Note 207 — Chapter IV · POLITICAL HERESY UTILIZED BY THE CHURCH.
Reading edition
Barbarano de’ Mironi, Hist. Eccles. di Vicenza II. 153-4.—Regest. Clement. PP. V. T. III. pp. 354 sqq.; T. IV. pp. 426 sqq., pp. 459 sqq.; T. V. p. 412. (Ed. Benedictin., Romæ, 1886-7).—Chron. Estense ann. 1309-17 (Muratori S. R. I. XV. 364-82).—Ferreti Vincentini Hist. Lib. III. (Ib. IX. 1037-47).—Cronica di Bologna, ann. 1309-10 (Ib. XVIII. 320-1).—Campi, Dell’ Histor. Eccles. di Ferrara, P. III. p. 40.
Even the pious and temperate Muratori cannot restrain himself from describing Clement’s bull against the Venetians as “la piu terribile ed ingiusta Bolla che si sia mai udita” (Annal. ann. 1309). We have seen in the case of Florence what control such measures enabled the papacy to exercise over the commercial republics of Italy. The confiscation threatened in the sentence of excommunication was no idle menace. When, in 1281, Martin IV. quarrelled with the city of Forli and excommunicated it he ordered, under pain of excommunication not removable even on the death-bed, all who owed money to the citizens to declare the debts to his representatives and pay them over, and he thus collected many thousand lire of his enemies’ substance.—Chron. Parmens. ann. 1281 (Muratori S. R. I. IX. 797)