|
|
![]() Helping San Diego, California and beyond since 1997.
|
|
Click here and add this page to your favorites!

|
Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: JEE-JUN |
|
|
JOHN XXII ., pope from 1316 to 1334, was born at Cahors, France, in 1249. His original
nobility
Boniface VIII. at the instance of the king of Naples, and in 1308 was made chancellor of Naples by Charles, retaining this office under Charles's successor, Robert of Anjou. In 1310 Pope Clement V. summoned Jacques to Avignon and instructed him to advise upon the affair of the Templars and also upon the question of condemning the memory of Boniface VIII. Jacques decided on the legality of suppressing the order of the Templars, holding that the pope would be serving the best interests of the church by pronouncing its suppression; but he rejected the condemnation of Boniface as a sacrilegious affront to the church and a monstrous abuse of the lay power. On the 23rd of December 1312 Clement appointed him cardinal-bishop of Porto
Porto
More jurist than theologian, John defended the rights of the papacy with rigorous zeal and as rigorous logic. For the restoration of the papacy to its old independence, which had been so gravely compromised under his immediate predecessors, and for the execution of the vast enterprises which the papacy deemed useful for its prestige and for Christendom, considerable sums were required; and to raise the necessary money John burdened Christian Europe with new taxes and a complicated fiscal system, which was fraught with serious consequences. For his personal use, however, he retained but a very small fraction of the sums thus acquired, and at his death his private fortune amounted to scarce a million florins. The essentially practical character of his administration has led many historians to tax him with avarice, but later research on the fiscal system of the papacy of the period, particularly the joint work of Samaran and Mollat, enables us very sensibly to modify the severe judgment passed on John by Gregorovius and others. John's pontificate was continually disturbed by his conflict with Louis of Bavaria and by the theological revolt of the Spiritual Franciscans. In October 1314 Louis of Bavaria and Frederick of Austria had each been elected German king by the divided electors. Louis was gradually recognized by the-whole of Germany, especially after his victory at Muhldorf (1322), and gained numerous adherents in Italy, where he supported the Visconti, who had been condemned as heretics by the pope. John affected to ignore the successes of Louis, and on the 8th of October 1323 forbade his recognition as king of the Romans. After demanding a respite, Louis abruptly appealed at Nuremberg from the future sentence of the pope to a general council (December 8, 1323). The conflict then assumed a grave doctrinal character. The doctrine of the rights of the lay monarchy sustained by Occam and John of Paris, by Marsilius of Padua, John of Jandun and Leopold of Bamberg
A violent manifestation of this resistance took place in connexion with the accusation of heresy brought against the pope. On the third Sunday in Advent 1329, and afterwards in public consistory, John had preached that the souls of those who have died in a state of grace go into Abraham's bosom, sub altari Dei, and do not enjoy the beatific vision (visio facie ad faciem) of the Lord until after the Last Judgment and the Resurrection; and he had even instructed a Minorite friar, Gauthier of Dijon, to collect the passages in the Fathers which were in favour of this doctrine. On the 27th of December 1331 a Dominican, Thomas of England, preached against this doctrine at Avignon itself and was thrown into prison. When news of this affair had reached Paris, the pope sent the general of the Minorites, Gerard Odonis, accompanied by a Dominican, to sustain his doctrine in that city, but King Philip VI., perhaps at the instigation of the refugee Spirituals in Paris, referred the question to the faculty of theology, which, on the 2nd of January 1333, declared that the souls of the blessed were elevated to the beatific vision immediately after death; the faculty, nevertheless, were of opinion that the pope should have propounded his erroneous doctrine only " recitando," and not " determinando, asserendo, seu etiam opinando." The king notified this decision to the pope, who assembled his consistory in November 1333, and gave a haughty reply. The theologians in Louis's following who were opposed to papal absolutism already spoke of " the new heretic, Jacques de Cahors," and reiterated with increasing insistency their demands for the convocation of a general council to try the pope. John appears to have retracted shortly before his death, which occurred on the 4th of December 1334.11 On the 29th of January 1336 Pope Benedict XII. pronounced a long judgment on this point of doctrine, a judgment which he declared had been included by John in a bull which death had prevented him from sealing. John had kindled very keen animosity, not only among the upholders of the independence of the lay power, but also among the upholders of absolute religious poverty, the exalted Francis-cans. Clement V., at the council of Vienne, had attempted to bring back the Spirituals to the common rule by concessions; John, on the other hand, in the bull Quorundam exigit (April 13, 1317), adopted an uncompromising and absolute attitude, and by the bull Gloriosam ecclesiam (January 23, 1318) condemned the protests which had been raised against the bull Quorundam by a group of seventy-four Spirituals and conveyed to Avignon by the monk Bernard
See M. Souchon, Die Papstwahlen von Bonifaz VIII. bis Urban VI. (Brunswick, 1888) ; Abbe Albe, Autour de Jean XXII. (Rome, 1904) ; K. Muller, Der Kampf Ludwigs des Bayern mit der Curie (Tubingen, 1879 seq.) ; W. Preger, Memoires sur la lutte entre Jean XXII. et Louis de Baviere " in Abhandl. der bayr. Akad., hist. sec., xv., xvi., xvii. ; S. Riezler, Die litterar. Widersacher der Pdpste zur Zeit Ludwigs des Baiers ( Leipzig
End of Article: JOHN XXII If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
<a href="http://jcsm.org/StudyCenter/Encyclopedia/JEE_JUN/JOHN_XXII.html"> JOHN XXII </a> |
|
|
(Previous) JOHN XXI |
(Next) JOHN XXIII |
|
Sponsored Advertisements