The Church and the Empire
by
D. J. Medley
Part 1 out of 5
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THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL
Volume IV
THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE
THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL
Brief Histories of Her Continuous Life
A series of eight volumes dealing with the history of the Christian
Church from the beginning of the present day.
_Edited by_
The Rev. W. H. Hutton, B.D.
Fellow and Tutor of S. John's College, Oxford,
and Examining Chaplain to the Bishop of Rochester
THE CHURCH OF THE APOSTLES.
The Rev. Lonsdale Ragg, M.A., Vicar of the Tickencote, Rutlandshire,
and Prebendary of Lincoln Cathedral.
"Mr. Ragg has produced something far better than a mere text-book: the
earlier chapters especially are particularly interesting reading. The
whole book is well proportioned and scholarly, and gives the reader
the benefit of wide reading of the latest authorities. The contrasted
growth and fortunes of the Judaic Church of Jerusalem and the Church
of the Gentiles are particularly clearly brought out."--_Church
Times_.
"Written in a clear and interesting style, and summaries the early
records of the growth of the Christian community during the first
century."--_Irish Ecclesiastical Gazette._
"A careful piece of work, which may be read with pleasure and
profit."--_Spectator_.
THE CHURCH OF THE FATHERS.
The Rev. Leighton Pullan, M.A., Fellow of St. John's College, and
Theological Lecturer of St. John's and Oriel Colleges, Oxford.
"If we may forecast the merits of the series by Pullan's volume, we
are prepared to give it an unhesitating welcome. We shall be surprised
if this book does not supersede of the less interesting Church
histories which have served as text-books for several generations of
theological students."--_Guardian_.
"The student of this important period of Church history--the formative
period--has here a clear narrative, packed with information drawn from
authentic sources and elucidated with the most recent results of
investigation. We do not know of any other work on Church history in
which so much learned and accurate instruction is condensed into a
comparative small space, but at the same time presented in the form of
an interesting narrative. Alike the beginner and the advanced student
will find Mr. Pullan a useful guide and companion."--_Church
Times_.
THE CHURCH AND THE BARBARIANS.
The Editor. _3s. 6d. net._
"In so accomplished hands as Mr. Hutton's the result is an instructive
and suggestive survey of the course of the Church's development
throughout five hundred years, and almost as many countries and
peoples, in Constantinople as well as among the Wends and Prussians,
in Central Asia as well as in the Western Isles." _Review of
Theology and Philosophy._
"The volume will be of great value as giving a bird's-eye view of the
fascinating struggle of the Church with heathenism during those
spacious centuries."--_Church Times._
THE CHURCH AND THE EMPIRE. 1003-1304.
By D. J. Medley, M.A., Professor of History in the University
of Glasgow. _4s. 6d. net._
THE AGE OF SCHISM. 1304-1503.
By Herbert Bruce, M.A., Professor of History in the
University College, Cardiff.
"We commend the book as being fair in its judicial criticism, a great
point where so thorny a subject as the Great Schism and its issues are
discussed. The art of reading the times, whether ancient or modern,
has descended from Mr. W. H. Hutton to his pupil." _Pall Mall
Gazette._
"It is a great period for so small a book, but a master of his subject
knows always what to leave out, and this volume covers the period in
comfort."--_Expository Times._
"Usually such an 'outline' is a bald and bloodless summary, but Mr.
Bruce has written a narrative which is both readable and
well-informed. We have pleasure in commending his interesting and
scholarly work."--_Glasgow Herald._
THE REFORMATION. 1503-1648.
By the Rev. J. P. Whitney, B.D., Professor of Ecclesiastical
History at King's College, London. _5s. net._
"A book on the Reformation as a whole, not only in England, but in
Europe, has long been needed.... This present volume fills,
therefore, a real want, for in it the Reformation is treated as a
whole.... The value of the book is quite out of proportion to its
size, and its importance will be appreciated by all those whose duty
or inclination calls to study the Reformation."--_Guardian_.
"It is certainly a very full and excellent outline. There is scarcely
a point in this momentous time in regard to which the student, and,
indeed, the ordinary reader, will not find here very considerable
help, as well as suggestive hints for further study."--_Church Union
Gazette_.
THE AGE OF REVOLUTION. 1648-1815.
By the Editor. _4s. 6d. net_.
"The period is a long one for so small a book, but Mr. Hutton has the
gift not of condensing, which is not required, but of selecting the
essential events and vividly characterizing them."--_Expository
Times_.
"Mr. Hutton's past studies in Ecclesiastical History are sure to
secure him a welcome in this new venture. There is a breadth of
treatment, an accurate perspective, and a charitable spirit in all
that he writes which make him a worthy associate of Creighton and
Stubbs in the great field of history."--_Aberdeen Journal_.
THE CHURCH OF MODERN DAYS. 1815-1900.
By the Rev. Leighton Pullan, M.A. [_In preparation._]
London: Rivingtons
THE CHURCH
AND THE EMPIRE
Being an outline of
the history of the church
from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304
By
D. J. Medley, M.A.
Professor of History in the University of Glasgow
EDITORIAL NOTE
While there is a general agreement among the writers as to principles,
the greatest freedom as to treatment is allowed to writers in this
series. The volumes, for example, are not of the same length. Volume
II, which deals with the formative period of the Church, is, not
unnaturally, longer in proportion than the others. To Volume VI, which
deals with the Reformation, has been allotted a similar extension. The
authors, again, use their own discretion in such matters as footnotes
and lists of authorities. But the aim of the series, which each writer
sets before him, is to tell, clearly and accurately, the story of the
Church, as a divine institution with a continuous life.
W. H. Hutton
PREFACE
The late appearance of this volume of the series needs some
explanation. Portions of the book have been written at intervals; but
it is only the enforced idleness of a long convalescence after illness
which has given me the requisite leisure to finish it.
I have tried to avoid overloading my pages with details of political
history; but in no period is it so easy to miss the whole lesson of
events by an attempt to isolate the special influences which affected
the organised society of the Church. The interpretation which I have
adopted of the important events at Canossa is not, of course,
universally accepted; but the fact that it has seldom found expression
in any English work may serve as my excuse.
The Editor of the series, The Rev. W. H. Hutton, has laid me under a
deep obligation, first, by his long forbearance, and more lately, by
his frequent and careful suggestions over the whole book. It is
dangerous for laymen to meddle with questions of technical theology. I
trust that, guided by his expert hand, I have not fallen into any
recognisable heresy!
Mears Ashby,
_October_, 1910.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTORY
CHAPTER I
THE BEGINNINGS OF CHURCH REFORM
CHAPTER II
GREGORY VII AND LAY INVESTITURE
CHAPTER III
THE END OF THE QUARREL
CHAPTER IV
THE SECULAR CLERGY
CHAPTER V
CANONS AND MONKS
CHAPTER VI
ST. BERNARD
CHAPTER VII
THE SCHOOLMEN AND THEOLOGY
CHAPTER VIII
GUELF AND GHIBELLINE (I)
CHAPTER IX
INNOCENT III
CHAPTER X
THE PAPAL POWER IN THE CHURCH
CHAPTER XI
DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH
CHAPTER XII
HERESIES
CHAPTER XIII
THE MENDICANT ORDERS
CHAPTER XIV
THE CHURCH AND THE HEATHEN
CHAPTER XV
GUELF AND GHIBELLINE (II)
CHAPTER XVI
THE FALL OF THE EMPIRE AND OF THE PAPACY
CHAPTER XVII
THE CHURCHES OF THE EAST
The Church and the Empire
Introductory
[Sidenote: Political thought in Middle Ages.]
The period of three centuries which forms our theme is the central
period of the Middle Ages. Its interests are manifold; but they almost
all centre round the great struggle between Empire and Papacy, which
gives to mediaeval history an unity conspicuously lacking in more
modern times. The history of the Church during these three hundred
years is more political than at any other period. In order to
understand the reason for this it will be well at the outset to sketch
in brief outline the political theories propounded in the Middle Ages
on the relations of Church and State. So only can we avoid the
inevitable confusion of mind which must result from the use of terms
familiar in modern life.
[Sidenote: Unity of world.]
Medieval thought, then, drawing its materials from Roman, Germanic and
Christian sources, conceived the Universe as _Civitas Dei_, the
State of God, embracing both heaven and earth, with God as at once the
source, the guide and the ultimate goal. Now this Universe contains
numerous parts, one of which is composed of mankind; and the destiny
of mankind is identified with that of Christendom. Hence it follows
that mankind may be described as the Commonwealth of the Human Race;
and unity under one law and one government is essential to the
attainment of the divine purpose.
[Sidenote: Duality of organisation.]
But this very unity of the whole Universe gives a double aspect to the
life of mankind, which has to be spent in this world with a view to
its continuation in the next. Thus God has appointed two separate
Orders, each complete in its own sphere, the one concerned with the
arrangement of affairs for this life, the other charged with the
preparation of mankind for the life to come.
[Sidenote: Relations of Church and State.]
But this dualism of allegiance was in direct conflict with the idea of
unity. The two separate Orders were distinguished as
_Sacerdotium_ and _Regnum_ or _Imperium_; and the need
felt by mediaeval thinkers for reconciling these two in the higher
unity of the _Civitas Dei_ began speculations on the relation
between the ecclesiastical and the secular spheres.
[Sidenote: Theory of Church party.]
The champions of the former found a reconciliation of the two spheres
to consist in the absorption of the secular by the ecclesiastical. The
one community into which, by the admission of all, united mankind was
gathered, must needs be the Church of God. Of this Christ is the Head.
But in order to realise this unity on earth Christ has appointed a
representative, the Pope, who is therefore the head of both spheres in
this world. But along with this unity it must be allowed that God has
sanctioned the separate existence of the secular no less than that of
the ecclesiastical dominion. This separation, however, according to
the advocates of papal power, did not affect the deposit of authority,
but affected merely the manner of its exercise. Spiritual and temporal
power in this world alike belonged to the representative of Christ.
[Sidenote: Sinful origin of State.]
But the bolder advocates of ecclesiastical power were ready to explain
away the divine sanction of temporal authority. Actually existing
states have often originated in violence. Thus the State in its
earthly origin may be regarded as the work of human nature as affected
by the Fall of Man: like sin itself, it is permitted by God.
Consequently it needs the sanction of the Church in order to remove
the taint. Hence, at best, the temporal power is subject to the
ecclesiastical: it is merely a means for working out the higher
purpose entrusted to the Church. Pope Gregory VII goes farther still
in depreciation of the temporal power. He declares roundly that it is
the work of sin and the devil. "Who does not know," he writes, "that
kings and dukes have derived their power from those who, ignoring God,
in their blind desire and intolerable presumption have aspired to rule
over their equals, that is, men, by pride, plunder, perfidy, murder,
in short by every kind of wickedness, at the instigation of the prince
of this world, namely, the devil?" But in this he is only re-echoing
the teaching of St. Augustine; and he is followed, among other
representative writers, by John of Salisbury, the secretary and
champion of Thomas Becket, and by Pope Innocent III. To all three
there is an instructive contrast between a power divinely conferred
and one that has at the best been wrested from God by human
importunity.
[Sidenote: Illustration of relations.]
There are two illustrations of the relation between the spiritual and
secular powers very common among papal writers. Gregory VII, at the
beginning of his reign, compares them to the two eyes in a man's head.
But he soon substitutes for this symbol of theoretical equality a
comparison to the sun and moon, or to the soul and body, whereby he
claims for the spiritual authority, as represented by the soul or the
sun, the operative and illuminating power in the world, without and
apart from which the temporal authority has no efficacy and scarcely
any existence. An illustration equally common, but susceptible of more
diverse interpretation, was drawn from the two swords offered to our
Lord by His disciples just before the betrayal. It was St. Bernard
who, taking up the idea of previous writers that these represented the
sword of the flesh and the sword of the spirit respectively, first
claimed that they both belonged to the Church, but that, while the
latter was wielded immediately by St. Peter's successor, the
injunction to the Apostle to put up in its sheath the sword of the
flesh which he had drawn in defence of Christ, merely indicated that
he was not to handle it himself. Consequently he had entrusted to lay
hands this sword which denotes the temporal power. Both swords,
however, still belonged to the Pope and typified his universal
control. By virtue of his possession of the spiritual sword he can use
spiritual means for supervising or correcting all secular acts. But
although he should render to Caesar what is Caesar's, yet his material
power over the temporal sword also justifies the Pope in intervening
in temporal matters when necessity demands. This is the explanation of
the much debated _Translatio Imperii,_ the transference of the
imperial authority in 800 A.D. from the Greeks to the Franks. It is
the Emperor to whom, in the first instance, the Pope has entrusted the
secular sword; he is, in feudal phraseology, merely the chief vassal
of the Pope. It is the unction and coronation of the Emperor by the
Pope which confer the imperial power upon the Emperor Elect. The
choice by the German nobles is a papal concession which may be
recalled at any time. Hence, if the imperial throne is vacant, if
there is a disputed election, or if the reigning Emperor is neglectful
of his duties, it is for the Pope to act as guardian or as judge; and,
of course, the powers which he can exercise in connection with the
Empire he is still more justified in using against any lesser temporal
prince.
[Sidenote: Theory of Imperial party.]
To this very thorough presentation of the claims of the ecclesiastical
power the partisans of secular authority had only a half-hearted
doctrine to oppose. Ever since the days of Pope Gelasius I (492-6),
the Church herself had accepted the view of a strict dualism in the
organisation of society and, therefore, of the theoretical equality
between the ecclesiastical and the secular organs of government.
According to this doctrine Sacerdotium and Imperium are independent
spheres, each wielding the one of the two swords appropriate to
itself, and thus the Emperor no less than the Pope is _Vicarius
Dei_. It is this doctrine behind which the champions of the Empire
entrench themselves in their contest with the Papacy. It was asserted
by the Emperors themselves, notably by Frederick I and Frederick II,
and it has been enshrined in the writings of Dante.
[Sidenote: Its weakness.]
The weak point of this theory was that it was rather a thesis for
academic debate than a rallying cry for the field of battle. Popular
contests are for victory, not for delimitation of territory. And its
weakness was apparent in this, that while the thorough-going partisans
of the Church allowed to the Emperor practically no power except such
as he obtained by concession of or delegation from the Church, the
imperial theory granted to the ecclesiastical representative at least
an authority and independence equal to those claimed for itself, and
readily admitted that of the two powers the Church could claim the
greater respect as being entrusted with the conduct of matters that
were of more permanent importance.
Moreover, historical facts contradicted this idea of equality of
powers. The Church through her representatives often interfered with
decisive effect in the election and the rejection of secular
potentates up to the Emperor himself: she claimed that princes were as
much subject to her jurisdiction as other laymen, and she did not
hesitate to make good that claim even to the excommunication of a
refractory ruler and--its corollary--the release of his subjects from
their oath of allegiance. Finally, the Church awoke a responsive echo
in the hearts of all those liable to oppression or injustice, when she
asserted a right of interposing in purely secular matters for the sake
of shielding them from wrong; while she met a real need of the age in
her exaltation of the papal power as the general referee in all cases
of difficult or doubtful jurisdiction.
Thus the claims of each power as against the other were not at all
commensurate. For while the imperialists would agree that there was a
wide sphere of ecclesiastical rule with which the Emperor had no
concern at all, it was held by the papalists that there was nothing
done by the Emperor in any capacity which it was not within the
competence of the Pope to supervise.
CHAPTER I
THE BEGINNINGS OF CHURCH REFORM
Previous to the eleventh century there had been quarrels between
Emperor and Pope. Occasional Popes, such as Nicholas I (858-67), had
asserted high prerogatives for the successor of St. Peter, but we have
seen that the Church herself taught the co-ordinate and the mutual
dependence of the ecclesiastical and secular powers. It was the
circumstances of the tenth century which caused the Church to assume a
less complacent attitude and, in her efforts to prevent her absorption
by the State, to attempt the reduction of the State to a mere
department of the Church.
[Sidenote: Lay investiture of ecclesiastics.]
With the acceptance of Christianity as the official religion of the
Empire the organisation of the Church tended to follow the
arrangements for purposes of civil government. And when at a later
period civil society was gradually organising itself on that
hierarchical model which we know as feudalism, the Church, in the
persons of its officers, was tending to become not so much the
counterpart of the State as an integral part of it. For the clergy, as
being the only educated class, were used by the Kings as civil
administrators, and on the great officials of the Church were bestowed
extensive estates which should make them a counterpoise to the secular
nobles. In theory the clergy and people of the diocese still elected
their bishop, but in reality he came to be nominated by the King, at
whose hands he received investiture of his office by the symbolic
gifts of the ring and the pastoral staff, and to whom he did homage
for the lands of the see, since by virtue of them he was a baron of
the realm. Thus for all practical purposes the great ecclesiastic was
a secular noble, a layman. He had often obtained his high
ecclesiastical office as a reward for temporal service, and had not
infrequently paid a large sum of money as an earnest of loyal conduct
and for the privilege of recouping himself tenfold by unscrupulous use
of the local patronage which was his.
[Sidenote: Clerical marriage.]
Furthermore, in contravention of the canons of the Church, the secular
clergy, whether bishops or priests, were very frequently married. The
Church, it is true, did not consecrate these marriages; but, it is
said, they were so entirely recognised that the wife of a bishop was
called Episcopissa. There was an imminent danger that the
ecclesiastical order would shortly lapse into an hereditary social
caste, and that the sons of priests inheriting their fathers'
benefices would merely become another order of landowners.
[Sidenote: Church reform.]
Thus the two evils of traffic in ecclesiastical offices, shortly
stigmatised as simony and concubinage--for the laws of the Church
forbade any more decent description of the relationship--threatened to
absorb the Church within the State. Professional interests and
considerations of morality alike demanded that these evils should be
dealt with. Ecclesiastical reformers perceived that the only lasting
reformation was one which should proceed from the Church herself. It
was among the secular clergy, the parish priests, that these evils
were most rife. The monasteries had also gone far away from their
original ideals; but the tenth century had witnessed the establishment
of a reformed Benedictine rule in the Congregation of Cluny, and, in
any case, it was in monastic life alone that the conditions seemed
suitable for working out any scheme of spiritual improvement. The
Congregation of Cluny was based upon the idea of centralisation;
unlike the Abbot of the ordinary Benedictine monastery, who was
concerned with the affairs of a single house, the Abbot of Cluny
presided over a number of monasteries, each of which was entrusted
only to a Prior. Moreover, the Congregation of Cluny was free from the
visitation of the local bishops and was immediately under the papal
jurisdiction. What more natural than that the monks of Cluny should
advocate the application to the Church at large of those principles of
organisation which had formed so successful a departure from previous
arrangements in the smaller sphere of Cluny? Thus the advocates of
Church reform evolved both a negative and a positive policy: the
abolition of lay investiture and the utter extirpation of the practice
of clerical marriages were to shake the Church free from the numbing
control of secular interests, and these were to be accomplished by a
centralisation of the ecclesiastical organisation in the hands of the
Pope, which would make him more than a match for the greatest secular
potentate, the successor of Caesar himself.
[Sidenote: Chances of reform.]
It is true that at the beginning of the eleventh century there seemed
little chance of the accomplishment of these reforms. If the great
secular potentates were likely to cling to the practice of investiture
in order to keep a hold over a body of landowners which, whatever
their other obligations, controlled perhaps one-third of the lands in
Western Christendom; yet the Kings of the time were not unsympathetic
to ecclesiastical reform as interpreted by Cluny. In France both Hugh
Capet (987-96) and Robert (996-1031) appealed to the Abbot of Cluny
for help in the improvement of their monasteries, and this example was
followed by some of their great nobles. In Germany reigned Henry II
(1002-24), the last of the Saxon line, who was canonised a century
after his death by a Church penetrated by the influences of Cluny. It
was the condition of the Papacy which for nearly half a century
postponed any attempt at a comprehensive scheme of reform. Twice
already in the course of the tenth century had the intervention of the
German King, acting as Emperor, rescued the see of Rome from
unspeakable degradation. But for nearly 150 years (904-1046), with a
few short interludes, the Papacy was the sport of local factions. At
the beginning of the eleventh century the leaders of these factions
were descended from the two daughters of the notorious Theodora; the
Crescentines who were responsible for three Popes between 1004 and
1012, owing their influence to the younger Theodora, while the Counts
of Tusculum were the descendants of the first of the four husbands who
got such power as they possessed from the infamous Marozia. The first
Tusculan Pope, Benedict VIII (1012-24), by simulating an interest in
reform, won the support of Henry II of Germany, whom he crowned
Emperor; but in 1033 the same faction set up the son of the Count of
Tusculum, a child of twelve, as Benedict IX. It suited the Emperor,
Conrad II, to use him and therefore to acknowledge him; but twice the
scandalised Romans drove out the youthful debauchee and murderer, and
on the second occasion they elected another Pope in his place. But the
Tusculan influence was not to be gainsaid. Benedict, however, sold the
Papacy to John Gratian, who was reputed a man of piety, and whose
accession as Gregory VI, even though it was a simoniacal transaction,
was welcomed by the party of reform. But Benedict changed his mind and
attempted to resume his power. Thus there were three persons in Rome
who had been consecrated to the papal office. The Archdeacon of Rome
appealed to the Emperor Conrad's successor, Henry III, who caused Pope
Gregory to summon a Council to Sutri. Here, or shortly afterwards at
Rome, all three Popes were deposed, and although Benedict IX made
another attempt on the papal throne, and even as late as 1058 his
party set up an anti-pope, the influence of the local factions was
superseded by that of a stronger power.
[Sidenote: Imperial influence.]
But the alternative offered by the German Kings was no more favourable
in itself to the schemes of the reformers than the purely local
influences of the last 150 years. As Otto I in 963, so Henry III in
1046 obtained from the Romans the recognition of his right, as
patrician or princeps, to nominate a candidate who should be formally
elected as their bishop by the Roman people; and as Otto III in 996,
so Henry III now used his office to nominate a succession of men,
suitable indeed and distinguished, but of German birth. This was not
that freedom of the Church from lay control nor the exaltation of the
papal office through which that freedom was to be maintained. Indeed,
so long as fear of the Tusculan influence remained, deference to the
wishes of the German King, who was also Emperor, was indispensable,
and when that King was as powerful as Henry III it was unwise to
challenge unnecessarily and directly the exercise of his powers.
[Sidenote: Leo IX (1048-54).]
But Henry, although, like St. Henry at the beginning of the century,
he kept a strong hand on his own clergy, was yet thoroughly in
sympathy with what may be distinguished as the moral objects of the
reformers; and, indeed, the men whom he promoted to the Papacy were
drawn from the class of higher ecclesiastics who were touched by the
Cluniac spirit. Henry's first two nominees were short-lived. His third
choice was his own cousin, Bruno, Bishop of Toul, who accepted with
reluctance and only on condition that he should go through the
canonical form of election by the clergy and people of Rome. On his
way to Rome, which he entered as a pilgrim, he was joined by the late
chaplain of Pope Gregory VI, Hildebrand, who had been in retirement at
Cluny since his master's death. Not only did the new Pope, Leo IX,
take this inflexible advocate of the Church's claims as his chief
adviser, but he surrounded himself with reforming ecclesiastics from
beyond the Alps. Thus fortified he issued edicts against simoniacal
and married clergy; but finding that their literal fulfilment would
have emptied all existing offices, he was obliged to tone down his
original threats and to allow clergy guilty of simony to atone their
fault by an ample penance. But Leo's contribution to the building up
of the papal power was his personal appearance, not as a suppliant but
as a judge, beyond the Alps. Three times in his six years' rule he
passed the confines of Rome and Italy. On the first occasion he even
held a Council at Rheims, despite the unfriendly attitude of Henry I
of France, whose efforts, moreover, to keep the French bishops from
attendance at the Council met with signal failure. Here and elsewhere
Pope Leo exercised all kinds of powers, forcing bishops and abbots to
clear themselves by oath from charges of simony and other faults, and
excommunicating and degrading those who had offended. And while he
reduced the hierarchy to recognise the papal authority, he overawed
the people by assuming the central part in stately ceremonies such as
the consecration of new churches and the exaltation of relics of
martyrs. All this was possible because the Emperor Henry III supported
him and welcomed him to a Council at Mainz. Nor was it a matter of
less importance that these visits taught the people of Western Europe
to regard the Papacy as the embodiment of justice and the
representative of a higher morality than that maintained by the local
Church.
[Sidenote: Effect of Henry III's death.]
Quite unwittingly Henry III's encouragement of Pope Leo's roving
propensities began the difficulties for his descendants. It is true he
nominated Leo's successor at the request of the clergy and people of
Rome; but Henry's death in 1056 left the German throne to a child of
six under the regency of a woman and a foreigner who found herself
faced by all the hostile forces hitherto kept under by the Emperor's
powerful arm. And when Henry's last Pope, Victor II, followed the
Emperor to the grave in less than a year, the removal of German
influence was complete. The effect was instantaneous. The first Pope
elected directly by the Romans was a German indeed by birth, but he
was the brother of Duke Godfrey of Lorraine, who, driven from Germany
by Henry, had married the widowed Marchioness of Tuscany. and was
regarded by a small party as a possible King of Italy and Emperor.
Whatever danger there was in the schemes of the Lotharingian brothers
was nipped in the bud by the death of Pope Stephen IX seven months
after his election. Then it became apparent that the removal of the
Emperor's strong hand had freed not only the upholders of
ecclesiastical reform but also the old Roman factions. The attempt was
easily crushed, but it became clear to the reformers that the papal
election must be secured beyond all possibility of outside
interference. At Hildebrand's suggestion and with the approval of the
German Court, a Burgundian, who was Bishop of Florence, was elected as
Nicholas II. The very name was a challenge, for the first Nicholas
(858-67) was perhaps the Pope who up to that time had asserted the
highest claims for the See of Rome.
[Sidenote: Provision for papal election.]
The short pontificate of the new Nicholas was devoted largely to
measures for securing the freedom of papal elections from secular
interference. By a decree passed in a numerously attended Council at
the Pope's Lateran palace, a College or Corporation was formed of the
seven bishops of the sees in the immediate neighbourhood of Rome,
together with the priests of the various Roman parish churches and the
deacons attendant on them. To the members of this body was now
specially arrogated the term Cardinal, a name hitherto applicable to
all clergy ordained and appointed to a definite church. To all Roman
clergy outside this body and to the people there remained merely the
right of assent, and even this was destined to disappear. More
important historically was the merely verbal reservation of the
imperial right of confirmation, which was further made a matter of
individual grant to each Emperor who might seek it from the Pope. In
view of the revived influence of the local factions it was also laid
down that, although Rome and the Roman clergy had the first claim, yet
the election might lawfully take place anywhere and any one otherwise
eligible might be chosen; while the Pope so elected might exercise his
authority even before he had been enthroned.
[Sidenote: Papacy and Normans.]
But in the presence of a strong Emperor or an unscrupulous faction
even these elaborate provisions Papacy might be useless. The Papacy
needed a champion in the flesh, who should have nothing to gain and
everything to lose by attempting to become its master. Such a
protector was ready to hand in the Normans, who, recently settled in
Southern Italy, felt themselves insecure in the title by which they
held their possessions. Southern Italy was divided between the three
Lombard duchies of Benevento, Capua and Salerno, and the districts of
Calabria and Apulia, which acknowledged the Viceroy or Katapan of the
Eastern Emperor in his seat at Bari. The Saracens, only recently
expelled from the mainland, still held Sicily. Norman pilgrims
returning from Palestine became, at the instigation of local factions,
Norman adventurers, and their leaders obtaining lands from the local
Princes in return for help, sought confirmation of their title from
some legitimate authority. The Western Empire had never claimed these
lands, but none the less Conrad II and Henry III, in return for the
acceptance of their suzerainty, acknowledged the titles which the
Norman leaders had already gained from Greek or Lombard. Rome was
likely to be their next victim, and Leo IX took the opportunity of a
dispute over the city of Benevento to try conclusions with them. A
humiliating defeat was followed by a mock submission of the conqueror.
The danger was in no sense removed. Pope Stephen's schemes for driving
them out of Italy were cut short by his death, and meanwhile the
Norman power increased. Thus there could be no question of expulsion,
nor could the Papacy risk a repetition of the humiliation of Leo IX.
It was Hildebrand who conceived the idea of turning a dangerous
neighbour into a friend and protector. A meeting was arranged at Melfi
between Pope Nicholas and the Norman princes, and there, while on the
one side canons were issued against clerical marriage, which was rife
in the south of Italy, on the other side Robert Guiscard, the Norman
leader, recognised the Pope as his suzerain, and obtained in return
the title of Duke of Apulia and Calabria and of Sicily when he should
have conquered it. Pope Leo's agreement, six years before, had been
made by a defeated and humiliated ecclesiastic with a band of
unscrupulous adventurers. Pope Nicholas was dealing with an actual
ruler who merely sought legitimate recognition of his title from any
whose hostility would make his hold precarious. Thus resting on the
shadowy basis of the donation of Constantine the Pope substituted
himself for the Emperor, whether of West or of East, over the whole of
Southern Italy. Truly the movement for the emancipation of the Church
from the State was already shaping itself into an attempt at the
formation of a rival power.
[Sidenote: Alexander II (1061-73) and Milan.]
The value of this new alliance to the Papacy was put to the test
almost immediately. On the death of Pope Nicholas (1061) the papal and
imperial parties proceeded to measure their strength against each
other. The reformers, acting under the leadership of Hildebrand, chose
as his successor a noble Milanese, Anselm of Baggio, Bishop of Lucca,
who now became Alexander II. He was elected in accordance with the
provisions of the recent Lateran decree, and no imperial ratification
was asked. On the purely ecclesiastical side this choice was a strong
manifesto against clerical marriage. The city of Milan as the capital
of the Lombard kingdom of Italy had for many centuries held itself in
rivalry with Rome. Moreover, it was the stronghold of an aristocratic
and a married clergy, which based its practice on a supposed privilege
granted by its Apostle St. Ambrose. But this produced a reforming
democracy which, perhaps from the quarter whence it gained its chief
support, was contemptuously named by its opponents the Patarins or
Rag-pickers. The first leader of this democratic party had been Anselm
of Baggio. Nicholas II sent thither the fanatical Peter Damiani as
papal legate, and a fierce struggle ended in the abject submission of
the Archbishop of Milan, who attended a synod at Rome and promised
obedience to the Pope.
[Sidenote: German opposition.]
The weak point in the decree of Nicholas II had been that the German
clergy were not represented at the Council which issued it, and it was
construed in Germany as a manifest attempt of the reforming party to
secure the Papacy for Italy as against the German influence maintained
by Henry III. The Roman nobles also had seen in the decree the design
of excluding them from any share in the election. It was only by the
introduction of Norman troops into Rome that the new Pope could be
installed at the Lateran. A few weeks later a synod met at Basle in
the presence of the Empress-Regent and the young Henry IV. The latter
was invested with the title of Patrician, and the election of
Alexander having been pronounced invalid, a new Pope was chosen in the
person of another Lombard, Cadalus Bishop of Parma, who had led the
opposition to the Patarins in the province of Milan. The Normans were
recalled to their dominions, and the imperialist Pope, Honorius II,
was installed in Rome. The struggle between the rival Popes lasted for
three years (1061-4), and fluctuated with the fluctuations of power at
the German court. Here the young King had fallen under the influence
of Archbishop Hanno of Koln, who, surrounded by enemies in Germany,
hoped to gain a party by the betrayal of imperial interests in the
recognition of the decree of Nicholas II and of the claims of
Alexander. Again by the help of a Norman force Alexander was installed
in Rome, where he remained even when Hanno's influence at the German
court gave way to that of Archbishop Adalbert of Bremen. Honorius,
however, despite the desertion by the imperialist party, found
supporters until his death in 1072, and it was only by the arms of
Duke Godfrey of Tuscany acting for the imperialists and those of his
own Norman allies that Alexander held Rome until his death.
[Sidenote: Steps towards reformation.]
Meanwhile the ecclesiastical reformation went steadily on under the
direction of Hildebrand. The young King Henry endeavoured to free
himself from the great German ecclesiastics who held him in thrall, by
repudiating the wife whom they had forced upon him. He was checked by
the austere and resolute papal legate, Peter Damiani, and was obliged
to accept Bertha of Savoy, to whom subsequently he became much
attached. Peter Darniani's visit, however, brought him relief in
another way, for the legate took back such a report of the prevalence
of simony that the archbishops of Mainz and Koln were summoned to
Rome, whence they returned so humiliated that their political
influence was gone. It is almost equally remarkable that the two
English Archbishops also appeared at Rome during this Pontificate,
Lanfranc of Canterbury in order that he might obtain the pall without
which he could not exercise his functions as Archbishop, and Thomas of
York, who referred to the Pope his contention that the primacy of
England should alternate between Canterbury and York. In France, too,
we are told that the envoys of Alexander interfered in the smallest
details of the ecclesiastical administration and punished without
mercy all clergy guilty of simony or of matrimony. Almost the last
public act of Pope Alexander was to excommunicate five counsellors of
the young King of Germany, to whom were attributed responsibility for
his acts, and to summon Henry himself to answer charges of simony and
other evil deeds.
CHAPTER II
GREGORY VII AND LAY INVESTITURE
[Sidenote: Gregory VII (1073-85).]
The crowd which attended the funeral of Alexander II acclaimed
Hildebrand as his successor. The Cardinals formally ratified the
choice of the people and contrary to the wish of the German bishops
the young King Henry acquiesced.
[Sidenote: His rise to power.]
The new Pope was born a Tuscan peasant and educated in the monastery
of St. Mary's on the Aventine in Rome. His uncle was the Abbot, and
the monastery was Roman lodging of the Abbot of Cluny. Hildebrand
entered the service of Gregory VI, whom he followed into exile. On his
master's death in 1048 Hildebrand retired to Cluny. Hence he was drawn
once more back to Rome by Pope Leo IX. From this moment his rise was
continuous. Leo made him a Cardinal and gave him the charge of the
papal finances. In 1054 he sent him as legate to France in order to
deal with the heresy of Berengar of Tours. Hildebrand was no
theologian, and he accepted a very vague explanation of Berengar's
views upon the disputed question of the change of the elements in the
Sacrament. On Leo's death Hildebrand headed the deputation which was
sent by the clergy and people of Rome to ask Henry III to nominate his
successor; and again, on the death of Victor II, although Hildebrand
took no part in the choice of Stephen IX, it was he who went to
Germany to obtain a confirmation of the election from the
Empress-Regent. On Stephen's death Hildebrand's prompt action obtained
the election of Nicholas II. It was probably Hildebrand who worded the
decree regulating the mode of papal elections, and whose policy turned
the Normans from troublesome neighbours into faithful allies and
useful instruments of the papal aims. Nicholas rewarded him with the
office of Archdeacon of Rome, which made him the chief administrative
officer of the Roman see and, next to the Pope, the most important
person in the Western Church. Hildebrand was the chief agent in the
election of Alexander II; and the ultimate triumph of Alexander meant
the reinstatement of Hildebrand at head-quarters. Thus it had long
been a question of how soon the maker of Popes would himself assume
the papal title, and this was settled for him by the acclamations of
the people. In memory of his old master he took the title of Gregory
VII. As yet he was only in deacon's orders. Within a month he was
ordained priest; but another month or more elapsed before he was
consecrated bishop.
[Sidenote: Opportunity of reform.]
At last the individual who was most identified in men's minds with the
forward movement in the Church was the acknowledged head of the
ecclesiastical organisation in the West. For more than twenty years he
had been at headquarters intimately knowing and ultimately directing
the course of policy. It was mainly by his exertions that the Church
was now officially committed to the views of the Cluniac reformers.
Yet so much opposition had been called forth as to show that the
success of the party hitherto had depended merely on the circumstances
of the moment. The time seemed to have arrived when matters should be
brought to an issue. The continued existence of the Roman factions and
the power of Henry III had made compromise necessary, and the general
result of the reformers' efforts upon the Church had been
inappreciable. But the lapse of time had done at least two things--it
had cleared the issue and it had brought the opportunity.
[Sidenote: Direction in which reform should move.]
The Church was so entirely enmeshed in the feudal notions of the age
that at first it was not very clear to the reformers where it would be
most effective to begin in the process or cutting her free. But by
this time it was seen that the real link which bound the Church to the
State was the custom by which princes took it on themselves to give to
the new bishop, in return for his oath of homage, investiture of his
office and lands by the presentation of the ring which symbolically
married him to his Church, and of the pastoral staff which committed
to him the spiritual oversight of his diocese. Probably there was not
a single prince in Western Europe who pretended to confer on the new
bishop any of his spiritual powers; but the two spheres of the
episcopal work had become inextricably confused, and in the decay of
ecclesiastical authority the lay power had treated the chief
ecclesiastics as mainly great officers of State and a special class of
feudal baron. In the eyes of the reformers the entire dealing of the
King with the bishops was an act of usurpation, nay, of sacrilege.
Ecclesiastics owed to the sovereign of the country the oath of fealty
demanded of all subjects. But for the rest, neither bishop, abbot, nor
parish priest could be a feudal vassal. The land which any
ecclesiastic held by virtue of his office had been given to the
Church; the utmost claim that any layman could make regarding it was
to a right or rather duty of protection. If the Church was to be
restored to freedom, investiture with ring and staff, and the control
of the lands during vacancy of an ecclesiastical office must all be
claimed back for the Church herself. The oath of homage would then
naturally disappear, and there would no longer be that confusion of
spheres which had resulted in the laicisation and the degradation of
the Church.
[Sidenote: Henry IV and the German clergy.]
Moreover, the moment was propitious for asserting these views to the
fullest extent. The chief represenative of lay authority was no longer
a powerful Emperor nor even a minor in the tutelage of others. He was
a King of full age whose wayward, not to say vicious, courses had
alienated large numbers of his people. It is true that Henry IV never
had much chance of becoming a successful ruler. Taken from his mother
at the age of twelve, for the next ten years (1062-72) he had been
controlled alternately by two guardians, of whom one, Adalbert,
Archbishop of Bremen, allowed him every indulgence, while the other,
Hanno, Archbishop of Koln, hardly suffered him to have a mind of his
own. Since he had become his own master he had plunged into war with
his Saxon subjects. Henry, entangled in this war, answered Gregory's
first admonitions in a conciliatory tone; but in 1075 he decisively
defeated the Saxons and was in no mood to listen to a suggestion for
the diminution of the authority of the German King in his own land,
which he had just so triumphantly vindicated. For Henry imitated his
predecessors in practising investiture of bishops both in Germany and
in Italy; and he realised that the summons of the Pope to the temporal
princes that they should give up such investiture would mean the
transference to the Papacy of the disposal of the temporal fiefs. This
would involve the loss at one blow of half the dominions of the German
King. Moreover, he was encouraged in an attitude of resistance by the
feeling of the German Church. At the first Lenten Synod held in the
Lateran palace after Gregory's accession canons were issued forbidding
all married or simoniacal ecclesiastics to perform ministerial
functions and all laity to attend their ministrations. Immediate
opposition was raised; the German clergy were especially violent: they
declared that this prohibition of marriage was contrary to the
teaching of Christ and St. Paul, that it attempted to make men live
like angels but would only encourage licence, and that, if it were
necessary to choose, they would abandon the priesthood rather than
their wives. Gregory, however, sent legates into various districts
armed with full powers, and succeeded in rousing the populace against
the married clergy.
[Sidenote: Gregory's decree against investiture.]
It was under these circumstances that Gregory determined to bring to
an issue the chief question in dispute between Church and State.
Hitherto he had said nothing against the practice of lay investiture.
Now, however, at the Lenten Synod in 1075, a decree was issued which
condemned both the ecclesiastic, high or low, who should take
investiture from a layman, and also the layman, however exalted in
rank, who should dare to give investiture. The decree had no immediate
effect, and at the end of the year Gregory followed it up with a
letter to the King, in which he threatened excommunication if before
the meeting of the next usual Lenten Synod Henry had not amended his
life and got rid of his councillors, who had never freed themselves
from the papal ban.
[Sidenote: Henry's Answer.]
Henry's answer was given at a Synod of German ecclesiastics at Worms.
Cardinal Hugh the White, who for personal reasons had turned against
Gregory, accused him of the most incredible crimes, and a letter was
despatched in which the bishops renounced their obedience. Henry also
addressed a letter to the Pope, which quite surpassed that of the
bishops in violence of expression. "Henry, King not by usurpation but
by the holy ordination of God, to Hildebrand now no apostolic ruler
but a false monk." It accused him of daring to threaten to take away
the royal power, as if Henry owed it to the Pontiff and not to God:
and it concluded by a summons to him to descend from his position in
favour of some one "who shall not cloak his violence with religion,
but shall teach the sound doctrine of St. Peter." It was nothing new
for a Pope to be deposed by a Council presided over by the Emperor.
And it is true that the same resolution, transmitted by delegates from
Worms, was adopted at Piacenza by a Synod of Italian bishops. But on
this occasion the sentence was uttered by an assembly of exclusively
German bishops, presided over by a King who was not yet crowned
Emperor. If such a sentence was to be effective, Henry should have
followed it up by a march to Rome with an adequate army. He merely
courted defeat when he gave the Pope the opportunity for a retort in
kind. Anathema was the papal weapon, and while the King's declaration
might even be resented by other rulers as an attempt to dictate to
them in a matter of common concern to all, the papal sentence on the
King was regarded by all as influencing the fate, not of the King
only, but of all who remained in communication with him, if not in
this world, at any rate in the world to come. Moreover, in this
particular case, while no one believed the monstrous charges against
Gregory, there was sufficient in Henry's past conduct to give
credibility to anything that might be urged against him.
[Sidenote: Gregory deposes Henry.]
Gregory's rejoinder was delivered at the Lenten Synod of 1076. As
against the twenty-six German bishops assembled at Worms, this Council
contained over a hundred bishops drawn from all parts of Christendom,
while among the laity present was Henry's own mother, the Empress
Agnes. Gregory used his opportunity to the full. In the most solemn
strain he appealed to St. Peter, to the Virgin Mary, to St. Paul and
all the saints, to bear witness that he himself had unwillingly taken
the Papacy. To him, as representative of the Apostle, God had
entrusted the Christian people, and in reliance on this he now
withdrew from Henry, as a rebel against the Church, the rule over the
kingdoms of the Teutons and of Italy, and released all Christians from
any present or future oath made to him. Finally, for his omissions and
commissions alike, Henry is bound in the bonds of anathema "in order
that people may know and acknowledge that thou art Peter, and upon thy
rock the Son of the living God has built His Church, and the gates of
hell shall not prevail against it."
The rhetorical flourish of the King's pronouncement against the Pope
withers before the tremendous appeal of the Pope to his divinely
delegated power to judge the King. Gregory's procedure was little less
revolutionary than that of the King, but the claim to depose might
appear as only a concomitant to the power already wielded by Popes in
bestowing crowns, while for Gregory it had by this time become the
copingstone in the fabric of those relations between Church and State
which he and his party were building up.
[Sidenote: Gregory's allies: Countess Matilda.]
Gregory's position was not devoid of difficulties. Numerous protests
were raised against this assertion of papal power. But events
concurred to justify Gregory's bold action. At the beginning of his
pontificate the Normans were quarrelling among themselves; but in
Tuscany the Countess Matilda had just become complete mistress of the
great inheritance which included a large part of Central Italy. She
was an enthusiastic supporter of the Papacy, and secured North Italy
by a revival of the Patarine party against the Italian bishops who had
repudiated Gregory at Piacenza.
[Sidenote: Rebellious German Nobles.]
But Gregory's most effective allies were Henry's rebellious subjects.
The Saxons broke out again into rebellion in the north, while the
nobles of Southern Germany with the concurrence of the Pope met at
Tribur, near Mainz, in October, 1076. Henry was forced to accept the
most abject terms. He was to submit to the Pope, and the nobles
further agreed among themselves that the Pope should be invited to
pronounce the decisive judgment at a diet to be held at Augsburg a
year later. If by that time Henry had not obtained the papal
absolution, the kingdom would be considered forfeit, and they would
proceed to the election of a new King without waiting for permission
of the Pope. The nobles were hampered by the rivalry of those who
hoped each to be Henry's successor, and they did not wish to found the
election of the new King on the acknowledgment of the papal power of
deposition. They acted, therefore, as if so far, apart from the
excommunication, the papal sentence of deposition had been only
provisional.
[Sidenote: Henry's Action.]
Henry saw that to be reinstated by the Pope in an assembly of his
rebellious subjects would be even more damaging for his prestige than
the original deposition, and, knowing nothing of the agreement of the
nobles for a new election, he determined to go and get his absolution
from the Pope at Rome. He treated the points in dispute between
himself and his opponents as practically settled by his promise of
submission, whereas the Pope desired to pose as arbiter between the
contending parties in Germany; while the nobles aimed at electing a
new King. Quite unconsciously Henry was forcing the hands of both
parties of his opponents, whose obvious interests were in favour of
delay. It was necessary that he should drink the cup of humiliation to
the dregs; but the astute King preferred that it should be at his own
time and place--at once and in Italy, instead of a year hence in
Germany.
[Sidenote: Canossa.]
Henry carried out his design, even though it was in the middle of
winter; and neglecting the welcome of the imperialists of North Italy,
he ultimately tracked the Pope to the Countess Matilda's fortress of
Canossa, in the Apennines, above Modena. But Gregory would listen to
no mediation, and demanded absolute submission to his judgment. So
Henry again took the method of procedure into his own hands and
appeared at intervals during three successive days before the castle
in the garb of a penitent, barefooted and clad in a coarse woollen
shirt. The picturesque account of this world-famous scene, which we
owe to Lambert of Hersfeld, must be regarded as the monastic version
current among the papal partisans. Gregory himself, who was scarcely
likely to minimise his own triumph, in his letter to the German nobles
says nothing of these details. He only relates that even his own
followers exclaimed that "tyrannical ferocity" rather than "apostolic
severity" was the characteristic of his act.
[Sidenote: Result Of Canossa.]
Thus Henry forced the hand of the Pope, who as a priest could not
refuse his absolution to one who showed himself ready to submit to the
severest possible penance for his sins. The only course open to
Gregory was to accept the situation on which he had lost the hold, and
to try to get some political concessions in the negotiations which
must follow. The terms did not differ much from those arranged at
Tribur: Henry should accept the decision of the diet of the German
nobles, presided over by the Pope, as to his continued right to the
crown, while if the judgment was favourable, he should implicitly obey
the Pope for the future in all that concerned the Church. But, on the
other hand, the papal excommunication and absolute sentence of
deposition were removed, and the whole excuse for continued rebellion
was thus withdrawn from his German opponents. Henry had undoubtedly
been humiliated and had acknowledged the papal arbitration in Germany:
but modern feelings probably exaggerate the humiliation of the
penitential system, and Henry had at least divided his enemies. The
Pope had undertaken to see fair play between Henry and his German
subjects: the German nobles had based their action on Henry's past
conduct, for which he had now done penance. Henry had obtained an
acknowledgment from the Pope that his right to the kingship was at any
rate an open question.
[Sidenote: Election of an anti-king.]
The German nobles had been betrayed by the Pope, but they could not
afford to quarrel with him. They had been outwitted by Henry, and
against him they proceeded as having violated the Agreement of Tribur.
A Diet met at Forchheim, in Franconia, in March, 1077. It was chiefly
composed of lay nobles, but papal legates were present, whom Gregory
instructed to work for a postponement until he himself could come. But
the nobles were determined, and Henry's brother-in-law, Duke Rudolf of
Suabia, was chosen King. Gregory, however, did not intend to have his
hand forced again, and for three years (1077-80) he refused to
acknowledge Rudolf and tried to pose as arbiter between him and Henry.
Five times Rudolf's supporters wrote remonstrating indignantly against
this neutrality. Gregory excused himself on the ground that his
legates had been deceived and had acted under compulsion in
acquiescing in the action of the diet at Forchheim. He had good
reasons for his delay. He was determined to secure recognition of the
right which he claimed for the Papacy as the real determining force in
the dispute, an act which the nobles had deliberately prevented.
Moreover, he was a little afraid of a trial of strength with Henry at
the moment. For while Henry's promptness had caused the Pope to break
faith with his allies, Gregory's severity had gathered round Henry a
party which made the King more powerful than he yet had been. Thus in
Lombardy the Countess Matilda was faced by a revived imperialist party
which seriously threatened her dominions, while in Germany the clergy,
the lesser nobles and the cities rallied round the King.
[Sidenote: Gregory accepts him.]
So long, then, as the contest seemed doubtful Gregory withheld his
decision. At length, in 1080, when, despite two victories, Rudolf was
gaining no advantage, Gregory felt that further delay might make Henry
too strong to be affected by the papal judgment. Accordingly, at the
usual Lenten Synod he renewed the excommunication and deposition of
Henry, recognised Rudolf as King of Germany, and even prophesied for
the excommunicated monarch a speedy death. One papal partisan
afterwards explained this as referring to Henry's spiritual death!
Gregory is further said to have sent a crown to Rudolf, bearing the
legend "Petra dedit Petro, Petrus diadema Rudolpho," but the story is
doubtful. The answer of Henry's party was given in successive synods
of German or Italian bishops, who declared Gregory deposed, and
elected as his substitute Henry's Chancellor, Guibert, Archbishop of
Ravenna, who took the title of Clement III.
[Sidenote: Death of anti-King.]
Gregory's decisive move was a failure. There were now two Kings and
two Popes, and all hope of a peaceful settlement was gone. None of the
nations of Europe responded to Gregory's appeal. Robert Guiscard, the
Norman leader, was busy with his designs on the Eastern Empire.
Gregory's only chance was a victory in Germany and the fulfilment of
his rash prophecy. In October, 1080, Henry was defeated in the heart
of Saxony on the Elster, but it was Gregory's accepted King, Rudolf,
who was killed. One chronicler reports Rudolf as acknowledging in his
dying moments the iniquity of his conduct. Saxony remained in revolt;
but until a new King could be agreed upon Henry was practically safe
and could turn to deal with the situation in Italy. There could be no
thought of peace. Gregory's supporters were upheld by the enthusiasm
of fanaticism, while by acts and words he had driven his enemies to
exasperation, and what had begun as a war of principles had now sunk
to a personal struggle between Henry and Hildebrand.
[Sidenote: Death of Gregory.]
The renewal of the sentence against Henry had caused a reaction in his
favour in Northern Italy. Soon after the episode of Canossa, the
Countess Matilda, having no heir, had bequeathed her entire
possessions to the Roman see and become a papal vassal for the term of
her own life. But most of the Tuscan cities declared for Henry and
thus entirely neutralised her power. Robert Guiscard was not to be
tempted back from his projects against the Eastern Empire, even if it
be true that Gregory offered him the Empire of the West. Thus Henry
entered Italy unhindered early in 1081, and even the news that his
opponents had found a successor to Rudolf in the person of Herman of
Luxemburg did not stop his march. The siege of Rome lasted for nearly
three years (1081-4), but ultimately he obtained possession of all the
city except the castle of St. Angelo. Henry's Pope, Clement III, was
consecrated, and on Easter Day Henry, together with his wife, at
length obtained the imperial crown. But meanwhile he had made a fatal
move. The Eastern Emperor Alexius persuaded him to make mischief in
Apulia. Henry fell into the trap. Robert Guiscard rushed back to
defend his own territories, and now determined to carry out his
obligations as a papal vassal. Henry was taken unawares and had to
retire before the Normans, who forced their way into Rome and cruelly
sacked and burnt it. Gregory was rescued, but life for him in Rome was
no longer possible. The Romans had betrayed him to Henry, and now his
allies had destroyed the city. He retired with the Normans to Salerno,
where, a year later, he died (May, 1085), bitterly attributing his
failure to his love of righteousness and hatred of iniquity.
[Sidenote: His reasons for his failure.]
But we cannot ratify Gregory's own judgment on the reasons for his
failure. Rather the blame is to be laid upon his lack of
statesmanship. His egotism and his fanaticism worked together to make
him believe that the supremacy of the spiritual power which he aimed
at might be attained by very secular devices. In action he showed
himself a pure opportunist, approving at one time what he condemned at
another. And yet he had so little of an eye for the line which
separates the practicable from the ideal that at Canossa he humiliated
Henry beyond all hope of reconciliation, and he died in exile because
he would not listen to any compromise which might be an acknowledgment
that he had exaggerated his own claims. Thus, despite the undoubted
purity of his life and the ultimate loftiness of his ideals, he is to
be regarded rather as a man of immense force of character than as a
great ecclesiastical statesman, rather as the stirrer-up of divine
discontent than as a creative mind which gives a new turn to the
desires and impulses of the human race.
[Sidenote: His activity in Europe.]
All this is borne out by his dealings outside Germany and Italy. He
conducted a very extensive correspondence with princes as well as
ecclesiastics all over Europe. Indeed this, as much as the despatch of
legates and the annual attendance of bishops at the Lenten Synod, was
one of the means by which the Papacy strove to make itself the central
power of Christendom. These letters deal with all kinds of subjects
and bear ample witness to his personal piety and high moral aims. But
alongside of these come arrogant assertions of papal authority. He
claims as fiefs of St. Peter on various grounds Hungary, Spain,
Denmark, Corsica, Sardinia; he gives the title of King to the Duke of
Dalmatia; he even offers to princes who belong to the Eastern Church a
better title to their possessions as held from St. Peter.
[Sidenote: His policy in France.]
Gregory's great contest with the Empire has been described without
interruption, as if it were the only struggle of his time, instead of
being merely the most important episode in a very busy life. And if we
ask in conclusion why it was fought out in the imperial dominions
rather than elsewhere, the answer will be instructive of his character
and methods of action. At the beginning of his pontificate his
harshest phrases were directed against Philip I of France, who added
to the crimes of lay investiture and shameless simony a scandalous
personal immorality. Ultimately Gregory threatened him with
excommunication and deposition. But he never passed beyond threats.
The reason is to be found in the fact that Gregory was soon in pursuit
of larger game. The French King only shared with his great nobles the
investiture of the bishops in the kingdom. Moreover, the French
bishops were not as a body great secular potentates like the German
bishops. The opposition to reform in France was passive, not active.
Crown, nobles, and Church stood together in opposition: there was no
papal party. Not enough was to be gained by a victory, and there was
great chance of a defeat. The result was that Philip continued his
simoniacal transactions and never entirely gave up investiture, while
Gregory allowed himself to be satisfied with occasional promises of
better things. His dealings with the French bishops are equally
inconclusive. For six years (1076-82) two of the papal legates divided
France between them, practically superseded the local ecclesiastical
jurisdiction, and acted with the utmost severity against all,
ecclesiastics or laymen, who practised the methods now under
condemnation. Great opposition was aroused and the legates went in
peril of their lives. They were only carrying out strenuously the
principles laid down under Gregory's guidance in many acts of synods
and inculcated by Gregory in numberless private letters. And yet
Gregory is found frequently undoing their acts, restoring bishops whom
they have deposed, accepting excuses or explanations which cannot
possibly have deceived him.
[Sidenote: In England.]
His policy towards England affords another instructive contrast. Both
in Normandy and in England William the Conqueror practised investiture
of his bishops and abbots and held his ecclesiastics in an iron grip.
He refused the papal demand for homage for his English kingdom and he
would allow no papal interference with his clergy without the King's
permission. Archbishop Lanfranc also only consented to accept the
decree against married clergy with a serious limitation--while married
canons were to dismiss their wives at once, parish priests already
married were not interfered with; but marriage was forbidden to clergy
in the future, and bishops were warned not to ordain married men. But
William's expedition to England had been undertaken with the approval
of Hildebrand, he did not practise simony, and he acknowledged the
principle of a celibate clergy, while he promised the payment of the
tribute of Peter's Pence from England. Moreover, William was not a man
to be trifled with: he was a valuable friend and would certainly be a
dangerous enemy. Consequently no question of the lawfulness of
investiture was mooted during his lifetime. Gregory contented himself
with threats against Lanfranc. But the English Archbishop owed a
grudge to Gregory, who had treated with a culpable indulgence the
great heresiarch Berengar after Lanfranc had vanquished him and
convicted him of heresy; and Lanfranc knew that under William's
sheltering favour he was safe from the papal ban.
Thus, while in France Gregory would have to face an united people, in
England he shrank before the personality of the King. In Germany, on
the other hand, he found a blameworthy King and a discontented people.
All the elements were present for the successful interference of an
external power. Moreover, the peculiar relations in which this
external power--the Papacy--stood towards the German King, the
prospective Emperor, gave every excuse, if any were needed, for such
interference. Finally and most especially, since these imperial
prospects made the German King the first among the monarchs of Western
Europe, a victory over him would carry a prestige which lesser
potentates would be bound to acknowledge.
CHAPTER III
THE END OF THE QUARREL
[Sidenote: A momentary peace.]
It remained to be seen whether Gregory's failure implied Henry's
success. The Emperor returned to Germany, where a strong desire for
peace had grown up and was taking practical shape. In some dioceses
the Truce of God was proclaimed, which, under heavy ecclesiastical
penalties, forbade hostilities during certain days of the week and
certain seasons of the year. Henry took up this idea, which as yet was
too partial to be effective, and in 1085, in a Synod at Mainz under
his presidency, it was proclaimed for the whole kingdom. The
unfortunate anti-King Herman found himself deserted, and died, a
fugitive, in 1088. Henry's moderation concluded what the desire for
peace had begun, and even Saxony seemed to be reconciled to his rule.
[Sidenote: Urban II (1088-99).]
But his triumph was short-lived. Between him and any lasting peace
stood the anti-Pope Clement III; for all who had received consecration
at Clement's hands were bound at all hazards to maintain the
lawfulness of his election. Moreover, Clement's opponent now was a man
to be reckoned with. The first choice of the Gregorian party,
Desiderius, Abbot of Monte Cassino, could not be consecrated for a
year after his election, and four months later he was dead (September,
1087). The partisans of Clement were too strong in Rome, and the next
election was carried out with total disregard of the decree of
Nicholas II. It took place at Terracina in March, 1088, and was made
by a large number of clergy in addition to the Cardinals. The choice
fell upon Otto, Bishop of Ostia, a Frenchman of noble family and a
monk of Cluny; but it was some years before Urban II could regard Rome
as his headquarters.
[Sidenote: His policy against Henry.]
In some ways Urban was more uncompromising than his master Gregory. He
upheld the papal legates in their strict treatment of the French
bishops; he actually launched against Philip I of France the
excommunication which Gregory had only threatened; to the prohibition
of lay investiture he added an explicit command that bishops and
clergy should not do homage to any layman. But while he showed himself
thus in thorough sympathy with his predecessor, in his power of
dealing with circumstances he proved himself by far the superior. A
succession of clever if thoroughly unscrupulous measures restored the
fortunes of the papal party. Henry had succeeded for the moment in
dividing and isolating his enemies. Urban set himself to unite the
chief opponents of Henry on both sides of the Alps. He planned a
marriage between the middle-aged widow, the Countess Matilda of
Tuscany, and the eighteen-year-old son of Welf, Duke of Bavaria
(1089). Matilda was ready to sacrifice herself for the good of the
cause. The Welfs, ignorant of Matilda's gift of her lands to the
Papacy, eagerly accepted the bait; but soon discovering that they were
being used as tools, they ceased to give any help, and in fact became
reconciled to the Emperor. But meanwhile the Pope had discovered other
more deadly weapons with which to wound the Emperor. The deaths of the
anti-Kings had left the papal party without a leader in Germany.
Events had shown the firm hold of the hereditary claim and the Salian
House upon a large portion of the Empire. The only acceptable leader
would be a member of Henry's own house. Henry's actions played into
their hands. His eldest son, Conrad, had been crowned at Aachen in
1087 and sent into Italy to act as his father's representative. He is
described as a young man of studious and dreamy character, unpractical
and easily influenced. In 1087 Henry lost his faithful wife Bertha,
and a year later he married a Russian Princess, Praxedis, who was the
widow of the Count of the Northern March. The marriage was unhappy;
each accused the other of misconduct; and Henry, suspecting the
relations of Conrad with his stepmother, put them both in prison.
Perhaps Conrad had already been worked upon by the papal party. He
escaped, took refuge with the Countess Matilda, and was crowned King
of Italy (1093). But he was only the tool of others. Far more
immediately dangerous was the escape of Praxedis (1094), who laid
before the Pope the foulest charges against Henry. To her lasting
shame the Countess Matilda was the chief agent in these family
revolts. The effect on Henry's position in Italy was disastrous. Pope
Urban finally recovered Rome, and Conrad, having won the cities of
Lombardy, took an oath of fealty to the Papacy in return for a promise
of the Empire.
[Sidenote: Beginning of the Crusades.]
And just as if the success of these diabolical schemes was not a
sufficient triumph, fortune at this moment gave the Pope a chance of
superseding the Emperor in the eyes of all Europe, by inaugurating a
great popular movement of which under different circumstances the
Emperor would have been the natural leader. In 1085 the Eastern
Emperor Alexius had appealed to Henry against the Normans, but now
Henry was a negligible quantity--excommunicated, crowned Emperor by an
anti-pope, not likely to undertake a distant expedition. In 1095,
therefore, when Alexius needed aid against the Seljuk Turks, it was to
the Pope that he sent his envoys, who appeared at the Synod of
Piacenza. Those late converts to Mohammedanism had established their
kingdom of Roum over the greater part of Asia Minor with its capital
at the venerable city of Nicaa, and had captured Jerusalem, which thus
passed out of the hands of the tolerant Caliphs of Cairo into those of
the most fanatical section of Mohammedans. Pilgrims returning from
Jerusalem spread through Europe tales of the harsh treatment to which
they were subjected. Then in 1087 a new tribe of Saracens, the
Almoravides, crossed from Africa to Spain and inflicted a severe
defeat upon a Christian army. It seemed almost as if a combined
movement of the Mohammedan world had begun for the final extinction of
Christendom. If Gregory had been free he would have wished to promote
the reunion of the Churches by sending help to the Eastern Empire; so
that it was no novel idea that was suggested to the assembled magnates
at Piacenza. Urban II no doubt saw the opportunity offered for
asserting the leadership of the western world. Alexius' envoys were
heard with sympathy; but Urban felt the need of appeal to a larger
public, and summoned a great Council to Clermont-Ferrand in Auvergne,
where he would be among his own countrymen. Here in November, 1095, he
delivered before a vast concourse of persons assembled in the open air
an impassioned appeal on behalf of the suffering Christians of the
east. The result answered his utmost expectation, and the cry of the
assembled multitude, "God wills it," was the ratification of the papal
leadership. All methods were taken to stir the feelings of the west.
The vast ecclesiastical organisation was used in order to transmit
invitations to possible crusaders; the penitential system of the
Church was brought to bear on those already conscious of a sinful
life; popular preachers, such as Peter the Hermit, were employed to
rouse the interest of the masses; the Pope himself spent the
succeeding months in a tour through Southern France; and arrangements
were made for the start of the first expedition from the Italian ports
at the end of the summer of 1096, under the leadership of a legate
appointed by the Pope.
[Sidenote: The first Crusade.]
It is not possible here to follow the fortunes of the Crusaders.
Several unauthorised expeditions, which bore witness to the popular
enthusiasm, made their way through Southern Germany; but the
disorderly crowds which composed them perished either at the hands of
the inhabitants of the Eastern Empire, whom they treated as
schismatics, or among the Turks in Asia Minor. The real expedition
passed partly by land, partly by sea from the Italian ports to
Constantinople, whence the Crusaders set out across Asia Minor. Nicaa
was taken in June, 1097; the Sultan of Roum was overthrown in battle
at Dorylaum in July; Antioch detained the Crusaders from October,
1097, to June, 1098; and it was only in July, 1099, that after a siege
of forty days Jerusalem was captured from the Saracens of Egypt, who
had recently recovered it from the Turks.
[Sidenote: Its effect on the quarrel.]
But whatever may have been Urban's success in his own land of France
and elsewhere, in Germany, at any rate, his efforts to turn the
current against the Emperor had entirely failed. Of German lands
Lorraine alone sent warriors to the First Crusade. The movement did
not penetrate to the east of the Rhine, and the number of Germans who
helped to swell the multitude of crusaders who marched through
Southern Germany was inappreciable. At the same time the settlement of
the questions at issue between Papacy and Empire were indefinitely
postponed; for it would have been treason to the crusading cause to
press the papal claims against Henry at this moment. It was Henry's
turn to experience some good fortune. The proclamation of the Truce of
God under his auspices, the manifest interest of the German
ecclesiastics, and his own policy of favouring the rising cities
combined to strengthen his position. Thus in 1098 he was able to
obtain from the German nobles the deposition of his rebellious son
Conrad and the election of his younger son Henry as King, who was made
to promise that during his father's lifetime he would not act
politically against him. Then in 1099 Pope Urban died, and was
followed in 1100 by the anti-Pope Clement III, and in 1101 by Conrad.
All the personal causes of disunion were being removed. Moreover, the
success of the crusading policy made it impossible that Henry or
Germany should stand apart from it altogether. Although Jerusalem was
the capital of a Christian kingdom and other principalities centred
round Tripoli, Antioch, and the more distant Edessa, powerful
Mohammedan Princes lay close beside them at Damascus, Aleppo, and
Mossul, as well as to the south in Egypt. There was need of constant
reinforcement, for the fighting was continual. Under these inducements
Germany began to contribute crusaders to the cause. Duke Welf of
Bavaria led an army eastwards in 1101. In 1103 Henry's efforts in
favour of peace culminated in the proclamation at the Diet of Mainz of
the first imperial land peace sworn between King and nobles, which
bound the parties to it for four years to maintain the peace towards
all communities in the land. This was intended as a preliminary to
Henry's participation in an expedition to the east.
[Sidenote: Death of Henry IV.]
But this was the very last thing desired by Henry's enemies, and there
began a most unscrupulous attack which ended only with his death. Pope
Urban's successor, Pascal II, strengthened by the death of the
anti-Pope Clement and the failure of his party to maintain a
successor, renewed the excommunication against Henry, and did
everything deliberately to stir up strife in Germany. The nobles were
angry at the cessation of private war and at the favour shown by Henry
to the towns. But again they lacked a leader, and with diabolical
craft the papal party worked upon the young King Henry by threatening
to set up against him an anti-King who should rob him of the eventual
succession. The result was that the young King broke his solemn
promise, set up the standard of revolt, and was joined by nobles,
ecclesiastical as well as lay, and by the restless Saxon rebels. By a
trick he got his father into his power and forced him formally to
abdicate, while he himself was crowned King by the papal legate. But
the Emperor escaped, and with marvellous energy gathered adherents;
but a renewal of the struggle was staved off by his own death after a
few days' illness on August 6th, 1106.
[Sidenote: His justification.]
Henry never shook himself free from the difficulties of his own early
misdeeds; but the rights upon which he took his stand were those
exercised by his predecessors. The uncompromising attitude of his
opponents and their humiliation of him made it a life-long struggle
between them. Henry was no saint; but his opponents' tactics were
indefensible. Under less adverse circumstances he might have proved a
successful ruler. But he was the victim of a party which deliberately
subordinated means to ends in pursuit of an ideal which Henry could
scarcely be expected to understand or appreciate.
[Sidenote: Henry V.]
The papal party in its malice had overreached itself in selecting
Henry V as its champion. True, he had destroyed the most stubborn
enemy of the Papacy; but his own interests caused him to adopt his
father's policy. His one object was to recover the prestige which the
German King had lost in the struggles of the last twenty years. He was
undisputed King in Germany; he showed an unscrupulous and overbearing
demeanour which aroused opposition on all sides. He was not likely to
be content with less power than his father had demanded over the
German clergy, and at the first vacancies he invested the new bishops.
[Sidenote: Growth of a party of compromise on investiture.]
Henry's bold action was not altogether without reason. For some years
there had been growing up within the ranks of the advocates of reform
a moderate party which, while opposed to simony and clerical marriage,
saw in the continued and close union of Church and State an
indispensable guarantee of social order. They aimed therefore at
conserving the rights of the Crown no less than at recovering those of
the Church. This party is found especially among the French clergy.
One of its chief spokesmen, the Canonist Ivo, Bishop of Chartres, who
had suffered much for his enthusiasm for reform, insists in his
correspondence even with the Pope himself, that the prohibition passed
upon lay investiture is not among the class of matters which have been
settled by a law for ever binding, but among those which have been
enjoined or forbidden, as the case might be, for the honour or profit
of the Church, and he appropriately bids the papal legate beware lest
the Roman clergy should incur the charge of taking tithe of mint and
rue while they omit the weightier precepts of the law. Moreover, both
he and his friend Hugh of Fleury, in a treatise dealing with the
"Royal Power and Priestly Office," maintain that the King has the
power, "by the instigation of the Holy Spirit," of nominating bishops,
or at least of granting permission for their election; and that, while
the royal investiture, however made by word or act, pretends to bestow
no spiritual authority, but merely estates or other results of royal
munificence, it is for the archbishop to commit to a newly elected
prelate the cure of souls.
[Sidenote: Settlement in England.]
This distinction, repugnant as it was to the extremists, soon found
practical application. Lanfranc's successor in the See of Canterbury,
Anselm, was, like his predecessor, an Italian, transferred from
Normandy to England. He had to contend with the typical King of an
unrestrained feudalism in the person of William II. A succession of
quarrels ended in Anselm's retirement to Italy. Recalled by Henry I,
he took back with him the maxims of the reformers about investiture,
and refused to do the required homage to the new King. Henry was not
an unreasonable man, and he sent Anselm to bring about some
arrangement with the Pope. However, it was not until a rupture was
imminent that Pope Pascal was persuaded to acquiesce in an agreement
on the lines advocated by Ivo of Chartres and his party. By this
Concordat (1107) Henry I agreed to give up his claim to invest with
the ring and staff, while Archbishop Anselm allowed that the elected
bishop might do homage for his lands to the King.
[Sidenote: Pascal II (1099-1118).]
At present neither side in the Empire was sufficiently honest in its
intentions to be willing to accept so reasonable a settlement. But the
fact that the Pope had felt himself obliged to allow it in one case
sensibly weakened his position and correspondingly strengthened that
of the German King. It was typical of Pascal's position in general.
Though strongly Gregorian in principle, he was neither clever nor
courageous, and was inclined to take up a position which he could not
maintain. Intent on renewing the prohibition of lay investiture and
afraid of Henry, Pascal determined to support himself upon France.
Here, at any rate, Philip I had gradually dropped the practice of
investiture of bishops. The papal censures of his scandalous private
conduct uttered by Gregory and Urban had had no effect. Pascal
accepted professions of amendment and acts of humiliation, and ceased
to trouble himself further about Philip's private affairs. A Council
of French bishops was held at Troyes (1107), where the decrees against
lay investiture were renewed. The one gleam of hope for the future
appeared in Pascal's deliberate abstention from any pronouncement
against the King in person. Henry, occupied on the eastern border,
could not pay his first visit to Italy until the beginning of 1111,
and it was not without significance that on the eve of setting out he
betrothed himself to the daughter of Henry I of England. He was more
fortunate than his father had been in the moment of his visit. The
Lombard cities quarrelling among themselves were quickly forced to
submission; the Countess Matilda, grown old and tired of strife, sent
her envoys to do homage for the imperial fiefs; the Normans had just
lost their Duke. Pope Pascal, finding himself isolated, did not dare
to meet by a simple negative Henry's demand for the right of
investiture as well as for his coronation as Emperor.
[Sidenote: His proposal.]
By way of escaping from his difficulty he sent to the King an
astonishing proposal. The King was to renounce the right of
investiture and all interference in the elections, in return for which
the prelates should give up all imperial lands and rights with which
they were endowed, retaining merely the right to tithes, offerings,
and private gifts: the papal rights over the Patrimony of St. Peter
and the Norman lands were specially excepted. It has been pointed out
that this was the policy which Count Cavour made famous as "a free
Church in a free State." It seems almost impossible that Pascal should
have thought that the German bishops would accept this solution: he
may have hoped that they could be coerced into it. But in contracting
himself out of the obligations to be imposed on all other
ecclesiastical dignitaries, he practically renounced any claim to set
the policy of the Church. Henry may have aimed at digging an
impassable ditch between the Pope and the German bishops. It was an
impossible agreement; for neither bishops nor lay nobles would wish to
see so large an addition to the King's resources, while Henry himself
could not afford to surrender the right of investiture, since it would
stultify his claim to a voice in the election of the Pope.
[Sidenote: Henry's success.]
The publication of the agreement at Rome caused great tumults, Henry
contriving that all the odium should fall upon the Pope. Then, since
Pascal could not fulfil the part of the agreement which he had made on
behalf of the Church, Henry forced him, the successor of Gregory, to
acquiesce in the exercise by the German King of the right of
investiture with ring and staff. Henry was crowned Emperor, though
with very maimed ceremonial, and returned in triumph to Germany.
[Sidenote: Pascal's withdrawal.]
But his triumph was short, for he was immediately threatened with
danger from two quarters. On the one side the leaders of the
Ultramontane party were naturally most wrathful at this betrayal of
their cause, and Pascal, threatened with deposition, placed himself in
their hands. At the Lenten Synod of 1112 he confirmed all the decrees
of his predecessor against lay investiture, thus annulling his own
agreement with Henry. But he avoided issuing any sentence of
excommunication against Henry in person. His own legates, however, had
no such scruples, and in France Cardinal Conon took advantage of the
strong feeling among the clergy to launch excommunications against the
Emperor in several ecclesiastical Councils during 1114 and 1115.
Guido, Archbishop of Vienne, presiding over a Council of Henry's own
subjects at Vienne in 1112, had already condemned their sovereign and
forced Pascal to acquiesce in the resolution.
[Sidenote: Henry's difficulties.]
Henry's right policy would no doubt have been to compel the Pope to
observe the agreement. But it was more than three years before he
could return to Italy. For revolt had broken out again in Germany. The
nobles had their own grievances; the Saxons were always ready to take
arms; the Church was roused because Henry dealt with ecclesiastical
property as if the Pope's original proposal had been allowed to stand.
The royal bailiffs acted in such a manner with the cathedrals that of
a house of prayer they made a den of thieves.
Henry's forces were worsted in battle and he had recourse to his
father's tactics, seeking in Italy, by personal dealings with the
Pope, to recover the moral prestige which he had lost in Germany. He
had a pretext in the death of the Countess Matilda (1115); for the
Papacy was claiming not only her allodial lands, which she might have
a right to bequeath, but also her imperial fiefs, which were not hers
to dispose of. Henry occupied the dominions of Matilda without
opposition. His presence in Italy caused Pascal still to refrain from
personal condemnation of the Emperor, and a year later a party
friendly to Henry opened the gates of Rome to him. Pascal fled to
Albano, and only returned to Rome on Henry's departure, a dying man
(January, 1118). His successor, Gelasius II, refused Henry's advances,
and the Emperor resorted to the old and discredited policy of setting
up an anti-Pope in the person of the Archbishop of Braga, in Portugal,
who took the name of Gregory VIII. Gelasius excommunicated Henry and
his Pope; but finding himself threatened in Rome, fled to Burgundy,
and died at Cluny a year after his election (January, 1119). So far
Henry's attempts to deal with the Pope had failed, and the publication
of the new Pope's excommunication in Germany made the opposition so
strong that Henry found it advisable to return.
[Sidenote: Calixtus II (1119-24)]
Gelasius' successor chosen at Cluny was Archbishop of Vienne, who took
the title of Calixtus II. He was the first secular priest who had
occupied the papal chair since Alexander II, and he was related to the
royal families of France and England. Thus he had a wider outlook than
the monks who preceded him, and the nobles would be likely to listen
to a man of their own rank. He had been the most uncompromising of all
Henry's opponents; but this was a guarantee to the Church that her
position and power would not again be placed in jeopardy, for events
were at length tending towards a conclusion of the weary strife. The
views of the reformers had gained general acceptance as the doctrine
of the Church. The obligation of clerical celibacy was acknowledged:
simony had much diminished; Henry was the only King in Western Europe
who still claimed to invest his prelates. Although it was some time
before all the great French feudatories yielded to the spirit of
reform, the French King himself had abandoned the practice of
investiture for those bishops who were under his control. He retained,
however, certain of his rights. The election could not take place
without his permission, the newly elected bishop took an oath of
fealty to the King, and during the vacancy of the see the revenues
were paid to the Crown. It was more important still that in England
the question of investiture had been settled by a compromise which
recognised the twofold nature of the episcopal office, and that this
compromise had received the sanction of the Pope. Henceforth it was
practically impossible for the Church to maintain the position of the
extreme reformers. When Pope Pascal was forced to grant the right of
investiture to the Emperor, Henry I of England, as Anselm complained
to Pascal, threatened to resume the practice. Already William I of
England had defined the limits of papal power in his dominions without
a protest from Rome, and Urban II had actually found himself obliged
to endow Roger of Sicily and his successors with the authority of a
papal legate within their own dominions. It was clear that the papal
authority could do little against a really strong lay ruler. Moreover,
the influence of the Church had greatly diminished. There was scarcely
a see or abbey to which, during the last forty years, there had not
been rival claimants: King and nobles alike had not only ceased to
increase the endowments of the Church, but had caught at almost every
opportunity of encroaching on them.
[Sidenote: Concordat of Worms.]
The accommodation was very gradual, for much suspicion of insincerity
on both sides had to be overcome. The first step was taken in October,
1119. After the failure of direct negotiations between Pope and
Emperor, a Council at Rheims, presided over by the Pope, renewed the
anathema against Henry and his party, but only consented to a modified
prohibition of investitures, since the office alone was mentioned and
all reference to the property of bishop or abbot was omitted. It was
two years before the next stage was reached, and meanwhile the
anti-Pope had fallen into the hands of Calixtus, and Henry was still
in difficulties in Germany. Finally, in October, 1121, the German
nobles brought about a conference of envoys from both sides at
Wurzburg, where in addition to an universal peace it was arranged that
the investiture question should be settled at a General Council to be
held in Germany under papal auspices. The Council met at Worms in
September, 1122, and the papal legates were armed with full powers to
act. The result was a Concordat subsequently ratified at the first
Council of the Lateran in March, 1123, which is reckoned as the ninth
General Council by the Roman Church. By this agreement the Emperor
gave up all claim to invest ecclesiastics with the ring and staff. In
return it was allowed by the Church that the election of prelates
should take place in presence of the Emperor's representatives, and
that in case of any dispute the Emperor should confirm the decision
arrived at by the Metropolitan and his suffragans. The Emperor on his
part undertook that the prelate elect, whether bishop or abbot, should
be invested with the regalia or temporalities pertaining to his office
by the sceptre, in Germany the investiture preceding the
ecclesiastical consecration, whereas in Burgundy and the kingdom of
Italy the consecration should come first.
[Sidenote: Results of struggle in Empire.]
We are naturally tempted to enquire who was the gainer in this long
struggle? Writers on both sides have claimed the victory. It is clear,
however, that neither side got all that it demanded. Considering the
all-embracing character of the papal claim, the limitation of its
pretensions might seem to carry a decided diminution of its position.
Calixtus' advisers strongly urged that all over the imperial lands the
consecration of prelates should precede the investiture of
temporalities by the lay power. But the German nobles would not budge.
In Burgundy and Italy conditions were different: in the former the
power of the Crown had been almost in abeyance; in Italy the bishops
had found themselves deserted by the Crown and had submitted to the
Pope. The Crown had therefore to acquiesce in a merely nominal control
over appointments in those lands. But in Germany the King perhaps
gained rather than lost by the Concordat. His right of influence in
the choice was definitely acknowledged, and by refusing the regalia he
could practically prevent the consecration of any one obnoxious to
him. The prelates of Germany, therefore, remained vassals of the
Crown.
[Sidenote: on Papacy.]
On the other hand, the Papacy had definitely shaken itself free from
imperial control. Henry III was the last Emperor who could impose his
nominee Papacy upon the Church as Pope; the proteges of his successors
are all classed among the anti-Popes. At the same time the papal
privilege of crowning the Emperor and the papal weapon of
excommunication were very real checks upon the German King; while the
success of those principles for which the Cluniac party had striven
established the theoretical claim of the Pope to be the moral guide,
and the part which he played in starting the Crusades put him in the
practical position of the leader of Christendom in any common
movement. It was no slight loss to the Emperor that he had been the
chief opponent of the Pope and the reformers, and that in the matter
of the Crusades he and his whole nation had stood ostentatiously
aloof.
CHAPTER IV
THE SECULAR CLERGY
[Sidenote: The work of the Church reformers.]
The great movement in favour of Church reform, which had emanated from
Cluny, had worked itself out along certain definite lines. It is
important to ask how far it had succeeded in achieving its objects. We
have seen that it was a movement of essentially monastic conception
aimed at the purification of the secular clergy. And we have seen that
the evil to be remedied had arisen from the imminent danger that the
Church would be laicised and feudalised. From the highest to the
lowest all ecclesiastical posts were at the disposition of laymen who
treated them as a species of feudal fief, so that the holders, even if
they were in Holy Orders (which was not always the case), regarded
their temporal rights and obligations as the first consideration and,
like all feudal tenants, tried to establish the right of hereditary
succession in their holdings. Thus the work of the reformers had been
of a double nature; it was not enough that they should aim at
exorcising the feudal spirit from the Church, at banishing the feudal
ideal from the minds of ecclesiastics: it was necessary to effect what
was indeed a revolution, and to shake the whole organisation of the
Church free from the trammels which close contact with the State had
laid upon it. It began as a reformation of morals; it developed into a
constitutional revolution. There was involved in the movement both an
interference with what might be distinguished as private rights and
also a readjustment of public relations. The reformers headed by the
Pope ultimately decided to concentrate their efforts on the latter.
Hence we may begin by enquiring how far they had succeeded in freeing
episcopal elections from lay control.
[Sidenote: Episcopal appointments.]
There were three several acts of the lay authority in connection with
the appointment of bishops to which the Church reformers took
exception. The King or, by usurpation from him, the great feudal lord
had acquired the right of nominating directly to the vacant see, to
the detriment, and even the exclusion, of the old electoral rights of
clergy and people; and while in some cases nobles nominated themselves
without any thought of taking Holy Orders, frequently they treated the
bishoprics under their control as appanages or endowments for the
younger members of their family. Then, before the consecration, the
bishop-nominate obtained investiture from the lay authority by the
symbolic gifts of a ring and a pastoral staff or cross, not only of
the lands and temporal possessions of the see, but also of the
jurisdiction which emanated from the episcopal office. Finally, the
prospective bishop took an oath to his lay lord, whether King or
other, which was not only an oath of fealty such as any subject might
be called upon to take, but was also an act of homage, and made him an
actual feudal vassal and his church a kind of fief.
[Sidenote: Right of election.]
The result of the long struggle was that in the matter of episcopal
appointments, speaking generally, the right of election was not
restored to clergy and people, in whom by primitive custom it had been
vested, but that the laity, with the possible exception of the
feudatories of the see, were banished altogether, the rural clergy
ceased to appear, and, after the analogy of the papal election by the
College of Cardinals, the canonical election of the bishop in every
diocese tends to be concentrated in the hands of the clergy of the
cathedral. It was a long time, however, before the rights of the
cathedral chapters were universally recognised. Henry I of England in
his Concordat with Anselm (1107) and the Emperor Henry V in the
Concordat of Worms (122) both promised freedom of election. Philip I
and Louis VI of France seem to have conceded the same right without
any formal agreement. But many of the great French feudal lords clung
to their power over the local bishoprics, and in Normandy, in Anjou,
and in some parts of the south nearly a century elapsed before the
duke or count surrendered his custom of nominating bishops directly.
But the freedom of election by the Canons of the cathedral, even when
it was conceded, was little more than nominal. In England, France, and
the Christian kingdoms of Spain no cathedral body could exercise its
right without the King's leave to elect, nor was any election complete
without the royal confirmation. By the Concordat of Worms elections
were to take place in the presence of the King or his commissioners.
By the Constitutions of Clarendon (1164) English bishops must be
elected in the royal chapel. King John tried to bribe the Church over
to his side in the quarrel with the barons which preceded Magna Carta,
by conceding that elections should be free--that is, should take
place in the chapter-house of the cathedral; but even he reserved the
royal permission for the election to be held, and the _conge
d'elire_ in England and elsewhere was accompanied by the name of
the individual on whom the choice of the electoral body should fall.
It was not the rights of the electors but the all-pervading authority
of the Pope which was to prove the chief rival of royal influence in
the local Church.
[Sidenote: Investiture.]
The quarrel between Church and State had centred round the ceremony of
investiture, because in the eyes of the reformers the most scandalous
result of the feudalisation of the Church was the acceptance at the
hands of a layman of the spiritual symbols of ring and crozier. But as
Hugh of Fleury had acknowledged in his tract on "Royal Power and
Priestly Office," investiture there must be so long as ecclesiastics
held great temporal possessions. Here again some of the French nobles
clung to the old anomalous form of investiture, but otherwise the
example of the imperial lands, of the royal domain of France and of
England was generally followed, the gifts of ring and staff were
conceded to the Metropolitan, and where no special form of investiture
by the sceptre was retained it was confused with the ceremony of
homage. But in Germany and England investiture with the lands of the
see preceded consecration, so that while on the one hand it was not a
bishop who was being invested by a layman, on the other hand the
refusal of investiture would practically prevent the consecration of
any one obnoxious to the Crown.
[Sidenote: Homage and fealty.]
With regard to the feudal ceremony of homage a distinction came to be
drawn by writers on the Canon Law between homage and fealty, and
ecclesiastics were supposed to limit themselves to the obligations of
the latter, which were those of every subject. The ceremony was not
precisely the same as in the case of a lay noble being invested with a
fief; but in France, at any rate, the Crown never really abandoned its
claim to a feudal homage, and in any case ecclesiastics were expected
to fulfil their feudal obligations. Even Innocent III acknowledged
this in a decree (S43) of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), and in
interceding with Philip II of France on behalf of two bishops who had
been deprived of their temporal possessions for some neglect of
military duty, he argues that they were "ready to submit to the
judgment of your Court, as is customary in such matters."
[Sidenote: Regale.]
Arising out of these feudal relations certain rights over the
possessions of ecclesiastics and ecclesiastical bodies were claimed by
the Crown, which were the cause of serious oppression. According to
the Canon Law, the bishop was only the usufructuary of the lands and
revenues belonging to his see. The lands and revenues belonged to the
Church. But inasmuch as these had been originally in most cases the
gift of the Crown, the King claimed to deal with them in the method
applied to feudal holdings. By the right of _regale_, on the
vacancy of a see through death, resignation, or deprivation of the
bishop, the royal officers took possession of the temporalities, that
is, the land and revenues, and administered them for the profit of the
Crown so long as the see was vacant. The Crown did not hesitate to use
the episcopal patronage and to fill up vacant canonries and benefices
with its own followers, and it often took the opportunity to levy upon
the inhabitants of the diocese a special tax--_tallagium_,
_tallage_, or _taille_--which a landlord had a right of
exacting from his unfree tenants. It was to the interest of the Crown
to prolong a vacancy, and attempts to limit the exercise of the right
were of little practical effect.
[Sidenote: Right of spoils.]
An even more extraordinary claim was to the right of spoils (_jus
spolii_ or _exuviarium_). The canonical law forbidding the
bishop to deal by will with the property attached to his see, was
interpreted as applying to everything which he had not inherited. Thus
the furniture of his house and the money in his chest were claimed as
of right by the canons of his cathedral, but were often plundered by
the crowd of the city or by the local nobles. These lawless
proceedings provoked the interference of the royal officers, who
succeeded in most cases in establishing the right of the Crown to all
movables that the bishop left. The earliest notice of this royal claim
in Germany is found in the reign of Henry V. It was in full use under
Frederick I. William II is probably responsible for introducing both
the _regale_ and the _jus spolii_ from Normandy into
England. In France these were claimed by the feudal nobles as well as
by the King. Bitter were the complaints made by the Church against the
exercise of both rights. Kings and nobles clung to the _regale_
as long as they could, for it meant local influence as well as
revenue. In most cases, however, the right of spoils had been
surrendered before the thirteenth century. It is to be remembered that
ecclesiastics themselves exercised this right, bishops, for example,
claiming the possessions of the canons and the parish priests in their
dioceses. The Popes in relaxation of the Canon Law gave to certain
bishops the right of leaving their personal property by will, and the
canons also are found encouraging their bishop to make a will.
[Sidenote: Claims of the Clergy.]
As a set-off against these claims of the Crown upon the Church, the
clergy also advanced certain claims. These touched the two important
matters of taxation and jurisdiction. The Church claimed for her
members that they should not be liable to pay the taxes raised by the
secular authorities, nor should they have causes to which any
ecclesiastic was a party tried in the secular courts.
[Sidenote: Immunity from lay taxation.]
In seeking freedom from lay taxation the Church did not ask that her
members should escape their feudal obligations, nor even that they
should contribute nothing to the exigencies of the State. The desire
was merely that the clergy should be free from oppression and that the
Church should be so far as possible self-governing. Thus Alexander III
decreed in the third Lateran Council (1179), that for relieving the
needs of the community, everything contributed by the Church to
supplement the contributions of the laity should be given without
compulsion on the recognition of its necessity or utility by the
bishop and the clergy. Innocent III, in the fourth Lateran Council
(1215), provided a further safeguard against lay impositions in
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