Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 4.djvu/42

CLEMENT good general, Charles had many weaknesses of character that made him a very different ruler from his saintly brother. He was harsh, cruel, grasping, and tyrannical. Clement was kept busy reminding him of the terms of his treaty, reproving his excesses and those of his officials, and warning him that he was gaining the enmity of his subjects. Nevertheless, when, a little later, young Conradin, disregarding papal censures and anathemas, advanced to the conquest of what he deemed his birthright, Clement remained faithful to Charles and prophesied that the gallant youth, received by the Ghibelline party everywhere, even in Rome, with unbounded enthusiasm, "was being led like a lamb to the slaughter", and that "his glory would vanish like smoke", a prophecy only too literally fulfilled when, after the fatal day of Tagliacozzo (23 August, 1268), Conradin fell into Charles' merciless hands and was beheaded (29 October) on the market-place of Naples. The fable that Pope Clement advised the execution of the unfortunate prince by saying. "The death or life of Conradin means the life or death of Charles", is of a later date, and opposed to the truth. Even the statement of Gregorovius that Clement became an accomplice by refusing to intercede for Conradin, is equally groundless; for it has been shown conclusively, not only that he pleaded for his life and besought St. Louis to add the weight of his influence with his brother, but, moreover, that he sternly reproved Charles for his cruel deed when it was perpetrated. Clement followed "the last of the Hohenstaufen" to the grave just one month later, leaving the papacy in a much better condition than when he received the keys of St. Peter. He was buried in the church of the Dominicans at Viterbo. Owing to divergent views among the cardinals, the papal throne remained vacant for nearly three years. In 1268, Clement canonized St. Hedwig of Poland (d. 1243).

JORDAN, Les registres de Clement IV (Paris, 1893, sqq.); Life and Letters in MANSI, XIV, 325; HEIDEMANN, Papst Klemens IV. (Munster, 1903, pt. 1); HEFELE, Concilieng., VI, 1-265; HERGENROTHER-KIRSCH, Kirchengesch., 4th ed. (Freiburg, 1904), II, 576; PRIEST, II ist. de la Conquite de Naples par Charles d'Anjou (Paris, 1841); BRAYDA, La risponsabilità di Clemente IV e di Carlo X d'Anjou nella morte di Corradino di Soevia (Naples, 1900).

1em

Clement V, POPE (BERTRAND DE GOT), b. at Villandraut in Ciascony, France, 1264; d. at Roquemaure, 20 April, 1314. He was elected, 5 June, 1305, at Perugia as successor to Benedict XI, after a conclave of eleven months, the great length of which was owing to the French and Italian factions among the cardinals.

Ten of the fifteen (mostly Italian) cardinals voting elected him. Giovanni Villani's story (Hist. Florent., VIII, 80, in Muratori, SS. RR. Ital., XIII, 417; cf. Raynald, Ann. Eccl., 1305, 2-4) of a decisive influence of Philip the Fair, and the new pope's secret conference with and abject concessions to that king in the forest of Saint-Jean-d'Angély, is quite unhistorical; on the other hand, the cardinals were willing to please the powerful French king whom the late Benedict XI had been obliged to placate by notable concessions, and it is not improbable that some kind of a mutual understanding was reached by the king and the future pope. As Archbishop of Bordeaux, Bertrand de Got was actually a subject of the King of England, but from early youth he had been a personal friend of Philip the Fair. Nevertheless, he had remained faithful to Boniface VIII. The new pope came from a distinguished family. An elder brother had been Archbishop of Lyons, and died (1297) as Cardinal-Bishop of Albano and papal legate in France. Bertrand studied the arts at Toulouse and canon and civil law at Orléans and Bologna. He had been successively canon at Bordeaux, vicar-general of the Archbishop of Lyons (his aforesaid brother), papal chaplain, Bishop of Comminges under Boniface VIII, and eventually Archbishop of Bordeaux, then a difficult office because of the persistent conflict between England and France for the possession of Normandy. The cardinals besought him to come to Perugia and go thence to Rome for his coronation, but he ordered them to repair to Lyons, where he was crowned (14 November, 1305) in presence of Philip the Fair and with great pomp. During the usual public procession the pope was thrown from his horse by a falling wall; one of his brothers was killed on that occasion, also the aged Cardinal Matteo Orsini who had taken part in twelve conclaves and seen thirteen popes. The most precious jewel in the papal tiara (a carbuncle) was lost that day, an incident prophetically interpreted by German and Italian historians, and the next day another brother was skin in a quarrel between servants of the new pope and retainers of the cardinals. For some time (1305-1309), Pope Clement resided at different places in France (Bordeaux, Poitiers, Toulouse), but finally took up his residence at Avignon, then a fief of Naples, though within the County of Venaissin that since 1228 acknowledged the pope as overlord (in 1348 Clement VI purchased Avignon for 80,000 gold gulden from Joanna of Naples). Strong affection for his native France and an equally influential fear of the quasi-anarchical conditions of Italy, and in particular of the States of the Church and the city of Rome, led him to this fateful decision, whereby he exposed himself to the domination of a civil ruler (Philip the Fair), whose im- mediate aims were a universal French monarchy and a solemn humiliation of Pope Boniface VIII in return for the latter's courageous resistance to Philip's cun- ning, violence, and usurpations (Hergenrother).

—The government of the States of the Church was committed by Clement to a commission of three cardinals, while at Spoleto his own brother, Arnaud Garsias de Got, held the office of papal vicar. Giacomo degli Stefaneschi, a senator and popular chief, governed within the city in a loose and personal way. Confusion and anarchy were prevalent, owing to the implacable mutual hatred of the Colonna and Orsini, the traditional turbulence of the Romans, and the frequent angry conflicts between the people and the nobles, conditions which had been growing worse all through the thirteenth century and had eventually driven even the Italian popes to such outside strongholds as Viterbo, Anagni, Orvieto, and Perugia. No more graphic illustration of the local conditions at Rome and in the Patrimony of Peter could be asked than the description of Nicholas of Butrinto, the historiographer of Emperor Henry VII, on his fateful Roman expedition of 1312 [see Von Reumont, Geschichte der Stadt Rom, Berlin, 1867, II (1), 743-65]. Among the untoward Roman events of Pope Clement's reign was the conflagration 6 May, 1308, that destroyed the church of St. John Lateran, soon rebuilt, however, by the Romans with the aid of the pope. Clement did not hesitate to try the conclusions of war with the Italian state of Venice that had unjustly seized on Ferrara, a fief of the Patrimony of Peter. When excommunication, interdict, and a general prohibition of all commercial intercourse failed, he outlawed the Venetians, and caused a crusade to be preached against them; finally his legate, Cardinal Pélagrue, overthrew in a terrific battle the haughty aggressors (28 August, 1309). The papal vicariate of Ferrara was then conferred on Robert of Naples, whose Catalonian mercenaries, however, were more odious to the people than the Venetian usurpers. In any case, the smaller powers of Italy had learned that they could not yet strip with impunity the inheritance of the