On the other hand, the Conventuals met the austere intolerance of the extreme party by persecution. The most interesting victim of this religious rancour was Peter John, the son of Olive, a French friar, whose works were condemned more than once, although he died quietly in 1298. He allowed to the Franciscans only the sustenance necessary for daily life and the furniture for the celebration of divine service. In his view the Roman Church was Babylon, and the Rule of St. Francis was the law of the Gospel. For those who held such views there was no place in the Roman Church. The Spirituals began to seek relief in a return to the eremitic life. But the sudden elevation of a hermit of South Italy to the Papacy in the person of Celestine V seemed to present to these dreamers the chance of the accomplishment of the new Gospel. His hopeless failure and abdication turned their thoughts more than ever to separation from the Church. Celestine, who had gathered some of the extreme Franciscans into a community of his own, is said to have released them from obedience to the Franciscan Order. In any case, Boniface VIII not only secured the ex-Pope, but also attempted to exterminate his followers. So far the question at issue had been a disciplinary question which concerned the Franciscan Order--whether for the Order absolute poverty was of the essence of the Rule. The time was at hand when the question would assume a doctrinal form, and the Church at large would be called upon to decide whether absolute poverty was an article of the Christian faith. CHAPTER XIV THE CHURCH AND THE HEATHEN [Sidenote: Hungary and Poland.] From the time of Otto I it was the policy of the German Kings to Germanise and Christianise the nations on their eastern border, as a preparatory step to including them in the Empire. Otto had exacted homage from the rulers of Hungary, Poland, and Bohemia, but under his successors they broke away; and although, meanwhile, Christianity was accepted by the rulers in all three countries, Hungary and Poland both established their independence politically of the German King, and ecclesiastically of the German Metropolitan of Mainz or Magdeburg. Henry III reasserted the political influence in Germany; but it was to the interest of the Pope to encourage the independent attitude of the Churches in Hungary and Poland so long as they recognised the Roman supremacy. But even politically Gregory VII told Solomon, King of Hungary (1074), that his kingdom "belongs to the holy Roman Church, having been formerly offered by King Stephen to St. Peter, together with every right and power belonging to him, and devoutly handed over." A similar claim, of which the basis was much more doubtful, was made to Poland. [Sidenote: Bohemia.]