important man, Marsiglio of Padua. All three were excommunicated in 1328, but escaped from
Avignon, and took refuge with the Emperor Louis. Louis was one of the two claimants to the
Empire; he was the one favoured by Germany, but the other was favoured by the Pope. The Pope
excommunicated Louis, who appealed against him to a General Council. The Pope himself was
accused of heresy.
It is said that Occam, on meeting the Emperor, said: "Do you defend me with the sword, and I will
defend you with the pen." At any rate, he and Marsiglio of Padua settled in Munich, under the
protection of the Emperor, and there wrote political treatises of considerable importance. What
happened to Occam after the Emperor's death in 1338 is uncertain. Some say he was reconciled to
the Church, but this seems to be false.
The Empire was no longer what it had been in the Hohenstaufen era; and the papacy, though its
pretensions had grown continually greater, did not command the same reverence as formerly.
Boniface VIII had moved it to Avignon at the beginning of the fourteenth century, and the Pope
had become a political subordinate of the king of France. The Empire had sunk even more; it
could no longer claim even the most shadowy kind of universal dominion, because of the strength
of France and England; on the other hand, the Pope, by subservience to the king of France, also
weakened his claim to universality in temporal matters. Thus the conflict between Pope and
Emperor was really a conflict between France and Germany. England, under Edward III, was at
war with France, and therefore in alliance with Germany; this caused England, also, to be
antipapal. The Pope's enemies demanded a General Council--the only ecclesiastical authority
which could be regarded as superior to the Pope.
The character of the opposition to the Pope changed at this time. Instead of being merely in favour
of the Emperor, it acquired a democratic tone, particularly in matters of Church government. This
gave it a new strength, which ultimately led to the Reformation.
Dante ( 1265-1321), though as a poet he was a great innovator, was, as a thinker, somewhat
behind the times. His book De Monarchia is Ghibelline in outlook, and would have been more
timely a hundred years earlier. He regards Emperor and Pope as independent, and both divinely
appointed. In the Divine Comedy, his Satan has three mouths, in which he eternally chews Judas
Iscariot, Brutus, and