Purgatorio Politics Quotes Page 4

The popes, who represent “the Church of Rome,” by allowing themselves to be bribed by nobles and princes with their own political agendas, deflect the Church from its duty of maintaining virtue.

The “widowed crown” refers to King Louis V’s inability to produce an heir, resulting in Hugh Capet’s seizure of the throne. Hugh claims his family (the Capetians) ruled justly until “the giant dowry of Provence” – a marriage between the Capetian family and the ruling dynasty of Provence – allowed the Capetians to gain influence in Provence, another province in France. Out of spite, Philip IV the Fair (from the Capetian line) seized “Ponthieu and Normandy and Gascony,” beginning a long series of spats with the Church that ultimately ended with Philip’s seizing of the papacy and his moving it from Rome to Avignon. Here, Hugh Capet blames the families of Provence for the eventual corruption of the Capetian line, but it is not clear that Dante agrees with him.