadrian as occasion of yet further magnifying the already enormous claims of the papacy. In opposition to the emperor Frederick Barbarossa, Pope Hadrian IV wrote to the archbishops of Treves, Mentz, and Cologne as follows:— ECE 397.2

“Glory be to God in the highest, that ye are found tried and faithful, while these flies of Pharaoh, which swarmed up from the bottom of the abyss, and, driven about by the whirling winds while they strive to darken the sun, are turned to the dust of the earth. And take ye heed that ye be not involved in the sins of Jeroboam, who made Israel to sin; and behold a worse than Jeroboam is here. Was not the empire transferred by the popes from the Greeks to the Teutons? The king of the Teutons is not emperor before he is consecrated by the pope. Before his consecration he is but king; after it, emperor and Augustus. From whence, then, the empire but from us? Remember what were these Teutonic kings before Zacharias gave his benediction to Charles, the second of that name, who were drawn in a wagon by oxen, like philosophers! Glorious kings, who dwelt, like the chiefs of synagogues, in these wagons, while the mayor of the palace administered the affairs of the empire. Zacharias I promoted Charles to the empire, and gave him a name great above all names.... That which we have bestowed on the faithful German we may take away from the disloyal German. Behold, it is in our power to grant to whom we will. For this reason are we placed above nations and kingdoms, that we may destroy and pluck up, build and plant. So great is the power of Peter, that whatsoever is done by us worthily and rightfully must be believed to be done by God!” ³ ECE 397.3

5. John of Salisbury, countryman of Hadrian IV, and afterward bishop of Chartres, visited Hadrian and was received on terms of intimacy. The pope one day in an exchange of confidences asked John to tell him freely and honestly “what opinion the world entertained of him and the Roman Church. John, using the liberty the pope allowed him, told his Holiness, that since he wanted to know what the world thought of the Roman Church, he would not dissemble, but tell him with all the freedom of a friend what he had heard in the different provinces, through which he had traveled, and began thus: ‘They say, holy father, that the Roman Church, the mother of all churches, behaves toward other churches more like a step-mother, than a true mother; that scribes and Pharisees sit in her, laying heavy weights upon men’s shoulders, which they themselves touch not with a finger; that they domineer over the clergy; but are not an example to the flock, nor do they lead the right way to life; that they covet rich furniture, load their tables with silver and gold, and yet, out of avarice, live sparingly; that they seldom admit or relieve the poor, and when they relieve them, it is only out of vanity they do it; that they plunder the churches, sow dissensions, set the clergy and the people at variance, are not affected with the miseries and sufferings of the afflicted, and look upon gain as godliness and piety; that they do justice, not for justice’ sake, but for lucre; that all things are venal, that for money you may obtain to-day what you please, but the next day you will get nothing without it. I have heard them compared to the devil, who is thought to do good when he ceases from doing mischief: I except some few, who answer the name of pastors, and fulfill the duty: the Roman pontiff himself is, they say, a burden to all almost insupportable. All complain, that while the churches, that the piety of our ancestors erected, are ready to fall, or lie in ruins, while the altars are neglected, he builds palaces, and appears gorgeously attired in purple and in gold. The palaces of the priests are kept clean, but the Church of Christ is covered with filth. They plunder whole provinces, as if they aimed at nothing less than the wealth of Croesus. But the Almighty treats them according to their deserts, often leaving them a prey to the very refuse of mankind; and while they thus wander out of the way, the punishment they deserve must and will overtake them, the Lord saying, with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged, and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. This, holy father, is what people say, since you want to know it. ECE 398.1

6. “‘When I had done, the pope asked me my opinion. I answered, that I was at a loss what to do, that I should be deemed a liar, or a sycophant, if I alone contradicted the people, and that on the other hand it would be no less a crime than treason for me to open my mouth against Heaven. However, as Guido Clemens, cardinal presbyter of St. Pudentiana, agrees with the people, I will not presume to disagree with him; and he says, that double-dealing, contrary to the simplicity of the dove, prevails in the Roman Church, and with it avarice, the root of all evil. This he said not in a corner, but publicly in a council, at which Pope Eugenius presided in person. However, I will not take upon me to say that I have nowhere met with ecclesiastics of greater probity, or who abhor avarice more, than in the Roman Church. Who can but admire the contempt of riches and the disinterestedness of Bernard of Rennes, cardinal deacon of St. Cosmas and St. Damian? The man is not yet born, of whom he received any trifle or gift. What shall I say of the bishop of Praeneste, who, out of a tenderness of conscience, would not receive even what was his due. Many equal Fabricius himself in gravity and moderation. Since you press and command me, and I must not lie to the Holy Ghost, I will speak the truth: we must obey your commands, but must not imitate you in all your actions. Why do you inquire into the lives of others, and not into your own? All applaud and flatter you, all call you lord and father; if father, why do you expect presents from your children? If lord, why do you not keep your Romans in awe and subjection? You are not father in the right way. Give freely what you have received freely. If you oppress others, you will be more grievously oppressed yourself. When I had done speaking, the pope smiled, commended me for the liberty I had taken, and ordered me to let him know immediately whatever I might hear amiss of him.’” ⁴ ECE 399.1

7. The next of the popes worthy of special note is one in whom all papal characteristics were summed up,—INNOCENT III, JAN. 8, 1198, TO JULY 16, 1216, who was chosen “on account of his irreproachable character, his learning and his excellent parts;” and by whom “the papal power rose to its utmost height.” “In his inauguration sermon broke forth the character of the man: the unmeasured assertion of his dignity: protestations of humility which have a sound of pride,” as follows:— ECE 400.1

“Ye see what manner of servant that is whom the Lord hath set over His people: no other than the vicegerent of Christ, the successor of Peter. He stands in the midst between God and man: below God, above men; less than God, more than man. He judges all, is judged by none, for it is written: ‘I will judge.’ But he whom the pre-eminence of dignity exalts is lowered by his office of a servant, that so humility may be exalted, and pride abased; for God is against the high-minded, and to the lowly He shows mercy; and he who exalteth himself shall be abased. Every valley shall be lifted up, every hill and mountain laid low.” ⁵ ECE 400.2

8. The first things that Innocent did was to usurp the place of the emperor, in Rome. “The prefect of the city as well as the other magistrates, had hitherto taken an oath of allegiance to the emperor only. But Innocent, the very next day after his consecration, insisted upon their taking that oath to him: and to him they all took it accordingly as their lawful sovereign, quite independent of the emperor. He invested the prefect in his office, delivering to him the mantle which he had hitherto received at the hands of the emperor or his minister.”—Bower. ⁶ Clement III, in 1187, had secured the recognition of the pope as civil governor of the city of Rome, and the abolition of the patriciate, and an oath of allegiance to him as sovereign of the city. Yet, with all this, allegiance to the emperor was still held by the people, and recognized by the pope. But Innocent excluded all allegiance to the emperor, and turned it all to the pope. He “substituted his own justiciaries for those appointed by the Senate: the whole authority emanating from the pope, and was held during his pleasure; to the pope alone the judges were responsible; they were bound to resign when called upon by him.”—Milman. ⁷ ECE 400.3

9. In 1199 Innocent began a contest with the king of France, Philip Augustus, “the most ambitious, unscrupulous, and able man who had wielded the scepter of France.” The occasion of it was this: In the year 1195 Philip Augustus had married Ingeburga, the daughter of the king of Denmark. For some reason, never known by anybody but himself, and possibly Ingeburga, Philip, from the day of his marriage, had refused to recognize her as his wife. The obsequious clergy of France, with the archbishop of Rheims at their head, pronounced at once the avoidance of the marriage “upon the grounds that it was within the degrees of relationship forbidden by the Church. When Ingeburga was informed of this, she exclaimed: “Mala Francia! mala Francia! Roma, Roma!”—Wicked France! wicked France! Rome! Rome! She refused to recognize their decision. Her father appealed to the pope, Celestine III, in her behalf. The pope sent two legates, who held a council at Paris, of all the archbishops, bishops, and abbots of the kingdom, to consider the case. This council pronounced in favor of the king, and their decision was confirmed by the legates. Their action, however, was repudiated by Celestine, who commanded Philip to take back Ingeburga, and prohibited him from marrying any other woman in her lifetime. King Philip, however, paid no attention to the command of the pope, and in 1196 married Agnes of Meran, the daughter of the duke of Bohemia. Ingeburga wrote to the pope, asking him again to urge her cause. But Celestine paid no further attention to the matter. ECE 401.1

10. Thus stood the case when, in 1199, Innocent III made it the occasion by which he would assert the absolutism of papal power in France against the august Philip. He sent his legate into France, to command Philip to take back Ingeburga; and, if Philip refused, to place the whole kingdom under interdict. The effect of an interdict was to shut heaven to all the people of the place or country interdicted: the activities of all the saints were shut off, their images were covered with crape: no church rites nor festivals were celebrated: no sermons were preached: no burials were allowed in “consecrated” ground: marriages were celebrated only in the graveyards; and only the christening of infants, and extreme unction to the dying, were allowed. The legate delivered his message to the king. But Philip would not obey. A council was assembled at Dijon, Dec. 6, 1199. Two of the number were sent to cite the king, but he drove them from his presence, and sent messengers protesting against any action of the council, and appealing to the pope. “At midnight of the seventh day of the council, each priest holding a torch, were chanted the Miserere and the prayers for the dead, the last prayers that were to be uttered by the clergy of France during the interdict.” ECE 401.2

11. Philip declared that he would forfeit half his kingdom before he would part from Agnes. As time went on, the superstitious people began to show their discontent. Discontent grew to resentment. There came mutinous mutterings from all over France. Philip sent an embassy to Rome to inform the pope that he was ready to abide by the sentence of Rome. Innocent inquired: “What sentence? That which has been already delivered, or that which is to be delivered? He knows our decree: let him put away his concubine, receive his lawful wife, reinstate the bishops whom he has expelled, give them satisfaction for their losses; then we will raise the interdict, receive his sureties, examine into the alleged relationship, and pronounce our decree.” At this answer Philip exclaimed, in his wrath: “I will turn Mohammedan! Happy Saladin, who has no pope above him!” He assembled his parliament: but they would say nothing. Philip asked: “What is to be done?” The parliament answered: “Obey the pope, dismiss Agnes, receive back Ingeburga.” Philip demanded of the archbishop of Rheims, who had granted the divorce, whether the pope had declared that action a mockery. The archbishop consented that it was so. “Then,” said Philip, “what a fool wert thou, to utter such a sentence!” ECE 402.1

12. Philip sent a new embassy to Rome. With it Agnes herself sent a letter to the pope, in which she said: “I, a stranger, the daughter of a Christian prince, have been married, young and ignorant of the world, to the king, in the face of God and of the Church. I have borne him two children. I care not for the crown. It is on my husband that I have set my love. Sever me not from him.” In reply Innocent only sent a new legate, to insist that Philip should make complete satisfaction, and banish Agnes not only from his side, but from his kingdom; publicly receive back Ingeburga; and give his oath and surety to abide by the sentence of the Church. The whole kingdom was filled with superstitious lamentation that was likely any moment to break out in fury against him, and Philip surrendered. ECE 403.1

13. “To the king’s castle of St. Leger came the cardinals, the prelates; and in their train Ingeburga. The people thronged round the gates: but the near approach of Ingeburga seemed to rouse again all the king’s insuperable aversion. The cardinals demanded that the scene of reconciliation should be public; the negotiation was almost broken off; the people were in wild despair. At last the king seemed to master himself for a strong effort. With the legates and some of the churchmen he visited her in her chamber. The workings of his countenance betrayed the struggle within: ‘The pope does me violence,’ he said. ‘His Holiness requires but justice,’ answered Ingeburga. She was led forth, presented to the council in royal apparel; a faithful knight of the king came forward, and swore that the king would receive and honor her as queen of France. At that instant the clanging of the bells proclaimed the raising of the interdict. The curtains were withdrawn from the images, from the crucifixes; the doors of the churches flew open, the multitude streamed in to satiate their pious desires, which had been suppressed for seven months. The news spread throughout France; it reached Dijon in six days, where the edict first proclaimed was abrogated in form.”—Milman. ⁸ ECE 403.2

14. That the case of Ingeburga was used by Innocent III solely as the occasion of asserting papal supremacy over Philip Augustus, and not because of the justice of Ingeburga’s claim, is plain, not only from the whole character of the papacy itself, but from the conduct of Innocent himself in other instances. If Ingeburga had been the guilty one, and justice had been on the side of Philip Augustus, as it seems to have been on the side of Ingeburga, the course of the pope would just as likely have been the same; because such it had been time and again in the history of the popes. This is proved by the next instance of Innocent’s assertion of papal arrogance: that of John of England. Bad as Philip may have been, in whatever respect, history shows that in all respects John, of England, must have been worse. John, as Philip, had put away his wife, and, as in the case of Philip, his action in this was sanctioned by an archbishop—the archbishop of Bordeaux—for the ever-convenient reason that the marriage was within the prohibited degrees of relationship. John had then betrothed a daughter of the king of Portugal; but, before a marriage had taken place, he found Isabella, who was betrothed to the count of la Marche, and had carried her off and made her his wife. “But although this flagrant wrong, and even the sin of adultery, is added to the repudiation of his lawful wife, no interdict, no censure is uttered from Rome, either against the king or the archbishop of Bordeaux. The pope, whose horror of such unlawful connections is now singularly quiescent, confirms the dissolution of the marriage (against which, it is true, the easy Havoise enters no protest, makes no appeal); for John, till bought over with the abandonment of Arthur’s claim to the throne by the treacherous Philip Augustus, is still the supporter of Otho: he is the ally of the pope, for he is the ally of the papal emperor.”—Milman. ⁹ ECE 403.3

15. Not only did Innocent not attempt any correction of John on account of his illicit marital relations, but he actually made himself the defender of John, against Philip of France and his party, when, in their effort to punish him for the indignity which he had put upon Count Hugh, by robbing him of his betrothed, Isabella, they had summoned John to their court, to do homage as vassal for his province of Aquitaine. And, when Philip declared that the pope had no business to interfere between him and his vassal, Innocent expressed himself as “astonished at the language of the king of France, who presumed to limit the power in spiritual things conferred by the Son of God on the apostolic see, which was so great that it could admit no enlargement,” and continued:— ECE 404.1

“Every son of the Church is bound, in case his brother trespasses against him, to hear the Church. Thy brother, the king of England, has accused thee of trespass against him; he has admonished thee; he has called many of his great barons to witness of his wrongs: he has in the last resort appealed to the Church. We have endeavored to treat you with fatherly love, not with judicial severity; urged you, if not to peace, to a truce. If you will not hear the Church, must you not be held by the Church as a heathen and a publican? Can I be silent?—No. I command you now to hear my legates, the archbishop of Bourges and the abbot of Casamaggiore, who are empowered to investigate, to decide the cause. We enter not into the question of the feudal rights of the king of France over his vassal, but we condemn thy trespass—thy sin—which is unquestionably within our jurisdiction. The decretals, the law of the empire, declare that if throughout Christendom one of two litigant parties appeals to the pope, THE OTHER IS BOUND TO ABIDE BY THE AWARD. The king of France is accused of perjury in violating the existing treaty, to which both have sworn, and perjury is a crime so clearly amenable to the ecclesiastical courts, that we can not refuse to take cognizance of it before our tribunal.” ¹⁰ ECE 405.1

16. The occasion of Innocent’s assertion of power over England, was this: In 1205 died Hubert, archbishop of Canterbury. One section of monks chose a successor: another section of the monks chose another man as successor to the archbishopric. This latter party was favored by the king, and their choice was actually installed in the presence, and by investment, of the king. The candidate of the other party had gone immediately to Rome, with the injunction from those who elected him, to keep secret the fact of his election, until he reached Rome. But, when he reached Flanders, he let out his secret because he thought it more becoming that he should travel to Rome as archbishop-elect of England, than as a mere pilgrim. When this was learned in England, the other party sent twelve monks to Rome, to plead the cause of their candidate. ECE 405.2

17. When Innocent had heard the pleas of the respective parties, he set aside both, and commanded them to elect as archbishop of Canterbury, a cardinal, an Englishman who was then in Rome, Stephen Langton. This was in 1207. Innocent, feeling well assured that this would be displeasing to John of England, and knowing that John had a special weakness for fine jewelry, sent to him a wonderful ring, with elaborate explanations of its symbolic meanings. It seems to have been a combination of four rings in one. Innocent “begged him to consider seriously the form of the rings, their number, their matter, and their color. Their form, he said, being round, shadowed out eternity which had neither beginning nor end; and he ought thence to learn his duty of aspiring from earthly objects to heavenly, from things temporal to things eternal. The number four, being a square, denoted steadiness of mind, not to be subverted either by adversity or prosperity, fixed forever on the firm basis of the four cardinal virtues. Gold, which is the matter, being the most precious of metals, signified wisdom, which is the most valuable of all accomplishments, and justly preferred by Solomon to riches, power, and all exterior attainments. The blue color of the sapphire represented faith; the verdure of the emerald, hope; the redness of the ruby, charity; and the splendor of the topaz, good works.”—Hume. ¹¹ ECE 405.3

18. When his beautiful present had had, as he supposed, its proper effect, Innocent followed it with a letter recommending to the king, Stephen Langton as archbishop-elect of Canterbury, speaking most highly of his fitness for that high office. But rumor of what had occurred in Rome had reached England, and the pope’s messengers were forbidden to enter the kingdom beyond their landing at Dover. In Italy, Innocent consecrated Langton as archbishop of Canterbury, and primate of all England. John was furious. He threatened to burn over their heads the cloister of the monks of Canterbury. They fled to Flanders. To the pope John wrote that he was insulted, both by the pope’s rejection of the elect whom he had approved, and by the election of Langton who was unknown to him and had spent the most of his time in France amongst the enemies of England. The pope replied extolling Langton. John declared that it was only at his peril that Stephen Langton should set his foot on the soil of England. Then Innocent commissioned the bishops of London, Ely, and Worcester to demand, for the last time, the king’s acknowledgment of Langton, and, if the king refused, then to declare from the pope the kingdom of England under interdict. When the bishops presented to John the ultimatum of the pope, the king, with fearful oaths swore that if they “dared to place his realm under an interdict, he would drive the whole of the bishops and clergy out of the kingdom, and put out the eyes and cut off the noses of all the Romans in the realm.” The bishops, having delivered their message, withdrew, and, March 24, 1208, published the interdict, and protected themselves by immediate flight from England. ECE 406.1

19. Then, “throughout England, as throughout France, without exception, without any privilege to church or monastery, ceased the divine offices of the Church. From Berwick to the British Channel, from the Land’s-End to Dover, the churches were closed, the bells silent; the only clergy who were seen stealing silently about were those who were to baptize newborn infants with a hasty ceremony; those who were to hear the confession of the dying, and to administer to them, and to them alone, the holy eucharist. The dead (no doubt the most cruel affliction) were cast out of the towns, buried like dogs in some unconsecrated place—in a ditch or a dung-heap—without prayer, without the tolling bell, without the funeral rite. Those only can judge the effect of this fearful malediction who consider how completely the whole life of all orders was affected by the ritual and daily ordinances of the Church. Every important act was done under the counsel of the priest or the monk. Even to the less serious, the festivals of the Church were the only holidays, the processions of the Church the only spectacles, the ceremonies of the Church the only amusements. To those of deeper religion, to those, the far greater number, of abject superstition, what was it to have the child thus almost furtively baptized, marriage unblessed, or hardly blessed; the obsequies denied; to hear neither prayer nor chant; to suppose that the world was surrendered to the unrestrained power of the devil, and his evil spirits, with no saint to intercede, no sacrifice to avert the wrath of God; when no single image was exposed to view, not a cross unveiled: the intercourse between man and God utterly broken off; souls left to perish, or but reluctantly permitted absolution in the instant of death?”—Milman. ¹² ECE 407.1

20. Yet in the case of John the interdict did not bring the results that it did in the case of Philip Augustus. One year after another passed, until five were gone, and still John did not surrender. The interdict was thus fast losing its terrors, and, with that, the prestige of the pope was fading. Something more must be done. Accordingly, in 1213, Innocent declared King John excommunicated, all subjects were absolved from their fealty, and the king of England was declared deposed, and his domains the lawful spoil of whosoever could take them. Philip Augustus had the disposition, and considered that he had sufficient cause, and was the only one who had the power, to undertake to seize the domains of John thus declared by the pope to be forfeited. And now, Philip was the good and dutiful son of the Church. Now “the interests of the pope and the king of France were as intimately allied as they had been implacably opposed. At a great assembly in Soissons appeared, April 8, 1213, Stephen Langton, the bishops of London and Ely, newly arrived from Rome, the king of France, the bishops, clergy, and people of the realm. The English bishops proclaimed the sentence of deposition; enjoined the king of France and all others, under the promise of their remission of sins, to take up arms; to dethrone the impious king of England; to replace him by a more worthy sovereign. Philip Augustus accepted the command of this new crusade.” ¹³ ECE 407.2

21. John, like Philip, threatened to turn Mohammedan. He sent a secret embassy to the caliph of Cordova, offering to become his vassal. This, however, was not followed up. Just then there arrived in England a legate, Pandulph, whom Innocent had sent without the knowledge of Philip. He magnified the danger of the threatened invasion; and declared to John that Philip had already the signatures of almost all of the English barons, inviting him to come over. He further urged the great benefits that would accrue to him by having the friendship, rather than the opposition, of the pope. John surrendered, and a treaty was arranged, by which Archbishop Langton was to be acknowledged; all affairs of the Church were to be fully restored; and the king of England placed in the legate’s hands a document “signed, sealed, and subscribed with his own name,” and with the name of an archbishop, a bishop, nine earls, and four barons, as attesting witnesses, which ran as follows:— ECE 408.1

“Be it known to all men, that having in many points offended God and our holy mother the Church, as satisfaction for our sins, and duly to humble ourselves after the example of Him who for our sake humbled himself to death, by the grace of the Holy Ghost, with our own free will and the common consent of our barons, we bestow and yield up to God, to His holy apostles Peter and Paul, to our lord, the pope Innocent, and his successors, all our kingdom of England and all our kingdom of Ireland, to be held as a fief of the holy see with the payment of 1,000 marks, and the customary Peter’s pence. We reserve to ourselves, and to our heirs, the royal rights in the administration of justice. And we declare this deed irrevocable; and if any of our successors shall attempt to annul our act, we declare him thereby to have forfeited his crown.” ECE 409.1

22. The next day afterward, swearing upon the Gospels, King John made the following oath of fealty as the vassal of the pope:— ECE 409.2

“I, John, by the grace of God, king of England and lord of Ireland, from this day forth and forever, will be faithful to God and the everblessed Peter, and to the Church of Rome, and to my lord the pope Innocent, and to his Catholic successors. I will not be accessory, in act or word, by consent or counsel, to their loss of life, of limb, or of freedom. I will save them harmless from any wrong of which I may know; I will avert all in my power; I will warn them by myself or by trusty messengers, of any evil intended against them. I will keep profoundly secret all communications with which they may intrust me by letter or by message. I will aid in the maintenance and defense of the patrimony of St. Peter, especially this kingdom of England and Ireland, to the utmost of my power, against all enemies. So help me God and His holy Gospels.” ¹⁴ ECE 409.3

23. Then, with a sum of eight thousand pounds sterling as damage money to the exiled clergy, Pandulph crossed the channel to the camp of Philip Augustus, and appeared in the presence of the king of France, “and in the name of the pope briefly and peremptorily forbade him from proceeding to further hostilities against John, who had now made his peace with the Church.” In a rage, Philip demanded: “Have I at the cost of sixty thousand pounds assembled at the summons, at the entreaty, of the pope one of the noblest armaments which has ever met under a king of France? Is all the chivalry of France, in arms around their sovereign, to be dismissed like hired menials when there is no more use for their services?” But Philip’s rage was vain, and his protests were fruitless. ECE 409.4

24. In England there followed the action of the nobles in requiring of John the great charter. And the chief in this great transaction, was that Stephen Langton whom Innocent III had by such immense effort, just now succeeded in installing in the archbishopric of Canterbury, as primate of all England. When the news of the granting of Magna Charta reached Innocent, he exclaimed:— ECE 410.1

“What! Have the barons of England presumed to dethrone a king who has taken the cross, and placed himself under the protection of the apostolic see? Do they transfer to others the patrimony of the Church of Rome? By Saint Peter, we can not leave such a crime unpunished.” ECE 410.2

25. He immediately issued a bull, in which he attributed the action of the barons to the inspiration of the devil, and expressed himself as astonished that they had not brought their grievances before his tribunal, and there sought redress; and continues:— ECE 410.3

“Vassals, they have conspired against their lord—knights against their king: they have assailed his lands, seized his capital city, which has been surrendered to them by treason. Under their violence, and under fears which might shake the firmest man, he has entered into a treaty with the barons; a treaty not only base and ignominious, but unlawful and unjust; in flagrant violation and diminution of his rights and honor. Wherefore, as the Lord has said by the mouth of His prophet,—’I have set thee above the nations, and above the kingdoms, to pluck up and to destroy, to build up and to plant;’ and by the mouth of another prophet,—’break the leagues of ungodliness, and loose the heavy burthens;’ we can no longer pass over in silence such audacious wickedness, committed in contempt of the apostolic see, in infringement of the rights of the king, to the disgrace of the kingdom of England, to the great peril of the crusade. We therefore, with the advice of our brethren, altogether reprove and condemn this charter, prohibiting the king, under pain of anathema, from observing it, the barons from exacting its observation; we declare the said charter, with all its obligations and guarantees, absolutely null and void.” ECE 410.4

26. “The bull of excommunication against the barons followed rapidly the abrogation of the charter. It was addressed to Peter, bishop of Winchester, the abbot of Reading, and the papal envoy. It expressed the utmost astonishment and wrath, that Stephen, archbishop of Canterbury, and his suffragans, had shown such want of respect to the papal mandate and of fidelity to their king; that they had rendered him no aid against the disturbers of the peace; that they had been privy to, if not actively engaged in, the rebellious league. ‘Is it thus that these prelates defend the patrimony of Rome; thus that they protect those who have taken up the cross? Worse than the Saracens, they would drive from his realm a king in whom is the best hope of the deliverance of the Holy Land.’ All disturbers of the king and of the realm are declared to be in the bonds of excommunication; the primate and his suffragans are solemnly enjoined to publish this excommunication in all the churches of the realm, every Sunday and festival, with the sound of bells, until the barons shall have made their absolute submission to the king. Every prelate who disobeys these orders is suspended from his functions.”—Milman. ¹⁵ ECE 410.5

27. When this excommunication was presented to Archbishop Langton, by Pandulph, the legate, he positively refused to publish it. He claimed that it could have been only by false representations, that the pope could be brought to issue it. He therefore demanded a delay, till the matter could be fairly set before the pope. But no delay was allowed. “The papal delegates declared the primate suspended from his office,” and themselves published the excommunication. Archbishop Langton, as a Roman cardinal, attended a great council held by Innocent, in November, 1215, and there his suspension, which had been declared by the legate in England, “was solemnly ratified by pope and council, and even when it was subsequently relaxed, it was on the condition that he should not return to England. Stephen Langton remained at Rome, though not in custody, yet no less a prisoner.” ¹⁶ ECE 411.1

28. During all this time of Innocent’s contest with Philip of France and John of England, he was also conducting a war in Germany. In 1197 had died the emperor, Henry VI leaving an infant son, Frederick of Sicily, as his only heir. In 1198 this child’s mother died, having in her will chosen innocent III as the guardian of the child. The pope accepted the guardianship, as he said, “not only in word, but in deed.” The nobles of Germany assembled in a diet, and elected as king of Germany the emperor’s brother, Philip of Swabia. A minority party elected Otto, the second son of Henry the Lion of Saxony. Philip was under the ban of the Church, and when Otto was elected in opposition, since he owed his election to a few prominent churchmen, he was declared “champion of the Church.” By both Philip and Otto, appeal was made to Innocent III, and, as a consequence, “ten years of strife and civil war in Germany are to be traced, if not to the direct instigation, to the inflexible obstinacy of Pope Innocent III.”—Milman. ¹⁷ ECE 411.2

29. First of all Innocent made this appeal the occasion of exalting the papacy. He entered into a long argumentative analysis of the claims of the child-heir of Henry VI of Philip, and of Otto, all of which he issued as a bull, which opened thus:— ECE 412.1

“It belongs to the apostolic see to pass judgment on the election of the emperor, both in the first and last resort: in the first, because by her aid and on her account the empire was transplanted from Constantinople; by here as her sole authority for this transplanting, on here behalf and for her better protection: in the last resort, because the emperor receives the final confirmation of his dignity from the pope; is consecrated, crowned, invested in the imperial dignity by him. That which must be sought, is the lawful, the right, the expedient.” ECE 412.2

30. He admitted that the child-heir had been lawfully recognized: that the princes of the empire had twice given their oath to him; but yet Innocent rejected the child’s claims, because he was a child of only two years old, and because, “Woe unto the realm, saith the Scripture, whose king is a child.” He argued that the child Frederick, in riper years, could never justly reproach the see of Rome with having robbed him of his empire, because it was the child’s own uncle, Philip, who had deprived him of the crown, by accepting the election to the imperial office! ECE 412.3

31. Yet, neither did Innocent allow the crown to Philip, who, in his argument, he makes responsible for the pope’s denial of the crown to the child Frederick, whose guardian the pope himself was. Of Philip’s election he also admits: “Neither can any objection be raised against the legality of the election of Philip. It rests upon the gravity, the dignity, the number, of those who chose him. It may appear vindictive, and therefore unbecoming in us, because his father and his brother have been persecutors of the Church, to visit their sins on him. He is mighty, too, in territory, in wealth, in people; is it not to swim against the stream to provoke the enmity of the powerful against the Church, we who, if we favored Philip, might enjoy that peace which it is our duty to ensue? Yet is it right that we should declare against him?” ECE 412.4

32. The reasons why Innocent considers it right, against right, to declare against Philip, are that he had been excommunicated by Innocent’s predecessors; because his fathers, the emperors, had made war with his predecessors, the popes; because Philip himself had claimed lands that the pope also claimed, and “if while his power was yet unripe, he so persecuted the holy Church, what would he do if emperor? It behooves us to oppose him before he has reached his full strength. That the sins of the father are visited upon the sons, we know from Holy Writ, we know from many examples, Saul, Jeroboam, Baasha.” A further reason is that Philip had sworn fealty to the child Frederick, and was therefore guilty of perjury in accepting the imperial office himself. It is true that Innocent had declared that oath null and void; yet he claimed that, though the oath was null and void, Philip was not released from the oath except by the special absolution of the pope. This, because “the Israelites, when they would be released from their oath concerning Gibeon, first consulted the Lord: so should he first have consulted us, who can alone absolve from oaths.” ECE 413.1

33. “Now, as to Otto. It may seem not just to favor his cause because he was chosen but by a minority; not becoming, because it may seem that the apostolic chair acts not so much from good will toward him, as from hatred of the others; not expedient because he is less powerful. But as the Lord abases the proud, and lifts up the humble, as he raised David to the throne, so it is just, befitting, expedient, that we bestow our favor upon Otto. Long enough have we delayed, and labored for unity by our letters and our envoys; it beseems us no longer to appear as if we were waiting the issue of events, as if like Peter we were denying the truth which is Christ; we must therefore publicly declare ourselves for Otto, himself devoted to the Church, of a race devoted to the Church, by his mother’s side from the royal house of England, by his father from the duke of Saxony, all, especially his ancestor, the emperor Lothair, the loyal sons of the Church; him, therefore, we proclaim, acknowledge, as king; him then we summon to take on himself the imperial crown.” ECE 413.2

34. The party of Philip, “the largest and most powerful part of the empire,” refused to believe that this really came from the pope. They insisted that it must have been the sole production of the papal legate. They therefore wrote immediately to the pope thus:— ECE 414.1

“Who has ever heard of such presumption? What proof can be adduced for pretensions, of which history, authentic documents, and even fable itself is silent? Where have ye read, ye popes! where have ye heard, ye cardinals! that your predecessors or your legates have dared to mingle themselves up with the election of a king of the Romans, either as electors or as judges? The election of the pope indeed required the assent of the emperor, till Henry I in his generosity removed that limitation. How dares his Holiness, the pope, to stretch forth his hand to seize that which belongs not to him? There is no higher council in a contested election for the empire, than the princes of the empire. Jesus Christ has separated spiritual from temporal affairs. He who serves God should not mingle in worldly matters; he who aims at worldly power is unworthy of spiritual supremacy. Punish, therefore, most holy father, the bishop of Palestrina for his presumption, acknowledge Philip whom we have chosen, and, as it is your duty, prepare to crown him.” ¹⁸ ECE 414.2

35. Innocent answered, declaring that it was not his intention to interfere with the rights of the electors, but it was his right, his duty, to examine and to prove the fitness of him whom he had solemnly to consecrate and to crown. ECE 414.3

36. Two years already had Germany been war-swept; and for eight years longer, with only “short intervals of truce, Germany was abandoned to all the horrors of civil war. The repeated protestations of Innocent, that he was not the cause of these fatal discords, betray the fact that he was accused of the guilt; and that he had to wrestle with his own conscience to acquit himself of the charge. It was not a war of decisive battles, but of marauding, desolation, havoc, plunder, wasting of harvests, ravaging open and defenseless countries; war waged by prelate against prelate, by prince against prince; wild Bohemians and bandit soldiers of every race were roving through every province. Throughout the land there was no law: the high roads were impassable on account of robbers; traffic cut off, except on the great rivers from Cologne down the Rhine, from Ratisbon down the Danube; nothing was spared, nothing sacred, church or cloister. Some monasteries were utterly impoverished, some destroyed. The ferocities of war grew into brutalities; the clergy, and sacred persons, were the victims and perpetrators.” ¹⁹ ECE 414.4

37. June 22, 1208, Philip was assassinated, in satisfaction of the private vengeance of “one of the fiercest and most lawless chieftains of those lawless times.” This left Otto undisputed emperor. To the pope’s legates in Germany he made oath as follows:— ECE 415.1

“I promise to honor and obey Pope Innocent as my predecessors have honored and obeyed his. The elections of bishops shall be free, and the vacant sees shall be filled by such as have been elected by the whole chapter or by a majority. Appeals to Rome shall be made freely, and freely pursued. I promise to suppress and abolish the abuse that has obtained of seizing the effects of deceased bishops and the revenues of vacant sees. I promise to extirpate all heresies, to restore to the Roman Church all her possessions, whether granted to her by my predecessors or by others, particularly the march of Ancona, the dukedom of Spoleto, and the territories of the countess Matilda, and inviolately to maintain all the rights and privileges enjoyed by the apostolic see in the kingdom of Sicily.” ²⁰ ECE 415.2

38. In the autumn of the same year, Otto went to Italy to receive the imperial crown. “The pope and his emperor met at Viterbo; they embraced, they wept tears of joy in remembrance of their common trials, in transport of their common triumph.” Yet, the pope was suspicious of his emperor, and “demanded security that Otto would surrender, immediately after his coronation, the lands of the Church, now occupied by his troops. Otto almost resented the suspicion of his loyalty; and Innocent, in his blind confidence, abandoned his demand.” October 24, Otto IV was crowned emperor, with great magnificence, in St. Peter’s, by Innocent III. Yet this was no sooner done than they were at swords’ points. The lands which Innocent hoped would be restored by Otto to the Church, the mere asking for which Otto had pretended to resent as an unjust suspicion of his loyalty to the Church,—these were as far removed from the hopes of the Church as ever before. “After all his labor, after all his hazards, after all his sacrifices, after all his perils, even his humiliations, Innocent had raised up to himself a more formidable antagonist, a more bitter foe, than even the proudest and most ambitious of the Hohenstaufen.” ECE 415.3

39. Otto spent nearly three years in Italy. The child Frederick was now seventeen, and the party of Philip, in Germany, and many of the nobles of Italy, invited him to become emperor. Otto, hearing of this, hurried to Germany. March, 1212, Frederick came to Rome, where “he was welcomed by the pope, the cardinals, and the Senate; and received from Pope Innocent counsel, sanction, and some pecuniary aid for his enterprise.” From Rome Frederick passed on to Germany, arriving at Constance, which shut its gates against Otto, and declared for Frederick. Germany all along the Rhine also declared for him; and December 2, he was chosen emperor, at Frankfort. The battle of Bouvines, May 27, 1214, so weakened Otto’s forces as to destroy all hopes of success against Frederick, with whom Philip Augustus was now allied; and, in 1215, he practically retired to the home of his youth, where he died, July 25, 1217. But, already, May 19, 1217, young Frederick had been regularly crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle, with the silver crown of Germany. ECE 416.1

40. Innocent III also stirred up a crusade—the fourth—against the Mohammedans, which, indeed, had unexpected and remarkable consequences. It was a crusade by sea; and was raised and sent forth under the auspices of Innocent, and the doge of Venice. It was a crusade intended for the recovery of the Holy Land from the successors of Saladin. But, instead of going to Jerusalem, they attacked Constantinople, which they took by storm, April 13, 1204. And, though Constantinople was a “Christian city,” yet it fared only less ill than had Turkish Jerusalem when it fell into the hands of the first crusaders. Even Innocent III lamented the barbarous proceedings of the crusaders. He exclaimed: “How shall the Greek Church return to ecclesiastical unity and to respect for the apostolic see, when they have beheld in the Latins only examples of wickedness and works of darkness, for which they might well abhor them worse than dogs? Those who were believed not to seek their own, but the things of Christ Jesus, steeping those swords which they ought to have wielded against the pagan, in Christian blood, spared neither religion, nor age, nor sex; they were practicing fornications, incests, adulteries, in the sight of men; abandoning matrons and virgins dedicated to God to the lewdness of grooms. Nor were they satisfied with seizing the wealth of the emperor, the spoils of the princes and the people: they lifted their hands to the treasuries of the churches—what is more heinous! the very consecrated vessels; tearing the tablets of silver from the very altars, breaking in pieces the sacred things, carrying off crosses and relics.” ECE 416.2

41. In the great church of St. Sophia, which had been built by Justinian, “the silver was stripped from the pulpit; an exquisite and highly prized table of oblation was broken in pieces; the sacred chalices were turned into drinking cups; the gold fringe was ripped off the veil of the sanctuary. Asses and horses were led into the churches to carry off the spoil. A prostitute mounted the patriarch’s throne, and sang, with indecent gestures, a ribald song. The tombs of the emperors were rifled, and the Byzantines saw, at once with amazement and anguish, the corpse of Justinian—which even decay and putrefaction had for six centuries spared in his tomb—exposed to the violation of a mob. It had been understood among those who instigated these atrocious proceedings that the relics were to be brought into a common stock, and equitably divided among the conquerors! But each ecclesiastic seized in secret whatever he could.”—Draper. ²¹ Fire was also added to these other terrors of Innocent’s crusaders. “On the night of the assault more houses were burned than could be found in any three of the largest cities in France.” ECE 417.1

42. Although Innocent could recount the barbarities of his crusaders, he did not hesitate a day to reap all the benefit from this conquest of the Eastern Empire. He immediately took under his protection, as pope, the new order of things in the capital and the empire of the East. “The bishop of Rome at last appointed the bishop of Constantinople. The acknowledgment of papal supremacy was complete. Rome and Venice divided between them the ill-gotten gains of their undertaking.” ²² Yet, beyond all these things, Innocent III stands pre-eminent as the great persecutor. The crusading spirit, in its fanaticism and savagery, he turned against the “heretics,” especially the Albigenses; he was the founder of the Inquisition. His exploits in these things, however, will have to be deferred to another chapter. ECE 417.2

43. By the ministry of Innocent III all Christendom—not only all Europe, but Constantinople, Alexandria, and Jerusalem, even the whole East—had been brought into subjection to the papacy. Every ruler, every power of the recognized world, excepting only the Mohammedan, was subject to the papacy. And this triumph was crowned—this, too, by Innocent III—with the calling of “the Parliament of Christendom, the twelfth general council.” The council assembled Nov. 1, 1215, and Innocent’s boundless “ambition was gratified in opening and presiding over the most august assemblage that Latin Christianity had ever seen. The Frankish occupation of Constantinople gave opportunity for the reunion, nominal at least, of the Eastern and the Western churches, and patriarchs of Constantinople and Jerusalem were there in humble obedience to St. Peter. All that was foremost in Church and State had come, in person or by representative. Every monarch had his ambassador there, to see that his interests suffered no detriment from a body, which, acting under the direct inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and under the principle that temporal concerns were wholly subordinate to spiritual, might have little respect for the rights of sovereigns. The most learned theologians and doctors were at hand to give counsel as to points of faith and intricate questions of canon law. The princes of the Church were present in numbers wholly unprecedented. Besides patriarchs, there were seventy-one primates and metropolitans, four hundred and twelve bishops, more than eight hundred abbots and priors, and the countless delegates of these prelates who were unable to attend in person.”—Lea. ²³ ECE 418.1

44. The claims of the papacy which had been lifted to such a prodigious height by Innocent III, was at that height maintained by his successors. Through all the years that followed the reign of Innocent III there was almost constant war between the successive popes and the emperor Frederick II, until the death of Frederick in 1250. In June, 1243, Cardinal Fiesco was elected to the papal throne. “He took the name of—INNOCENT IV, JUNE 24, 1243, TO DEC. 7, 1254, an omen and a menace that he would tread in the footsteps of Innocent III.” While he was only Cardinal Fiesco, he had been a personal friend, and even a partisan, of Frederick II, in his contest with the ever-increasing encroachment of the papacy. When the Cardinal Fiesco was elected pope, Frederick was congratulated that his good friend was now pope. But Frederick understood the papacy better than did those who thus congratulated him; and, in his reply, he pierced to the heart of the very genius of the papacy: “In the cardinal I have lost my best friend; in the pope I shall find my worst enemy.” ECE 418.2

45. This observation of Frederick’s not only expressed a general truth of the whole papacy, but he found it abundantly true in his own experience. In 1245 the new pope excommunicated Frederick. Frederick defied him, and appealed to Christendom. Against Frederick’s defiance and appeal, Innocent IV set forth anew the claims of the papacy, carrying them yet higher than ever. Hitherto the popes had traced only to Constantine their title to temporal and imperial power; but now, by Innocent IV, it is carried even to Christ himself. In reply to Frederick II, Innocent IV wrote to Christendom as follows:— ECE 419.1

“When the sick man who has scorned milder remedies is subjected to the knife and the cautery, he complains of the cruelty of the physician: when the evil-doer, who has despised all warning is at length punished, he arraigns his judge. But the physician only looks to the welfare of the sick man, the judge regards the crime, not the person of the criminal. The emperor doubts and denies that all things and all men are subject to the see of Rome. As if we who are to judge angels are not to give sentence on all earthly things. In the Old Testament priests dethroned unworthy kings; how much more is the vicar of Christ justified in proceeding against him who, expelled from the Church as a heretic, is already the portion of hell! Ignorant persons aver that Constantine first gave temporal power to the see of Rome; it was already bestowed by Christ himself, the true king and priest, as inalienable from its nature and absolutely unconditional. Christ founded not only a pontifical but a royal sovereignty, and committed to Peter the rule both of an earthly and a heavenly kingdom, as is indicated and visibly proved by the plurality of the keys. ‘The power of the sword is in the Church and derived from the Church;’ she gives it to the emperor at his coronation, that he may use it lawfully and in her defense; she has the right to say, ‘Put up thy sword into its sheath.’ He strives to awaken the jealousy of other temporal kings, as if the relation of their kingdoms to the pope were the same as those of the electoral kingdom of Germany and the kingdom of Naples. The latter is a papal fief; the former inseparable from the empire, which the pope transferred as a fief from the East to the West. To the pope belongs the coronation of the emperor, who is thereby bound by the consent of ancient and modern times to allegiance and subjection.” ²⁴ ECE 419.2

46. From the high point thus reached by Innocent IV, it was but a single step to the pinnacle of papal claim as respects temporal power. This step was taken, the pinnacle was reached, the absolute unity of Church and State was attained, by—BONIFACE VIII, DEC. 24, 1294, TO OCT. 11, 1303. “As Gregory VII appears the most usurping of mankind till we read the history of Innocent III, so Innocent III is thrown into the shade by the superior audacity of Boniface VIII.”—Hallam. ²⁵ ECE 420.1

47. In 1300 there was a papal jubilee. Boniface issued a bull “granting a full remission of all sins” to such as should, “in the present year, or in any other hundredth year,” visit the tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul in Rome. This brought to Rome an immense crowd of people: at times as many as two hundred thousand strangers at once. Early in that year also came the ambassadors of an emperor-elect. Boniface declared to them that the election of their master was null, and that he did not recognize him as either king of the Romans or as emperor. Then, on a great day of the jubilee, Boniface himself appeared in the sight of the multitude, clothed in a cuirass, with a helmet on his head, and a sword in his hand held aloft, and exclaimed:— ECE 420.2

“There is no other Caesar, nor king, nor emperor, than I, the sovereign pontiff and successor of the apostles.” ECE 420.3

48. And when, afterward, he did recognize as emperor the one who had been elected, he would do so only upon the exaction of the following declaration from the emperor-elect:— ECE 420.4

“I recognize the empire to have been transferred by the holy see from the Greeks to the Germans, in the person of Charlemagne; that the right of choosing the king of the Romans has been delegated by the pope to certain ecclesiastical or secular princes; and, finally, that the sovereigns receive from the chiefs of the Church the power of the material sword.” ²⁶ ECE 421.1

49. Two years later, 1302, this was followed by a confirming bull, unum sanctum, in which Pope Boniface VIII, ex cathedra, declared:— ECE 421.2

“There are two swords, the spiritual and the temporal: our Lord said not of these two swords, ‘It is too much,’ but, ‘it is enough.’ Both are in the power of the Church: the one the spiritual, to be used by the Church, the other the material, for the Church: the former that of priests, the latter that of kings and soldiers, to be wielded at the command and by the sufferance of the priest. One sword must be under the other, the temporal under the spiritual.... The spiritual instituted the temporal power, and judges whether that power is well exercised. It has been set over the nations and over the kingdoms to root up and pull down. If the temporal power errs, it is judged by the spiritual. To deny this, is to assert, with the heretical Manicheans, two coequal principles. We therefore assert, define, and pronounce that it is NECESSARY TO SALVATION to believe that every human being is subject to the pontiff of Rome.” ²⁷ ECE 421.3

50. “Another bull pronounces all persons of whatever rank obliged to appear when personally cited before the audience or apostolical tribunal at Rome; ‘since such is our pleasure, who, by divine permission, rule the world.’” ²⁸ ECE 421.4

51. It is perfectly fitting that this height of papal arrogance should have been reached in Boniface VIII, for “of all the Roman pontiffs, Boniface has left the darkest name for craft, arrogance, ambition, even for avarice and cruelty.... Boniface VIII has not merely handed down, and justly, as the pontiff of the loftiest spiritual pretensions, pretensions which, in their language at least, might have appalled Hildebrand or Innocent III, but almost all contemporary history as well as poetry, from the sublime verse of Dante to the vulgar but vigorous rhapsodies of Jacopone da Todi, are full of those striking and unforgotten touches of haughtiness and rapacity ...which, either by adherence to principles grown unpopular, or by his own arrogance and violence, he had raised in great part of Christendom. Boniface was hardly dead when the epitaph, which no time can erase, from the impression of which the most candid mind strives with difficulty to emancipate itself, was proclaimed to the unprotesting Christian world: ‘He came in like a fox, he ruled like a lion, he died like a dog.’” ²⁹ ECE 421.5