Chapter 241 The Pope of the Last Battle

The Pope, the supreme leader of the Catholic Church and the head of the Vatican, has been re-elected for 160 terms, and the first pope is St. Peter (St. Peter), the head of the twelve apostles of Jesus. Elected to office for life and cannot be recalled. The Catholic Church led by the Pope is the largest religious denomination in the world, which has influenced the development of European and world civilization since the beginning of the Roman Empire. The Pope's full title is: "Bishop of Rome, Representative of Jesus Christ, Successor to the Apostles, Supreme Imam of the Universal Church, Archbishop of Italy, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Diocese of Rome, Head of the Papal States and Servant of God".

In addition to his religious office, the Pope is also the head of state of an independent and sovereign Papal State. As early as the second century of Christmas, after the emergence of the episcopal system, all bishops were called popes. The bishop of Rome was the most politically and economically powerful because he was stationed in the capital of the Roman Empire. In the 5th century, thanks to the efforts of Innocent I and Leo I, the bishops of Rome gradually overrode the other bishops and monopolized the title of pope. Gillesius I was the first to declare that the power of the pope in the faith was independent of both the emperor and the synod, claiming that "ecclesiastical power" was superior to "imperial power". Pope Gregory I considered the Pope to be the head of all the churches appointed by God, extending the influence of the Pope beyond his own jurisdiction. In the middle of the 8th century, the Frankish king Pepin the Short gave the Pope the land from Byzantium to Ravenna in reward for his support in his seizure of power, which was the beginning of the papal state.

Although the Pope is the supreme leader of the Christian Church. But the power is incomparable with the Chinese emperors. The well-known papal template comes from the propaganda of many Western countries for the monopoly of power, the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV, and the arrogant partition of the world between Spain and Portugal. In fact, at the time of the Crusades, the power of the pope was not as strong as it had been imagined. Today, the Papal States are still an abnormal state without full sovereignty.

The Papal States do not have an official name. Its common Latin name (the official language of the Papal States) is "Civitas Ecclesiae", which means "states subordinate to the Church"; The Papal States have various names in Italian, such as "LoStato Ecclesiastico", "LoStatto Pontificio", "LoStatodella Chiesa", "GliStatidella Chiesa", "GliStatatiPontificii". The words "Gli Statidella Chiesa" and "GliStati Pontifici" mean "the states of the Church", "the states of the Pope". The term "state" here is plural, meaning that the Papal States were not a unitary state, but a community of former independent or semi-independent city-states, small states, and aristocratic domains.

In the hierarchical system of the Catholic Church, the Pope enjoys the highest legislative and judicial powers. Able to make or repeal canon statutes, appoint persons to form the Holy See, and create dioceses. Epibishops are appointed and "infallible in ethics and faith." Before the 11th century, the pope had to be selected or approved by a secular monarch or an Italian nobility. After his accession to the throne, Nicholas II decided in 1059 that the Pope should be elected by cardinals, subject to the approval of King Henry I of the Franks and his successors. It was not until the Third Lateran Council in 1179 and the Second Council of Lyon in 1274 that it was confirmed twice. It was only then that the Pope could be elected by cardinals alone. The independence of the pope at this time was still very poor.

The low level of centralization in Europe was only before the Enlightenment to reach the level of the county system of the Great Qin Empire, and the centralization of the papal states in the Middle Ages can be imagined, and the majesty of the pope came entirely from faith and the power of many monasteries in Europe and the strength of secular monarchs. If the majority of the estates in the interior of a bishopric belong to the Church, or if the majority of the nobility supports the Church, it is the Church that has the final say. This kind of competition is too realistic and too artistic.

The court struggles in Europe are simply a playhouse, and they have been stuck in the era of the Xia, Shang and Zhou eras, when whoever has the big fist and who has more relatives is awesome, and there is not much consciousness of vertical and horizontal at all, and the intellectual level of the nobles and bishops has degraded to the level of the tribal federation that was inferior to the royal era before the Roman Republic. Without a unified empire, the skills of internal struggle within the empire left by the ancestors were naturally lost.

The Holy See is scattered. The vassal states were also not subordinate to each other, except for a Holy Roman Emperor who existed in name only. There is no heroic hero who can be on the stage at all, and he can break his wrist with the crosser. When China had not yet entered Europe, the pope could still use excommunication to scare disobedient princes, so that many small and medium-sized feudal lords who did not obey Zhou would empty up the great princes who had lost their Christian status. However, after the Chinese Empire came in, it became stronger and stronger, and the great feudal lords who had the strength and ambition of the princes in the unified national geographical noun became less and less concerned about the pope.

In the 10th and 11th centuries, the power of the Holy See declined, the Church was privatized, and the clergy were corrupted. There are not many spiritual atomic bombs left, and the word "lost in the hearts of the people" is worth using, and barely relying on the crusaders to support the existence of the Holy See is a little stronger than the last days when indulgences were indiscriminately printed in later generations.

The Abbey of Cluny advocated reforms, advocating strict asceticism, the clergy living in communal groups, and the clergy not being allowed to marry, in order to prevent the privatization of religious property; prohibiting the buying and selling of the priesthood; Demands for independence, opposition to the appointment of bishops and monasteries by secular rulers, etc. The movement was echoed by the monasteries of Western Europe and accepted the leadership of the Abbey of Cluny. Thus this reformation gave the church a great medicine for longevity.

The Cluny movement was actively supported by the Holy See, and Pope Gregory VII personally directed the movement. The movement strengthened the church. In particular, the power of the pope, which caused a conflict between the Holy Roman Empire and the pope, was mainly manifested in the struggle for the right to appoint bishops.

Such reform is in fact a retreat to build spiritual prestige and legitimacy. It did not contribute to the economic base or military power, so the papal apostle of increased authority was also a fortress built on the sand.

This monopoly of the spiritual life of the Holy See collapsed when the monopoly of the right to interpret the Bible was popularized by the abundance of cheap prints and simplified Bible comic strips introduced by the Travelers. Even if all the clergy are perfect saints, it is useless. Spiritual guides and divine soul guides suddenly become attendants of the spiritual world. The natural sense of superiority of each faculty member in the past has been weakened more and more with the enlightenment and learning experience of the aristocracy and the wealthy, and the hearts of the faculty members at the top have been magnified into a sense of crisis.

At this time, the Papal States were like a highly dispersed confederation, and the monastic possessions of each country were estates and enclaves, which together could be said to be surprisingly large. Far more than the Holy Roman Emperor Henry V's domains, but not all of them belonged to the Pope alone, and their output was not only for the Holy See. They also provide for their own monastery. Its system of resource distribution is more feudal than a feudal pyramid, and a high degree of corruption and the gap between rich and poor have led to the poverty of the lower clergy and the unpopularity of the top bishops and monastic owners.

This pattern became more and more serious after the entry of the Chinese Empire, and the failure to join the trade system dominated by the Chinese Empire and share the dividends of the free market economy was all blamed on the hostility and short-sightedness of the Holy See, and this relative backwardness and poverty further exacerbated the weakness of the Holy See. The tenant farmers of the monastic territory were constantly attracted away by the favorable conditions and living standards of the neighboring feudal lords. The days of conservative monasteries everywhere became more and more difficult. If it weren't for the tithes and a small number of donations from believers, there would have been news of the priests starving to death. Urban II launched the crusading holy war, which opened the prelude to the Chinese Empire's entry into Europe, and the successor Pasgar II was busy wrestling with Henry IV of the Holy Roman Empire, and missed the opportunity to let the feudal lords of various countries continue to strengthen their strength, so that the tail is no longer able to be suppressed. By the time Gerasius II came to power, the Crossing Congregation had solved the problem of the dependence of most of Europe's feudal lords on the Holy See. Excommunication has become a completely powerless joke.

Galacius II did his best to reconcile with his rival, the Holy Roman Empire, but the sheer size of the ecclesiastical estate and the irreconcilable conflict of power led to an increasingly passive position of the Holy See. I can't lose face, and in the end, I even lost my heart. He was unwilling to give up the status of legitimacy brought to the monarch by the theocratic right of canonization of nobles and monarchs, and the right to appoint personnel of clergy on his own. In the end, everything could only be lost under the joint oppression of the feudal lords.

In the past, the feudal lords of the faith would donate their property and large amounts of land to the church, but now it is the other way around. Instead, the wealthy and soldier feudal lords began to demand that the monastery be sold cheaply, and there was no one to cultivate the monastery land. The highly dispersed financial structure made it impossible for the Papal States to concentrate its financial resources to support an army, and could only pay to hire some mercenaries from Switzerland and the Low Countries to maintain the security of the Papal States. From the origin of the crusaders, we can see the weak nature of the Papal States, and it is not a matter of a single sentence for a powerful power to send troops to maintain peace, so is it necessary to fool a group of people to open a fight?

After all, Zhou Tianzi's feudal system is still maintained by blood, and there is a system and feudal ethics to maintain, when Zhou Tianzi was economically bankrupt by generations of feudal and high debts, at least there is still nominal supreme power. And the existence and rationality of the pope is entirely based on the recognition of the church by feudal lords large and small. When they can no longer tolerate the Church, trying to stand up for Protestantism or seizing property to appoint bishops and other clergy, the Holy See becomes a fallen tree.

Therefore, the Church can only hope that the faith of the pious feudal lords will overcome greed and take the initiative to preserve the glory of the Holy See and the existing ruling order. The Holy See also had a deep understanding of the status quo, and knew that it was difficult to last long without giving the horses tender grass and wanting the horses to run fast, so they kept holding meetings to discuss how to dispose of the property and buy a group of trustworthy and capable feudal lords to make a final fight in the form of religious wars.

In fact, anyone who has read Su Xun's "Theory of the Six Kingdoms" knows that 'using land to do Qin, still holding on to the salary to fight the fire, the salary is not exhausted, and the fire will not be extinguished', and using the land to buy people's hearts needs its own strength as the background. To have no strength of oneself is to commit suicide. This naïve and chronic suicide of the Holy See is also the only option to be driven to the point of nowhere. The weak are the ones who have no choice, and the weak countries are the tragedies of having no diplomatic power. No matter how long the Papal States is, at most it is to maintain its own power, and it will not decline too quickly in this era when the feudal lords are growing rapidly, and the Holy See cannot go to the sea to do business naked in order to maintain its own prestige. It is normal to have no sources of income other than the tithes tax and the land rent, and to be in high debt.

Thanks to the efforts of Pope Killasius II, the Papal States finally provoked a major war that surpassed the later Protestant Wars to settle the Holy Roman Empire, an old enemy. Henry V was also arranged to be the hero of the cup who died early (after the Pope reconciled with him, he poisoned him while he was unprepared, using the highly toxic aflatoxin, a high-priced secret medicine from the East). After being summoned by the Lord, the Salian dynasty had no choice but to obey the arrangement of the Wanderers and hand over the crown to Lothair II, an old man in his fifties.

Lothair II, who had fought all his life, was also very much in line with the appetite of the people, and constantly waged wars to annex those German conservative princes who did not know the times.

By 1970 in the Republican calendar, Europe saw the tragedy of the Papal States shrinking to less than 100 miles around Rome. Lothair II, who was well cared for, actually lived the same life span as Maliksha. became the emperor with the real possibility of unifying Germany.

Consilio, Grand Duke of Tuscany in northern Italy, also annexed the Kingdom of Naples in southern Italy, becoming the second king to force the coronation of Geracius II (the first being the German king of Lothair II). The French feudal lords, who had been to Syria to participate in the Crusades, also supported Louis VI, the French king who had been friendly with the Church, after receiving a large amount of arms and money from the East. He began to advance his long-planned plan for unification, and began to push the power of the Church out of the crown domains.

As the three most important regions of the Holy See, France, Germany, and Italy completely defected, and the Holy See had to compromise. The large and small pious nobles fell one by one at the feet of these three big feudal lords who tried to monopolize power, and those small and medium-sized feudal lords of the pro-Chinese faction also cooperated with the three kings to share a lot of the property and territory of the pious nobles. Coupled with the income from the expansion of the church's property and territorial trade, it was abundant.

The Chinese Empire after the Pope's attempt to launch the Second Crusade to divert the attention of several great European feudal lords from the Holy See. Directly through the Kingdom of Solomon and the Kingdom of Byzantium, Germany, France and Italy, he put pressure on the Pope to surrender all secular rights, learn from the caliphate as a religious leader, completely separate church and state, and reorganize into a non-profit organization like several large religious legal persons in China.

This naked coercion was the will of the lords of all Europe, and was expressed through the Council of Athens of the Five Monarchs, the most direct of which was that the Holy See would permanently renounce the sovereignty of all States and accept the administration of the Government of the Kingdom of Italy. The right to renounce canonization and interference in matters such as the inheritance rights of secular feudal lords. After the announcement of these articles, all the political power of the pope is finished. It has become an opposition party such as a religious opinion leader like the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church.

To put it bluntly, this kind of clause is to force the Pope to abdicate, just as the Pope forced Otto I back then. If the pope does not agree, he will use force to depose the pope completely. How could Geracius II, who had worked hard for many years, accept such a clause? Although the proposal on the surface is five monarchs who believe in God, in fact, it is not the meaning of the backer of the Huaxia Empire, as long as he is not blind, the clear-eyed person can't see it?

At this point, it stands to reason that the Papal States should be exhausted, but Geracius II was not willing to be the last pope, and immediately after the Council of Athens sent the last force to support the Papal States, that is, the British British coalition. The Pope took out the last deposit in his hand and hired the four knights (originally there were only the Knights Hospitaller and the Templar Knights at this time, and the Teutonic Knights and the Knights of the Holy Sword had not yet appeared, but the Pope was stimulated by the success of the First Crusade when the Crusaders came into contact with the Chinese Empire, and took out the coffin book to form his own secret army, Plotting to open up the diocese in the north and bring Scandinavia and northeastern Europe, which had long been ruled by the Normans and Vikings, into the Catholic sphere of influence) and all the mercenaries who did not recognize people gathered in the increasingly depressed Venice that had been run by Consilio, in an attempt to start negotiations with the Five Nations Alliance.

This last battle was not fueled by courage and despair, but by the power of the gold coins produced by the Pope's last coffin. If the decision of the Council of Athens of the Five Nations was followed, the pope would fall from the altar, permanently lose his transcendent status and all his privileges, and the monasteries would lose even the extraterritoriality to shelter the fugitive nobles. The Church would almost have to be reduced to a spiritual service provider like the Guild of Counselors, with no income from the tithe, no income from privileges, no nobles bribing bishops for inheritance, and these terms would never be accepted by the bishops' conference, let alone the pope, the most privileged owner.

The Pope, gritting his teeth and trying to bargain with the G5 led by the Byzantine Empire and the Kingdom of Solomon, finally signed the "Tralan Agreement" in Rome in 1972 in the republican calendar, which was later called the key to the closed door out of the dark room of the Middle Ages. This agreement was concluded on February 11, 1972 in the Republican calendar between the Kingdom of Italy and the Holy See for the settlement of the "Roman question".

The treaty contained four documents: 1. The Holy See renounced the privileges that the resolution of the Council of Five Athens required it to relinquish. 2 Political treaties that recognize the complete sovereignty of the Holy See in Vatican City, thereby establishing a sovereign and independent state. 3. The treaty regulating the status of the Catholic Church and the Catholic faith in the Italian state. 4. Agree to the financial convention as the final settlement of claims for damage to the territory and property of the Holy See.

The Venetian coalition and the Five Nations coalition were dissolved by the Holy See, which was under great financial pressure, without seeing each other. This is also the best condition that the Holy See can obtain after its power is weakened to the maximum. History is always strikingly similar, and the Holy See, although it has not lost its independent political status, has been largely dismembered. The branches of the churches in each country fell into the hands of the feudal monarchs of each country, and not only the power of appointment and dismissal of personnel was transferred, but also the ownership of property was transferred to the name of the independent religious corporations that had been reorganized in each country.

The Church, which had been forever in the past, had vanished like a behemoth over Europe. The Pope, who had fought the last battle, survived, retained the last bit of face, and retained the status and ruling power of a small secular feudal lord. Although the glory and power of the past will never be restored, this kind of renunciation is also a kind of wisdom to try to make a comeback. (To be continued......)