A pontifical interregnum of two years, from Clement V. to John XXII., comprised the entire reign of the king of France, Louis X. or “le Hutin.” His brother and successor Philip the Long, received from John XXII. a pedantic and high flown epistle²⁶⁰ which will suffice to shew what this second Avignon pope would have dared under different circumstances. He created bishopricks in France: in authorizing the divorce of Charles the Handsome, who repudiated Blanche of Burgundy, he conceived a hope that he could subject by degrees a government which sought compliances of him. But Philip de Valois, who perceived his ambitious designs, threatened to have him burned,²⁶¹ and provoked a celebrated discussion on the bounds of the two powers. The king’s advocate, Peter de Cugnieres, supported the rights of the civil power by arguments, not always of the best description, though much less wretched than those made by the prelates to perpetuate the abuse of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction. It is, say they, by the exercise of this jurisdiction that the clergy are enriched; now the opulence of the clergy, the splendor of the bishops and archbishops is one of the prime interests of the king and of the kingdom. Philip de Valois, but little sensible to this interest, commanded that within the space of a year the abuses should be reformed, without the intervention of the Roman or Avignon court.
²⁶¹ Baluz. Vit Pap. Avenion. v. 1. p, 164—Fleury’s Eccles. Hist. 1. 82. p. 25.
²⁶² Brûler.—Millot’s Hist. of France, v. 2, p. 84.
This discussion had not adequate effects; but it was from it appeals as of abuse or error sprung, that is to say, appeals from ecclesiastical decisions to secular tribunals.²⁶²
After the death of the emperor, Henry VII. Frederick the Handsome, duke of Austria, disputed the empire with Louis, duke of Bavaria, whose rights were established by victory. However, John XXII, cancelled the election of Louis; he maintained that it belonged to the sovereign pontiff, to examine and ratify the nomination of the emperors, and that, during the vacancy, the imperial government should immediately revert to the Holy See, from whence it emanated²⁶³ The pope reproached Louis with protecting the Visconti, excommunicated as heretics; their heresy, we have seen, was the supporting and directing the Ghibeline party. Louis resisted, he kept no bounds in the invectives with which he loaded John. While John was deposing the emperor, the emperor caused John to be deposed by the clergy, nobility, and citizens of Rome. A Franciscan took the name of Nicholas V., and seated himself on the pontifical throne; but the repentance and obedience of Nicholas, injured so materially the cause of Louis, that he consented to renounce the empire, when John died, leaving twenty-five million of florins in his coffers.²⁶⁴