[255] For the letters see Lettres de Jean XXII. (2 vols., 1908 and 1912), edited by Arnold Fayen: a selection of 3653 letters, generally business notes of little importance. Various short lives of John are given in Baluze's Vitæ Paparum Avenionensium, vol. ii., and there are censorious allusions to him in G. Villani's Historie Florentine: a contemporary but biassed work. Bertrandy's Recherches sur l'origine, l'élection, et le couronnement de Jean XXII. (1854) is valuable for his early years, as well as Dr. J. Asal's Die Wahl Johann's XXII. (1910). V. Verlaque's Jean XXII. (1883), is foolishly partisan, and declares John "one of the greatest successors of St. Peter." Sectional studies will be noticed in the course of the chapter.
[256] Xi., 20.
[257] The gold florin is estimated at about ten shillings of English money.
[258] Die Einnahmen der Apostolischer Kammer unter Johann XXII. (1910), by Dr. Emil Göller, and Die Ausgaben der Apostolischer Kammer unter Johann XXII. (1911), by K.H. Shäfer.
[259] See, especially, the book of his letters "Sine titulo," most of which contain appalling invectives on the Popes and cardinals and clergy. Epistola xviii, is a classical picture of vice, even among the elderly clergy. Its chief defect is to associate the name of tolerably respectable Babylon with such a picture.
[260] See a full (and conservative) analysis of the evidence in E. Abbe's Hugues Géraud (1904). I am entirely ignoring the gossipy chroniclers of the time, whom Milman too frequently follows.
[261] Ep. xvii. of the book "Sine titulo."
[262] See Michel, "Le Procès de Matteo et de Galeazzo Visconti," in Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire, xxix. (1909), and H. Otto, "Zur Italienischen Politik Johanns XXII.," in Quellen und Forschungen aus Italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken, Bd. xix. (1911).
[263] Baluze, ii., 512; and a later indictment, p. 522.
[264] See the essay on John's policy, by H. Otto, quoted above.