§ 10. THE LATER AVIGNON POPES. 97
of a fortress rather than a residence. Its walls and towers were built of colossal thickness and strength to resist attack. Its now desolated spaces are a speechless witness to perhaps the most singular of the episodes of papal history. The cardinals followed Benedict's example and built palaces in Avignon and its vicinity.
Clement VI., 13^:2-1352, wliohadbeen archbishop of Rouen, squajiicreFed"Ih^fortune amassed by John XXII. and prudently administered by Benedict. He forgot his Benedictine training and vows and was a fast liver, carrying into the papal oftice the tastes of the French nobility from which he sprang. Horses, a sumptuous table, and the company of women made the papal palace as gay as a royal court.^ Nor were his relatives allowed to go uncared for. Of the twenty-five cardinals' hats which he distributed, twelve went to them, one a brother and one a nephew. Clement enjoyed a reputation for eloquence and, like John XXII., preached after he became pope. Early in his pontificate the Romans sent a delegation, which included Petrarch, begging him to return to Rome. But Clement, a Frenchman to the core, preferred the atmosphere of France. Though he did not go to Rome, he was gracious enough to comply with the delegation's request and appoint a Jubilee for the deserted and impoverished city.
During^lement's rule* Rome lived out one of the picturesque episodes of its mediseval history, the meteoric career ojF the tribune Cola (Nicolas) di Rjenzo. .Of plebeian birtji, this visionary man was stirred with the ideals of Roman independence and glory by reading the ancient classics. His oratory flattered and moved the people, whose cause he espoused against the aristocratic families of the city. Sent to Avignon at the head of a commission, 1343, to confer the highest municipal authority upon the pope, he won Clement's attention by his frank manner and eloquent speech. Return-
1 Pastor, I. 76, says, " Luxury and fast living prevailed to the most flagrant degree under Clement's rule." For detailed description of Avignon and the papal palace, see A. Penjon, Avignon, la ville et le palais des papes, pp. 1.34, Avignon, 1878 ; F. Digonnet: Le palais des papes en Avignon, Avignon, 1907.
98 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
ing to Rome, he fascinated the people with visions of freedom and dominion. They invested him on the Capitol ^yith^t^Jle signiory of the city, 1311. Cola assumed the democratic title of tribune. Writing from Avignon, Petrarch greeted him as the man whom he had been looking for, and dedicated to him one of his finest odes. The tribune sought to extend his influence by enkindling the flame of patriotism throughout all Italy and to induce its cities to throw off the yoke of their tyrants. Success and glory turned his head. Intoxicated with applause, he had the audacity to cite Lewis the Bavarian arui CJiarles IV. before his tribunal, and headed his communications with the magnificent superscription, " In the first year of the Republic's freedom." His success lasted but seven months. The people had grown weary of their idol. He was laid by^Clenifint undex. th£_iiaJi_ajid fl^d, to appear again for a brief season under Innocent V.
Avignon was made papal property by Cle_inentv who_^ai4. Joanna of Naples 80,000 florins forit. Thelow price may have been in consideration of the pope's services in pronouncing the princess guiltless of the murder of her cousin and first husband, Andreas, a royal Hungarian prince, and sanctioning her second marriage with another cousin, the prince of Tarentum.
This pontiff witnessed the conclusionof the disturbed career oTXIems tlie' Ba^^ii^ai^^Jn 13-17. The emperor had sunk to the depths of self-abasement_when lie swon; to tlic 2S aiticles Clement laid before hira, Sept. 18, lo43, and wrote to the pope that, as a babe longs for its mother's breast, so his soul cried out for the grace of the pope and the Church. But, if possible, Clt'nicut intensified tlie curses placed upon him by his two predecessors. The bull, which he announced with his own lips, April 13, 1346, teems with rabid execrations. It called upon God to strike Lewis witli insanity, blindness, and madness. It invoked the thunderbolts of heaven and the flaming wrath of God and the Apostles Peter and Paul both in this world and the next. It called all the elements to rise in liostility against him ; upon the universe to fight against him, and the earth to open and swallow hira up alive. It blasphemously damned his house to desolation