THE EMPIRE AND THE PAPACY. 155 upon himself the national spirit, aided therein by the arrogant dis- dain with which John XXII. and his successors received his re- peated offers of qualified submission. When, in 1330, Louis had temporarily secured the support of John of Luxemburg, King of Bohemia, and the Duke of Austria, and they offered themselves as sureties that he would fulfil what might be required of him, provided the independence of the empire was recognized, John re- torted that Louis was a heretic and thus incapacitated ; he was a thief and a robber, a wicked man who consorted with Michele, Ockham, Bonagrazia, and Marsiglio ; not only had he no title to the empire, but the state of Christendom would be inconceivably deplorable if he were recognized. After the death of John in De- cember, 1334, another attempt was made, but it suited the policy of France and of Bohemia to prolong the strife, and Benedict XII. was as firm as his predecessor. Louis was at all times ready to sacrifice his Franciscan allies, but the papacy demanded the right practically to dictate who should be emperor, and by a skilful use of appeals to the national pride Louis gradually won the support of an increasing number of states and cities. In 1338 the con- vention of Rhense and the Reichstag of Frankfort formally pro- claimed as a part of the law of the empire that the choice of the electors was final, and that the papacy had no confirmatory power. The interdict was ordered not to be observed, and in all the states adhering to Louis ecclesiastics were given the option of resuming public worship within eight days or of undergoing a ten years' exile. It was some relief to them in this dilemma that the Bo- man curia sold absolutions in such cases for a florin.* In the strife between Louis and the papacy the little colony of Franciscan refugees at Munich was of the utmost service to the imperial cause, but their time was drawing to an end. Michele da Cesena died November 29, 1342, his latest work being a long manifesto proving that John had died an unrepentant heretic, and that his successors in defending his errors were likewise heretics ; if but one man in Christendom holds the true faith, that man in
- Martene Thesaur. II. 800-6. — Raynald. ann. 1336, No. 31-5. — Vitoduran
Chron. (Eccard. Corp. Hist. I. 1842-5, 1910). — Preger, Der Kirchenpolitische Kampf, p. 33.— Hartzheim IV. 323-32.— H. Mutii Germ. Chron. ann. 1338 (Pis- torii Germ. Scriptt. II. 878-81).
