The honest Franciscan, John of Winterthur, attributed all the evils which oppressed the Church to its venality—
“Ecclesiam nummus vilem fecit meretricem,
Nam pro mercede scortum dat se cupienti.
Nummus cuncta facit nil bene justitia,
Cunctis prostituens pro munere seque venalem,
Singula facta negat vel agit pro stipite solo;
Divino zelo nulla fere peragit.”
Vitodurani Chron. ann. 1343.
[674] C. 7, 20, 21 Decr. P. II. Caus. 1, Q. 1.—Th. Aquin. Summ. Sec. Sec. Q. 100, Art. 1.—Gloss. Bernardi; Gloss. Hostiens. (Eymeric. pp. 138, 143, 165).—Eymeric. p. 318.—Berger, Registres d’Inn. IV. No. 2977, 3010, 4668, 4718.—Thomas, Reg. de Boniface VIII. No. 547, 554, 557-8, 644, 726, 747.—Taxæ Sac. Pœnitent. Ed. Friedrichs, p. 35; Ed. Gibbings, p. 3 (cf. Van Espen, Dissert. in Jus Canon. noviss. P. III. p. 699).—Durandi Specul. Juris Lib. IV. Partic. iv. Rubr. de Simonia.
Clement IV. was exceptional in seeking to repress the acquisitiveness of the curia. When, in 1266, Jean de Courtenai was elected Archbishop of Reims, and encumbered his see with a debt of twelve thousand livres to pay the Sacred College, Clement promptly excommunicated him and summoned him to reveal the names of all who participated in the spoils. Yet Clement had no scruple in following the example of his predecessor, Urban IV., in the negotiations which resulted in the crusade of Charles of Anjou against Manfred. Simon, Cardinal of S. Cecilia, sent to France for the purpose, was furnished with special powers to dispense for defects of age or birth or other irregularities in the acquisition of benefices, for holding pluralities, and for marriage within the prohibited grades, and was instructed to distribute these favors so as to remove obstacles to the enterprise (Urbani PP. IV. Epistt. 32-35, 40, 64-5, 68; Clement. PP. IV. Epistt. 8, 19, 20, 41, 383.—ap. Martene Thesaur. II.).
[675] Von der Hardt, I. XVI. 841.—D’Argentré I. II. 228.—Theod. a Niem de Schismate Lib. II. c. xiv.; Ejusd. Nemor. Unionis Tract. VI. c. 36, 37, 39.—Poggii Bracciol. Dialogus contra Hypocrisim.—Gobelini Personæ Cosmodrom. Æt. V. c. 85.
The question as to the possibility of a pope committing simony was long under discussion. At the Council of Lyons, in 1245, Guiard, Bishop of Cambrai, was asked by a cardinal if he believed it possible, when he rendered a most emphatic answer in the affirmative (Th. Cantimprat. Bonum Universale, Lib. II. c. 2). Thomas Aquinas not only asserts it, but adds that the higher the position of the offender the greater the sin (Summ. Sec. Sec. Q. 100, Art. 1, No. 7). Yet the venality of the Holy See was too notorious for concealment, and arguments were framed to prove that the pope had a right to sell preferments, for which see the Aureum Speculum Papœ, P. II. c. 1, written in 1404, under Boniface IX., and the laborious effort of William of Ockham to controvert the assertion. The ingenious methods of the curia to extract the last penny from applicants are described in P. I. c. v. of the Speculum. The author has no hesitation in pronouncing the curia to be in a state of damnation (Fascic. Rer. Expetend. et Fugiend. II. 63, 70, 81, 461). All who deplored the condition of the Church instinctively turned to the Holy See as the source of corruption and demoralization. Nothing can well be conceived more terrible than the account of it given about this time by Cardinal Matthew of Krokow in his tract De Squaloribus Romanœ Curiœ (Ib. II. 584-607).
[676] Gersoni Tract. de Symonia.—D’Argentré I. II. 234.—Goldast. Constit. Imp. I. 402.
In La déploration de l’Église militante of Jean Boucher, in 1512, simony is described as the chief source of trouble—
“Ceste sixte gloute et insatiable
Du sanctuaire elle a fait ung estable,
Et de mes loys coustume abhominable.
Ha, ha, mauldicte et fausse symonie!
Tu ne cessas jamais de m’infester....
Pour ung courtault on baille ung bénéfice;
Pour ung baiser ou aultre malefice
Quelque champis aura ung evesché;
Pour cent escus quelque meschant novice,
Plein de luxure et de tout aultre vice,
De dignitez sera tout empesché.”
(Bull. de la Soc. de l’Hist. du Prot. Français, 1856, pp. 268-9).
[677] Vaissette, Éd. Privat, X. Pr. 242, 254.—See the author’s “Studies in Church History,” 2 Ed. pp. 210 sqq.