Though remaining leagued with the Angevins in southern Italy, they dared to look to Germany and Rudolph of Habsburg to help them in their efforts to add to the papal dominion a part of north ern Italy and, in particular, Tuscany. But they still continued to desire the restoration of the Angevin dynasty in Sicily and to assist the designs of France on Aragon by preaching a crusade against the masters of Barcelona and Palermo. The hopes of the Curia were frustrated by the resistance of the Aragonese and Sicilians, and Charles of Valois, to whom the Curia eventually destined the crown of Aragon, had to resign it for that of Con stantinople, which he also failed to secure.
Subjection to France.—Boniface VIII. (1294-1303) also at the beginning of his pontificate had yielded to the current, and, like his predeCessors, adapted his external policy to the pre tensions and interests of the great Capetian house, which, like all his predecessors, he at first countenanced. In spite of his instincts for dominion and the ardour of his temperament, he made no attempt to shake off the French yoke, and did not decide on hostilities with France until Philip the Fair and his legists attempted to change the character of the kingship, emphasized its lay tendencies, and exerted themselves to gratify the desire for political and financial independence which was shared by the French nation and many other European peoples. The war which ensued between the pope and the king of France ended in the complete defeat of the papacy, which was reduced to impotence (1303), and though the storm ceased during the nine months' pon tificate of Benedict XI., the see of St. Peter recovered neither its normal equilibrium nor its traditional character. The accession of the first Avignon pope, Clement V., marks the final subjection of the papal power to the Capetian government, the inevitable result of the European situation created in the preceding century.
In other respects the papacy of this period found itself in a very inferior situation to that which it had occupied under Innocent III. and the popes of the first half of the 13th century. The fall of the Latin empire and the retaking of Constantinople by the Palaeologi freed a great part of the Eastern world from the political and religious direction of Rome, and this fact necessarily engaged the diplomacy of Urban IV. and his successors in an en tirely different direction. To them the Eastern problem presented a less complex aspect. There could no longer be any serious question of a collective expedition of Europe for the recovery of the Holy Places. The ingenuous faith of a Louis IX. was alone capable of giving rise to two crusades organized privately and without the influence or even the approval of the pope. But the European state of mind no longer lent itself to such enterprises. The main preoccupation of all these popes was how best to repair the injury done to orthodox Europe and to Rome by the destruction of the Latin empire. Several of them thought of re
storing the lost empire by force, and thus giving a pendant to the fourth crusade; but the Curia finally realized the enormous difficulties of such a project, and convinced themselves that the only practical solution of the difficulty was to come to an under standing with the Palaeologi and realize pacifically the long dreamed union of the Greek and Latin Churches. The negotia tions begun by Urban IV. and continued more or less actively by his successors were at last concluded in 1274 by Gregory X. The Council of Lyons proclaimed the union, which was destined to be effective for a few years at least and to be prolonged precariously in the midst of unfavourable circumstances. The Greek mind was opposed to the union; the acquiescence of the Byzantine emperors was hut an ephemeral expedient of their foreign policy; and the peace between the Latins and Greeks settled on Byzantine soil could not endure for long. The principal obstacle, however, was the incompatibility of the popes' Byzantine and Italian policies. The popes were in favour of Charles of Anjou and his dynasty, but Charles was hostile to the union of the two Churches, since it was his intention to seize the Byzantine empire and sub stitute himself for the Palaeologi. Almost all the successors of Urban IV. were compelled to exert their diplomacy against the aggrandizing aims of the man they had themselves installed in southern Italy, and to protect the Greek emperor, with whom they were negotiating the religious question. On several occasions between the years 1271 and 1273 the Angevins of Naples, who had great influence in Achaea and Albania and were solidly sup ported by their allies in the Balkan peninsula, nearly carried out their project ; and in 1274 the opposition of Charles of Anjou came near to compromising the operations of the council of Lyons and ruining the work of Gregory X. The papacy, however, held its ground, and Nicholas III., the worthy continuer of Gregory, succeeded in preserving the union and triumphing over the Ange vin power. The Angevins took their revenge under Martin IV., who was a stanch supporter of the French. Three weeks after his coronation Martin excommunicated the Greek emperor and all his subjects, and allied himself with Charles of Anjou and the Venetians to compass his downfall. In this case, too, the Sicilian Vespers was the rock on which the hopes and pretensions of the sovereign of Naples suffered shipwreck. After Martin's death the last popes of the i3th century, and notably Bonif ace VIII., in vain thought to find in another Capetian, Charles of Valois, the man who was to re-establish the Latin dominion at Byzantium. But the East was lost ; the union of 1274 was quickly dissolved; and the reconciliation of the two Churches again entered into the category chimeras.