The Popes and Science / The History of the Papal Relations to Science During the Middle Ages and Down to Our Own Time

by James J. Walsh

The question of the Papal bull supposed to forbid chemistry, or at least its mother science, alchemy, has necessarily brought into prominence in this volume the name of Pope John XXII. Few Popes in history have been the subject of more bitter denunciation than John. Writers on the history of the Papacy who were themselves not members of the Catholic Church, have been almost a unit in condemning him for many abuses of Papal power, especially such as were associated with the employment of Church privileges for the accumulation of money. Certain Catholic historians even have not found themselves able to rid their appreciation of the character of Pope John from similar objections. It is acknowledged that he was one of the most learned men of his time. It is confessed that he was one of the most abstemious of men. Indeed, in this respect he has been very appropriately compared with Pope Leo XIII. He did succeed in setting the Papacy on a firm foundation in Avignon, and did arrange the financial economy of the Church in such a way that large amounts of money were bound to accumulate in the Papal treasury.

This has been the main element of the accusations against him. A prominent American encyclopaedia summed up his character very trenchantly as follows: "He was learned in Canon Law and was remarkable for avarice." Many have not hesitated to say that even his condemnation of alchemy had for its main purpose [{139}] the idea of added revenues for the Papal See, by the fines inflicted, and by the confiscation of the goods of those condemned as well as by the Court fees in the matter, though there is nothing in the decree to justify such an opinion, and we have pointed out that the fines collected were, according to the document itself, to be given to the poor.

With the ecclesiastical aspects of Pope John's character we have nothing to do here. It would require a large volume by itself properly to tell the story of his life, for he was one of the most influential men of an important time, and though he ascended the Papal throne when he was past seventy, he lived to be ninety, and his pontificate is filled with evidence of his strenuous activity till the end of his life. There is no doubt that the regulations for which he is responsible with regard to the Papal finances eventually led to very serious abuses in the Church. It is easy to understand, however, how special arrangements had to be made for the support of the Holy See at Avignon. Pope John XXII.'s predecessor, Clement, was the first Pope who, because of the unsettled state of affairs in Italy and the influence of the French King, resolved to live at Avignon instead of Rome. Under these circumstances, the ordinary sources of revenue for the support of the Papal Court, which required comparatively as expensive an establishment then as now, were more or less cut off. During the first pontificate at Avignon, this proved a serious drawback to ecclesiastical efficiency. In Pope John's time the necessity for providing revenues became acute. Besides, he wished to make the new Papal City as worthy of the Holy See as the old one had been. To him is largely due the development of Avignon, which [{140}] occurred during the fourteenth century. The abuses which his regulations in this matter led to did not culminate in his time, but came later. The revenues obtained by him were, as we shall see, used to excellent purpose, and were applied to such educational and missionary uses as would eminently meet the approval of the most demanding of critics in modern times.

John was a liberal and discriminating patron of learning and of education in his time. He helped colleges in various parts of the world, established a college in the East, and sent out many missionaries at his own expense. These missionaries proved as efficient as modern travelers in adding to the knowledge of the East at that time, and practically laid the foundations of the science of geography. [Footnote 19]

[Footnote 19: Those who are interested in the wonderful things accomplished for geography by these missionary travelers of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, will find a brief account of them in the chapter on Geography and Exploration in my book on The Thirteenth, Greatest of Centuries.]

What is of special interest to us here, however, in this volume, is the fact that Pope John gave all the weight of the Papal authority, the most important influence of the time in Europe, to the encouragement of medical schools, the maintenance of a high standard in them, and the development of scientific medicine. At this time medicine included many of the physical sciences as we know them at the present time. Botany, mineralogy, climatology, even astrology, as astronomy was then called, were the subjects of study by physicians, the last named because of the supposed influence of the stars on the human constitution. Because of his encouragement of medical schools and his emphatic insistence on their maintaining high standards, Pope John must be commended as a patron of science and as [{141}] probably having exerted the most beneficial influence in his time on education.

This is of course very different from what is usually said of this Pope, Prof. White can scarcely find words harsh enough to apply to him, because of his supposed superstition and the influence which he had upon his time in leading men's minds away from science and into the foolish absurdities of superstitious practices. Pope John XXII. is one of the special bêtes noires of the sometime President of Cornell. Yet, I am sure that when the formal documents which Pope John has left relating to education and science are read by modern educators, they cannot help but consider him as one of their most enterprising colleagues in the realm of education. Indeed, a number of his bulls read very much like the documents that issue occasionally from college presidents with regard to the maintenance of standards in education, and his encouragement of the giving of the best possible opportunities for scientific and literary studies, and especially that the smaller colleges shall be equal as far as possible to the greater institutions of learning, will arouse the sympathetic interest of every educator of the modern day.

The documents that I shall quote in translations (the originals may be found in the appendix) will show that the Pope wanted the doctorates in philosophy and in medicine to be given only after seven years of study, at least four of which were to be devoted to the post-graduate work in the special branch selected. He wished, moreover, to insist on the necessity for preliminary education. He wanted the permission to teach these branches, which in that day was equivalent to our term of doctorate, to be given in all institutions for [{142}] the same amount of work and after similar tests. These are just the matters that have occupied the thoughts of university presidents for the last quarter of a century, and have been the subjects of discussion in the meetings of various college and university associations. Pope John's bulls would be interesting documents to have read before such associations even at the present time, and would form excellent suggestive material on which the discussion of the necessity for maintaining college standards might well be founded. This is so different from what is usually thought in the matter, that personally I have found it even rather amusing. It is not amusing, however, to think that this great progressive, yet conservative educator should have been so misrepresented by modern educators and historians, simply because they did not study the man in his own writings, but knew him only at second hand from those who judged his character from another standpoint.

All this will show John as really one of the greatest Popes not only in the century in which he lived, but as distinguished as only a comparatively small number have been among the successors of Peter. Though he ascended the Papal throne at the age of seventy, the next twenty years were full of work of all kinds, and John's wonderful capacity for work stamps him as one of the great men of all time. It is a well-known rule, constantly kept in mind by Catholic students of history, that the Popes against whom the most objections are urged by non-Catholic historians are practically always found, on close and sympathetic study, to be striking examples of men who at least labored to accomplish much. As a rule, they strove to correct abuses, and as a consequence made bitter enemies, who left behind them [{143}] many contemporary expressions of disapproval. Any contemporary authority is somehow supposed to be infallible. We forget, when a man tries to do good he is likely to meet with bitter opposition from many. If their expressions are taken seriously by historians who write with the purpose of finding just as little good and just as much evil as possible in a particular character, the resulting appreciation is likely to be rather far from the truth. If some of the criticisms of our present President are only preserved long enough, how easy it will be for a future historian who may have the purpose of showing how much of evil began as the result of his policy, to find material on which to build up his thesis. Men who do nothing make no enemies and also make no mistakes. Fortunately, however, doing things is its own justification.

John XXII. had had eminent opportunities for the acquisition of an education as thorough, and a culture as broad, as any that might be afforded even by our educational opportunities at the present time. He had been many years at the University of Paris; he had traveled in England, a rare occurrence in those days, and had spent most of his time while there at Oxford; he had also passed several years in Italy and was familiar with educational conditions down there. He certainly did more for education than any man of his generation. He had the greatest of opportunities, but it cannot but be said that he took them, very wonderfully. There are very few in all the history of education who have insisted as he on the important principles of the necessity for careful training, for the maintenance of high standards in examination and degree-giving, and for the endeavor to bring the large universities in intimate contact with the [{144}] small ones, to the benefit especially of the latter, though, as we know now, always also to the reactionary advantage of the important institutions. All this is to be found in the documentary history of a man who has been set up as an object of scorn and derision by modern educators, who surely, if they knew the actual facts, would be sympathetic, and not antipathetic as they have been.