The Battle for Christendom: The Council of Constance, the East-West Conflict, and the Dawn of Modern Europe
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The Battle for Christendom: The Council of Constance, the East-West Conflict, and the Dawn of Modern Europe
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Overview
At the dawn of the fifteenth century, the Ottoman Empire posed an existential threat to Christian Europe. Meanwhile, the Catholic Church was in chaos, with three Popes claiming the Chair of Saint Peter and dangerous stirrings of reform. In an attempt to save the Christian world, Emperor Sigismund of the Holy Roman Empire called the nations of Europe together for a conference at Constance, beside the Rhine.
In The Battle for Christendom, historian Frank Welsh demonstrates that the 1414 Council of Constance was one of the most pivotal events in European history. The last event of the medieval world, the months of fierce debate and political maneuvering heralded the dawn of the Renaissance and the rise of humanism. Yet it would also bring about darker events, as the first moments of the Protestant Reformation began with the burning of the Czech divine, Jan Hus.
The story rises to a climax on the battlements of Constantinople in 1453 where, despite all of Sigismund’s attempts to repel the Ottomans, the East rose up once more. In Welsh’s lively retelling, The Battle for Christendom is an enthralling history that holds lessons for our own times of international turmoil.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781468315257 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | ABRAMS, Inc. |
| Publication date: | 05/15/2019 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 320 |
| Sales rank: | 417,345 |
| File size: | 5 MB |
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Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
THE FRENCH POPES
Kidnapping a Pope
The slide towards Christian anarchy in the fourteenth century began in France. Traditionally the kingdom of France had been the staunchest ally of the papacy, the 'Eldest Daughter of the Church'. St Louis had allowed the Inquisition established by Pope Gregory IX full authority to stamp out heresy, which it did with enthusiasm – 183 sinners burned in a single holocaust – and the King himself perished on his final Crusade. In 1265 the French Pope Clement IV invested King Louis's brother, Charles of Anjou, with all the privileges of a crusader in order to eject the ruling Hohenstaufen dynasty from the twin kingdoms of Sicily and Naples. After the Sicilians revolted against the occupying French, in the famous 'Sicilian Vespers' of 1282, in which five thousand French were massacred, Pope Martin IV (1281–85) and his successor Honorius IV (1285–87) continued to support France in the war with the Sicilians and their supporters, the royal family of Aragon. This cordial relationship was abruptly broken with the election in December 1294 of Benedict Caetani, and his coronation as Pope Boniface VIII in January 1295.
Philip IV of France, commonly known as Philip le Bel (the Fair) who succeeded to the throne in September 1285, became the most powerful monarch of his time, and intended to make France the dominant European power. For the next hundred and fifty years the insatiable ambitions of different branches of the French royal family stretched over most of Europe. King Philip already had relations ruling in Naples and from 1310 in Hungary; France's eastern frontier was expanding at the expense of the German Empire, as Valenciennes, Toul and lands west of the Meuse were appropriated. Philip ruthlessly centralized the previously incoherent French administration under his own authority, in many ways anticipating the methods of the early Tudor kings, passing over the claims of the great nobles and choosing as his ministers able young men of humble background; the careers of Pierre Flote and Guillaume de Nogaret foreshadowed those of Thomas Lovell and Thomas Wolsey; and like his descendant, Henry VIII, the French king clashed victoriously with the Pope.
For some years prelates had been warily avoiding the throne of St Peter. Rome was a dangerous and turbulent place, torn apart by mob violence and feuding between the numerous noble families, each entrenched in its own fortified town house; nor did Rome, shrunk to a fraction of its former greatness, resemble in any way the magnificent Renaissance city it later became. Pilgrims did not flock to the Eternal City hoping for a sight of the Holy Father; most popes avoided the place, preferring a refuge in the hills nearby, at Frascati, Tivoli, Rieti, Viterbo or Anagni – anywhere but Rome.
It was not surprising therefore that few cardinals wanted the post; between 1285 and 1294 there were two periods, totalling three years, when the Church was without a head. In desperation the cardinals decided on Piero di Morrone, a saintly figure who had founded a religious order, the Celestines, and who lived in seclusion in the lonely Abruzzi mountains. Making the elementary mistake of chiding the cardinals for their two-year delay in choosing a pope, Piero was immediately given the task himself and dragged from his refuge to be consecrated as Celestine V in August 1294. Hating the responsibility, 'miserably unhappy and in indescribable perplexity' and encouraged by the ruthless Cardinal Benedict Caetani, he resigned after five months. Caetani neatly stepped into the vacancy, and had Piero confined in the isolated prison of Alatri, where he soon, and conveniently, died. Anguished Celestines produced a large nail which they claim had been driven through Piero's head.
The new Pope Boniface had one pressing reason to accept the election: an obsession to make his family as wealthy and powerful as possible. Since he was over seventy, time was short. He proceeded to do so energetically and unscrupulously. The Caetani were no more than respectable gentry, but Benedict speedily created one nephew a cardinal, and the other, Peter Count of Caserta, Lateran Count-Palatine, Lord of Sermoneta, Norma and Ninfa – the last purchased for the enormous sum of 200,000 gold florins. The Pope assumed a hitherto unknown splendour, entering Rome on a white horse, flanked by Charles of Naples and his son Charles Martel, scornfully rejecting the German king's envoys, shouting 'Ego sum Imperator'.
Such presumption bitterly offended the ancient Roman families, especially the Colonna dynasty, princes of the old Roman nobility and owners of immense estates. The two current Colonna cardinals raised doubts about the legitimacy of Boniface's election, and claimed that the Pope had ordered his unhappy predecessor put permanently out of contention. Furious at this affront, Boniface formally authorized a Crusade against the family, declared the cardinals to be heretics, and devastated the Colonna lands; the ancient city of Palestrina was razed to the ground, and its treasures of antiquity destroyed. The Pope had made his point, but assured himself of some implacable Italian enemies.
One of these, Sciarra Colonna, made his way to the French court and offered his services in any action taken against the Pope, an offer readily accepted by King Philip. What followed was a perfect piece of realpolitik, which could serve as a model for any modern espionage and destabilization agency. In February 1303 King Philip le Bel summoned his councillor Guillaume de Nogaret to a secret meeting in his palace of the Louvre, and entrusted him with the execution of an audacious conspiracy. Nogaret was to kidnap the Pope, and bring the Holy Father back from Italy as a French captive. It was an unprecedented and outrageous plot, one which was to change the destiny of Europe for more than a century.
King Philip's objectives were at least twofold: in the short term he intended to humiliate the Pope and destroy papal pretensions, and to make a large profit for both the King and the Italian nobles. Having a saint on the throne of France had sadly damaged the French exchequer, for Louis's crusades had proved completely unprofitable. Philip's announced intention was to capture the Pope and transport him to the French city of Lyon, where he would be tried for every conceivable offence. On being found guilty he would doubtless have been imprisoned, his family dispossessed and the papal treasury emptied. A more sympathetic and less obdurate Pope could then be found who would be a reliable ally and a friend to French ambitions.
It was a treasury well worth the looting, in spite of Boniface's lavish expenditure, since the Pope had been as talented in raising money as he had been generous in spending it. Younger than King or Pope, the poet Dante Alighieri (born 1265), the unquestionable great literary figure of the High Middle Ages, was an accurate and merciless commentator on contemporary events and personalities. His master work, the Divina Commedia, begins in Rome, at Easter 1300, the year Pope Boniface had proclaimed as a great Jubilee, when perhaps two million pilgrims flocked to the Eternal City, promised absolution for all their sins after a visit of fifteen days (Italians, presumably more in need of forgiveness, were obliged to stay for twice the period). The crowds were so great that traffic making its way between the two great basilicas of St Peter and St Paul had to be regulated in two directions over the bridge of St Angelo. Not only were their donations generous – two priests were stationed day and night, with rakes in their hands, literally raking in (tenentes in eorum manibus rastellos rastellantes) the coins offered before the altar of St Paul – but the citizens of Rome did very well out of catering for such enormous numbers, and the papal treasury was filled.
For normal administrative expenses, however, the papacy needed a constant and reliable source of funds, especially from the two states which possessed the most advanced tax-gathering facilities: France and England. Both of these countries, however, had pressing demands of their own; neither King was willing to submit to demands from Rome, and both threatened to cut off financial supplies. Indignant retaliation followed in a paper war of papal bulls and royal proclamations, but negotiations continued; popes and kings needed each other too much to allow too open a break and compromises were reached by both France and England in 1297. The English agreement, which was to share the papal income from the English Church with the monarchy – heavily weighted in the King's favour – lasted well enough. King Philip's needs were much more urgent.
Carrying the conflict forward by diplomatic means, the Pope supported Philip's enemies, the most prominent of whom were the townsmen of Flanders, annexed by Philip in 1300. Like the Sicilians, furious at a French occupation, in May 1302, the weavers of Bruges rebelled and slaughtered all the French-speakers they could find. A punitive French army was met in July by Flemish citizens armed only with pikes and bills, and comprehensively defeated at the battle of Courtrai, with hundreds of knights killed, among them the King's chief minister, Pierre Flote. Whether Boniface's agents played any part in the rebellion was uncertain, but its effect was to tempt Philip into drastic action against the Pope.
In February 1302 a papal Bull claiming extensive privileges had been burned in front of Notre Dame de Paris and the Pope's ambassador expelled. When, in November, Boniface retaliated, he overplayed his hand. The Pope's Bull, Unam Sanctam, 'declared, said, defined and pronounced' that 'submission of the part of every man to the Bishop of Rome is altogether necessary to his salvation'. Although not entirely unprecedented, Boniface's claim to absolute power was the most uncompromisingly extravagant ever made, and one addressed to a man certain to react violently. Shrugging off threats of excommunication, King Philip responded by first preparing French public opinion. An armed attack on the Vicar of Christ would, it was thought, arouse shocked horror in most of Europe, and it was essential to ensure that his own subjects at least would support the King. On 12 March what has been called the first genuine French Parliament, attended by royal officials and bishops, combined to insist that a General Council of the whole Church must be held to judge the Pope who, if found guilty of the charges of heresy, tyranny and intercourse with the devil laid against him, should be deposed. Few dissident voices were raised, and de Nogaret began to implement his plans.
Striking a thousand miles from Paris to Rome, with a force strong enough to subdue any papal resistance, entailed complex logistics. Nogaret was given a considerable sum in gold, and unlimited funds were made available through the King's bankers in Florence, the Peruzzi family. Nogaret himself journeyed secretly, accompanied only by a few attendants and Musciatto Franzesi, the lord of Staggia, near Siena. Making this his headquarters, Nogaret began to muster his troops, with the help of the Peruzzis' cash. Giovanni Villani, the contemporary Florentine chronicler, protested that the Peruzzi themselves had no idea of what the royal French deposits were to be used for, but de Nogaret hardly kept his intentions secret – and Villani was himself a partner in the bank, which makes his testimony highly suspect. Nor was proper documentation missing; one receipt survives of 10,000 gold florins paid to Raynald of Supino for his 'help in the attempt to capture Boniface'.
Even with the support of the disaffected Roman landowners, and of some discontented cardinals, the conspirators faced a formidable task. Boniface had installed himself at Anagni, some thirty miles east of Rome, a papal residence and a Caetani stronghold. Sciarra had raised an army of three hundred cavalry, reinforced by infantry from the barons of the Campagna. This considerable force – its movements could hardly have been hidden from the population – had to make its way across the Italian countryside, over a hundred and fifty miles to Anagni. The timing of the strike may have been induced by the news that Pope Boniface was preparing another belligerent pronouncement releasing all Philip's subjects from their allegiance (foreshadowing Pius V's 1570 Bull encouraging English Catholics to kill the Queen). The invasion was not opposed, and at dawn on 7 September 1303, the army, with Nogaret and Colonna at its head, flying the ensigns and standards of the King of France, crying 'Death to Pope Boniface', charged into the town. The invaders were followed by many of the cheering citizens, and welcomed by the captain of the papal guard. Only members of his own family, who had much to lose, rallied to the Pope's defence. The coup quickly succeeded, although Boniface, never lacking courage, faced down his aggressors, putting on his papal regalia and exchanging abuse with Nogaret, but was placed in confinement.
Making off with the Pope was, however, a good deal more difficult than kidnapping him. Nogaret's plans must have provided for an escape route, presumably a French ship on the coast ready to take the Pope to Aigues Mortes, the new military port constructed by St Louis. Whether the ship was delayed, or for some other reason, the conspirators remained in Anagni for three days, long enough for pro-Boniface forces to rally. The people of Anagni turned against the invaders, allowing Boniface to return to Rome, growling imprecations against the French King, only to collapse and die a few weeks later. In spite of Nogaret's retreat it was a personal triumph for King Philip, and marked the beginning of the end of papal pretensions to assert unlimited authority over lay rulers.
It might be thought that so dramatic and sacrilegious an escapade would have provoked an outburst of indignation, but no official complaints – few reports even – were sent from Rome to the other European courts, and the incident was passed over in contemporary journals; Boniface had attracted few friends. Philip simply continued, unembarrassed, with his plans. Having failed to kidnap a pope, he ensured that a compliant successor was appointed. The cardinals quickly elected a respectable elderly Dominican friar as Benedict XI, who obligingly revoked his predecessor's condemnations of the French King; and Nogaret continued his brilliant career.
After Benedict's death in July 1304 it took nearly a year for the cardinals – meeting not in Rome but in Perugia where the Pope had died – to elect a Frenchman, Bertrand de Got, Archbishop of Bordeaux as Clement V. For the next seventy three years all popes were southern Frenchmen: Jacques D'Euse (John XXII 1316–34), Jacques Fournier (Benedict XII 1334–42); Pierre Roger (Clement VI 1342–52); Etienne Auber (Innocent VI 1352–62); Guillaume de Grimoard (Urban V 1362–70); Pierre Roger de Beaufort (Gregory XI 1370–78). All established their administrations at Avignon.
The first of the Avignon popes, Clement V, had divided loyalties. Although French by birth, he was Archbishop of an English see – Bordeaux, part of King Edward I's Duchy of Guienne – and reconciling the two countries became one of his priorities. He was elected only after a protracted, eleven-month division between the Italian, pro-Boniface cardinals and the French who supported King Philip. In addition to his distinguished reputation as a Church canon lawyer, he probably owed his election to his absence, and to his not being a cardinal, involved in the college's jealousies; when the news reached him, Archbishop Bertrand was on diocesan business in Poitou, a thousand miles from the conclave in Perugia.
King Philip seized this opportunity to develop a domesticated papacy, and persuaded the new Pope not to return immediately to Italy, but rather to be crowned in Lyon, on the borders of France, and in the presence of the King. For over a year after his inauguration on 14 November 1305 Pope Clement was too ill to take an active part in politics and it was not until May 1307 that Philip was able to arrange a meeting; but the fact that Clement had already created ten new cardinals, nine of whom were French (four in fact his own nephews), and went on to appoint another eighteen, only two not French, indicated that he would be open to royal persuasion, and Philip quickly provided the occasion.
Disappointed of a papal ransom, Philip had attempted a desperate series of cash-raising expedients. The currency was devalued, the Lombards and Jews fleeced and expelled, the currency devalued again; all provided only temporary relief, but the crusading Order of the Temple presented another source of funds. The Knights of the Temple of Solomon and their brothers in the Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem had both been founded in the early years of the twelfth century. Drawn mostly from the gentry, having taken monastic vows, both Military Orders protected pilgrims and fought against the Muslims, and both were pugnacious rivals. With the collapse of the Crusader states their brother Order, the Teutonic Knights, returned to their task of forcibly converting the pagan Lithuanians and Orthodox Russians; their rivals, the Hospitallers, found another mission in securing the greater Mediterranean islands, particularly Cyprus, Rhodes and Malta, but the Templars' original speciality, the provision of security for pilgrims' funds, which had then been put to use in the international banking system, was now redundant. Their surplus assets represented a convenient source of ready cash.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Battle for Christendom"
by .
Copyright © 2008 Frank Welsh.
Excerpted by permission of Abrams Books.
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Table of Contents
Dedication,
Copyright,
Foreword,
Acknowledgements,
Introduction,
Chapter I The French Popes,
Chapter II The Return to Rome,
Chapter III The Church Indivisible Divided,
Chapter IV Seeking Solutions,
Chapter V Emperor and Pope,
Chapter VI A Three-Pope Problem,
Chapter VII A Fresh Start,
Chapter VIII A Great Mistake,
Chapter IX The Last Act,
Epilogue,
Notes,
Bibliography,
Index,
Maps,
Europe in the 15th century,
Constance at the time of the council, 1415,
Hussite Prague,
Bohemia and Surrounding States,
About the Author,
Related Subjects
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