§ 6. THE TRANSFER OF THE PAPACY TO AVIGNON. 57
France, and debased the coin of his realm. A loan of 500,000 pounds which he had secured for a sister's dowry had involved him in great financial straits. He ajjpropriated all the possessions of the Templars he could lay his hands up^n. Cleigent V.'s subserviency it is easy to explain.. He was a creaturg of the king. When the pope hesitated to proceed against the unfortunate order, the king beset him with the case of Boniface Vin. To save the memory of his predecessor, the pope surrendered the lives of the knights. ^ Dante, in representing the Templars as victims of the king's avarice, compares Philip to Pontius Pilate.
" I see the modern Pilate, whom avails No cruelty to sate and who, unbidden, Into the Temple sets his greedy sails."
Purgatory, xx. 91.
The house of the Templars in Paris was turned into a royal residence, from which Louis XVI., more thau four centuyies later, went forth to the scaffold.
The Council of Vienne, the fifteenth in the list of the oecumenical councils, met Oct. 16, 1311, and after holding three sessions adjourned six months later, May 6, 1312. Clement opened it with an address on Psalm 111 : 1, 2, and designated three subjects for its consideration, the case of the order of the Templars, the relief of the Holy Land and Church reform. The documents bearing on the council are def ective.^ In addition
cence to be " without question the right one," p. 1341. Dollinger, with great emphasis, insists that nowhere did a Templar make a confession of guilt except under torture, p. 257. More recently, 1907, Finke (I. p. ix. 326 sq. 337) insists upon their innocence and the untrustworthiness of the confessions made by the Templars. He declares that he who advocates their guilt must accept the appearances of the devil as a tom-cat. Prutz, in his earlier works, decided for their guilt. Schottmiiller, Dollinger, Funk, and our own Dr. Lea strongly favor their innocence. Ranke : Univ. Hist., VIII. 622, wavers and ascribes to them the doctrinal standpoint of Frederick II. and Manfred. In France, Michelet was against the order ; Michaud, Guizot, Renan and Boutaric for it. Hallam : Middle Ages, I. 142-146, is undecided.
1 See Dollinger, p. 255, and Gregorovius. Lea gives as excuse for the length at which he treats the trial and fate of the unfortunate knights, their helplessness before the Inquisition.
2 Ehrle, Archiv fur Lit. und Kirchengesch. IV. 361-470, published a fragmentary report which he discovered in the National Library in Paris. For the best account of the proceedings, see Hefele-Knbpfler, VI. 514-554.
68 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
to the decisions concerning the Templars and Boniface VIII., it condemned the Beguines and Beghards and listened to charges made against the Franciscan, Peter John Olivi (d. 1298). Olivi belonged to the Spiritual wing of the order. His books had been ordered burnt, 1274, by one Franciscan general, and a second general of the order, Bonagratia, 1279, had appointed a commission which found thirty-four dangerous articles in his writings. The council, without pronouncing against Olivi, condemned three articles ascribed to him bearing on the relation of the two parties in the Franciscan order, the Spirituals and Conventuals.
The council has a place in the history of biblical scholarship and university education by its act ordering two chairs each, of Hebrew, Arabic, and Chaldee established in Paris, Oxford, Bologna, and Salamanqa.
While the proceedings against Boniface and the Templars were dragging on in their slow course in France, Clement was trying to make good his authority in Italy. Against Venice he hurled the most violent anathemas and interdicts for venturing to lay hands on Ferrara, whose territory was claimed by the Apostolic See. A crusade was preached against the sacrilegious city. She was defeated in battle, and Ferrara was committed to the administration of Robert, king of Naples, as the pope's vicar.
_A11 that he could well do, Clement did to strengthen the hold of France on the papaG^^ The first year of his pontificate he appointed 9 French cardinals, and of the 21 persons whom he honored with the purple, 23 were Frenchmen. He granted to the insatiable Philip a Church tithe for five years. Next to the fultilment of his obligations to this monarch, Clement made it his chief business to levy tributes upon ecclesiastics of all grades and upon vacant Church livings.^ He was prodigal with offices to his relative^.. This was a leading feature of his pontificate. Five of his kin were made cardinals, three being still in their youth. His brother he made rector of Rome, and other members of his family received Ancona, Ferrara, the duchy of Spoleto, and the duchy of Venaissin, and
1 Haller, p. 45 sqq.