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102 III. THE ROMANIZED CHURCH (A.D. 11301389).
6. CLAIM TO TEMPORAL SOVEREIGNTY. THE AVIGNON
POPES AND THEIR AVARICE AND SIMONY. THE
GREAT SCHISM. FAILURE OF REFORMING
COUNCILS.
Inasmuch as kings and princes were, for the good of
their souls, subjects of the pope, like other men, and could
be punished for their sins and crimes by him, or receive
pardon and abolition from him, and since they depended
on him for dispensations and were glad to have his as
sistance in their quarrels with their rivals and subjects, the
papacy gradually acquired a large and indefinite power
of interference in secular matters and concerns of State.
A rebellious or immoral king, who might be called a perse
cutor of the Church, could perhaps only be punished by
putting his kingdom under an interdict (since personal
excommunication was little felt), or by favouring some
rival to the throne. From this habit of interference,
which, of course, was welcomed by those in whose interest
it was applied, grew up a monstrous claim to exercise uni
versal temporal sovereignty, which culminated in the
bull Unam Sanctam of Boniface VIII. in 1302. Up to
this point the papal claims had been tolerated with an ex
traordinary amount of patience, because they seemed to
be the expression, however one-sided and defective, of
religious principle; but the fourteenth and fifteenth cen
tury popes destroyed the fabric which had been built up
with so much skill and zeal. The fourteenth century saw
the papacy reduced to a kind of vassalage under the kings
of France, and yet claiming more than ever the right to
interfere in other lands. It saw the Limousin popes re
sorting to all sorts of oppressive expedients to maintain
their revenues and to supply their luxuries ; simony,
rapacity and political intrigues, characterize this period.
After the seventy years at Avignon (1309 1379), the
papacy only returned to Rome to suffer from the effects of
the great schism between Urban VI. and Clement VII.
The question which was the rightful pope divided Europe
into two camps. If Urban was not pope he was merely
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