Historic Bubbles

by Frederic Leake

I shall endeavor to trace some of the causes of that singular revolution, and some of its results.

Towards the close of the thirteenth century, a poor hermit named Pietro da Morrone who had starved himself into the highest state of sanctity, was raised to the Apostolic throne with the title of Celestin V. One of the qualities which at that time recommended a candidate for the papacy, was that he should be moribund, that his days should be numbered; and this explains the rapidity with which the popes succeeded one another. During one year of that century, the year 1276, four successive pontiffs reigned.

Celestin V. knew nothing of the world nor of business; and it was thought that the cares of his high office, would soon finish him. But his anchorite life had agreed with his constitution; his diet of parched peas and pure water had left him with a sound digestion; and he showed no readiness to depart this life so that somebody else might be pope. It was necessary to hasten matters. How this was done is uncertain; but it is said that one of his cardinals scared the poor old hermit off his throne by telling him of imaginary plots for his assassination. Celestin abdicated, and the scaring cardinal, Benedetto Gaetano usurped his seat as Boniface VIII.; and when this lofty prelate rode to the Lateran, mother of churches, to celebrate his accession, two kings, James of Sicily and Andrew of Hungary walked like grooms at his horse’s head, and then waited on him at the table like common domestics. A pope in those days was a demi-god.

The Church at that time interfered with all the affairs of life. If a man had to sustain the validity of his father’s will or of his own marriage, he had to do it before ecclesiastical tribunals. If he died intestate the Church administered on his property. Even the calendar was ecclesiastical, and the year began not on the first of January or the first of any other month, but at Easter; so that portions of March and April belonged now to the old year and now to the new. In fine, canon, that is church law was the only law.

In contrast to this, was the trifling physical force the pontiffs could exercise. The States of the Church were small in extent; the battallions they could put in the field were few in number; and from time to time some impious prince instigated by the devil, would snap his fingers at this ghostly puissance; and then the world would be startled at the disparity between the real and the pretended power of Rome. But it was like a glimpse of the landscape a dark night by a flash of lightning: it hardly served as a land-mark; pope and prince would come to an understanding, and the spell remain unbroken.

Boniface who was perhaps the haughtiest of the successors of Saint Peter, was soon made to feel this instability. Albert son of Rudolph of Hapsburg, was elected to succeed his father on the imperial throne. Boniface was not satisfied. What did he know about these Hapsburgs? They were new, parvenu, and one was enough. He put forth a bull commanding Albert on pain of excommunication, to deliver up the imperial crown to Adolfus of Nassau.

A papal bull is a roll of parchment on which are inscribed in latin the behests of the pontiff, and to which is suspended by a ribbon, a globular leaden seal. It is this seal which gives it the name of bull, from the latin bulla, whence is also derived our word bowl.

Albert of Hapsburg had a priest read to him the document, for he could not read it himself, and after pondering, resolved to do differently—that is differently from what the bull required. He tied the parchment to his horse’s tail, and in that guise rode into the battle of Spires where he slew with his own right hand, his rival Adolfus of Nassau.

Boniface after some bitter moments of reflection, did the wisest thing possible. He rescinded the bull and received Albert back into the bosom of the church. Indeed the return of the prodigal son was so welcome that some years later Boniface issued another bull giving to Albert the kingdom of France, without however showing him how he was to get it.

The power of the papacy had culminated in the hundred years between Innocent III. and Boniface VIII., and was now on the decline. To this downward tendency Boniface shut his eyes; but we can assure ourselves of that tendency by considering the different success of those two pontiffs Innocent at the beginning of the thirteenth century and Boniface at the end, in dealing with two able kings of France.