14th-Century Crises in the Church: Part II

Gregory XI is anointed as pope while the Hundred Years' War rages outside

When we left off, the papacy had been moved to the town of Avignon, near French territory, resulting in the perception that the popes were under the control of the French crown and a disastrous loss of prestige for the Church. The corruption caused by the need to raise funds for the establishment of the papal curia in Avignon and to offset the loss of income from the Papal States only lowered the opinions Europeans held of the organization responsible for the salvation of their souls. The cries for the papacy to return to Rome only grew louder as the 14th century ground on. The most direct call came from a young nun from Tuscany, Catherine of Siena (c. 1347-1380). Instead of locking herself away in the convent, Catherine very adeptly involved herself in the political world of 14th century Italy, claiming to have been inspired to do this by a vision of Christ. In 1346 the city of Florence decided to utilize her talents to persuade Pope Gregory XI (1370-1378) to move the papacy back to Rome. In 1377, Pope Gregory, in order to avoid a further decline in prestige, returned to Rome. Unfortunately, the city had experienced further decline during the decades that the popes had been absent. The loss of commerce associated with pilgrimages and the business generated by the presence of the great households of the cardinals had a disastrous effect upon the economy of the city. Now that the papacy was back in Rome, the citizens of Rome were determined to keep it there.

Catherine of Siena persuades Gregory XI to return the papacy to Rome

Gregory XI died in 1378, less than a year after returning to Rome. The cardinals met, as usual, in conclave to elect a new pope. However, this was the first time they had met in Rome since 1305. This time they were at the mercy of the citizens of Rome. The Romans were afraid that the cardinals, most of whom were French, would elect another Frenchman, as they had done in 1305, and the papacy would move back to Avignon. They made it very clear to the cardinals that they would not leave the city alive if the next pope was not either a Roman or an Italian (no pressure). The cardinals took the threat very seriously (a very wise decision), and elected the archbishop of Bari, who took the name Urban VI (1378-1389). In order to secure a future Italian succession to the papacy, Urban VI immediately began the process of packing the college of cardinals with enough new Italian cardinals to negate the French majority. The French cardinals, fearing the Roman population, left Rome as soon as they possibly could. Once they were clear of Rome, they declared that the election of Urban VI was illegitimate because they had been forced to elect an Italian under a threat of death. They wasted no time in holding a second conclave, where they elected one of their own as pope. This Frenchman took the name Clement VII (1378-1394) and returned to Avignon. There were now two popes; Urban VI in Rome and Clement VII in Avignon. This situation is called the Great Schism of the Western Church, and would last until 1417 (almost 40 years!).

This split in the Church only served to accelerate the decline of papal prestige. Both popes found that they were in desperate need of money and had only half of the revenues of the church available. Each pope increased the practice of simony, the selling of benefices and offices to the highest bidder. The popes added to the already heavy tax burden of many European commoners by increasing taxation. The ongoing war between the French and English at this time ensured that this religious rift would also become part of a growing political rift as well. France and its allies, Spain, Scotland, and the Kingdom of Naples (southern Italy), naturally supported Clement VII and the Avignon popes. England and its allies, Germany, Scandinavia, and most of the northern Italian states, supported Urban VI and the Roman popes. Each pope condemned the other as Antichrist. The king of France, whose protection of the Avignon popes guaranteed the continuation of the schism, even sent the duke of Anjou and his army to Italy in an attempt to drive the Roman pope out. Christianity, which had served as a unifying force in European civilization, had now become a source of further discord.

The Council of Constance (1414-1418) works to repair the Great Schism

The Great Schism was not easily created and it was not easily repaired. The question of authority within the Church, which had caused the problems at the beginning of the 14th century, now became more important than ever. The question now revolved around the question of who had the authority to depose both popes and fix the Church. The answer came from the theologians at the University of Paris. Earlier in the century, Marsiglio da Padova, rector of the university, wrote Defensor Pacis (Defender of the Peace), a neat little treatise that was intended as a logical argument that would deny the authority of the popes over temporal rulers. Not only did Marsiglio claim that temporal authority was independent of spiritual authority, he argued that the church should only be concerned with spiritual matters. This was a major theological victory for the secular authorities in Europe that would speed the separation of church and state in the modern era. Marsiglio's argument turned the clergy (priests) into the administrators of the Church, and, indeed, he argued that final authority rested on their shoulders, not on the popes. Based upon this interpretation of spiritual authority, large numbers of the clergy began to call for the formation of general church council to repair the schism.

This conciliar movement hoped that either the church hierarchy (cardinals, archbishops, bishops...) or the Holy Roman Emperor would call for a council. When the Emperor failed to do this, cardinals from both sides decided to meet in council at Pisa in 1409. The Council of Pisa, unfortunately, made the schism much worse. They elected a new pope, Alexander V (1409-1410), and deposed the other two popes. While they officially deposed the popes in Avignon and Rome, they failed to back this decision up with force. Both popes remained. Now there were three popes! Alexander V died shortly thereafter and was succeeded by Cardinal Baldassare Cossa, a former pirate and soldier of questionable morals who used money from the Medici Bank in Florence to win election as Pope John XXIII. The prestige of the Church had hit rock bottom. The Holy Roman Emperor called for another council at Constance to do what the Council of Pisa had failed to do. The Council of Constance (1414-1418), backed by the authority and the army of the Holy Roman Emperor, finally succeeded in deposing all three popes and securing the election of a Roman pope, Martin V. The Great Schism and the Avignon papacy had finally come to an end. All of the popes who ruled from Avignon between 1378 and 1417 are now known as Antipopes in the Catholic Church.

Jan Hus burns at the stake in Constance

The damage done to the Church was much more than political and financial. The prestige of the Church and the confidence of the faithful had been severely damaged by the century of crises and controversy. Europe experience a crisis of faith that would continue into the early modern period European history. In an attempt to take their salvation into their own hands and to have a personal experience of God, many European turned to mysticism. Groups like the Brothers and Sisters of the Common life attempted to live simple lives in imitation of Christ in their own semi-monastic communities. The important thing to remember is that they did this outside of the structure of institutional church. Other theologians directly attacked the authority and necessity of the Church and its clergy. John Wyclif (c. 1328-1384), an English theologian, argued that Bible should be the sole authority in the spiritual life of Christians. He encouraged the translation of the Bible from Latin into vernacular languages so that it could be read by all Christians, not just the clergy. He also argued that there was absolutely no basis in Scripture for the papal claim of temporal authority, that the popes should be stripped of all authority and have all of their property confiscated. This made him very popular with the English kings, who kept him from being burned at the stake. Jan Hus (1374-1415), a Bohemian (Czech) who had been influenced by the doctrine of Wyclif, was not so lucky. The movement he inspired, known as Hussites, combined dissatisfaction with the Church with a resentment of German domination into a strong political and religious movement. Hus did not have the advantage of royal protection or distance from Rome like Wyclif. He was summoned to the Council of Constance in 1415 by Emperor Sigismund in order do "defend" his ideas. When he reached Constance, Hus was arrested, condemned as a heretic, and burned at the stake. Wyclif and Hus planted the ideological seeds that would bloom in the Protestant Reformation a century later.

Sources

Merriman, John, A History of Modern Europe: From the Renaissance to the Present, 2nd ed., New York: W. W. Norton, 2004

Palmer, R. R., Colton, Joel, A History of the Modern World, 8th ed., New York: McGraw-Hill, 1995

Spielvogel, Jackson, Western Civilization, 6th ed., Belmont, CA: Thompson Wadsworth, 2006

14th-Century Crises in the Church: Part I

Pope Boniface VIII and the College of Cardinals

The third major disaster of the 14th century in Europe was comprised of a series of crises within the Western, or Roman Church (We call it the Roman Catholic Church these days.). The Catholic church had its origins in the final centuries of the western Roman Empire, and, through the course of the middle ages, became one of the most powerful entities in western Europe. As it christianized the various barbarian nations that settled in Europe, the Catholic Church provided a source of unity in the Western world that was key to the emergence of a distinctly Western and European civilization. The bishop of Rome, eventually referring to himself as Pope (from the Latin word for father), claimed primacy in the church as both the spiritual and temporal leader of Europe. Technically, kings were granted their power by God through his representative on Earth, the Pope. The Church was represented as the instrument through which God granted salvation. It dominated the daily lives of medieval Europeans.

The failure of harvests, the tragic scale of the Black Death, and the death and destruction wrought by the pillaging and raping mercenary companies during the Hundred Years' War, served to weaken the faith of Europeans in a church that was already reeling from a series of crises that began at the turn of the 14th century. The problems of the Church had their origins in the struggle of kings to centralize power in the monarchies of their realms. In order to accomplish this kings needed to eliminate real and potential challenges to their authority. This meant the eventual rounding up and controlling of the rowdy nobility. But first, it meant asserting royal control over the affairs of the Church within their territories. This was not a new struggle, by any stretch of the imagination. However, it did come to a head at this time.

Philip IV and family

The quarrel, this time, began with Philip IV of France (r. 1285-1314), also known as Philip the Fair (Apparently, he was a good-looking dude.). Like many of the monarchs we will study, Philip had a cash-flow problem. In his quest to increase his royal revenues at the least possible expense to royal power, Philip made the claim that, as king of France, he had the right to tax the clergy of France as royal subjects. This clashed with the pope's claim of authority over both the church and the secular state. Pope Boniface VIII (r. 1294-1303) responded by issuing the Papal Bull (Not that kind of bull! It's an official letter of policy from the pope) called Claricis Laicos which expressly forbid the French monarchy from collecting taxes from the French clergy or seizing church property. Unmoved by this Bull, Philip continued to collect taxes (one half of their annual incomes) from the clergy of France.

His Holiness brought out the theological big guns in response to this upstart king's refusal to submit to papal authority. In the Bull Unam Sanctam (1302), Boniface made the strongest theological case for the supremacy of the spiritual authority (the pope) over the temporal authority (kings, princes, dukes, etc.);

"We are told by the word of the gospel that in this His fold there are two swords - a spiritual, namely, and a temporal... Both swords, the spiritual and the material, therefore, are in the power of the church; the one, indeed, to be wielded for the church, the other by the church; the one by the hand of the priest, the other by the hand of kings and knights, but at the will and sufferance of the priest. One sword, moreover, ought to be under the other, and the temporal authority to be subjected to the spiritual....

Indeed, we declare, announce and define, that it is altogether necessary to salvation for every human creature to be subject to the Roman pontiff." 

Since the king of France refused to be "subject to the Roman pontiff" in all affairs, Boniface VIII excommunicated him, denying him access to salvation. Philip sent troops into Italy to arrest Boniface. The plan was to bring him back to France to face trial. Boniface was rescued by Italian nobles, but soon died from the shock of this ordeal. Philip won; popes would never make these kind of outrageous claims at absolute authority over church and state. The power and prestige of the Church had taken a big hit. It was about to get much worse.

Pope Clement V, the first Avignon pope

In order to avoid the kind of challenge to royal authority he had under Boniface VIII, Philip IV arranged for the election of Frenchman to the office of pope. This new pope, Clement V, was much more cooperative with Philip's ambitions. He essential got rid of the most restrictive elements of Clericis Laicos and did away with Unam Sanctam. His biggest decision, however, involved the holy city of Rome. By 1300, Rome had become less than a shadow of its ancient glory. The former capital of the Roman Empire, which had housed over a million citizens within its walls, now contained only 40,000 people. Only one third of the space within the walls was occupied, and forests grew over the ruins of the ancient city. Wolves hunted and killed the cattle that grazed in the old forum at night. The city, and the Church, were at the mercy of the warring Colonna and Orsini families. Boniface used this turmoil in the city of Rome as an excuse to move the papacy to the city of Avignon, a territory of the Holy Roman Empire. Although it was not a subject of France, Avignon was across the Rhône River from French territory. This, paired with the apparently pro-French position of Clement V, led to the impression that the papacy was essentially a captive of the French monarchy. The papacy remained in Avignon for seventy-two years, a period of time known as the Babylonian Captivity of the Church (1305-1377).

So what? What's the big deal? People and organizations move all the time.

The first major with this problem with this move was rooted in the theological and biblical basis for the primacy of the bishop of Rome in the Catholic Church. The very first bishop of Rome was St. Peter, the apostle of Christ, who was martyred in Rome and buried on the nearby Vatican Hill. The popes claim their authority as the heirs of St. Peter. This authority was derived from a passage in the Bible that was interpreted as giving primacy to Peter, and hence to the popes.

“And I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter (Greek, Petros, rock, a nick name given to Simon Peter), and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

These words now adorn the inside of the dome of the Basilica of St. Peter at the Vatican. For many Europeans, the Pope derived his authority from the residence of the papacy in Rome. Since the pope no longer resided in the holy city, the office lost much of the prestige it had once enjoyed. The perception of the pope as being the captive of the French monarchy didn't do much to improve this loss of prestige, nor did the creation of several new French cardinals at Avignon.

The Papal Palace in Avignon

The second problem with this move had to do with the finances of the papacy. Running the Catholic Church was expensive; in fact it was becoming more expensive every day. Once the papacy had resided in Avignon for over 25 years, the pope decided that it was time to construct a palace worthy of the head of the Church. Unfortunately, when the Clement V moved away from Rome, he also gave up direct control of the Papal States, a collection of small states in northern Italy. This meant that he also gave up the revenues associated with control of those states. The pope needed money to pay for his palace and the day-to-day operation of the church. One answer to this financial problem came in the form of the increasing size of the papal bureaucracy. In order to compete with the increasing size and complexity of the monarchical states (especially France and England) and exert more control over the church, the papacy developed one of the most complex bureaucracies in the world. The sale of offices within this administrative system became a way for the popes of Avignon to raise the cash they desperately needed. The imposition of new church taxes also helped to increase papal revenues. The popes and the cardinals who took up residence in Avignon turned the stinky little backwater village into a thriving metropolis of grand palaces. The common people of Europe began to feel disconnected from the clergy and the institution of the Church. The inability of the Church to explain or to deal with the Black Death only increased this sense of alienation. The pope and the cardinals lived in splendor while most of Europe lived in squalor. As the 14th century progressed, Avignon became a symbol of everything that was wrong in the Catholic Church.

As the criticism of the papacy grew louder, many people began to call for the popes to return to Rome. Ironically, it was the attempt to effect that return that led to an even greater crisis for the Catholic Church, the Great Schism. This is where we will pick up in the next blog post.

Sources

Merriman, John, A History of Modern Europe: From the Renaissance to the Present, 2nd ed., New York: W. W. Norton, 2004

Palmer, R. R., Colton, Joel, A History of the Modern World, 8th ed., New York: McGraw-Hill, 1995

Spielvogel, Jackson, Western Civilization, 6th ed., Belmont, CA: Thompson Wadsworth, 2006

The Hundred Years' War

The English (in Red) vs. The French (in Blue) at Crecy

The Causes
The plague that struck Europe from 1347-1351 returned to kill again every five to ten years for the next 150 years. The plague's return in western Europe was probably facilitated by the second disaster of the 14th century, the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453). This multi-generational war that divided Europe and dominated the political scene for the next century had its roots in the major problem with hereditary monarchy; the last Capetian monarch of France, Charles IV, died without a male heir. This led to a major dispute over the crown that was complicated by the fact that the closest male relative of Charles IV was his nephew, the young Edward III of England, the son of Charles' sister Isabella. Edward had a very clear claim to the crown, however was overruled by the nobility of France, who decided that the succession could not be passed through the female line. They opted for Charles' cousin, Philip of Valois, who became Philip VI of France in 1328. 

This little tiff over the succession to the French crown was bad enough. But it was made even worse by the feudal system of vassalage that governed politics in the middle ages. The king of England, Edward III, was also the duke of Gascony, a territory in southwestern France near the modern border with Spain. As the duke of Gascony, Edward was supposed to pledge his loyalty as a vassal to the king of France, his cousin Philip. This arrangement had always irritated the kings of England. They viewed themselves to be peers of the kings of France, and therefore on an equal footing. This was particularly annoying to Edward because he believed he had a claim as the rightful king of France, and refused to swear loyalty to Philip as a mere subject. He refused to swear loyalty as a vassal of France. Philip responded by seizing the duchy of Gascony. Edward then declared war on Philip, calling him the "so-called king of France." (Oh snap!)

The War

I will try my best to break this century-long conflict into more manageable chunks for you. It won't be easy. The war and it's course became increasingly complicated. The fighting wasn't constant. In fact, there was a twenty-year truce declared in 1396. The devastation was, however, made worse by the changes in the attitudes brought about by the plague, and by the changes in warfare that this kind of conflict necessitated. Take a deep breath. Here we go!

Phase I: 1337-1396
The first phase of the war did not go well for the French. French noblemen were true believers in the idea of chivalry. As trained warriors they saw themselves as true fighting heroes, capable of miraculous deeds on the battlefield, almost invincible. They looked down on the common foot soldier of peasant stock. They, like all nobles of the time, believed in their superiority over the commoners. After all, God had divided society between "those who pray, those who fight, and those who work" for a reason. The mounted knight, draped in heavy armor and weapons formed the core of the French army throughout most of the conflict. The English, on the other hand, was composed of many more paid foot soldiers. They were well armed with pikes, big can openers on a pole, perfect for dealing with mounted knights and the horses they rode in on. They were also armed with the Welsh longbow, a deadly weapon with a relatively rapid rate of fire.

English Longbows rule at Crecy

After his initial efforts in France fizzled out, Edward III tried to get things going with a big invasion of Normandy, directly across the Channel from England, in 1346. This set up the first major blunder for the French. Philip's forces, sensing the opportunity for glory, attempted to crush the English army camped out on high ground outside of the town of Crécy. Instead of giving his forces time to rest and to come up with some sort of plan after the long march to Crécy, Philip sent his knights charging immediately into battle. Edward and the English were ready and waiting for them. English archers negated the numerical superiority of the French under a hail of arrows. The English knights, having learned the value of dismounting and fighting along side the foot soldiers, combined with their forces to slaughter French knights who had been knocked off of their mounts in heavy armor. The French, slow to learn and still convinced of the superiority of the mounted knight, repeated this performance 10 years later at the Battle of Poitiers in western France. This time, the English managed to capture the king of France, John II. The English forces were led at Poitiers by Edward, the prince of Wales. His policy of living off of the land, stealing anything of value, and leaving behind nothing but burned cropland and villages earned him the nickname The Black Prince. The Peace of Brétigny, signed in 1359, forced the French to pay a huge ransom for their king, and enlarged English holdings in France. It was never enforced. Companies of mercenaries, no longer in the employ of the English, roamed the French countryside burning villages, killing, raping and stealing to support themselves. The image of the noble knight as the flower of chivalry and the protector of the innocent seemed as distant a memory as that of the Caesars.

The next king of France, Charles V, spent most of his reign (1364-1380) reclaiming the territory lost by his father in the Peace of Brétigny. The English preferred to stay locked up in their fortresses while the companies plundered the countryside. Edward III simply did not have the resources to claim all of France or to enforce his claim upon the French crown. By 1377 he was dead, and the conflict passed into the hands of a new generation, the ill-fated Richard II, son of The Black Prince. Charles V died in 1380, leaving the fate of the French monarchy to his son Charles VI, also called Charles the Mad. Feeling the need to address the political and economic chaos caused by the war, and to mount a response to the threat of the Ottoman Turks, who had now made an appearance on the continent, Charles and Richard agreed to a twenty-year truce in 1396. Richard would be arrested and assassinated by a faction of nobles led by Henry of Lancaster in 1399; a victim of the aristocratic factionalism that arose as a result of the war and would continue throughout the 15th century. Henry of Lancaster became the new king of England, Henry IV. Charles VI, plagued by bouts of madness, was an increasingly weak king ruled by the competing interests and influence of the dukes of Orléans and Burgundy. The truce was broken after 19 years.

Phase II: 1415-1453
The first phase of this war had nearly ruined France and seriously damaged the power of its monarchy. The second phase, after nearly destroying the French monarchy, would severely damage the English monarchy and lead to the War of the Roses in England. When will they ever learn!?

By 1415, the political situation in France had become a complete mess. Charles VI became increasingly unable to rule, as a result of his more frequent bouts of insanity. This resulted in a civil war between the duke of Burgundy and the duke of Orléans who were fighting for influence over the king. England's new king, Henry V (Get used to the names and learn how to read the Roman numerals), used this as an opportunity to renew the war and the claim on the French crown. Henry invaded France, and once again the English crushed an army of French knights (this time wearing heavier plate armor and having to cross a muddy battlefield) at the Battle of Agincourt. Henry quickly conquered Normandy and allied himself with the duke of Burgundy to control most of northern France. Charles VI had no choice but to sign the humiliating Treaty of Troyes (1420), marrying off his daughter Catherine to the English king and recognizing Henry V as the heir to the French throne. It looked as if the English had finally won the war.

Saint Joan of Arc

After the death of Charles VI in 1322, the fate of the French now fell to Charles the Dauphin (heir to the French throne). Charles considered himself, not Henry V, the legitimate king of France. However, having been driven out of Paris and Orléans by the English and Burgundians, he was unable to back up that claim through coronation. The French caught a break in 1329 in the form of a 17-year-old girl from the Champagne region. Joan of Arc was able to convince the Dauphin, who had nothing to lose at this point, that she had been given a mission by the saints to escort him to Reims to be crowned as king of France. Joan rallied the French troops, liberated the city of Orléans, and saw the Dauphin crowned as Charles VII of France. Joan was captured by the Burgundians less than a year later, and burned at the stake by the English in 1431. The victories of the French armies under this teenaged peasant girl proved to be the turning point in the war. Aided by the introduction of cannons, which allowed them to smash through the walls of the English fortifications, and the increasing political chaos of England under Henry VI, the French finally drove the English out of France. By 1453, one-hundred sixteen years after it started, the conflict was mostly over. The French monarchy still had to take care of the Burgundians, and the troubles with the English flared up briefly in 1475 when they finally gave up all claims to lands in France.

Results & Legacy (The So What)
Okay, I just hit you with a bunch of information. So what? Why is all of this important? What impact did it really have on the greater scope of history?

The Hundred Years' War had an enormous impact on the political development of European states. In England, the war accelerated the development of Parliament as a modern political institution. Wars are expensive. Edward III had a constant need of money during his reign to pay for the mercenary companies that he employed in France. Edward needed to levy new taxes upon his subjects. In England, thanks to the Magna Carta, this meant that he had to rely upon Parliament. Parliament granted these taxes in return for a guarantee that the king would only be allowed to levy direct taxes with the consent of Parliament. They also demanded that Parliament be allowed to take a peek at the king's books to make sure that their tax money was being properly spent. The lower house of Parliament, now called the House of Commons, was able to draft petitions to the king that, if accepted, could become law.

While the English Parliament was becoming more important to English system of government, the French equivalent, the Estates General, was not. The Estates General, composed of representatives of the three feudal estates (clergy, nobles, and commons), only represented the north of the country and is representative of the decentralized nature of the French state in the medieval and early modern periods. That decentralization of political power almost destroyed the monarchy during the course of the Hundred Years' War (I'm looking at you, dukes of Orléans and Burgundy). Just like the English king, the king of France needed obscene amounts of money to pay for the soldiers (and ransom) necessary to conduct the war. This required new taxes, a hearth tax (the taille) and a tax on salt (the gabelle). In the French case, however, the Estates General was viewed not as an integral part of the government with whom the king must cooperate, but as an another obstacle to establishing royal authority. When an uprising of the Estates General led by the middle classes (3rd Estate) demanded a role in the French government similar to that of Parliament's role in the English government, King John II crushed the revolt. From that point on, French kings simply side stepped the authority of the Estates General, which was no longer a threat to their authority.

But the Estates General was not the only obstacle to the development of a centralized state in France. The noble factionalism that developed as a result of the war threatened Both of the monarchies of France and England. As the nobility lost its importance as the feudal warrior class of Europe, they found opportunities to continue as the political elite in the new bureaucracies that became necessary to manage the new taxes and armies. Many nobles chose to give the king cash in place of military service. That money was then used to hire a more dependable professional army. In order to assert their role as political leaders, nobles in France and Europe often formed political factions that fought for influence (often violently). This caused the monarchs of England and France to begin the process of centralizing power in the monarchy that would lead to the creation of the first modern nation-states in Europe. All of this was accelerated by the Hundred Years' War.

Sources

Merriman, John, A History of Modern Europe: From the Renaissance to the Present, 2nd ed., New York: W. W. Norton, 2004

Palmer, R. R., Colton, Joel, A History of the Modern World, 8th ed., New York: McGraw-Hill, 1995

Spielvogel, Jackson, Western Civilization, 6th ed., Belmont, CA: Thompson Wadsworth, 2006