Why was boniface impotent

The king of England denied them the right to be heard in royal court and protection. So King Philip stopped sending them money. Boniface was powerless to stop it because he needed France's money so the papacy can operate.

During the reign of Pope Innocent both kingdoms taxed the clergy but only with permission from the papacy. During Pope Boniface's reign both countries were on the brink of war, the papacy was weaker, and the pope tried to forbid taxation of the clergy without papacy approval and to revoke all previous pays.

It meant very much to the papacy because it was a matter of whether or not they got paid. Next Question ». Villani describes a dark scene in the depths of the forest of St. Jean d'Angely between Philip and Clement, in which the latter made various degrading promises. He was crowned at Lyons, and resided first at Bordeaux, where he was archbishop, and then at Poitiers, and finally, , settled at Avignon. Clement V chose to fix his residence very near, but just outside, his own domains, at Avignon, - a fief of the counts of Provence, who were also kings of Naples and vassals of the Pope.

The reason of this choice is alleged to be the accessibility of Avignon, situated on the Rhone, which separated it from France. A better reason may, perhaps, be found in the double protection thus afforded to the Pope. The absence of the Pope from Rome, although it finally ended in discontent, at first excited no surprise, having long been customary. A careful calculation shows that, in the two hundred and four years from to , the popes had lived only eighty-two years in Rome, and one hundred and twenty-two out of the city, - a difference of forty years in favor of their absence.

But the residence of the popes at Avignon was a heavier blow to Rome than any previous absence had been. The city not only lost the prestige of being the papal capital, but suffered the less consolable misfortune of missing the papal revenues.

In addition to these deprivations, all seven of the successors of St. Peter who lived at Avignon were Frenchmen. The French Cardinals, who were in the majority, were equally determined to keep the Papacy in France, and among them the Gascon element prevailed. Their choice fell, in August, , on the old Cardinal of Portus, a middle-class Gascon who had risen by the favour of Robert of Naples and by a certain kind of useful ability which had brought him into prominence at the Council of Vienna.

He has been made the scapegoat for the offences with which posterity loaded the Avignon Popes, and he was unfortunate enough to be a conspicuous target in an epoch of literary redundance. The Avignon Papacy, if not altogether discredited, was undoubtedly in disrepute. Abuses which had passed unnoticed in Rome were notorious scandals in the Venaissin, and Christendom did not hide its outraged feelings. A schism among the Franciscans had arisen on the subject of apostolic poverty.

John XXII. He was supported by the Dominicans in condemning as heretics the Fraticelli, who in their turn gave their support to the Emperor Lewis. More than once Benedict XII. But he failed, as his three successors were to fail, owing to the strength of the pressure of France on the one hand, and, on the other, the natural reluctance of the Cardinals to go back to the city of anarchy.

So Italy was left in the hands of the Ghibelline tyrants, and the bitterness of the land against the Popes increased in proportion as the evils of tyranny and private war oppressed it. The Pope's desire for money was boundless, and, in his absence from Italy, the revenues from the Papal States were negligible. England was consequently the chief " quarry," until Edward III woke up to the fact that the French soldiers were being paid by the money which left England in the form of papal dues.

These were never so burdensome or so excessive as now, when the national need of money was proportionately greater than ever. Clement VI. Funds poured in to Avignon from provisions, reservations, and dispensations.

All ecclesiastical rights which it was possible to lay hands on were seized by the agents of the Curia. The worst charges brought against the Avignon Papacy were probably true of the pontificate of Clement VI. The clergy were luxurious and immoral, and at the papal court extravagance and good-living were carried much too far. But the Pope himself was an able man, whose worst fault was the leniency which tolerated such an atmosphere.

He was a very popular preacher, a successful diplomatist, and above all a kind-hearted man. He tried to protect the Jews against the brutal bigotry of Christendom, and even gave them a place of refuge in his Avignon estate. To Urban V. In character he was saintly, wise, and only just short of heroic. The peril of the mercenary bands was worse than ever; the French wars had made France as disorderly as Italy; and the Black Death in had ravaged Avignon even more cruelly than elsewhere.

The position of the Papacy was more than ever anomalous now that France was weak. In April , Rome did her best to honor his entry, but not all the garlands and banners could disguise the sinister appearance of the city.

The churches were in ruins, the palaces were deserted, and stocks of rubbish filled the squares. In the following year another and apparently greater triumph fell to Urban when John Palaeologus, the Eastern Emperor, knelt before him, and promised, in return for fighting-men and money, to heal the schism between East and West.

Urban knew the circumstances too well to offer more than sympathy. Gregory XI , had a harder task than ever before him, for the Cardinals knew from experience what to expect in Italy, and the Italian cities had learned how to resist the French Papacy.