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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2011
Boniface IX., Pope, 1389–1404.
Pietro Tomacelli, Cardinal of S. Anastasia, a Neapolitan, was elected in Rome on November 2, 1389, and consecrated as Boniface IX. on November II. He was still young (only thirty), was a man of strong will, matured judgment, and blameless life. Aware of the errors of his predecessor's policy, he hastened to recognise the house of Durazzo and release it from the ban. His legate crowned the boyish Ladislaus as King of Naples in May 1390, and the Roman Church again turned for support to this kingdom, its ancient vassal State.
Year of jubilee, 1390.
A pope who was able to seat himself on the throne with the bull of jubilee in his hand, was secure of great advantages. The festival announced by Urban VI. was celebrated in 1390, and although the schismatic nations bore no part in it, pilgrims streamed from Germany, Hungary, Bohemia, Poland, and England to long desecrated Rome. The festival of the sacred jubilee had become a monetary speculation of the Pope, who sent agents into every country and dispensed indulgences for the price of the journey to Rome. These shameless agents collected from various provinces more than 100,000 gold florins. Money had become the great main-spring of the hierarchical financial establishment in Rome, which, to the mockery of Christendom, still called itself the Church; for without money the war for her existence could not be carried on. The most deplorable abuses waxed daily; simony and usury were practised unabashed.
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