Showing posts with label Pope Gregory XI. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pope Gregory XI. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 31, 2024

The Pope and the Plague

One of the major events during the reign of Pope Clement VI (1291 – 6 December 1352) was not of his making. He had been pope for four years when plague landed on his shores in 1347, spreading throughout Europe and killing one-third to one-half of the population within a few years.

Clement believed the Plague was the result of God's wrath, but that did not mean he was willing to stand idly by and let the results speak for themselves. He consulted with astrologers for the physical cause and looked for ways to mitigate the effects. One of the team that proposed a conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars in 1341 as its origin was Johannes de Muris, who had been brought to Avignon by Clement in 1344 to aid in calendar reform. Another of Clement's advisors was his personal physician Guy de Chauliac, seen here bandaging the pope's leg (in a painting from 20th century artist Ernest Board).

The advice of his physicians was to surround himself with fire to fight off the plague-inducing vapors in the air; stories tell that he had two raging fireplaces on either side of him while he worked. He did not, however, just sit in his palace: he involved himself in supervising care of the dying and burials. There was so much death that cemeteries ran out of space. Clement consecrated the Rhône River—the entire 500-miles—so that bodies could be thrown in and it would be considered proper burial along its length in France and Switzerland.

Because there was condemnation of Jews for the Plague in some areas, he released two papal bulls on the subject, on 6 July and 26 September, condemning the violence against the Jews. The second stated that those blaming the Jews were seduced by the Devil, because:

It cannot be true that the Jews, by such a heinous crime, are the cause or occasion of the plague, because through many parts of the world the same plague, by the hidden judgment of God, has afflicted and afflicts the Jews themselves and many other races who have never lived alongside them.

Six cardinals died in 1348. One of Clement's solutions was to make his nephew a cardinal, even though his nephew was only 18 years old! (Twenty-two years later he would become Pope Gregory XI.) Clement's favoritism was one of the ways he was distinctly different from his predecessor, Benedict. I want to talk about Clement's more "worldly" tendencies next time.

Tuesday, September 20, 2022

The Western Schism

When Pope Clement V decided he wanted to live in his home country, France, he moved the papal offices from the Vatican in Rome to Avignon in 1309. The papacy returned to Rome in 1377 by Gregory XI—who was French himself, but was persuaded that the papacy should reside in its original home, perhaps through the efforts of Catherine of Siena—but French cardinals were not happy with that. When Gregory died a year later, Romans were determined that they would have an Italian pope who would stay in Rome and never move the papacy again, so they started a campaign of pressure. Cardinals in Rome elected the Archbishop of Bari, the well-respected Bartolomeo Prignano, to become Pope Urban VI, on 8 April 1378.

Papal authority went to Urban's head, and his attempts at reform and his outbursts of temper did not sit well with the college of cardinals, who soon began to regret their decision. In an extraordinary move, several of them met in Anagni in central Italy and had a second election on 20 September. They claimed that the election of Urban was illegitimate because it was due to threats of intimidation and violence, and so they justified themselves in electing Robert of Geneva as Pope Clement VII. Unable to reside at the Vatican due to Urban's presence, Clement and the supporting cardinals returned to Avignon.

Thus was born the Western Schism, also called the Papal Schism or the Schism of 1378. The world had no choice but to take notice, and to take sides. Rome had the support of the Italian states, the Holy Roman Empire, England, and much of Eastern Europe and the Scandinavian countries. Avignon was supported by France, the kingdoms on the Iberian peninsula, Scotland, and several Mediterranean countries. Some nations shifted their allegiance over timeNaples, Bohemia, Flanders and Portugal (among others), started with Avignon and later switched as Rome seemed to be a safe, traditional choice.

Urban vs. Clement was only the start. Urban was succeeded by Boniface IX, then by Innocent VII, then by Gregory XII. Clement was replaced by Benedict XIII.

Now we come to Peter of Candia: had been made a cardinal by Innocent VII in 1405, and his greatest desire was to reconcile the schism. When Innocent was succeeded by Gregory, Gregory made a move that shocked both Avignon and Rome, and would lead to the next step: a solution put forth in Pisa.

By 1409, the Italian city-state of Pisa had had enough of the controversy. They decided that 30 years of papal confusion and chaos needed to be resolved, and the only way they could think of to do so was . . . (wait for it) to elect another pope!

And that story will have to wait until tomorrow.

Monday, September 19, 2022

Catherine in the World

Catherine of Siena (25 March 1347 - 29 April 1380) wanted to join the Dominicans and retire from the world. This was not only discouraged by her mother, but a vision Catherine had of being married to Christ included the injunction to go out into the world to do good works.

During a 1374 visit to Florence, she made the acquaintance of Raymond of Capua, chaplain of a second order monastery of Dominican nuns. While nursing plague victims, he became ill; Catherine sat by his side during his recovery, which he attributed to her prayers.

They began a close relationship, and he became her confessor and spiritual advisor, traveling with and advising her. Catherine traveled around northern and central Italy, urging reform of the clergy. She convinced the cities of Pisa and Lucca to avoid an alliance with an anti-papal movement. She wrote to John Hawkwood, trying to persuade him to turn his energy to supporting God.

She had a long correspondence with Pope Gregory XI, which included urging him to return the papal headquarters from Avignon back to Rome, which he eventually did. Not all cardinals approved of the return, and when Gregory died a few years later, two competing groups of cardinals—in in Rome, one still in Avignon—each elected a pope, resulting in what is called the Western Schism. Such was her perceived influence that Catherine went to Rome at the request of Pope Urban VI to support his legitimacy. Unfortunately for Urban, her support was not sufficient.

Catherine's habit of extreme fasting was very unhealthy, and Raymond admonished her to eat more, but she refused. In 1380 she lost the ability to swallow easily. She suffered a stroke and lost the use of the lower half of her body. She died on 29 April 1380.

Although she was buried in Rome, her head was placed in a bronze bust and taken to Siena. It was carried through the city in a procession to the Basilica of San Domenico, accompanied by her then 89-year-old mother. Her mother and Raymond of Capua collaborated on her biography. She was named a Doctor of the Church in 1970 by Pope Paul VI in recognition of her pious example and her treatise The Dialogue of Divine Providence.

About this Western Schism, during which she was unsuccessful in convincing everyone to accept Urban as the legitimate pope: his opponent didn't succeed either. I should say opponents, because Avignon and Rome weren't the only cities to name a pope. That story is for next time.

Friday, February 7, 2014

War of the Eight Saints

Pope Gregory XI arriving in Rome in 1377
Fresco by Giorgio Vasari
Pope Gregory XI wanted land. He was the last pope to reside in Avignon in France rather than in the Vatican in Rome. Even though he enjoyed living in Avignon, he still felt that the pope deserved more land in Italy. He set out to achieve that by expanding the Papal States, territory that belonged to the papacy.

Understandably, the Italian city-states objected to this; if Gregory wanted more land, he was going to have to take it by force. Gregory was fine with that option. He was fighting a battle with Milan, and when that ended in 1375, he had the opportunity to send his army against Florence, which held lands that would have been ideal for Gregory. Thus started the "War of Eight Saints."

The head of Gregory's mercenary army was an Englishman, John Hawkwood. Florence decided they could "buy off" Hawkwood. They offered him (and his army) 130,000 florins to sign a one-year nonaggression pact with Florence. For Hawkwood himself, they offered an annual payment of 600 florins in a five-year contract and a lifetime annual pension of 1200 florins! Hawkwood kept his involvement to the Papal States themselves, avoiding conflict with Florentine territory. Gregory had to use other forces to attack key areas in Italy.

Who were the "Eight Saints" of the war? Their names aren't agreed upon, and they weren't saints. Gregory excommunicated Florence for its opposition, using the phrase otto dei preti ["eight priests"] to refer to specific men whose acts prompted the excommunication.* These eight would have been one (or both) of two groups of eight men: one was appointed to come up with the means of buying off Hawkwood (these men also forced a loan on the clergy of Florence to amass the money needed for Hawkwood); the other was the otto della guerra ["eight men of war"], eight men appointed to manage the war against Gregory.

Gregory ultimately returned to Rome in January 1378. If he wanted to maintain his property in Italy, he was going to have to oversee it personally. In a sense, the Avignon papacy ended by default.

*Florence had an unexpected reaction to excommunication—unexpected to our modern ideas of how devout the Middle Ages were. Someday...

Monday, February 3, 2014

An English Mercenary

Funerary monument to Hawkwood
This is the story of how an English soldier of no particular background rose to such prominence that a monument to him sits in Florence, Italy.

John Hawkwood was born about 1320, perhaps in Essex; anecdotes that he apprenticed in London as a tailor before becoming a soldier cannot be substantiated. He served in the Hundred Years War under Edward III. He may have fought at Crécy and Poitiers—again, we cannot be sure of his exact whereabouts during the war—but it is certain that he was no longer employed as a soldier once the Treaty of Brétigny was concluded in 1360.

The life of a soldier suited him, apparently—or he simply had no desire to find passage back to England. He joined one of the mercenary companies that sprang up on the continent. These groups, with no particular allegiance to any nationality and willing to fight for pay against anyone, were called Free Companies. He soon became a member of one called the "Great Company of English and Germans," also known as the White Company. By 1362 he was leading the White Company in battles all over Italy.

Hawkwood was shrewd—some would say "dishonest" or "unethical." Knowing that the White Company was a military force to be reckoned with, he would manipulate the Italian city-states that wanted help. If one offered a contract for the Company's services, he would go to their potential employer's enemy and ask for more money to refuse the initial contract. Sometimes he would be paid simply not to fight for the other side. Florence did this for three months in 1375, when the White Company was employed by Pope Gregory XI to fight Florence.

Despite this behavior, the White Company under Hawkwood gained a reputation for sticking to a contract and not deserting the battle or acting like lawless marauders once a battle was done. Military discipline was one of the commodities you gained when employing the White Company.

Besides being a mercenary, his life dovetailed with other historical events. In 1368, Edward III's son Lionel of Antwerp married Violante Visconti, daughter of then-ruler of Milan, Galeazzo II Visconti. Hawkwood was in attendance and might have met some of the other wedding guests: Geoffrey Chaucer, Petrarch, and the French chronicler Jean Froissart.

John Hawkwood died on 17 March 1394 in Florence. He had lived at that point for several years in peaceful retirement, enjoying the citizenship and pension and villa Florence had given him. Praised for his part in maintaining Florentine independence, he was buried with state honors. Plans for a bronze statue were abandoned due to cost, but 40 years later a monument was created for him by Paolo Uccello, a fresco designed to resemble bronze.

Monday, December 16, 2013

Doctor Illuminatus

A brilliant scholar and fervent theologian/philosopher did such a good job at achieving his aims that the Church realized they had to suppress his work!

Ramon Llull was born in Majorca in the 1230s and probably was a courtier at the court of King James II of Aragon. He had a vision at the age of 30; while about to write a love letter, he turned and saw Christ on a cross hanging in the air. This image appeared to him five times, inspiring him to the religious life with very specific goals, one of which was to convert the Muslims to Christianity.

He did not intend simply to travel eastward and preach to the Muslim world; he had a more reasoned plan than that. He would counter their religion with logical and philosophical arguments that were so clear as to compel them to abandon their faith for his. His first task was to counter their great scholar, Averroes, and his first step was showing that theology and philosophy could be reconciled.

The Arab world had found comfort in separating the two, explaining that what was true in philosophy could be false in theology. Averroes himself had relied on this distinction to avoid persecution for his heretical idea about the non-existence of a unique soul that survives death. Llull decided to prove the Arab world wrong by reconciling philosophy and theology, raising the Christian West to an intellectually superior status that the East would have to fall in line with. He allied the natural and there supernatural, arguing that divine truths needed to be approached with reason guided by faith. Likewise, faith needs reason, lest it be misguided by personal desires or emotions. Llull had created a machine, the Ars Magna ["Great Art"], which would affirm the truth of propositions by lining up geometrically shaped pieces when levers and cranks were used. The machine was a three-dimensional representation of his "Llullian Circle" that could demonstrate all the possible truths of his system.

Llull's followers called themselves Llullists and spread the glory of his writings.* He met John Duns Scotus in 1297, who gave him his nickname of "Doctor Illuminatus" for the illumination he brought to the faith. His followers gained such influence in Spain that they were able to endow chairs at the Universities of Barcelona and Valencia.

Lullian Circle [source]
We know that he was stoned to death by the Muslim inhabitants of the town of Bougie on a mission to North Africa. Documents by Ramon Llull exist that can be dated to December 1315, but he was probably dead shortly after.

Despite his fame and religious zeal during his lifetime, and his martyrdom, he has never been considered for canonization by the Roman Catholic Church. The Church realized that his ideas were too radical. Sixty years after Llull's death, Pope Gregory XI (1327 - 1378) condemned his work, as did Pope Paul IV (1476 - 1559) a century after Gregory. Linking the natural and supernatural together was not going to work for the Church as a whole, despite the efforts of the "Illuminated Doctor." There were too many things that relied on faith for the Church to insist that, without reason, they would not pertain.

Centuries after Llull's death, some of his other writings were discovered that made his name prominent in the field of "election theory," but we'll save that for another time.

*He is considered to be the first major writer in the Catalan language.