JOHN XXII, Pope. - He reigned from 7 Aug. 1316 to 4 Dec. 1334. Born at Cahors around 1245 ca., James Duèse owed his brilliant career to his qualities as a jurist. He became successively chancellor of the king of Sicily Charles II, bishop of Fréjus (4 Feb. 1300), then of Avignon (18 March 1310), cardinal of the title of St. Vitalis (Dec. 1312), bishop of Porto (1313). Elected pope on 7 Aug. 1316 at Lyon, he was crowned there on 5 Sept. John XXII established his provisional residence at Avignon. Despite his age he was of prodigious activity.
Not content with contributing to the reform of the Church with the Clementines, he also promulgated a series of constitutions, the Extravagantes, which were later commented on by canonists, but which never formed part of the official collection of the CIC. After the tempestuous pontificate of Clement V, the Roman Church needed a reorganization. John XXII gave it one with a great practical sense, so much so that some of his edicts remained in force for several centuries. The bulls Pater familias, Ratio iuris and Qui exacti temporis (16 Nov. 1331) ensured the perfect functioning of the complicated mechanism of the Chancery, of the hearing of cases of the Apostolic Palace, that is, of the Rota, and of the hearing of contradicted letters (v. M. Tangl, Die päpstlichen Kanzleiordnungen von 1200-1500, Innsbruck 1894, pp. 83-115).
An authoritarian character, the Pope centralized in his hands the collation of ecclesiastical benefices. His predecessors had struck with a reservation the benefices that had remained vacant in the Curia; he instead considerably increased the number of those benefices that would from then on find themselves in this case, with a rule of the Chancery of 15 Sept. 1316 and with the constitution Ex debito (CIC, Extravagantes, comm. I, III, col. IV). The reservation also struck the elective regular and secular benefices, included in the territories of the Roman Church, in various ecclesiastical provinces of Italy (v. G. Mollat, La collation des bénéfices ecclésiastiques sous les Papes d'Avignon, Paris 1921, p. 39).
John XXII moreover also provoked a controversy on the state of the souls of the just before the general resurrection. He maintained, in a private capacity, that they remained sub altare Dei, that is, they enjoyed the contemplation of the humanity of Christ, but not the beatific vision. This strange opinion of his earned him violent attacks against his orthodoxy on the part of the Michaelist Franciscans (followers of Michael of Cesena, v.), who had turned against him. Before dying the Pontiff retracted what he had taught (v. E. Denifle-E. Châtelain, Chartularium Universitatis Parisiensis, II, Paris 1890, nos. 970-87).
A conflict of exceptional gravity broke out with Louis of Bavaria, elected king of the Romans in 1314, in competition with Frederick of Austria. Victorious at Mühldorf (28 Sept. 1322), Louis asked John XXII for recognition of the fact. But the Pope had a plan of his own: to prolong the vacancy of the Empire in order to continue to administer it. This would have allowed him to bring down in upper Italy the hegemony of the Visconti, against whom his troops had by then been fighting since 1320. He also aspired to create at Bologna the center of a State where the pontifical Court would be transferred and from which Italian politics would be directed better than from Rome, too far from the theater of operations. John XXII set Louis of Bavaria conditions that were judged unacceptable. The prince decided to come to Italy to the aid of the Visconti, besieged in Milan; he aggravated his wrongs by giving asylum to the Spirituals who denigrated the Pope. Despite the opposition of a certain number of cardinals, a canonical trial was instituted against him which ended with his excommunication (23 March 1324). Louis of Bavaria responded with the advance on Rome. He entered it and had himself illegally proclaimed emperor there (11 Jan. 1328), had John XXII deposed (18 Apr.) and an antipope elected (12 May) who took the name Nicholas V. But it was an ephemeral schism that came to an end with the solemn abjuration of Pietro da Corbara (29 July 1330).
Toward the end of his life John XXII experienced bitter disappointments. The revolt of the Bolognese (17 March 1333) brought about the collapse of his Italian policy. He died at Avignon on 4 Dec. 1334.
Bibliography10 works
Guglielmo Mollat