In 1338, Benedict XII. having refused to absolve Louis of Bavaria, the Diets of Rensee and of Frankfort declared, that ancient custom conferred the vicariate of the vacant empire on the count Palatine of the Rhine; that the pretensions of the pope to replace the emperor during an interregnum were untenable; that the pope had over the German empire no sort of superiority; that it was not his province to regulate, nor confirm the elections of the emperors; that the plurality of suffrages of the electoral college conferred the empire without the consent of the Holy See, and, that to assert the contrary would be a crime of high treason.²⁶⁵ The Germans gave to their decree, the name of “Pragmatic Sanction,” and, at the same time, it was forbidden to pay any respect to the censures fulminated against the head of the empire, to receive bulls from Avignon, or keep up any correspondence with the pontifical court.²⁶⁶ Four years after the publication of this decree arose Clement VI. who demanded of the emperor a perpetual edict, in which the empire should be declared a fief of the Holy See, a benefice that none could possess without the authority of the sovereign pontiff. This Clement said, that none of his predecessors knew how to be a pope; Benedict XII. more modest, said to the cardinals his electors: You have elected an ass.²⁶⁷ ²⁶⁵ Eccles. Hist. 1. 94. n. 39. ²⁶⁶ Pfeffel ann. 1338. ²⁶⁷ Fleury’s Eccl. Hist. 1. 94, n. 611. Clement renewed the anathemas of John XXII. against Louis of Bavaria; he added thereto more solemn imprecations: “May the divine wrath! he “cried, may the vengeance of St. Peter, and St. “Paul, fall upon Louis in this world, and in the “next! may the earth swallow him up alive! may “all the elements combine against him! and may his “children famish before the eyes of their father, by “the hands of his enemies!”