§ 5. LITERARY ATTACKS AGAINST THE PAPACY. 43
Dubois showed the freshness of his mind by suggestions of a practical nature. He proposed the colonization of the Holy Land by Christian people, and the marriage of Christian women to Saracens of station as a means of converting them. As a measure for securing the world's conversion, he recommended to Clement the establishment of schools for boys and girls in every province, where instruction should be given in different languages. The girls were to be taught Latin and the fundamentals of natural science, and especially medicine and surgery, that they might serve as female physicians among women in the more occult disorders.
A review of the controversial literature of the age of Philip the Fair shows the new paths along which men's thoughts were moving. ^ The_[)apal apologists insisted upon
tT!ifljt,i,OpRl int^TprPtaiinri.'i! of a limitpfl mnribpr _of textS, ^e perpetual validity o£CQJistaBtm&'^-xlQnatiQru--ajHL the transfer pf the empire. They were forever quoting Innocent's famous bull, Per venerahilem.^ On the other hand, John of Paris, and the publicists who sympathized with him, as also Dante, corrected and widened the vision of the field of Scripture, and brought into prominence the common rights of maii.. The resistance which the king of France offered to the demands of Boniface encouraged writers to speak without reserve.
The pope's spiritual primacy was left untouched. The attack was against his temporal jurisdiction. The fiction of the two swords was set aside. The state is as supreme in its sphere as the Church in its sphere, and derives its authority immediately from God. Constantine had no right to confer the sovereignty of the West upon Sylvester, and his gift constitutes no valid papal claim. Each monarch is supreme in his own realm, and the theory of the overlordship of the emperor is abandoned as a thing out of date.
The^ope^tenur^ of office was^made subject to limitation.
ing that the statements of married people in matters of doctrine are not to be believed, conjugato non est credendum super veritate divina.
1 See the summary of Scholz, pp. 444-458.
2 It is quoted again afld again by Henry of Cremona. See the text in Scholz, p. 464 sq., etc. For the text of the bull, see Mirbt : Qtiellen, pp. 127-130.
44 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
He^ may be deposed for heresy and iucorapeteacy- Some writers went so far as to deny to him jurisdiction over Church property. The advisory function of the cardinals was emphasized and the independentauthority of the bishops affirmed. Above all, the authority residing in the Church as a body of believers was discussed, and its voice, as uttered through^a general council, pronounced to be superior to the authority.of the pop.e. The utterances of John of Paris and Peter Dubois on the subject of general councils led straight on to the views propounded during the papal schism at the close of the fourteenth century. 1 Dubois demanded that laymen as well as clerics should have a voice in them. The rule of clerical celibacy was attacked, and attention called to its widespread violation in practice. Pope and clergy were invoked to devote themselves to the spiritual well-being of mankind, and to foster peaceable measures for the world's conversion.
This freedom of utterance and changed way of thinking mark the beginning of one of the great revolutions in the history of the Christian Church. To these publicists the modern world owes a debt of gratitude. Principles which are now regarded as axiomatic were new for the Christian public of their day. A generation later, Marsiglius of Padua defined them again with clearness, and took a step still further in advance.
§ 6. The Transfer of the Papacy to Avignon.
The successor of Boniface, Benedict XL, 1303-1304, a Dominican, was a mild-spirited and worthy man, more bent on healing ruptures than on forcing his arbitrary will. Departing from the policy of his predecessor, he capitulated to the state and put an end to the conflict with Philip the Fair. Sentences launched by Boniface were recalled or modified, and the interdict pronounced by that pope upon Lyons was revoked. Palestrina was restored to the Colonna. Only Sciarra Colonna and Nogaret were excepted from the act of immediate clemency and ordered to appear at Rome. Benedict's death, after a brief reign of eight mc^nths, was ascribed
1 Scholz, p. r,22 ; Schwab : Life of Gerson, ]). 138.