The new difficulty first became acute under Boniface VIII. His hostility to the French, his tactlessness, the reasonable claim of the French king that the clergy should support financially the Government whereby they benefited must not blind us to the ex treme claims at least suggested by the French. The French court wished not merely to obtain temporal freedom of action but to secure control of spiritual authority and to use this control in their own interests. The attempt failed. The death of Boniface, and the comparative subservience of subsequent popes to France, did not undo the real work of Boniface himself. He had saved the spiritual authority of the papacy, and at the very end of its tem poral dominance had clearly defined the meaning of that spiritual authority. The bull "Unam Sanctam" declared that subjection to the Roman Pontiff was of absolute necessity for every man who desired salvation. The body of the bull elaborated this doctrine and made it plain that where spiritual welfare was concerned temporal interests must not only be set aside, but temporal au thority must even be used to further that spiritual welfare. This declaration was necessary in view of the extreme statements of French legists, as Dubois, and in view of the practical actions of Philip IV. of France, which had tended to obscure the papal spiritual supremacy by the attack on its temporal influence. This temporal hegemony was gone. During the 14th century the popes resident at Avignon under French influence steadily lost their former prestige.
This became clear when Gregory XI.'s death at Rome permitted an election free from French influence. An Italian, Urban VI., was elected. Shortly afterwards the French party declaring the election invalid chose Clement VII. Clement was certainly an anti-pope; whatever personal faults Urban had, his election had been valid. The chief cause of the schism is undoubtedly to be found in the extreme nationalism of the French cardinals. This unhappy division lasted from 1378 to 1417. During it the various theories of Church government and of the relations of Church and State that had been formulated during the 14th century crystal lised into the Conciliar theory. The old Imperial ideas had been maintained by Dante and others, and had received heterodox development from such men as Marsiglio of Padua, and the extreme Spirituals among the Franciscans. They had all involved some subordination of the papacy, or at least some check upon its power. In a desperate effort to end the scandal of the schism a few theologians developed this idea into the Conciliar theory of Church government. According to this the pope was not absolute but dependent on a General Council. Though the theory was merely the result of desperation thanks to the emperor Sigismund and the reasonably good co-operation of the Roman pope, Gregory XII., the Conciliar party succeeded in gathering the Council of Constance. Here after Gregory had resigned and the anti-popes
had been deposed, Martin V. was elected. He rejected the Con ciliar theory and though it was maintained for a time by a few, it steadily declined.
During the next century the licence of the pagan Renaissance, and the general decadence of morals still further harmed the reputation of the papacy. Many of the popes themselves were too affected by the general materialism. But save by the Hussites in Bohemia their spiritual authority was not seriously questioned. The most significant feature of this century from our point of view is the extension of the policy of individual arrangements between the papacy and the nations. Martin V. himself at Con stance had followed this policy. The two Pragmatic Sanctions of Bourges and of Mainz though not concordats and though rejected ultimately, represent the same tendency. The constant political work into which the papacy was drawn caused further loss of prestige. But at the same time this very political activity testifies to the survival of the papal spiritual authority. Its mere tem poral power could never have given it so great an importance. Thus by the beginning of the i6th century extreme solutions of the problem of reconciling the universal authority of the Papacy over the Church with national sovereignty seemed to have been set aside. The Conciliar theory had left its marks, but bad been itself destroyed, extreme nationalism had been beaten in Bohemia, the more extensive claims of the papacy to a right of interference in national affairs had been checked by anti-papal legislation in different countries, and by individual concordats.
The solution of the problem might have seemed to be merely a matter of time. At this moment however the rise of Luther and the coincidence of other unexpected events led to the revolt from Christian unity of a large part of Europe, and postponed the solution.
E. The Fifth Period.—At the opening of the 16th century there occurred a coincidence of events that defied anticipation. The abuses that undoubtedly existed within the Church had occu pied the minds of right-thinking men for many years ; slowly, but surely, they were being checked. Unfortunately they were still so patent as to give occasion to rebellion. But the rebellion when it came was almost fortuitous. Genius defies all laws, and the great est Protestant leader had genius. Luther might have been as unsuccessful as many of his predecessors but for his amazing popular appeal. His robust vigour, his deep knowledge of human nature, his eloquence and intellectual energy, make him one of the great figures of history. The Catholic will naturally judge that these gifts were abused, but no sane historian can deny their exist ence. To discuss his motives would lead one into controversy.