This was a time of great degradation for the Papacy, which had sunk so low as almost to lose men's reverence. The cause of this degradation lay in the struggle which had taken place some time before between Philip the Fair, King of France, and Pope Boniface VIII. Boniface's ambition had led him to try and set up the power of the Papacy over the affairs of every country of Europe. But Philip the Fair would not brook his interference in France. He quarrelled with him, and sent men to seize and illtreat him in his own palace. Boniface died through rage and despair at this insult. Philip, after trying in vain to get complete submission out of the next Pope, at last succeeded in getting a Pope of his own choosing in Clement V. He promised obedience to Philip, and fixed his abode at Avignon instead of Rome, that he might be nearer the French King.
Avignon was in Provence, just outside the French border, in the dominions of the King of Naples. For seventy years the seat of the Papacy remained there, and this has been called the time of the Babylonish captivity. The Popes during this period acted in the interests of the French king. Most of them were French by birth; all of them were French in their sympathies. Their European position seemed lost, and with it the awe and reverence with which they had been regarded. The English, at war with France, were not likely to bear the encroachments made by a French Pope, and clergy, laity, and King joined together to repel them.
The first great statute directed against the interference of the Pope was the Statute against Provisors, passed in 1351. The Pope was in the habit of making provisions for vacant benefices by appointing to them men of his own choice, and it was against this custom that the statute was directed. It naturally seemed very unjust to Englishmen, that English benefices should be given away to cardinals and other members of the Papal court, who drew the revenues from their benefices without ever coming near them; but we must remember that at this time great benefices were not bestowed upon men as rewards for spiritual eminence. They were the prizes which were given to great statesmen, to courtiers, and royal favourites. The ecclesiastics appointed by the King of England had no more intention of residing on their benefices than the ecclesiastics appointed by the Pope. The Pope only claimed the right to reward his servants in the same way as the King did. This arrangement, by which Pope and King alike used the Church revenues for their own purposes, was too convenient for Edward III. to make him really eager for any reformation. The Statute of Provisors might forbid Papal provisions, but it was never strictly kept; nor did the Statute which followed it, called from its first word in the original Latin, the Statute of Præmunire, prove more successful.
This statute forbade any appeals being made from the King's courts to the Papal court, and forbade the introduction of Papal bulls into England without royal permission.
The great interest of these statutes lies in the fact that they express the growing hostility aroused in the laity by the ambition and wealth of the clergy. The writings of the times are filled with complaints of the abuses among the clergy. Langland tells us in a fine passage in the Vision of Piers Plowman the miserable pass that religion had come to in those days—
"And now is religion a rider, a roamer by streets;
A leader of love-days, and a land-buyer;
A pricker on a palfrey from manor to manor;
An heap of houndes at his ears, as he a lord were,
And but if his knave knele that shal his cap bringe,
He loureth[2] on him, and asketh him who taught him courtesy."
The whole poem is full of allusions to the manner of life of the clergy, their ill-gotten wealth, and the neglect of their duties. In another place he says—
"Bishopes and bachelers, both masters and doctors,
That have cure under Christ, and crowning[3] in token
And signe that they should shrive their parishioners,
Preach and pray for them and the poor faith,
Live in London in Lent and other times;
Some serve the Kinge, and his silver tellen
In chequer and in chancery."
In an extravagant age the clergy were especially marked by their wild and foolish extravagance, their love for fine clothes, for the chase, for show and pageantry of all kinds. Even the mendicant orders partook of this, and the Franciscan Friars, who had pledged themselves to the most absolute poverty, amassed wealth, and only obeyed the dictates of their order by abstaining from all labour. As a political ballad of the time says—