§ 10. THE LATER AVIGNON POPES. 103
footsteps of Benedict XII., he rjeduced the ostentation of tlje Avignon court, dismissed idle bishops to their sees, and instituted the tribunal of the ^roiOi with^ 21 salaried auditors for the orderly adjudication of disputed cases coming before the papal tribunal. Before Innocent's election, the cardinals adopted a set of rules limiting the college to 20 members, and stipulating that no new members should be appointed, suspended, deposed, or excommunicated without the consent of two-thirds of their number, and that no papal relative should be assigned to a high place. Innocent no sooner became pontiff than he set it aside as not binding.
Soon after the beginning of his reign. Innocent released_Cpla diRienzo from confinement ^ and sent him and Cardinal vEgidius Alvarez of Albernoz to Rome in the hope of establishing ord^r. Cola was appointed senator, but only a few months afterwards was put to deatlt in a popular uprising, Oct. 8, 1354. He dreamed of a united Italy, 500 years before the union of its divided states was consummated, but his name remains a powerful impulse to popular freedom and national unity in the peninsula.
Tyrants and demagogues infested Italian municipalities and were sucking their life-blood. The State of the Church had been parcelled uj) into petty principalities ruled by rude nobles, such as the Polentas in Ravenna, the Malatestas in Rimini, the Montefeltros in Urbino. The pope was in danger of losing his territory in the peninsula altogether. Soldiers of fortune from different nations had settled upon it and spread terror as leaders of predatory bands. In no part was anarchy more wild than in Rome itself, and in the Campagna. Albernoz had fougiit-in the wars against the Mooi:^, and had administered the see of Toledo. He was a statesman as well as a soldier. He was fully equal to his difficult task aad restored the papal ^oyernnient.^
1 Cola had roamed about till he went to Prag, where Charles IV. seized him and sent him to Avignon in 1352. Petrarch, who corresponded with him, speaks of seeing him in Avignon, attended by two guards. See Robinson, Petrarch, pp. 341-343 sqq.
2 The full term of Albernoz' service in Italy extended from 1353-1368. By his code, called the iEgidian Constitutions, he became the legislator of the
104 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
In 1355, Albernoz, as administrator of Rome, placedjbhe crown of the empire on the head of Cluirles^IV. To such a degree had the imperial dignity been brought that Charles was denied permission by the pope to enter the city till the day appointed for his coronation. His arrival in Italy was welcomed by Petrarch as Henry VII. 's arrival had been welcomed by Dante. But the emperor disappointed every expectatian, and his return from Italy was an inglorious retreat. He placed his own dominion of Bohemia in his debt by becoming the founder of the University of Pri^g.i It was he also who, in 1356, issued the celebrated Golden Bull, which laid down the rules for the election of the oniperoj. They placed this transaction wholly in the hands of the electors, a majority of whom was sufficient for a choice. The pope is not mentioned in the document. Frankfurt was made the place of meeting. The electors designated were the archbishops of Mainz, Treves, and Cologne, the Count Palatine, the king of Bohemia, the margrave of Brandenburg, and the duke of Saxony .^
lMmn/V,j_l,362-13I0, at the time of his election abbot of the Benedictine convent of St. Victor in INIarseilles, developed merits which secured for him canonization by Pius IX., 18X0. He was the first of the Avignon popes to visit Rome. Petrarch, as he had written before to Benedict XII. and Clement VI., now, in his old age, wrote to the new pontiff rebuking the curia for its vices and calling upon him to be faithful to his part as Roman bishop. Why should Urban hide himself away in a corner of the earth ? Italy was fair, and Rome, hallowed by history and legend of empire and Church, was the theocratic capital of the world. Charles IV. visited Avignon and offered to escort the pontiff. But the French
State of the Church for centuries. For text, see Mansi, XXVI. 200-;^07. Gregorovius, VI. 4;^.0, calls him " the most gifted statesman who ever sat in the college of cardinals," and AVurni, his biographer, " the second founder of the State of tlie Church."
1 In 1334 Clement had set off the diocese of Prag from the diocese of Mainz and made it an archbishopric.
2 Bryce, ch. XIV., says well that the Golden Bull completed the Germanization of the Holy Roman Empire by separating the imperial power from the papacy. See Mirot, La poUlique poiitificale, p. 2.