History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume II (of 2): Revised EditionDraper, John William
History
History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume II (of 2): Revised Edition
Draper, John William
Europe -- Civilization
[Sidenote: The King of France attempts it.] In France, Philip the Fair
made a similar attempt. It was not to be supposed that Rome would
tolerate this trespassing on what she considered her proper domain, and
accordingly Boniface issued the bull "_Clericis laicos_,"
excommunicating kings who should levy subsidies on ecclesiastics.
Hereupon Philip determined that, if the French clergy were not tributary
to him, France should not be tributary to the pope, and issued an edict
prohibiting the export of gold and silver from France without his
license. But he did not resort to these extreme measures until he had
tried others which perhaps he considered less troublesome. He had
plundered the Jews, confiscated their property, and expelled them from
his dominions. [Sidenote: Is abetted by the begging friars,] The Church
was fairly next in order; and, indeed, the mendicant friars of the lower
class, who, as we have seen, were disaffected by the publication of "The
Everlasting Gospel," were loud in their denunciations of her wealth,
attributing the prevailing religious demoralization to it. They pointed
to the example of our Lord and his disciples; and when their antagonists
replied that even He condescended to make use of money, the malignant
fanatics maintained their doctrines, amid the applause of a jeering
populace, by answering that it was not St. Peter, but Judas, who was
intrusted with the purse, and that the pope stood in need of the bitter
rebuke which Jesus had of old administered to his prototype Peter,
saying, "Get thee behind me, Satan; for thou savourest not of the things
that be of God, but of the things that be of men" (Mark viii. 33). Under
that authority they affirmed that they might stigmatize the great
culprit without guilt. So the king ventured to put forth his hand and
touch what the Church had, and she cursed him to his face. At first a
literary war ensued: the pope published his bull, the king his reply.
[Sidenote: and ably sustained by the lawyers.] Already the policy which
Philip was following, and the ability he was displaying, manifested that
he had attached to himself that new power of which the King of England
had taken advantage--a power soon to become the mortal enemy of the
ecclesiastic--the lawyers. [Sidenote: Device of the jubilee.] In the
meantime, money must be had in Rome; when, by the singularly felicitous
device of the proclamation of a year of jubilee, A.D. 1300, large sums
were again brought into Italy.
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