§ 9. FINANCIAL POLICY OF THE AVIGNON POPES. 93
and livings, went entirely into the papal treasury, and seem to have been uniformly one-half of the first year's income. ^ They were designated as livings " becoming vacant in curia," which was another way of saying, places which had been reserved by the pope. The popes from time to time extended this tax through the use of the right of reservation to all livings becoming vacant in a given district during a certain period. In addition to the annate tax, the papal treasury also drew an income during the period of their vacancy from the livings reserved for papal appointment and during the period when an incumbent held the living without canonical right. These were called the "intermediate fruits" — mediifructus.^
Special indulgences were an uncertain but no less important source of revenue. The prices were graded according to the ability of the parties to pay and the supposed inherent value of the papal concession. Queen Johanna of Sicily paid 500 grossi Tournois, or about 1150, for the privilege of taking the oath to the archbishop of Naples, who acted as the pope's representative. The bull readmitting to the sacraments of the Clmrch Margaret of Maultasch and her husband, Lewis of Brandenburg, the son of Lewis the Bavarian, cost the princess 2000 grossi Tournois. The king of Cyprus was poor, and secured for his subjects indulgence to trade with the Egyptians for the modest sum of 100 pounds Tournois, but had to pay 50 pounds additional for a ship sent with cargo to Egypt. ^ There was a graduated scale for papal letters giving persons liberty to choose their confessor without regard to the parish priests.
1 John XXII., 1316, Benedict XIL, 1335, Clement VI., 1342, and Boniface IX., 1392, issued bulls requiring such appointees to pay one-half the first year's income into the papal treasury. See, on this subject, Kirsch, Kollektorien, p. XXV sqq. He mentions the papal collector, Gerardus, who gives a continuous list for the years 1343-1360, of such payments of annates, fructus heneficiorum vacantium ad Cameram Apostolicam pertinentes. The annates, or aniialia, were originally given to the bishops when livings became vacant, but were gradually reserved for the papal treasury. See Friedberg, Kirchliche Abgaben, in Herzog, 1. 95.
2 Kirsch : Kollektorien, p. xxvi. Benedict, 1336, appropriated these payments to the papal treasury.
3 Tangl, pp. 31, 32, 37.
94 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
To these sources of income were added the taxes for the relief of the Holy Land — pro subsidio terrce sanctoe. The Council of Vienne ordered a tenth for six years for this purpose. John XXII., 1333, repeated the substance of Clement's bull. The expense of clearing Italy of hostile elements and reclaiming papal territory as a preliminary to tlie pope's return to Rome was also made the pretext for levying special taxes. For this object Innocent VI. levied a three-years' tax of a tenth upon the Church in Germany, and in 1366 Urban V. levied another tentli upon all the churches of Christendom. i
It would be a mistake to suppose that the Church always responded to these appeals, or that the collectors had easy work in making collections. The complaints, which we found so numerous in England in the thirteenth century, we meet with everywhere during the fourteenth century. The resistance was determined, and the taxes were often left unpaid for years or not paid at all.
The revenues derrvedfromfeudal states and princes, called _cg2mMa_were di3iided^equally__between the cardinals and^he pope's private treasi^ry. Gregory X., in 1272, was the first to make such a division of the tribute from Sicil}-, which amounted to 8000 ounces of gold, or about 890,000. ^ In the pontificate of John XXII. there is frequent mention of the amounts contributed by Sicily and their equal partition. The sums varied from year to year, and in 1304 it was 3000 ounces of gold. The tribute of Sardinia and Corsica was fixed in 1297 at the annual sum of 2000 marks, and was divided between the two treasuries.^ The papal state and Ferrara yielded uncertain sums, and the tribute of 1000 marks, pledged by John of England, was paid irregularly, and finally abrogated altogether. Peter's pence, which belongs in this category, was an irregular source of papal income.*
1 Kirsch : Kollrktorien, pp. xx, xxi.
2 Kirsch : Finanzverwaltung, p. 3 ; Bxlckkehr, p. xv. The payment to Urban V. in 1307 and its division into equal shares is a matter of record. In a ledger account begun in 1317, and now in the Vatican, an ounce of gold was estimated at 5 florins, a pound of gold at 96 florins. See Kirsch, Finanzverwaltung, p. 71 ; Baumgarten, p. ccxi.
3 Baumgarten, p. cxlii sq. * Baumgarten, CXXVI. sqq.