The Power of the Popes: An Historical Essay on Their Temporal Dominion, and the Abuse of Their Spiritual AuthorityDaunou, P. C. F. (Pierre Claude François)
History
The Power of the Popes: An Historical Essay on Their Temporal Dominion, and the Abuse of Their Spiritual Authority
Daunou, P. C. F. (Pierre Claude François)
Papacy -- History; Popes -- Temporal power
age, the crusade, and the inquisition.—He was even not far from assuming
the Dominican habit, and ceasing to be a king in order to become an
inquisitor.²⁴⁵ We enter into these particulars, because they are all
effects of the ascendancy of the popes, of that unbounded extent which
their temporal royalty gave to their ecclesiastical authority.—
Alexander IV. was a zealous protector of the monks, especially the
mendicants. This predilection made him unjust to the universities; he
was the avowed enemy of that of Paris. The historian of this university,
Egasse du Boulay,²⁴⁶ tells us, that the death of this pope gave peace
to the Parisian muses.
²⁴⁶ Velly’s Hist, of France, vol. v. p. 193—197.
²⁴⁷ Hist. Univ. Paris, vol. iii. p. 365.
It was a Frenchman, born at Troyes, who become pope by the name of Urban
IV. advanced principally the negociations with the count of Anjou.
Impatient to exterminate Manfred, Urban saw too well that the
publication of crusades, indulgencies, the equipment of pontifical
troops, with all the temporal and spiritual arms of the Holy See, would
remain powerless, without the active participation of a sovereign,
interested by the allurement of a crown, to complete the ruin of the
house of Swabia. Popular commotions rendered the residence of Rome
rather uneasy to the sovereign pontiff; Urban had retired to Orvieto,
whence by some mutinous acts, he was again driven to Perugia. He was,
therefore, solicitous to conclude with Charles of Anjou; although this
prince had seemed to detach himself from the pope, in accepting the
dignity of senator of Rome, and the treaty, was about to be signed when
Urban died: his successor, Clement IV. completed his design.
The incompatibility of the crown of Sicily with the imperial crown, as
also with the sovereignty over Lombardy, or over Tuscany; the cession of
Beneventum and its territory to the Holy See: annual tributes and
subsidies to the church; recognizance of the immunities of the clergy of
the Two Sicilies; inheritance of this kingdom reserved to the
descendants of Charles alone; in default thereof, power granted to the
pope to choose the successors to them. Such were the principal
conditions of the treaty, which called Charles of Anjou to reign over
the Neapolitans. He would have subscribed to still more humiliating
ones. He promised to abdicate before the expiration of three years the
title of senator of Rome; even to renounce it sooner, if he completed
before this period the conquest of the kingdom which had been bestowed
him, and, to neglect nothing to dispose the Romans to concede the
disposal of this dignity to the sovereign pontiff: he subjected himself
to interdiction, excommunication, deposition, if he should ever break
his engagements: he finally pronounced an oath, framed in these
terms:²⁴⁷
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