A violent manifestation of this resistance took place in connexion with the accusation of heresy brought against the pope. On the third Sunday in Advent 1329, and afterwards in public consistory, John had preached that the souls of those who have died in a state of grace go into Abraham’s bosom, sub altari Dei, and do not enjoy the beatific vision (visio facie ad faciem) of the Lord until after the Last Judgment and the Resurrection; and he had even instructed a Minorite friar, Gauthier of Dijon, to collect the passages in the Fathers which were in favour of this doctrine. On the 27th of December 1331 a Dominican, Thomas of England, preached against this doctrine at Avignon itself and was thrown into prison. When news of this affair had reached Paris, the pope sent the general of the Minorites, Gerard Odonis, accompanied by a Dominican, to sustain his doctrine in that city, but King Philip VI., perhaps at the instigation of the refugee Spirituals in Paris, referred the question to the faculty of theology, which, on the 2nd of January 1333, declared that the souls of the blessed were elevated to the beatific vision immediately after death; the faculty, nevertheless, were of opinion that the pope should have propounded his erroneous doctrine only “recitando,” and not “determinando, asserendo, seu etiam opinando.” The king notified this decision to the pope, who assembled his consistory in November 1333, and gave a haughty reply. The theologians in Louis’s following who were opposed to papal absolutism already spoke of “the new heretic, Jacques de Cahors,” and reiterated with increasing insistency their demands for the convocation of a general council to try the pope. John appears to have retracted shortly before his death, which occurred on the 4th of December 1334.[1]
John had kindled very keen animosity, not only among the upholders of the independence of the lay power, but also among the upholders of absolute religious poverty, the exalted Franciscans. Clement V., at the council of Vienne, had attempted to bring back the Spirituals to the common rule by concessions; John, on the other hand, in the bull Quorundam exigit (April 13, 1317), adopted an uncompromising and absolute attitude, and by the bull Gloriosam ecclesiam (January 23, 1318) condemned the protests which had been raised against the bull Quorundam by a group of seventy-four Spirituals and conveyed to Avignon by the monk Bernard Délicieux. Shortly afterwards four Spirituals were burned at Marseilles. These were immediately hailed as martyrs, and in the eyes of the exalted Franciscans at Naples and in Sicily and the south of France the pope was regarded as antichrist. In the bull Sancta Romana et universa ecclesia (December 28, 1318) John definitively excommunicated them and condemned their principal book, the Postil (commentary) on the Apocalypse (February 8, 1326). The bull Quia nonnunquam (March 26, 1322) defined the derogations from the rule punished by the pope, and the bull Cum inter nonnullos (November 12, 1323) condemned the proposition which had been admitted at the general chapter of the Franciscans held at Perugia in 1322, according to which Christ and the Apostles were represented as possessing no property, either personal or common. The minister general, Michael of Cesena, though opposed to the exaggerations of the Spirituals, joined with them in protesting against the condemnation of the fundamental principle of evangelical poverty, and the agitation gradually gained ground. The pope, by the bull Quia quorundam (November 10, 1324), cited Michael to appear at Avignon at the same time as Occam and Bonagratia. All three fled to the court of Louis of Bavaria (May 26, 1328), while the majority of the Franciscans made submission and elected a general entirely devoted to the pope. But the resistance, aided by Louis and merged as it now was in the cause sustained by Marsilius of Padua and John of Jandun, became daily bolder. Treatises on poverty appeared on every side; the party of Occam clamoured with increasing imperiousness for the condemnation of John by a general council; and the Spirituals, confounded in the persecution with the Beghards and with Fraticelli of every description, maintained themselves in the south of France in spite of the reign of terror instituted in that region by the Inquisition.
See M. Souchon, Die Papstwahlen von Bonifaz VIII. bis Urban VI. (Brunswick, 1888); Abbé Albe, Autour de Jean XXII. (Rome, 1904); K. Müller, Der Kampf Ludwigs des Bayern mit der Curie (Tübingen, 1879 seq.); W. Preger, “Mémoires sur la lutte entre Jean XXII. et Louis de Bavière” in Abhandl. der bayr. Akad., hist. sec., xv., xvi., xvii.; S. Riezler, Die litterar. Widersacher der Päpste zur Zeit Ludwigs des Baiers (Leipzig, 1874); F. Ehrle, “Die Spiritualen” in Archiv für Litteratur-und Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters (vols. i. and ii.); C. Samaran and G. Mollat, La Fiscalité pontificale en France au xive siècle (Paris, 1905); A. Coulon and G. Mollat, Lettres secrètes et curiales de Jean XXII. se rapportant à la France (Paris, 1899, seq.).
(P. A.)
[1] On the 29th of January 1336 Pope Benedict XII. pronounced a long judgment on this point of doctrine, a judgment which he declared had been included by John in a bull which death had prevented him from sealing.
JOHN XXIII. (Baldassare Cossa), pope, or rather antipope from 1410 to 1415, was born of a good Neapolitan family, and began by leading the life of a corsair before entering the service of the Church under the pontificate of Boniface IX. His abilities, which were mainly of an administrative and military order, were soon rewarded by the cardinal’s hat and the legation of Bologna. On the 29th of June 1408 he and seven of his colleagues broke away from Gregory XII., and together with six cardinals of the obedience of Avignon, who had in like manner separated from Benedict XIII., they agreed to aim at the assembling of a general council, setting aside the two rival pontiffs, an expedient which they considered would put an end to the great schism of the Western Church, but which resulted in the election of yet a third pope. This act was none the less decisive for Baldassare Cossa’s future. Alexander V., the first pope elected at Pisa, was not perhaps, as has been maintained, merely a man of straw put forward by the ambitious cardinal of Bologna; but he reigned only ten months, and on his death, which happened rather suddenly on the 4th of May 1410, Baldassare Cossa succeeded him. Whether the latter had bought his electors by money and promises, or owed his success to his dominant position in Bologna, and to the support of Florence and of Louis II. of Anjou, he seems to have received the unanimous vote of all the seventeen cardinals gathered together at Bologna (May 17). He took the name of John XXIII., and France, England, and part of Italy and Germany recognized him as head of the Catholic church.
The struggle in which he and Louis II. of Anjou engaged with Ladislaus of Durazzo, king of Sicily, and Gregory XII.’s chief protector in Italy, at first went in John’s favour. After the brilliant victory of Roccasecca (May 19, 1411) he had the satisfaction of dragging the standards of Pope Gregory and King Ladislaus through the streets of Rome. But the dispersion of Louis of Anjou’s troops and his carelessness, together with the lack of success which attended the preaching of a crusade in Germany, France and England, finally decided John XXIII. to abandon the French claimant to the throne of Sicily; he recognized Ladislaus, his former enemy, as king of Naples, and Ladislaus did not fail to salute John XXIII. as pope, abandoning Gregory XII. (June 15, 1412). This was a fatal step: John XXIII. was trusting in a dishonest and insatiable prince; he would have acted more wisely in remaining the ally of the weak but loyal Louis of Anjou. However, it seemed desirable that the reforms announced by the council of Pisa, which the popes set up by this synod seemed in no hurry to carry into effect, should be further discussed in the new council which it had been agreed should be summoned about the spring of 1412. But John was anxious that this council should be held in Rome, a city where he alone was master; the few prelates and ambassadors who very slowly gathered there held only a small number of sessions, in which John again condemned the writings of Wycliffe. John was attacked by the representatives of the various nations and reprimanded even for his private conduct, but endeavoured to extricate himself from this uncomfortable position by gratifying their desires, if not by reforming abuses. It is, however, only fair to add that he took various half-measures and gave many promises which, if they had been put into execution, would have confirmed or completed the reforms inaugurated at Pisa. But on the 3rd of March 1413 John adjourned the council of Rome till December, without even fixing the place where the next session should be held. It was held at Constance in Germany, and John could only have resigned himself to accepting such an uncertain meeting-place because he was forced by distress, isolation and fear to turn towards the head of the empire. Less than a year after the treaty concluded with Ladislaus of Durazzo, the latter forced his way into Rome (June 8, 1413), which he sacked, expelling John, to whom even the Florentines did not dare to throw open their gates for fear of the king of Sicily. Sigismund, king of the Romans, not only extorted, it is said, a sum of 50,000 florins from the pontiff in his extremity, but insisted upon his summoning the council at Constance (December 9). It was in vain that, on the death of Ladislaus, which took place unexpectedly (August 6, 1414), John was inspired with the idea of breaking his compact with Sigismund and returning to Rome, at the same time appealing to Louis of Anjou. It was too late. The cardinals forced him towards Germany by the most direct road, without allowing him to go by way of Avignon as he had projected, in order to make plans with the princes of France.