valries and intrigues between the French and Italian cardinals,
continued the residence at Avignon. His movements took a practical turn
in the commencement of a process for the recovery of the treasures of
Clement from the Viscount de Lomenie. This was only a part of the wealth
of the deceased pope, but it amounted to a million and three quarters of
florins of gold. The Inquisition was kept actively at work for the
extermination of the believers in "The Everlasting Gospel," and the
remnant of the Albigenses and Waldenses. But all this had no other
result than that which eventually occurred--an examination of the
authenticity and rightfulness of the papal power. With an instinct as to
the origin of the misbelief everywhere spreading, the pope published
bulls against the Jews, of whom a bloody persecution had arisen, and
ordered that all their Talmuds and other blasphemous books should be
burnt. [Sidenote: Marsilio's work, "The Defender of Peace."] A
physician, Marsilio of Padua, published a work, "The Defender of Peace."
It was a philosophical examination of the principles of government, and
of the nature and limits of the sacerdotal power. Its democratic
tendency was displayed by its demonstration that the exposition of the
law of Christianity rests not with the pope nor any other priest, but
with a general council; it rejected the papal political pretensions;
asserted that no one can be rightfully excommunicated by a pope alone,
and that he has no power of coercion over human thought; that the civil
immunities of the clergy ought to be ended; that poverty and humility
ought alone to be their characteristics; that society ought to provide
them with a decent sustenance, but nothing more: their pomp,
extravagance, luxury, and usurpations, especially that of tithes, should
be abrogated; that neither Christ nor the Scriptures ever gave St. Peter
a supremacy over the other apostles; that, if history is to be
consulted, St. Paul, and not St. Peter, was bishop of Rome--indeed, it
is doubtful whether the latter was ever in that city, the Acts of the
Apostles being silent on that subject. From these and many other such
arguments he drew forty-one conclusions adverse to the political and
ecclesiastical supremacy of the pope.

It is not necessary to consider here the relations of John XXII. to
Louis of Bavaria, nor of the antipope Nicholas; they belong merely to
political history. But, as if to show how the intellectual movement wa