362 THE GLORY OF CHRISTENDOM

POPESAWAYFROMROME 363
Ghibellines, soon laying siege to Milan. Meanwhile, in September 1322, imperial claimant Louis and his close
ally John of Bohemia defeated and captured Frederick of Austria in a battle at Miihldorf in Austria. Many of
Frederick's supporters came over to Louis at this point, but Pope John XXII set his face against him. He made up
his mind to reject him as Emperor, despite the objections of many of his cardinals, and in October of the
following year demanded that Louis give up his imperial claim and annul all his acts as Emperor, while informing
his subjects that they should withdraw obedience to Louis if he did not step down?
It remains unclear why Pope John XXII took this momentous step. Certainly Louis of Bavaria had given
far less provocation than earlier imperial challengers of the papacy such as Henry IV, Henry V, Frederick
Barbarossa and Frederick II. Indeed, it is not easy to see how he had given any provocation at all. By all
indications he had won election fairly with a majority of the votes. His allies in Italy, the Ghibellines, were
strongly hostile to the Pope; but the Pope was no longer in Italy, so they presented no direct threat to him. Despite
all the attempts of imperial propagandists to deny it, papal recognition was indeed required to become a lawful
Holy Roman Emperor; why else had so many Emperors, including all those most hostile to the papacy, sought
coronation in Rome? But why did John XXII so stubbornly withhold recognition and confirmation from Louis of
Bavaria?
The most likely explanation is the continuing strife in Italy, which seemed to have no end-the searing
division of Guelf and Ghibelline which cut like a red-hot knife through almost every Italian city. The Italians
might not like John XXII, but he wanted peace among them, and he did consider seriously at various points in his
pontificate the possibility of returning to Rome. He may simply have concluded that there would never be peace
in Italy until Pope and Emperor were in full harmony; and Louis of Bavaria had shown little interest in acting in
concert with the Pope in Italy.
Be that as it may, it is evident that Louis himself had little or no idea why he had been rejected. He was a
rather stolid man, no natural rebel; he was even willing to consider abdication if it could be done without
humiliation, but he would not submit unconditionally to the papal demand?' Casting about for
Z°
Mollat, Popes at Avignon, pp. 87, 91-95; Muir, V'~sconti, pp. 17-23, 25-26; Cambridge Medieval History, VII, 115-
119. The final requirement in this declaration by Pope John XXII went well beyond the original formulation by
Pope St. Gregory VII of the doctrine of the Pope as moral judge of kings and emperors, who could dispense his
subjects from their allegiance to such rulers judged unfit, but not require them to revolt. Presumably Pope John
XXII justified this by his position that Louis was no Em~eror at all since the Pope refused to recognize him as
such.
In January 1326 Louis declared that he was willing to abdicate as Emperor in favor of Frederick of Habsburg
(whom he had released from prison the previous year), if Frederick would confirm Louis' son in possession of
Brandenburg and give him general
intellectual support and a voice more articulate than his own, he hit upon a unique mind-a man out of his time, a
precursor and portent of things to come: the brilliant and iconoclastic Marsilio of Padua, an Italian physician and
political theorist.'
Marsilio's Defensor pacis was nothing less than a rejection of all the independent and God-given authority of
the Catholic Church as an institution. Instead of recognizing the spiritual order as higher than the temporal, as
every writer of Christendom since Constantine had taken for granted however they might see the interaction of
the two orders, Marsilio placed the spiritual order lower. Christ, he said, had not established a Church nor granted
any authority to the Pope. Whatever authority the Pope possessed was held only by grant from the temporal order,
specifically by legislative bodies selected by vote. An ecumenical council was superior to the Pope, and should be
composed not only of clergy but of laymen elected by the people. Scripture was the only religious authority and
the council should decide how it was to be interpreted when major differences arose. An ecumenical council
could only be called by the state; the Pope and all the clergy were subject to the state. The Pope could only have
whatever authority the state and a council chose to give him. They could appoint, suspend, or depose him. The
property of the Church should not be exempt from taxation. The state should control its ultimate disposition.23
Such a doctrine leads straight to the Protestant revolt, and straight through it to the French Revolution.
Christendom's deadliest internal enemy had shown its face. All that Marsilio advocated sooner or later came to
pass. Even Emperor Frederick II had not gone this far. It was the first appearance of the world-view that was to
destroy the medieval synthesis, and ultimately (in the late twentieth century) to destroy Christendom itself as a
public order.
 There is no reason to believe that Louis of Bavaria grasped any substantial part of the true nature of what
Marsilio was recommending. He saw only that it was a way of upholding his right to be Emperor and his
authority in Germany, and a condemnation of the Pope who was denying him both. (Marsilio called Pope John
XXII "the great dragon and old serpent"). 24 In similar fashion Louis suddenly became the champion of the
"Spiritual Franciscans," who insisted that the possession of property by the Church or clergy was contrary to the
command of Christ, and rejected the authority of the Pope when he denied it. Pope John XXII, who had brought
great wealth to
support; Pope John XXII would not accept even this arrangement, but continued to demand Louis' unconditional
submission and abdication (Cambridge Medieval History, VII 121-122).
~ Mollat, Popes atAvignon, pp. 96-97; Ferdinand Schevill, Medieval and Renaissance Florence (New York, 1961),
Z

I, 206.
23
Von Pastor, History of the Popes, I, 76-81; Mollat, Popes at Avignon, pp. 96-97; Schevill, Florence, I, 206.
Z°
Von Pastor, History of the Popes, I, 76.