iously
attempted to realize them; to do so had in fact become impossible, for
from the time of their residence at Avignon (1305-1377) the popes were
in a state of complete dependence upon the French crown. But even the
curialistic theory met everywhere with opposition. In France Philip
IV.'s jurists maintained that the temporal power was independent of the
spiritual. In Italy, a little later, Dante championed the divine right
of the emperor (_De Monarchia_, 1311). In Germany, Marsiglio of Padua
and Jean of Jandun, the literary allies of the emperor Louis IV.,
ventured to define anew the nature of the civil power from the
standpoint of natural law, and to assert its absolute sovereignty
(_Defensor pacis_, c. 1352); while the Franciscan William of Occam (d.
1349) examined, also in Louis' interests, into the nature of the
relation between the two powers. He too concluded that the temporal
power is independent of the spiritual, and is even justified in invading
the sphere of the latter in cases of necessity.

While these thoughts were filling men's minds, opposition to the papal
rule over the Church was also gaining continually in strength. The
reasons for this were numerous, first among them being the abuses of the
papal system of finance, which had to provide funds for the vast
administrative machinery of the Curia. There was also the boundless
abuse and arbitrary exercise of the right of ecclesiastical patronage
(provisions, reservations); and further the ever-increasing traffic in
dispensations, the abuse of spiritual punishments for worldly ends, and
so forth. No means, however, existed of enforcing any remedy until the
papal schism occurred in 1378. Such a schism as this, so intolerable to
the ecclesiastical sense of the middle ages, necessitated the discovery
of some authority superior to the rival popes, and therefore able to put
an end to their quarrelling. General councils were now once more called
to mind; but these were no longer conceived as mere advisory councils to
the pope, but as the highest representative organ of the universal
Church, and as such ranking above the pope, and competent to demand
obedience even from him. This was the view of the Germans Conrad of
Gelnhausen (d. 1390) and Heinrich of Langenstein (d. 1397), as also of
the Frenchmen Pierre d'Ailli (d. 1420) and Jean Charlier Gerson (d.
1429). These all recognized in the convocation of a general council the
means of setting bounds to the abuses