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Rh of the Church had been weakened but no new authority had taken its place; religious leadership could neither be obeyed nor ignored. This situation created mental and moral instability; men swung wildly between gross sensualism and hysterical revivalism, or tried to make the best of both worlds by combining superstition with hypocrisy. The Church had been the symbol of co-operation and organization, and when that symbol was tarnished, the tasks of civilization became difficult. It was not easy to create loyalty to a new symbol—the state—and until that loyalty was created Europe was confused and disorderly. We can see the same confusion and disorder today in regions in which the national state is replacing older faiths as the symbol of unity and perhaps in other areas where the national state no longer seems a sufficient symbol.

The growing weakness of the Church was dramatically revealed in the pontificate of Boniface VIII (1294-1303). Boniface was an able canon lawyer, like most popes of the thirteenth century, and he had the canon lawyer's exalted opinion of papal authority. He failed to realize that no pope in 1300 could wield the authority of an Innocent III, and that the circumstances of his election had left him vulnerable to attack. The College of Cardinals had had serious differences on policy in the 1280's and found it impossible to agree on a new pope when Nicholas IV died in 1292. Finally, in 1294, they took the desperate step of electing a pious Italian hermit as Celestine V. Celestine was inexperienced, naïve, and completely bewildered by the political pressures to which he was subjected. After six months he resigned his office, and Boniface was chosen in his place. There was some doubt as to whether a canonically elected pope could resign, and grave suspicion that Boniface had forced the resignation by underhanded means. Boniface became even more suspect when Celestine died in confine