Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 2.djvu/449

 CONDITION OF THE CHURCH. 433 caUing attention to the numerous cases in his diocese wherein pre- ferment had been procured for minors either by force or simony The horror which the good pope expresses at this abuse is sig- nificantly lUustrated by his having not long before issued dispen- sations to five members of one family in France, aged respectively seven, eight, nine, ten, and eleven years, to hold canonries and other benefices. Apparently the Bohemians had not taken the proper means to obtain the sanction of the curia for such infrac- tion of the canons, so Clement ordered Arnest to dispossess the mcumbents m aU such cases, and to impose due penance on them But he was also instructed, in conjunction with the papal coUector to force them to compound with the papal camera for aU the rev- enues which they had thus illegally received, and after they had undergone this squeezing process he was authorized to reinstate them.* Such unblushing exhibitions of rapacious simony did not tend either to the purity of the Bohemian Church, or to enhance its respect for the Holy See, especially as the frequently recurring, papal exactions strained to the last degree the relations between the papacy and the German churches. When, in 1354, Innocent VI., to carry on his Italian wars, suddenly demanded a tenth of all the ecclesiastical revenues of the empire, it threw for several years, the whole German Church into an uproar of rage and in- dignation. Some prelates refused to pay, and, when legal pro- ceedings were commenced against them, formulated appeals which were contemptuously rejected as frivolous. The Bishops of Camin and Brandenburg were only compeUed to yield by the direct threat of excommunication. Othere pleaded poverty, and were mockingly reminded of the large sums which they had succeeded m exacting from their miserable subjects ; others made the best bargain they could, and compounded for yearly payments ; others banded together and formed associations mutuaUy pledged to re- Conchen, pp. 2, 3, 5, 7.-Loserth, Hus und Wicklif, Prag, 1884, pp 36 soo Werunsky Excerptt. ex Registt. Clem. VI. pp. 1, 3. 3, 13 35 ^^'~ Dispensations for ehildren to hold prei-erment were' an abuse of old date aw have seen m a former chapter. In 1297 Bonifece VIII. authorized a bty' of Florence, twelve years old, to take a benefice involving the cure of souls Faucon, Registres de Boniface VIII. No. 1761 n 666 II.— 28
 * <En. Syl™ Hist. Bohem. c. 36.-Naucleri Chron. ann. 1360.-H6fler Pra<.er