There is little reason to linger over the history of the |The Popes, 1272-1290.| individuals who fill the papal chair from the end of the Interregnum till the departure to Avignon. Gregory X. (1271-1276), elected after a vacancy of nearly three years, was a man of high character and ability, but he did not rule long enough to accomplish any great ends. He set himself to restore order in Germany, to put an end to party strife in Italy, and to check the arrogant ambition of Charles of Naples. The council which he held at Lyons in 1274 is chiefly notable for the regulations drawn up to prevent delays and external intervention in papal elections. Ten days after the death of a Pope, the cardinals present on the spot were to be shut up in conclave, and were to remain excluded from intercourse with the outside world until they had agreed on the choice of a successor. Gregory’s short-lived successors were mainly occupied with their relations with Naples, with party struggles in Italy, and with the growth of the noble families in Rome. Temporal dominion, in which hereditary succession was impossible, brought with it the vice of nepotism, the desire to make the most of a short tenure of office for the aggrandisement of relatives. Nicolas III. (1277-1280) bestowed lavish grants on the great House of Orsini, to which he belonged; Martin IV. (1281-1285) was a mere puppet of Charles of Anjou, and resided in his company at Viterbo; Honorius IV. (1285-1287) was a Savelli, and exalted his family at the expense of the Orsini; while Nicolas IV. (1288-1292) raised the Colonna as a counterpoise to the other two families. From this time the history of Rome was filled with the feuds of these great baronial houses, and they exercised a most disastrous influence on the spiritual as well as on the temporal position of the Popes.
On the death of Nicolas IV. these baronial factions were so |Celestine V., 1294.| predominant and so evenly balanced in the conclave that no election could take place for two years. At last, in 1294, a sudden impulse induced the cardinals to throw aside all secular considerations and to offer the highest ecclesiastical dignity to a man whose only claim was his reputation for sanctity. Celestine V. had for years lived a hermit’s life in a cave near Sulmona. His election was a unique experiment in papal history, and it was unsuccessful. Personal piety was no sufficient substitute for the worldly wisdom and experience required for the occupant of the papal chair. After five months he was persuaded to abdicate, and ultimately died (May, 1296) in a prison to which he was consigned by his successor, Boniface VIII.
The pontificate of Boniface VIII. is by far the most important |Boniface VIII., 1294-1303.| of this period. He has been called the last of the mediæval Popes. He was certainly the last who attempted to exercise that general authority over Christendom which Gregory VII. had claimed and Innocent III. had acquired. His complete failure proved how little the Papacy really profited by its victory over the Empire. In order to weaken the authority of the Emperors, the Popes had encouraged the growing nationality of the outlying kingdoms, forgetful that they were forging a weapon which might be used against themselves. Honorius III. and Innocent IV. had waged a desperate struggle against Frederick II. But the defeat of the Hohenstaufen did not, as they expected, leave the Papacy supreme. Boniface VIII. found equally formidable opponents in Edward I. of England and Philip IV. of France. The Papacy might defeat the Empire, because the latter was opposed to all the tendencies of the age, but it was powerless against the force of national development. To coerce the French and English kings, who refused to submit to his arbitration, Boniface issued the bull Clericis laicos which forbade the clergy to pay taxes to the secular power. Edward I. replied by outlawing the clergy, and forced them to acknowledge their membership of the state and to contribute to its support. Philip IV. retaliated by prohibiting the export of money from France, and thus cut off French contributions to Rome. When the Pope claimed Scotland as a papal fief and forbade any further English invasions, Edward I. brought the bull before a parliament at Lincoln (1301), which decreed that the king should not answer before the Pope on any question concerning his temporal rights. Philip IV. met the exorbitant papal pretensions by a similar protest from the national representatives at a meeting of the States-General (1302). And the French king did not content himself with verbal protests. Taking advantage of the discontent of the Colonnas, French troops entered Anagni, where Boniface was residing, and for a few days kept him a prisoner. This insult was a terrible blow to the proud Pope, and a few weeks later he died (October, 1303).
Benedict XI., the new Pope, had a difficult task to avoid |Benedict XI., 1303-1304.| either a degrading submission to France or a new quarrel with Philip IV. and the Colonnas. To escape intimidation he withdrew to Perugia, and for a time succeeded in maintaining a conciliatory but not dishonourable attitude. At last he found it necessary to issue a bull against the chief authors of the outrage at Anagni (June 29, 1304). Four weeks later the Pope was dead, and contemporaries were almost unanimous in attributing his death to poison. The posthumous reputation of Boniface VIII. was now the vital question at issue, and the cardinals were almost evenly divided into a French party which condemned him, and an Italian party which anathematised his assailants. So irreconcilable were the two parties that the cardinals, though shut up in the palace at Perugia in accordance with the constitution of Gregory X., spent ten months in the vain attempt to choose a new Pope. At last the deadlock was terminated by a strange compromise. The supporters of Boniface were to name three non-Italian prelates, and the hostile party was to choose one of them. One of the three was the Archbishop of Bordeaux, whose diocese lay within the dominions of Edward I. His selection was due to the belief that he was the bitter enemy of the French king. But tradition maintained that Philip IV. contrived to buy him over to his side, |Clement V., 1305-1313.| and he was chosen Pope as Clement V. The coronation ceremony took place at Lyons, and the new Pope never ventured into Italy. His pontificate was one long struggle to avoid or to moderate the concessions which Philip expected from him. The charges against Boniface were ultimately referred to a council at Vienna, which exonerated his memory. But on most points Clement had to follow the wishes of the French king, especially in the condemnation of the Templars. In 1309 Clement V. fixed his residence at Avignon, which was not then a French town, and was probably chosen partly for that reason, and partly for its neighbourhood to the Venaissin, already a papal possession. But Avignon was in Provence, which was held by the House of Anjou, and it was only separated from France by the Rhone. As long as the Popes continued to live there, they were exposed to overwhelming French influence, and could hardly escape the charge, made both from England and Germany, that they were mere vassals of the king of France. It says much for the vitality of the papal system that the ‘Babylonish captivity,’ as the next seventy years have been called, did not result in the complete loss, not only of the Italian provinces, but of all spiritual authority in Europe.
The district of Tuscany, which lies to the north-west of the Papal States, had been split up since the death of the |Tuscany.| Countess Matilda into a number of city states, mostly republics, but which from time to time were subject to native or foreign despots. Siena, which became in the fifteenth century mistress of southern Tuscany, had not yet risen into prominence and never ranked among the great states of Italy. Pisa, hitherto the most powerful of the Tuscan communes and one of the greatest of Italian ports, began to decline when the restoration of the Eastern Empire (1261) established the ascendency of Genoa in the Levant. In the naval struggle which followed, the two republics were fairly evenly balanced; but a great Genoese victory off the island of Meloria (1284) inflicted a blow from which Pisa never recovered, though she retained her independence for another century. Lucca rose to some importance under Castruccio Castracani, and from time to time successfully resisted the aggressions of Florence, but has no continuous history that attracts attention. By far the most important of the Tuscan cities was Florence, destined to be |Florence.| for a brilliant period the chief home of Italian art and literature, to acquire the supremacy over the whole of Tuscany, and to become for a few years in the present century the capital of an Italian kingdom. It is at the end of the thirteenth century that the foundation was laid of the Florentine constitution, which has always attracted special attention on account both of its own peculiarities and of the greatness of the city in which it grew up.
No city in Italy had been more convulsed than Florence |Constitution of Florence.| by the struggle between Guelfs and Ghibellines, and these factions were the more embittered against each other by their coincidence with class distinctions. The feudal nobles, although by no means united, were preponderantly Ghibelline, while the wealthy burghers were inclined to the cause of the Papacy and Charles of Anjou. After the defeat of Manfred in 1266 the supremacy of the Guelfs was established, and was never overthrown from that date. For some years the government was moderate and pacific, but the news of the Sicilian Vespers in 1282 frightened the Guelfs into an attempt to secure their power by constitutional changes. The existing magistrates were superseded |The ‘Priori.’| by the ‘Priori delle Arti,’ at first three and afterwards six in number. These constituted the signory and held the chief executive power. They were chosen from the seven greater guilds (arti maggiori) and held office for two months at a time, re-election being forbidden (divieto) until after an interval of two years. The greater guilds, which had long existed as trade corporations before their rise to political importance, consisted of the Calimala, or cloth merchants, the wool-weavers, the bankers, the silk manufacturers, physicians, furriers and lawyers. About the same time a number of lesser guilds (arti minori) were organised, and their number increased within the next sixteen years to fourteen. Henceforth we can trace the existence of four main divisions of the people of Florence: (1) the grandi, or nobles; (2) the popolo grasso, the members of the seven greater guilds; (3) the popolo minuto, or members of the fourteen lesser guilds; (4) the ciompi, though this name is of later origin, including those citizens who had no guild organisation, and therefore no machinery either for self-government or for influencing the conduct of public business.
By the constitution of 1282 the nobles were not excluded from office, but if they wished to qualify themselves for it they had to enter a guild. Many of them fulfilled this condition, and several nobles held the office of prior during the next ten years. But class jealousies continued to create domestic quarrels, and in 1293 Giano della Bella, himself of noble origin, proposed and carried the famous |Ordinances of Justice, 1293.| ‘Ordinances of Justice.’ To qualify for office a man must really practise the trade or craft to which he belonged. The grandi were not only to be excluded from any share in the government, but they were subjected to serious social disqualifications. In time of disorder they were confined to their houses on penalty of exile. A noble could not accuse a citizen or bear witness against him without the consent of the signory, and the severest penalties were imposed on a noble who wounded or killed a citizen. The duty of enforcing these ordinances was intrusted to a specially created official, the gonfalonier of justice, who |The Gonfalonier.| was to be appointed every two months and was to be a member of the signory. The gonfalonier, who was intrusted with the command of a large force of infantry, became the most dignified officer of the state, though his actual powers were not greater than those of the priors. From this time one of the harshest penalties was to confer nobility upon a political offender, and the greatest reward that could be conferred upon a deserving grande was to degrade him to the rank of a citizen. To protect the signory from attack a fortified Palazzo Pubblico was built for their reception, a building which is now famous as the Palazzo Vecchio.
Although the actual government of Florence from 1293 may be considered to be a plutocracy, in that the actual conduct of affairs was monopolised by the wealthy burghers, yet the constitution possessed a real democratic basis. The ultimate power of making any constitutional change rested with the parlamento, a mass meeting |The Parliament.| of all citizens in the great piazza. Such a meeting could at any time appoint a balia, i.e. a committee with full powers to alter the laws; and it was by this method that most of the revolutions in Florentine history were accomplished.
Early in the fourteenth century the Florentine constitution assumed the main features which it retained till the fall of the republic. In 1321 a disastrous war with Castruccio Castracani discredited the signory, and displayed the weakness of a government which changed every two months. To remedy this, a council of twelve |The ‘Buonuomini.| buonuomini was created, two from each sesto or district. They were to hold office for six months instead of two, and the signory was to take no important step without consulting them. Two years later a far more important change was made, when the system of filling offices by lot was introduced. Hitherto the members of the outgoing administration had elected their successors. But the city was disquieted by factious quarrels at each election, and there was no security for that equality which was rapidly becoming a passion among the Florentines. In 1323 it was determined to hold a squittinio, or scrutiny, every two |The ‘Squittinio,’ 1323.| years in place of the elections every two months. A committee was formed of the signory for the time being with the councils of the greater guilds and other influential citizens. A list was drawn up of all citizens qualified for office by age and by being clear of debt to the state (netti di specchio). Their names were then put up to ballot in the committee. The voting was by black and white beans, the former being in favour of the candidate. All the names which received not less than two-thirds of the black beans were placed in bags (imborsare), and from these bags they were drawn to fill vacancies as they arose. When the bags were empty a new squittinio became necessary. It resulted from this system that qualified citizens had a fairly equal chance of selection, but there was no security that offices would go to the most capable, and the arrangement was liable to serious abuses. The party which could obtain a majority in the selecting committee (balia), was certain to secure most of the offices for its own partisans for at least two years.
By 1323 the Florentine constitution had assumed a fairly definite shape. At its head stood the gonfalonier of justice and the six priors, who had the chief conduct of affairs and the right of initiating legislation. Then came the twelve buonuomini, who were a sort of privy council to the signory, and served as a check on its power. Next in rank were the capitano del popolo, once the chief magistrate of the city, and the sixteen gonfaloniers of companies, who were responsible for police and military arrangements. These were known as the three greater offices (i tre maggiori). In critical times special magistracies were sometimes created for a limited time, such as the eight of war (otto di guerra), or the ten of the sea (dieci del mare). There were two legislative councils: the consiglio del popolo, three hundred in number, containing only popolani; and the consiglio del commune, numbering two hundred and fifty, to which nobles were also admitted. Besides the regular municipal magistracies, there was an |The ‘Parte Guelfa.’| important body, the parte guelfa, which exercised very great political influence. This corporation, which had its own captains and council, had been formed after the great Guelf victory of 1267 to administer the confiscated property of the exiled Ghibellines. Its great wealth and efficient organisation were employed for the assiduous maintenance of Guelf ascendency, and in later times for resisting the claims of the lower classes to a voice in the government.