A new phase of the conflict between church and State begins with the /1 Of the em perors of the House of IlohenstHufeW. The Hohenstaufen (Ghibelline) policy was to extend the German kingdom, under the disguise of the Empire. over Italy. In this ambition it was checked at every turn by the rising power of the Italian city republic-.. Frederick Barbarossa (11.32-901 sought to incorporate these communi ties into-his administration by placing governors (potlestii) over them and utilizing their growing wealth for his larger plans. Led by :Milan. the Lombard conununes steadily resisted. Milan, destroyed in 1162. was rebuilt by her neigh bors, and at the head of the great Lombard League gave the Emperor such a defeat at Legnano (1171;) that in the Peace of Constance (1183) lie conceded practically all the claim, of the cities to independence. Throughout this fight the communes were steadily supported by the Papacy. Their party (the Guelph) was also the Papal party; and though outside the cities there were many territorial and inside there was always a noble faction that looked toward the Emperor, the great masses of the rising industrial population, organized in their craft and merchant guilds, were sturdily Guelph and in every crisis expected the support of the Pope. Henry VI., son of Frederick 1. (1191) 07), had elaborate for refeudalizing Italy and sinking the communes in greater territorial units. Through marriage NI ith the heiress of the Norman kingdom in the south and the birth of a son in 1194, he seemed to see the reali zation of the Hohenstaufen polio. His death. the consequent confusion in Germany, and the accession of the great Pope Innocent III. 1 I 19*.? P161 saved Italy for the time and gave to the Papal power one of its greatest moments of triumph.
Innocent Iii, realized more eompletely than sly pope before or after him the Hildebrandine ideal. He was able to bring King John of Eng land to surrender the overlordship of the land to him for his support against his nobles. He compelled Philip Augustus of France to take back his rejected wife. In the struggle for the German crown he championed otho the Guelph against Philip of Ilohenstanfen (119S-1205). but when nth() as King (120s-14I that no Emperor could he a Guelph, no Pope could he a Innocent turned against him at once. Ile gave his support to France against Germany and England in the battle of Routines (1214). by which his ward the young King Frederick of sicily gained the Empire. At a Lateran council in 1215 innocent displayed as it had never been displayed before the legal system on which the 'working of the Papal idea depended.
prestige of the Papacy had been greatly increased by its leadership in the Crusades. The Crusade had been commended by Gregory VII.
Events in the East had roused attention to it soon afterwards, and Urban 11. (1088-99) had made it chief object of his administration.
Throughout the long and not always creditable history of the Crusades (1090-1270), it was the Papacy that. gave to it whatever of unity and dignity it had. From Innocent 111. we may begin to note the gradual decline of the mediaeval Papacy. It had thriven upon the absence of strong national governments in Europe, and the rapid rise of the new nations closed up one by one the channels through which the Papal power had made itself felt. The reign of Frederick 11. (1215-50) is one long conflict between the Imperial and Papal schemes in Italy. On the whole, the Emperor was beaten, but the prestige of the Papacy as a universal power was injured.
The attempt of the Hohenstaufen to maintain a government in Italy was frustrated, but the Papacy. by bringing the Angevin rulers from France into the South, sowed the seeds of new disaster. Rudolph of Hapsburg (1273-91) began
a new policy for the Empire: to leave Italy out of the question in return for a free hand in Germany; and every deviation from this wise policy by his successors only showed again how conqdetely the mediaeval ideals of life were passing over into those of the modern world. The attempts of Henry VII. (1308.13) and Louis the Bavarian (1314-47) to affect the balance of Italian politics proved utter failures.
On the other hand, the same thing is true of Papal attempts to enforce discipline can the rulers of Europe. Boldface VIII. (1294-1303) came to the Papacy as the leader of the ea rdi nalate in an unKeeedented crisis. llis predeces sor, Celestine V., a pious reel use, had so com pletely fallen into the hands of the Neapolitan Angevins that lie had raised to the cardinalate a number of French and Neapolitan prelates. Ile had then, largely under pressure from 11011H:ice, resigned the Papacy, and 1111W the cardinals found themselves under the donlinathin of such a will as had not been seen in the Papal office sines Innocent 111. 11is violent attempts to break clown the faction of the Colonna drove his enemies to the Court of Philip IV. of France. and there they found a fertile soil for their comidaints.
a completely modern rider, needing all the money there was to spare in laid a tax upon the clergy. Boniface, in a series of able documents, laid down again the Ilildebrandine doctrine of the freedom of the Church. Philip appealed to the national sentiment as expressocl for the first time in the States-General and won his fight. Boniface, defeated and abused by the personal enemies he had made, died, the last great ex ponent of the medieval Papacy.
The wreck of the mediceval scheme of a Papacy and an Empire working in a harmony that was never attained threw the Papacy upon a new alliance. The influence of France now replaces that of Germany. The result of the second con clave after the death of Bonifaee was the election of a Frenchman, Clement V. (1305-14). The Pope was met at Lyons by King Philip in person, and as a result of this interview lie never loft France. The cardinals summoned across the Alps obeyed, and thus began the French resi dence of the Papacy, the 'Babylonian Captivity' at Avignon (1309-70). This 'exile' came about naturally through the working of the cardinal system. The French influence had secured certain cardinals from Celestine V.; these decided the choice of Clement, and now he in turn was free to appoint enough more French cardinals to de cide the character of the college for a generation to collie. The close of the Papacy to France withdrew from it the sympathies of the other nations, notably of England. It seemed in clanger of losing entirely that Roman character which was its only source of authority. Pressure was continually brought to induce the popes to return to Rome; several attempts to do so were made, but were hindered by the French interests of the cardinals. Finally, Pope Gregory XI. did return and died at Rome (1378). The new election, held under fear of violence from the `Roman people,' resulted in the choice of an Italian. Urban VI., but within a few months the French influence succeeded in raising suffi cient doubts as to the validity, of this election to justify the cardinals in choosing another Pope. Clement VII. Thus, still by the regular working of the Papa] machinery, the Church found itself, for the first time in its history, involved in a schism in which both claimants rested upon the same basis, a lawful election by cardinals.