§ 9. FINANCIAL POLICY OF THE AVIGNON POPES. 87
whose clamor filled the papal offices clay and night. These retainers were not satisfied with bread. Every superior office in Christendom had its value in terms of gold and silver. When it was tilled by papal appointment, a befitting fee was the proper recognition. If a favor was granted to a prince in the appointment of a favorite, the papal court was pretty sure to seize some new privilege as a compensation for itself. Precedent was easily made a permanent rule. Wliere the pope once invaded the rights of a chapter, he did not relinquish his hold, and an admission fee once fixed was not renounced. We may not be surprised at the rapacity which was developed at the papal court. That was to be expected. It grew out of the false papal theory and the abiding qualities of human nature. ^ The details governing the administration of the papal finances John set forth in two bulls of 1316 and 1B31. His scheme fixed the financial policy of the papacy and sacred college. 2 The_sources from which.the papacy drew_lts revQ.nues in the fourteenth century;^ were : (1) freewill offerin^gs, so called, given for ecclesiastical appointnients and other papal favors, called visitations^ annaies^_sg?^^^^ / and (2) tributes from feudal states such as Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, and England, and the revenues from the papal state in Italy. ^ The moneys so received were apportioned between four parties, the pope, the college of cardinals, and their two households. Under John XXII. the freewill offerings, so called, came to be regarded as obligatory fees. Every papal gift had its compensation. There was a list of prices, and it remained in force till changed on the basis of new estimates of the incomes of benefices. To answer objections, John XXII., in his bull of 1331, insisted that the prices set upon such favors were not a charge for the grace imparted, but a charge for the labor required for writing the pertinent documents.^ But the declaration did
^ Kirsch : Kollektorien, p. xii sq. and other Catholic writers make some defence of John's financial measures on the ground that the sources of income from the State of the Church dried up when the papacy was transferred to Avignon.
2 For the details, see Tangl, p. 20 sqq. » gee vol. V. 1, p. 787 sqq.
* Non habita consideratione ad valorem beneflcii, de quo fiet gratia sed ad laborem scripturoi dximtaxat. See Tangl, p. 21.
88 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
not remove tlie ill odor of the practice. The taxes levied were out of all proportion to the actual cost of the written documents, and the privileges were not to be had without money.
These payments were regularly recorded in registers or ledgers kept by the papal secretaries of the camera. The details of the papal exchequer, extant in the Archives of the Vatican, have only recently been subjected to careful investigation through the liberal policy of Leo XIII., and have made possible a new chapter in works setting forth the history of the Church in this fourteenth century. ^
These studies confirm the impression left by the chroniclers and tract- writers of the fourteenth century. The money dealings of the papal court were on a vast scale, and the transactions were according to strict rules of merchandise. ^ Avignoju \yas affl:eat money centre. Spiritual privileges were vouched for by carefully worded and signed contracts and receipts. The paj)al commercial agents went to all parts of Europe.
Archbishop, bishop, and abbot paid for the letters confirming their titles to their dignities. The appointees to lower clerical offices did the same. There were fees for all sorts of concessions, dispensations and indulgences, granted to layman and to priest. The priest born out of wedlock, the priest seeking to be absent from his living, the priest about to be
1 Woker took up the study in 1878, and has been followed by a number of scholars such as Tanj^l, Gottlob, Goeller, Ilaller, Bauuigarten, Schulte, and especially Dr. Kirsch, professor of church history in the Catholic University of Freiburg, Switzerland. See, for a full description, Bauuigarten, pp. vxxiii. The subject involves a vast array of figures and commercial briefs of all kinds, and includes the organization of the camera, the system of collection, the graduated scales of prices, the transmission of moneys to Avignon, the division of the receipts between the pope and the cardinals, the values of the immerous coins, etc. Garampi, a keeper of the Vatican Archives, in the eighteenth century arranged these registers according to countries. See Kirsch, Kollektorien,\\>. vii, and lUlckkehr, p. xli-1 ; Tangl, vi sqq. ; Baumgarten, viii, x sqq.
2 Kirsch : Kollektorien, p. vii, note, gives four different headings under which the moneys were recorded, namely : (1) census and visitations ; (2) bulls; (.3) servitia communia ; (4) sundry sources. He also gives the entries under which disbursements were entered, such a.s the kitchen, books and parchments, palfreys, journeys, wars, etc.