WANING INFLUENCE OF KING, EMPEROR, AND POPE
[1288-1303 A.D.]
This war, which lasted twenty-four years, occupied the whole reign of Charles II. This prince was milder than his father, but weaker also. He had neither the stern character of Charles of Anjou, which excited hatred, nor his talents, which commanded admiration or respect. He always called himself the protector of the Guelf party, but ceased to be its champion; and neither the court of Rome, nor the Guelf republics, any longer demanded counsel, direction, or support from the court of Naples. He died on the 5th of May, 1309, and was succeeded by his son Robert. The influence of the emperors, as protectors of the Ghibelline party, during this period was almost extinct in Italy. Rudolf of Habsburg, who reigned with glory in Germany from 1273 to 1291, never passed the Alps to be acknowledged emperor and king of the Lombards; after him, Adolphus of Nassau, and his successor, Albert of Austria—the one assassinated in 1298, the other in 1308—remained alike strangers to Italy. The Ghibelline party was, accordingly, no longer supported or directed by the emperors, but it maintained itself by its own resources, by the attachment of the nobles to the imperial name, and still more by the self-interest of the captains, who, raised to the signoria either by the choice of the people or of their faction, created for themselves, in the name of the empire, a sovereignty to which the Italians unhesitatingly gave the name of tyranny.
Lastly, the third power, that of the pope, which till then had directed the politics of Italy, ceased about this time to follow a regular system, and consequently to give a powerful impulse to faction. Martin IV, whose life terminated two months after that of Charles I, had always acted as his creature, had seconded him in his enmities, in his thirst of vengeance against the Sicilians, and in his efforts to recover his dominion over Italy. But Honorius IV, who reigned after him, from 1285 to 1287, appeared to have no other thought than that of aggrandising the noble house of Savelli at Rome, of which he was himself a member; after him, Nicholas IV, from 1288 to 1292, was not less zealous in his efforts to do as much for that of Colonna. His predecessor, Nicholas III, had a few years previously set the example, by applying all his power as pope to the elevation of the Orsini. These are nearly the first examples of the nepotism of the popes, who had hardly yet begun to feel themselves sovereigns. They raised these three great Roman families above all their ancient rivals; almost all the castles in the patrimony of St. Peter, and in the Campagna of Rome, became their property. The houses of Colonna, Orsini, and Savelli, to support their nobility, soon began to traffic in their valour, by hiring themselves out with a body of cavalry to such as would employ them in war; whilst the peasants, their vassals, seduced by the spirit of adventure, and still more by the hope of plunder, abandoned agriculture to enlist in the troops of their liege lord. The effect of their disorderly lives was that the two provinces nearest Rome soon became the worst cultivated and the least populous in all Italy, although the treasures of Europe poured into the capital of the faithful. After Nicholas IV, a poor hermit, humble, timid, and ignorant, was raised, in 1294, to the chair of St. Peter, under the name of Celestine V. His election was the effect of a sudden burst of religious enthusiasm, which seized the college of cardinals; although this holy senate had never before shown themselves more ready to consult religion than policy. Celestine V maintained himself only a few months on the throne; all his sanctity could not serve as an excuse for his incapacity; and the cardinal Benedict Cajetan, who persuaded him to abdicate, was elected pope in his place, under the name of Boniface VIII. Boniface, able, expert, intriguing, and unscrupulous, would have restored the authority of the holy see, which during the latter pontificates had been continually sinking, if the violence of his character, his ungovernable pride, and his transports of passion, had not continually thwarted his policy. He endeavoured at first to augment the power of the Guelfs by the aid of France; he afterwards engaged in a violent quarrel with the family of Colonna, whom he would willingly have exterminated; and, finally, taking offence against Philip the Fair, he treated him with as much haughtiness as if he had been the lowest of his vassals. Insulted, and even arrested, by the French prince, in his palace of Anagni, on the 7th of September, 1303, Boniface died a few weeks afterwards of rage and humiliation.