France was the greatest nation in the 14th century; therefore she was nationally one of the most self-conscious; and it is she who came into directest conflict with the papacy. Boniface VIII.
(d. 1302) attempted to forbid taxation of the clergy by the State; again, he claimed that "all law is enclosed in the casket of the pope's breast." In his bull Unam Sanctarn, he proclaimed to the world : "We declare that all human beings are subject to the pontiff of Rome; and we assert, define and pronounce this tenet to be essential and necessary to salvation." This attitude led to a conflict with Philippe-le-Bel of France, in which Boniface was humbled ; this, again was a prelude to the transference from Rome to Avignon, where the popes in fact, though not in pretension, be came virtually subjects of the French king. Even in England, where it might be argued that the clergy themselves were becom ing more papalist than ever, and where Archbishop Arundel could proclaim that it was heresy to dispute any papal decretal (1408), yet king and parliament were putting very definite limits to papal control by their Statutes of Provisors and of Praemunire. Other sovereigns presently protected themselves by similar measures.
Publicists.—For, meanwhile, in the first half of the 14th cen tury, publicists like Marsilius of Padua and William of Ockham (see OCCAM) enunciated theories which probably represented what a good many thinkers had long since been saying confidentially to each other in universities like Paris, and in great self-governing cities like Padua. For Marsilius and Ockham, the Bible is the great rule of life for Christendom ; the supreme power resides in a coun cil of the whole Church, to which Ockham, apparently, was ready to admit women, and which may judge the pope. Indeed, Ockham
is ready to conceive a Christendom without the pope; true, there are certain functions which it would be difficult to arrange other wise, but the papacy is not essential to the Church of Christ. These speculations formed a fitting prelude to the conciliar epoch (1414-57) during which, mainly at Constance (q.v.) and Basel, the Church attempted to put definite constitutional limits to papal autocracy. Both councils decreed, and compelled popes practi cally to admit, that a general council may judge and depose even a supreme pontiff, and that the pope cannot legislate without conciliar approval.
It is true that the constitutionalists here, as in the England of 1642, over-reached themselves, and the later mediaeval papacy profited by a reaction which rendered it despotic again within the Church. But the laity never forgot ; and temporal princes grew more and more accustomed to maintain their own interests in open conflict with the pope.
Two factors contributed farther to this political independence. The monastic reforms decreed by the councils of Constance and Basel, in so far as they were carried out at all, owed much of their success to the secular authorities; in this field, at any rate, it became increasingly plain that the Church was not likely to reform herself merely from within. Again, the later mediaeval popes were predominantly politicians. The papacy had become an Italian principate ; the pontiffs constantly involved themselves in those civil wars which made Italy a "hostelry of pain" (Dante) ; and they showed no less selfishness and duplicity than the princes with whom they were contending. They were ready to go any lengths to secure a little more authority or a few more square miles of territory; as when Clement V. (13o9) decreed that the resisting Venetians should be sold into slavery, and Gregory XI. and Sixtus IV. decreed the same for the Florentines and Julius II. for both Florence and Bologna. The bull by which Nicholas V. (1442) encouraged Portugal to what became the organized trade in negro slaves did not immediately show these disastrous results; but when, in 1538, Paul III. decreed slavery against all English men who should dare to support Henry VIII. against the pope, nobody was deceived as to the selfishness of this political move. (For evidence on these points see articles SLAVERY and INQUISI TION ; also T. Brecht, Kirche and Sklaverei, p. 156.) A quarrel with this spiritual autocrat, however moral or religious might be the original cause of difference, became ipso facto a political quarrel. Therefore, in 150o, any spark might have kindled a general con flagration.