“This im− “mense treasure, says Fleury, was amassed by his “Holiness’s industry, who, from the year 1319, estab− “lished the reservation of the benefices of all the col− “legiate churches of Christendom, saying, that he “did it in order to do away simony. Furthermore, “in virtue of this reservation, the pope seldom or never “confirms the election of any prelate: but he pro− “motes an archbishop to a bishoprick, and puts an in− “ferior bishop in his place; whence, it often happens “that an archbishop’s see, or patriarchate, becoming “vacant, produces six promotions or more, and a “consequent flow of large sums of money into the “apostolic treasury.”
²⁶³ Villaret’s Hist, of France, t. 8, p. 234-253.—Henault’s Abr. Chron. of Hist, of France, ann. 1329, et 1330.
²⁶⁴ Fltury’s Eccles. Hist, 1. 93, n. 4.12.
In 1338, Benedict XII. having refused to absolve Louis of Bavaria, the Diets of Rensee and of Frankfort declared, that ancient custom conferred the vicariate of the vacant empire on the count Palatine of the Rhine; that the pretensions of the pope to replace the emperor during an interregnum were untenable; that the pope had over the German empire no sort of superiority; that it was not his province to regulate, nor confirm the elections of the emperors; that the plurality of suffrages of the electoral college conferred the empire without the consent of the Holy See, and, that to assert the contrary would be a crime of high treason.²⁶⁵ The Germans gave to their decree, the name of “Pragmatic Sanction,” and, at the same time, it was forbidden to pay any respect to the censures fulminated against the head of the empire, to receive bulls from Avignon, or keep up any correspondence with the pontifical court.²⁶⁶ Four years after the publication of this decree arose Clement VI. who demanded of the emperor a perpetual edict, in which the empire should be declared a fief of the Holy See, a benefice that none could possess without the authority of the sovereign pontiff. This Clement said, that none of his predecessors knew how to be a pope; Benedict XII. more modest, said to the cardinals his electors: You have elected an ass.²⁶⁷
Clement renewed the anathemas of John XXII. against Louis of Bavaria; he added thereto more solemn imprecations: