[Footnote 1: This curious instruction was transcribed (I believe) from the Vatican archives, by Odoricus Raynaldus, in his Continuation of the Annals of Baronius, (RomÊ, 1646--1677, in x. volumes in folio.) I have contented myself with the AbbÈ Fleury, (Hist. EcclÈsiastique. tom. xx. p. 1--8,) whose abstracts I have always found to be clear, accurate, and impartial.] [Footnote 2: The ambiguity of this title is happy or ingenious; and _moderator_, as synonymous to _rector_, _gubernator_, is a word of classical, and even Ciceronian, Latinity, which may be found, not in the Glossary of Ducange, but in the Thesaurus of Robert Stephens.] [Footnote 3: The first epistle (sine titulo) of Petrarch exposes the danger of the _bark_, and the incapacity of the _pilot_. HÊc inter, vino madidus, Êvo gravis, ac soporifero rore perfusus, jamjam nutitat, dormitat, jam somno prÊceps, atque (utinam solus) ruit..... Heu quanto felicius patrio terram sulcasset aratro, quam scalmum piscatorium ascendisset! This satire engages his biographer to weigh the virtues and vices of Benedict XII. which have been exaggerated by Guelphs and Ghibe lines, by Papists and Protestants, (see MÈmoires sur la Vie de PÈtrarque, tom. i. p. 259, ii. not. xv. p. 13--16.) He gave occasion to the saying, Bibamus papaliter.] After the decease of Andronicus, while the Greeks were distracted by intestine war, they could not presume to agitate a general union of the Christians. But as soon as Cantacuzene had subdued and pardoned his enemies, he was anxious to justify, or at least to extenuate, the introduction of the Turks into Europe, and the nuptials of his daughter with a Mussulman prince. Two officers of state, with a Latin interpreter, were sent in his name to the Roman court, which was transplanted to Avignon, on the banks of the RhÙne, during a period of seventy years: they represented the hard necessity which had urged him to embrace the alliance of the miscreants, and pronounced by his command the specious and edifying sounds of union and crusade. Pope Clement the Sixth, [4] the successor of Benedict, received them with hospitality and honor, acknowledged the innocence of their sovereign, excused his distress, applauded his magnanimity, and displayed a clear knowledge of the state and revolutions of the Greek empire, which he had imbibed from the honest accounts of a Savoyard lady, an attendant of the empress Anne. [5] If Clement was ill endowed with the virtues of a priest, he possessed, however, the spirit and magnificence of a prince, whose liberal hand distributed benefices and kingdoms with equal facility. Under his reign Avignon was the seat of pomp and pleasure: in his youth he had surpassed the licentiousness of a baron; and the palace, nay, the bed-chamber of the pope, was adorned, or polluted, by the visits of his female favorites. The wars of France and England were adverse to the holy enterprise; but his vanity was amused by the splendid idea; and the