Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/151

 THE PAPACY AND THE EMPIRE. 135 of ratification. Yet there was no help for it, and unless they were prepared to shift their belief with the pope, they could only ex- pect to be delivered in this world to the Inquisition and in the next to Satan.* Suddenly there appeared a new factor in the quarrel, which speedily gave it importance as a political question of the first mag- nitude. The sempiternal antagonism between the papacy and the empire had been recently assuming a more virulent aspect than usual under the imperious management of John XXII. Henry VII. had died in 1313, and in October, 1311, there had been a dis- puted election. Louis of Bavaria and Frederic of Austria both claimed the kaisership. Since Leo III., in the year 800, had re- newed the line of Roman emperors by crowning Charlemagne, the ministration of the pope in an imperial coronation had been held essential, and had gradually enabled the Holy See to put forward undefined claims of a right to confirm the vote of the German electors. For the enforcement of such claims a disputed election gave abundant opportunity, nor were there lacking other elements to complicate the position. The Angevine papalist King of Naples, Robert the Good, had dreams of founding a great Ital- ian Guelf monarchy, to which John XXII. lent a not unfavorable' ear ; especially as his quarrel with the Ghibelline Yisconti of Lom- bardy was becoming unappeasable. The traditional enmity be- tween France and Germany, moreover, rendered the former eager in everything that could cripple the empire, and French influence was necessarily dominant in Avignon. It would be foreign to our purpose to penetrate into the labyrinth of diplomatic intrigue which speedily formed itself around these momentous questions. An alliance between Robert and Frederic, with the assent of the pope, seemed to give the latter assurance of recognition, when the battle of Muhldorf, September 28, 1322, decided the question. Frederic was a prisoner in the hands of his rival, and there could be no further doubt as to which of them should reign in Germany. It did not follow, however, that John would consent to place the imperial crown on the head of Louis, t t Carl Miiller, Der Kampf Ludwigs des Baiern mit der romischen Curie, § 4. — Felten, Die Bulle Ne pretereat, Trier, 1885.— Preger, Die Politik des Pabstes Johann XXII., Munchen, 1885, pp. 44-6.
 * Nicholaus Minority (Bal. et Mansi III. 224).