projects of Charles of Anjou, and liberated the papacy in its
own despite from a subjection that perverted and shook its
power. Honorius IV. (1285–1287) and Nicholas IV. (1288–1292)
were able to act with greater dignity and independence than
their predecessors. Though remaining leagued with the
Angevins in southern Italy, they dared to look to Germany
and Rudolph of Habsburg to help them in their efforts to add
to the papal dominion a part of northern Italy and, in particular,
Tuscany. But they still continued to desire the restoration of
the Angevin dynasty in Sicily and to assist the designs of France
on Aragon by preaching a crusade against the masters of
Barcelona and Palermo. The hopes of the Curia were frustrated
by the resistance of the Aragonese and Sicilians, and Charles of
Valois, to whom the Curia eventually destined the crown of
Aragon, had to resign it for that of Constantinople, which he
also failed to secure.
Boniface VIII. himself at the beginning of his pontificate yielded to the current, and, like his predecessors, adapted his external policy to the pretensions and interests of the great Capetian house, which, like all his predecessors, he at first countenanced. In spite of his Boniface VIII. 1294–1303. instincts for dominion and the ardour of his temperament, he made no attempt to shake off the French yoke, and did not decide on hostilities with France until Philip the Fair and his legists attempted to change the character of the kingship, emphasized its lay tendencies, and exerted themselves to gratify the desire for political and financial independence which was shared by the French nation and many other European peoples. The war which ensued between the pope and the king of France ended in the complete defeat of the papacy, which was reduced to impotence (1303), and though the storm ceased during the 9 months’ pontificate of Benedict XI., the See of St Peter recovered neither its normal equilibrium nor its traditional character. The accession of the first Avignon pope, Clement V., marks the final subjection of the papal power to the Capetian government, the inevitable result of the European situation created in the preceding century.
In other respects the papacy of this period found itself in a very inferior situation to that which it had occupied under Innocent III. and the popes of the first half of the 13th century. The fall of the Latin Empire and the retaking of Constantinople by the Palaeologi freed a great part of the Eastern world from the political and religious direction of Rome, and this fact necessarily engaged the diplomacy of Urban IV. and his successors in an entirely different direction. To them the Eastern problem presented a less complex aspect. There could no longer be any serious question of a collective expedition of Europe lot the recovery of the Holy Places. The ingenuous faith of a Louis IX. was alone capable of giving rise to two crusades organized privately and without the influence or even the approval of the pope. Although all these popes, and Gregory X. especially, never ceased theoretically to urge the Christian world to the crusade, they were actuated by the desire of remaining faithful to tradition, and more particularly by the political and financial advantages accruing to the Holy See from the preaching and the crusading expeditions. The European state of mind no longer lent itself to such enterprises, and, moreover, under such brief pontificates, the attenuated Roman power could not expect to succeed where Innocent III. himself had failed. The main preoccupation of all these popes was how best to repair the injury done to orthodox Europe and to Rome by the destruction of the Latin Empire. Several of them thought of restoring the lost empire by force, and thus giving a pendant to the fourth crusade; but the Curia finally realized the enormous difficulties of such a project, and convinced themselves that the only practical solution of the difficulty was to come to an understanding with the Palaeologi and realize pacifically the long-dreamed union of the Greek and Latin Churches. The negotiations begun by Urban IV. and continued more or less actively by his successors were at last concluded in 1274 by Gregory X. The Council of Lyons proclaimed the union, which was destined to be effective for a few years at least and to be prolonged precariously in the midst of unfavourable circumstances. The Greek mind was opposed to the union; the acquiescence of the Byzantine emperors was but an ephemeral expedient of their foreign policy; and the peace between the Latins and Greeks settled on Byzantine soil could not endure for long. The principal obstacle, however, was the incompatibility of the popes' Byzantine and Italian policies. The popes were in favour of Charles of Anjou and his dynasty, but Charles was hostile to the union of the two Churches, since it was his intention to seize the Byzantine Empire and substitute himself for the Palaeologi. Almost all the successors of Urban IV. were compelled to exert their diplomacy against the aggrandizing aims of the man they had themselves installed in southern Italy, and to protect the Greek emperor, with whom they were negotiating the religious question. On several occasions between the years 1271 and 1273 the Angevins of Naples, who had great influence in Achaea and Albania and were solidly supported by their allies in the Balkan Peninsula, nearly carried out their project; and in 1274 the opposition of Charles of Anjou came near to compromising the operations of the council of Lyons and ruining the work of Gregory X. The papacy, however, held its ground, and Nicholas III., the worthy continue of Gregory, succeeded in preserving the union and triumphing over the Angevin power. The Angevins took their revenge under Martin IV., who was a stanch supporter of the French. Three weeks after his coronation Martin excommunicated the Greek emperor and all his subjects, and allied himself with Charles of Anjou and the Venetians to compass his downfall. In this case, too, the Sicilian Vespers was the rock on which the hopes and pretensions of the sovereign of Naples suffered shipwreck. After Martin's death the last popes of the 13th century, and notably Boniface VIII., in vain thought to find in another Capetian, Charles of Valois, the man who was to re-establish the Latin dominion at Byzantium. But the East was lost; the union of 1274 was quickly dissolved; and the reconciliation of the two Churches again entered into the category of chimeras.
During this period the papal institution, considered in its internal development, already showed symptoms of decadence. The diminution of religious faith and sacerdotal prestige shook it to its very foundations. The growth of the lay spirit continued to manifest itself among the burgesses of the towns as well as among the feudal princes and sovereigns. The social factors of communism and nationalism, against which Innocent III. and his successors had struggled, became more powerful and more hostile to theocratic domination. That a sovereign like St Louis should be able to associate himself officially with the feudalism of his realm to repress abuses of church jurisdiction; that a contemporary of Philip the Fair, the lawyer Pierre Dubois, should dare to suggest the secularization of ecclesiastical property and the conversion of the clergy into a class of functionaries paid out of the royal treasury; and that Philip the Fair, the adversary of Boniface VIII., should be able to rely in his conflict with the leader of the Church on the popular consent obtained at a meeting of the Three Estates of France—all point to a singular demoralization of the sentiments and principles on which were based the whole power of the pontiff of Rome and the entire organization of medieval Catholicism. Both by its attitude and by its governmental acts, the papacy of the later 13th century itself contributed to increase the discredit and disaffection from which it suffered. Under Urban IV. and his successors the great moral and religious sovereignty of former times became a purely bureaucratic monarchy, in which the main preoccupation of the governors appeared to be the financial exploitation of Christendom. In the registers of these popes, which are now being actively investigated and published, dispensations (licences to violate the laws of the Church); indulgences; imposts levied with increasing regularity on universal Christendom and, in particular, on the clerks; the
