A Short History of Italy Part 3

The wronged queen appealed to the Pope, who sent his legates to investigate the affair; but the king bribed the legates and succeeded in getting a decision from the local synod in his favour, although, in fact, the whole matter had been a shocking scandal. Thereupon the king sent the archbishops of Cologne and of Trier, the two great ecclesiastical dignitaries of the kingdom, to announce this verdict of acquittal. The Pope, "professing," as his enemies said, "to be imperator of the whole world," seized his opportunity; he espoused the cause of the innocent queen, annulled the fraudulent proceedings, and excommunicated and deposed the two archbishops. The king applied to the Emperor for help, and the Emperor went to Rome, but could obtain no concession. The Pope stood like a rock. He allied himself with France and Germany, and threatened to excommunicate the sinning husband and all his bishops. The king was obliged to submit. The usurping wife was excommunicated and banished, and the papal legate conducted the divorced queen back to the royal palace. Thus the Papacy not only established a great precedent for the supremacy of the spiritual over the temporal power, but also stood conspicuous before the world as the champion of the weak and oppressed and the defender of morality and justice.

It would be difficult to overrate the effect of this papal achievement.

It may be that the Papacy stood forth as champion of innocence when policy coincided with righteousness; but it was the righteousness and not the policy which gave the Papacy strength. One can imagine, in days when brutal barons, scattered in strongholds all over the country, were the normal forms of power and authority, what effect such news had upon the people. A pilgrim from across the Alps, a peddler, or some poor vagrant, enters a village huddled at the foot of a hill, on which stands a great castle where a drunken lord revels with his mistresses, and recounts to the a.s.sembled peasants, serfs, and slaves, how the Holy Father, in the name of G.o.d, had commanded a greater lord, in a greater castle, to put away his mistress and bring back his wife, and how that lord had got down on his knees and had done the Holy Father's bidding.

The second case was the victory of papal authority over the spirit of nationality in the Church. When the incipient nations of France and Germany, having separated from the Empire, had begun to be self-conscious, the spirit of nationality naturally showed itself in ecclesiastical matters as well as in political matters. There was obvious likelihood that the nations would govern themselves ecclesiastically as well as politically. Should they do so, the papal supremacy would fall just as the Imperial supremacy had fallen, and the unity of the Church would be shattered just as the Empire had been. Here was certainly a great danger to the Papacy, and probably a great danger to Christianity and civilization; at least so Nicholas thought. He resolved to meet it boldly. His opportunity came when a French (West Frankish) bishop appealed to Rome against the action of his metropolitan. The metropolitan objected that there was no precedent for papal action in such a case; he did not deny that the Pope had certain appellate functions, but said that if the Pope interfered directly in the discipline of bishops, the power of the metropolitan would be impaired. It is needless to say that this argument did not produce the result that the metropolitan desired. There was nothing the Papacy wanted more than that its central government should act directly everywhere, and that all bishops should be dependent upon Rome; that was the very principle of papal supremacy. The issue would determine whether the Papacy was to be an autocratic power, or a limited court of appeal. Nicholas was able to take advantage of the troubled political situation to enforce direct papal authority, and so added an immense prerogative to the papal power.

Apart from this imperial ecclesiastical principle the latter episode is especially interesting on account of the character of the evidence produced by the Pope to maintain his position. This evidence consisted of a new compilation of Church law which appeared somewhat mysteriously about this time. Theretofore Church law had consisted of a collection of precepts taken from the Bible, from the early Fathers, from decrees of Councils, and also of letters, called decretals, written by the bishops of Rome, but none of these decretals was earlier than the time of Constantine. The fact, that there were no papal decretals prior to Constantine, seemed to imply, at least to the sceptically minded, that papal authority had really begun at the time of Constantine and not at the time of St. Peter. To the ardent papist such an idea was incredible.

Nicholas now produced a new batch of doc.u.ments. Among these was the _Donation of Constantine_, of which I have spoken. Others were papal decretals, which purported to come from Popes of the third and second centuries, and to prove that papal jurisdiction over other bishoprics had been exercised almost as far back as the time of St. Peter. These new appearing doc.u.ments placed the Pope not only above kings, but above metropolitans and provincial synods, and justified Nicholas in acting directly in the case of the West Frankish bishop, in the King of Lorraine's matrimonial affairs, and also in a.s.suming to act as "imperator of the whole world." These doc.u.ments, known as the _Isidorian Decretals_, were probably composed by some priest in France, not long before their use by Nicholas. For six hundred years they were believed to be genuine, and during that time rendered the Papacy great service by ranging the sentiment of law throughout Europe (at least until the revival of Roman law) on the side of the Papacy in its struggle with the Empire.

CHAPTER VIII

THE DEGRADATION OF ITALY (867-962)

These triumphs were due to the brilliant vigour of Pope Nicholas; but that triumphant position could not last, it was fict.i.tious. The Papacy needed the support of a strong secular power, and when the Carlovingian Empire dissolved, it had nothing to rest on, neither genius nor military force, and fell into deep degradation.

To ill.u.s.trate that degradation one episode will suffice; but there must first be a word of prologue. The Papacy, as has been said, occupied an anomalous position. From this sprang many troubles. As soon as the pressure of Imperial authority was removed, the Papacy tended to become the prize of munic.i.p.al politics, and different parties in Rome (if the turbulent mobs may be called so) struggled to get possession of it. One party, with interests centred on local matters, indifferent to the greatness of the Papacy and its European character, and willing to have the Pope a mere local ruler, directed its efforts to getting rid of all Imperial and foreign control. The opposite party, with conflicting interests, wished for Imperial control, and const.i.tuted a kind of Imperial party, less from any large views, than in the hope of deriving advantages from Imperial support. Strife between the two parties was the normal condition, and often ended in riot and civil war. In this state of affairs, a certain Pope Formosus (891-896), who belonged to the Imperial faction, went so far as to invite the German king to come down to Rome and be crowned Emperor. The king actually came and was crowned, but accomplished little or nothing, except to arouse bitter hostility in his enemies. When Formosus died, his successor was elected from the opposite faction. The new Pope held a synod of cardinals and bishops, and before them, the highest Christian tribunal in the world, he summoned, upon the charge of violating the canons of the Church, the dead Formosus, whose body had lain in its grave, for months. The body was dug up, dressed in pontifical robes, and propped upon a throne.

Counsel was a.s.signed to it. The accusation was formally read, and the Pope himself cross-questioned the accused, who was convicted and deposed. His pontifical acts were p.r.o.nounced invalid. His robes were torn from him, the three fingers of the right hand, which in life had bestowed the episcopal blessing, were hacked off, and the body was dragged through the streets and flung into the Tiber.

This incident sheds light on medival Rome, and on the character of the people with whom the Popes had to live. All the Popes, good, bad, and indifferent, whether they were struggling with the Empire on great cosmopolitan questions, or were trying to unite Christendom against Islam, always had to keep watch on the brutal, ignorant, b.l.o.o.d.y Roman people, who took no interest in great questions, and were always ready to rob, burn, and murder with or without a pretext.

Now that we have brought the Frankish Empire to its dissolution, and the Papacy to its degradation, we must leave the two wrecks for the moment, and stop in these dark years at the end of the ninth century to see how Italy herself has fared. The Italian world was out of joint, intellectually, morally, politically. There can hardly be said to have been a government. For a generation the poor, shrunken Empire had been but a shadow, and when the last Carlovingian died, its parts tumbled asunder. Local barons ruled everywhere. The Imperial t.i.tle, which represented nothing, and conveyed no power, seemed, however, to have some vital principle of its own, some ghostly virtue; at least sundry kings and dukes thought so and fought for it; but until the coming of Otto the Great it remained a shadow. North of the Alps duchies and provinces united into kingdoms; but the peninsula remained split up into discordant parts. The valley of the Po was divided into various duchies, peopled by a mixed race of Latins and Lombards, whom the pressure of the conquering Franks had welded together. South of the Po lay the Imperial marquisate of Tuscany. Across the middle of the peninsula stretched the awkward strip of domain from Ravenna to Rome, inhabited by a race of comparatively pure Latin blood. This domain, included in the _Donations_ of Pippin and of Charlemagne, nominally subject to the Papacy under the suzerainty of the Empire, was really in the possession of petty n.o.bles, who knew no law except force and craft. South of this so-called papal domain lay the duchy of Spoleto and the Lombard duchy of Benevento, and farther south a few princ.i.p.alities, such as Naples, Amalfi, and Salerno, and finally in the heel and toe of Italy were the last remains of the Greek Empire. To the northeast, on its islands, lay the little fishing and trading city, Venice.

The Italians, as we had better call them now that Barbarian and Latin blood has well commingled, were in a most unenviable condition. Most of those who tilled the soil were serfs, and went with the land when it was sold; some were scarce better than slaves, others were only bound to render service of certain kinds or on certain days, either with their own hands or with beasts. Their lot depended on the humours of the overseers of great estates. Slaves were worse off because they had no personal rights, but they were always decreasing in number despite a slave trade, for there was a strong religious sentiment against slavery, and it was common for dying men to liberate their slaves. In the cities people were better off, for the artisans were free men, and by banding together in guilds (which had existed ever since the old Roman days) secured for themselves a more prosperous condition. But the only thriving places were the cities of the coast, Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Amalfi, where trade was already beginning to lay the foundations of future greatness.

These glimmerings of commerce were the only lights along the whole horizon. Everything else seemed to share the blight that had fallen on the Empire and the Papacy. The clergy, whose duty it was to maintain learning, failed utterly. Even in the happiest days of the Carlovingian Empire, Charlemagne had found it necessary to enact blunt rules for their guidance. "Let the priests, according to the Apostles' advice, withdraw themselves from revellings and drunkenness; for some of them are wont to sit up till midnight or later, boozing with their neighbours; and then these men, who ought to be of a religious and holy deportment, return to their churches drunken and gorged with food, and unable to perform the daily and nightly office of praise to G.o.d, while others sink down in a drunken sleep in the place of their revels.... Let no priest presume to store provisions or hay in the church."[6]

Learning, supposed to be committed to their charge, went out like a spent candle. Books were almost forgotten, except perhaps here and there, in Pavia or Verona, where a grammarian still invoked Virgil to prosper his muse; or where in an episcopal city, like Ravenna, some chronicler wrote a history of the bishopric. The theory of historic truth on which these chroniclers acted gives an inkling of the medival att.i.tude towards facts. Father Agnello, a priest of Ravenna, one of these chroniclers, says himself: "If you, who read this History of our Bishopric, shall come to a pa.s.sage and say, 'Why didn't he narrate the facts about this bishop as he did about his predecessors,' listen to the reason. I, Andrea Agnello, a humble priest of this holy church of Ravenna, have written the history of this Bishopric from the time of St.

Apollinaris for eight hundred years and more, because my brethren here have begged me and compelled me. I have put down whatever I found the Bishops had undoubtedly done, and whatever I heard from the oldest men living, but where I could not find any historical account, nor anything about their lives in any way, then, in order to leave no blanks in the holy succession of bishops, I have made up the missing lives by the help of G.o.d, through your prayers, and I believe I have said nothing untrue, because those bishops were pious and pure and charitable and winners of souls for G.o.d."[7]

The monks were no better than the secular clergy. The monasteries had grown large, for many men had joined in order to escape military service, or to obtain personal security, or an easier life, or greater social consideration; they had also grown rich, for many sinners on their deathbeds had given large sums, in hope to compound for their sins. Naturally monastic vows were often broken. Moreover, the little good that monks and priests did they undid by their encouragement of superst.i.tion. They first frightened the poor peasants out of their wits by portraying the horrors of h.e.l.l, and then preached the magical properties of the sacraments and of saints' bones, until the ordinary man, feeling himself the sport of superhuman agencies, abandoned all self-confidence and surrendered himself to priestly control as his sole hope of safety in this world or the next.

Oppressed by anarchy, by division, by a degenerate church, by a gross clergy, and by waxing ignorance, Italy might seem to have had its cup of evil full. There was but one further ill that could be added, a new Barbarian invasion. It came. The triumphant Saracens, having overrun Spain and raided France in the west, having cooped up the Byzantine Empire in the east, now threatened to plant their victorious banners in the very heart of Christendom. As early as Charlemagne's last years they sacked a coast town scarce forty miles from Rome. In 827 they invaded Sicily, invited by a partisan traitor. Within ten years they had made themselves masters of almost all the island, except a few strongholds which managed to hold out for half a century. The beaten Byzantines retired to the mainland; but they did not get beyond the reach of the victorious Saracens, who raided all the Italian coast as far as the Tiber. Troops of marauders hovered round Rome and harried the country-side, robbing and pillaging at will. One band advanced to the very gates of the city, and sacked St. Peter's and St. Paul's, both outside the walls and undefended (846). All the southern provinces were overrun, half of their towns became Saracen fortresses. It seemed as if Italy were to undergo the fate of Spain and become a Mohammedan Emirate.

The danger to Rome roused the country. A Christian league was effected between the Imperial forces in Italy, the Pope, and the coast cities of the south,--Naples, Gaeta, and Amalfi. Pope Leo himself blessed the fleet, and the Christians beat the infidels in a great sea-fight not far from the Tiber's mouth (849). Some of the prisoners were brought to Rome and set to work on the walls which Pope Leo was building round the Vatican hill to protect St. Peter's; and Rome, imitating the days of Scipio Africa.n.u.s, celebrated another triumph over Africa. The fighting was kept up all over the south. The Greek Emperor made common cause with his fellow Christians, and the immediate danger of conquest was arrested; but throughout this dismal ninth century, and all the tenth, southern Italy continued to suffer from Saracen marauders. The tales told of their cruelty are fearful, and match our tales of Indian raids in the old French-English war. Separate villages and lonely monasteries suffered most. Some good came out of the evil, however, for the chroniclers relate how the abbots and their terrified brethren spent days and nights fasting and in prayer.

Such was the condition of Italy when the Imperial Carlovingian line came to an end. The omnipresence of anarchy was a permanent argument for the need of an Imperial restoration. But the country did not know how to go to work to restore the Empire. At first various claimants a.s.serted various t.i.tles, and Italian dukes and neighbouring kings fought one another like bulls, but none were able to establish any stable power. In the midst of these ineffectual struggles one real effort was made.

Arnulf, king of the Germans, who regarded himself as the true successor of the great Frankish house and of right Imperial heir, marched down into Italy at the invitation of Pope Formosus, as we have seen, and a.s.sumed the Imperial crown (896). The expedition was barren of consequences, but it gives us another glimpse of the anomalous nature of the Papacy, and the different views entertained of it on the two sides of the Alps. The German king wished to be Emperor, and felt that an Imperial coronation at Rome by the Pope was essential. To him and to his German subjects the papal invitation was of high authority. When he reached Rome, however, the seat of the Papacy, he found the gates barred and the walls manned by rebellious citizens, who had locked the Pope in the Castle of Sant' Angelo, and had seized the government of the city.

Arnulf easily carried the defences by storm and liberated the Pope. The incident ill.u.s.trates the contrast between Teutonic respect and Roman disobedience, and describes the papal situation as it was half the time throughout the Middle Ages. Honoured and reverenced by the pious ultramontanes, the Popes were insulted, robbed, imprisoned, and deposed by their immediate subjects. This local disobedience, or, as it should be called, Roman republicanism, was often the insignificant cause of papal actions of far-reaching effect. The Popes were never strong enough of themselves to suppress these republican sentiments and ambitions; they needed support from some power, Italian or foreign. As they would not endure the idea of an Italian kingdom, they adopted the alternative of calling in a foreign power. This was the constant papal policy.

Another instance of Roman republicanism, or disobedience (as one chooses), throws further light on the nature of this thorn in the papal side. Not long after Arnulf's expedition, two women, Theodora and Marozia, mother and daughter, played a great part not only in Roman but also in Italian politics. These two women ruled the city and appointed the Popes. They were bold, comely, much-marrying women, choosing eligible husbands almost by force; both were wholly Roman in the fierceness, vigour, and sensuality of their characters. They were very capable, and, in part directly, in part through their husbands and others, exercised control for some thirty years; and when the daughter disappeared from history, her son, Alberic, took the t.i.tle, Prince and Senator of all the Romans, and ruled in her stead.

Thus the last hope of Italians helping themselves perished; for if the Papacy was powerless, there was no help elsewhere in Italy. The usurpation of these viragoes and of Alberic differs in details from the usurpation of the later republicans, and of the Colonna, Orsini, and other barons, who shall appear hereafter in papal history, but for general effect on papal affairs and through them on European affairs, all these usurpations were very similar. The usurpers, in diverse characters, represent that third player in the fencing match, who, though by no means an ally of the Empire, frequently rushed in and struck up the Pope's guard, and continued to interfere for hundreds of years, until the Popes of the Renaissance finally established their temporal power in the city of Rome.

By the middle of the tenth century the disintegration of Italy had become so bad that it caused its own cure. It was obvious that something must be done. The Saracens, strongly established in Sicily, were a standing menace towards the south. From the north wild bands of Hungarians burst across the Alps and harried the land in barbaric raids as far as Rome. Feudal anarchy prevailed everywhere. Monks and clergy were, to say the least, no help. Even the Papacy, the only stable power, had become the appanage of a Roman family. There was but one way out of this chaos. The Roman Empire must be restored. The Latin people never believed that it was extinct but merely lying latent, requiring some happy application of might and right to set it going again on its majestic course. Charlemagne, in his day, had supplied the might. That might had faded away. Where was its subst.i.tute to be found? Pope Formosus and King Arnulf had already suggested the only possible answer,--in the eastern portion of the Frankish Empire, the kingdom of Germany. That kingdom, composed of the great duchies of Bavaria, Swabia, Franconia, Saxony, and Lorraine, had become tolerably compact; it was strong at home, and was eager for glory and power abroad. Its ambitious king, Otto, of the Saxon line, was the man to undertake to follow Charlemagne's example. It was too late to hope to restore the Carlovingian Empire in its former boundaries, but with Germany to give strength and Rome to contribute t.i.tle, there would be the two necessary elements for a renewal of the Roman Empire.

The immediate pretext of Otto's coming down into Italy was highly romantic. A lovely lady, the widow of one Italian pretender to the throne of Italy, was pestered with offers of marriage from another pretender. She refused, and was locked up in a tower by the Lake of Garda, where memories of Catullus and Lesbia still faintly lingered. She contrived to escape, and sent piteous messages for help to the great Otto, then a widower. Discontented factions in the north, and others suffering from oppression, including the Pope who had been rudely roused to the need of Imperial support, also sent messengers asking him to come. Otto came, took Pavia, and acted as King of Italy. He married the lovely widow, and wished to go to Rome to receive the Imperial crown; but Alberic, lord of Rome, would not give permission. Otto went back to Germany and bided his time. In ten years Alberic died leaving a young son, who, although only seventeen years old, inherited enough of his father's power to get himself elected Pope, John XII. Pope John, however, found himself encompa.s.sed by powerful enemies both in Rome and out. He too was obliged to recognize the absolute necessity of Imperial restoration, and called upon Otto for aid. The German king came, and was crowned by the Pope, Emperor of the Romans, in St. Peter's basilica, on the second day of February, 962. This coronation was the beginning of a new phase in the Roman Empire. In this phase that Empire is known as the Holy Roman Empire, although it was merely a union of Germany, Italy, and Burgundy.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] _Italy and her Invaders_, Hodgkin, vol. viii, p. 289.

[7] _Le cronache italiane del medio evo descritte_, Balzani (translated).

CHAPTER IX

THE REVIVAL OF THE PAPACY (962-1056)

This Roman Empire (it did not receive its full t.i.tle of Holy Roman Empire until later) deserved the name Roman because it rested on the Roman tradition of the political unity of the civilized world. This tradition, by means of the ecclesiastical unity of Europe, had survived the Barbarian invasions, had gained strength through Charlemagne's Empire, and now joined together two nations so fundamentally different as Germany and Italy. The Germans were big blond men, beer-drinkers, huge eaters, rough, ill-mannered, arrogant, phlegmatic and brave; the Italians were little, dark-skinned men, wine-drinkers, lettuce-eaters, with pleasant manners, gesticulating, excitable, and unwarlike. Their union affords the strongest testimony to the strength of the Roman tradition. This ill-a.s.sorted pair, married in obedience to the will of dead generations, could not live together in peace. The theory of a world conjointly ruled by a supreme secular sovereign and a supreme ecclesiastical sovereign could not be put into successful practice. The Empire was German, the Papacy Italian, and by their very natures they were antagonistic.

Otto's empire was by no means universal, but its suzerainty was acknowledged by Bohemia, Moravia, Poland, Denmark, perhaps by Hungary, and sometimes by France; and therefore, as eastern Europe was either Greek or barbarian, Britain an island, and Spain practically Mohammedan, it sustained fairly well the idea of a universal (_i. e._, European) empire. The essential parts were Germany to give strength, and Italy to give t.i.tle and tradition. In theory the process of royal and Imperial election and coronation was as follows. The German electors (the greater n.o.bles), whose number was not limited to seven for two centuries and more, elected a king, who was crowned with a silver crown at Aachen, and, by virtue of his coronation, received the t.i.tle, King of the Romans. This king then took the iron crown of Lombardy at Pavia, and became King of Italy; and, when he received the gold Imperial crown from the Pope at Rome, became Emperor. The election of the son of the late Emperor to succeed was the custom, but was not obligatory. Germany was not a strongly centralized state, but was composed of several dukedoms, which often fell out among themselves. Italy was still less a political unit. It had no marks of nationality, except its geographical position, its ancient tradition, and a tardily forming language; but even this _lingua volgare_, which in Otto's time began to have an Italian sound, and to touch the degenerate written Latin with an Italian look, did not prevail throughout the peninsula. In the south Greek was still spoken, and the Holy Roman Empire never had more than the shadow of a t.i.tle south of Benevento till after Barbarossa's time. The Emperor's authority rested at bottom on the German military power; and as this depended on the obedience of wayward and jealous dukedoms, it was uncertain and intermittent.

The Papacy was far more stable, for fundamentally it was a moral power, and got its energy from men's consciences. It was far better organized than the Empire. The ecclesiastical system spread all over Europe, into every city, village, hamlet, and monastery; countries which reluctantly acknowledged the suzerainty of the Empire, bowed unquestioningly to papal rule. Moreover, the power of the Papacy did not merely consist in spiritual weapons, terrible as the ban of excommunication was in those days, but also in its ability to raise up enemies against its enemy, and to put the cloak of piety over war and rebellion.

The ironical element in the situation was that the Empire itself lifted the Papacy to the position in which it was able to turn and defy the Empire, fight it, and finally destroy it. The Emperors, who entertained no doubts that the Papacy was subject to them, that they were responsible for its conduct and must secure the election of worthy Popes, took the Papacy out of the hands of the Roman faction, purified it, and appointed honest, capable, upright Popes.

A contemporary account of Otto's dealings with that young scamp, Pope John XII, who in morals resembled his grandmother, Marozia, gives a good picture of the nature of the benefits which the Empire conferred on the Papacy: "While these things were taking place, the constellation of Cancer, hot from the enkindling rays of Phoebus, kept the Emperor away from the hills around Rome, but when the constellation of Virgo returning brought back the pleasant season he went to Rome upon a secret invitation from the Romans. But why should I say _secret_ when the greater part of the n.o.bility burst into the Castle of St. Paul and invited the holy Emperor, and even gave hostages? The citizens received the holy Emperor and all his men within the city, promised allegiance, and took an oath that they would never elect a Pope, nor consecrate him, without the consent and the sanction of the Lord Emperor Otto, Csar, Augustus, and of his son, King Otto.

"Three days later, at the request of the Roman bishops and people, there was a great meeting in St. Peter's Church, and with the Emperor sat the archbishops of Aquileia, Milan, and Ravenna, the archbishop of Saxony [and many other Italian and German prelates]. When they were seated, and silence made, the holy Emperor got up and said: 'How fit it would be that in this distinguished and holy council our lord Pope John should be present! But since he has refused to be of your company, we ask your counsel, holy fathers, for you have the same interest as he.' Then the Roman prelates, cardinals, priests, and deacons, and all the people cried out: 'We are surprised that your reverend prudence should wish to make us investigate that which is not hidden from the Iberians, the Babylonians, nor the Indians. He [the Pope] is no longer one of that kind, which come in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravening wolves; he rages so openly, does his diabolical misdeeds so manifestly, that we need not beat about the bush.' The Emperor answered: 'We deem it just that the accusations should be stated one by one, and after that we will take counsel together of what we ought to do.'

"Then Cardinal-priest Peter got up, and testified that he had seen the Pope celebrate ma.s.s without communion. John, bishop of Narni, and John, cardinal-deacon, declared that they had seen him ordain a deacon in a stable, and not at the proper hour. Cardinal-deacon Benedict, with other priests and deacons, said that they knew that he ordained bishops for money, and that in the city of Todi he had ordained as bishop a boy ten years old. They said it was not necessary to go into his sacrileges because they had seen more such than could be reckoned. They said in regard to his adulteries.... They said that he had publicly gone a-hunting; that he had put out the eyes of his spiritual father, Benedict, who died soon after in consequence; that he had mutilated and killed John, cardinal-subdeacon; and they testified that he had set buildings on fire, armed with helmet and breastplate, and girt with a sword. All, priests and laymen, cried out that he had drunk a toast to the devil. They said that while playing dice he had invoked the aid of Jupiter, Venus, and other demons. They declared that he had not celebrated matins, nor observed the canonical hours, and that he did not cross himself.

"When the Emperor had heard all this, he bade me, Liutprand, bishop of Cremona, interpret to the Romans, because they could not understand his Saxon. Then he got up and said: 'It often happens, and we believe it from our experience, that men in great place are slandered by the envious, for a good man is disliked by bad men just as a bad man is disliked by good men. And for this reason we entertain some doubts concerning this accusation against the Pope, which Cardinal-deacon Benedict has just read and made before you, uncertain whether it springs from zeal for justice or from envy and impiety. Therefore with the authority of the dignity granted to me, though unworthy, I beseech you by that G.o.d, whom no man can deceive howsoever he may wish, and by His holy mother, the Virgin Mary, and by the most precious body of the prince of the Apostles, in whose Church we now are, that no accusation be cast at our lord the Pope of faults which he has not committed and which have not been seen by the most trustworthy men.'" The accusers affirmed their charges on oath. Then the holy Synod said: "If it please the holy Emperor let letters be sent to our lord the Pope, bidding him come and clear himself of these charges." The wary John did not come, but wrote: "I, Bishop John, servant of the servants of G.o.d, to all the bishops. We have heard that you propose to elect another Pope. If you do that, I excommunicate you in the name of Almighty G.o.d so that you shall not have the right to ordain anybody, nor to celebrate ma.s.s."[8]

Nevertheless, John was deposed and a good Pope put in his stead.

Otto's successors, one after the other, followed his example, and treated the Papacy as if it had been a German bishopric. The Emperors, however, had work to do north of the Alps, and did not spend much time in Rome, except Otto III, a romantic dreamer, who wished to live there; and during their absence the turbulent Roman anti-imperial faction used to seize the Papacy, just as Alberic had done, and put up worthless Popes. In spite of them the Emperors' Popes raised the Papacy so high that, as a matter of course, it became the head of the great ecclesiastical reform movement which swept over Europe in the eleventh century, and from that movement drew in so much force and energy that it became the greatest power in Europe, and was enabled finally to overthrow the Empire.

This tide of reform arose at Cluny, a little place in Burgundy, and began as a monastic reform. All over Christendom monasteries had grown rich and prosperous; many monks had forsaken Benedict's rule, had broken their vows and lived with wives and children upon revenues intended for other purposes. Other monks hated this evil conduct, and burning with a pa.s.sionate desire to stop it, started a great movement of monastic reform. The reform was ascetic in character, as a moral emotion in those days was bound to be. The first reformers gathered at Cluny, about the beginning of the tenth century. From there disciples went far and wide, purging old monasteries and founding new. After a time the reformers pa.s.sed beyond the early stage of mere moral revolt against G.o.dless living, formed a party, and put forward a creed. The party represented antagonism to the world, pitted saints against sinners, the Church against the State. The creed had three tenets. No ecclesiasts should marry, and married men upon ordination should live apart from their wives. No bribery, no corrupt bargain, should taint the appointment and installation of clergy, high or low. No layman should meddle with the entry of bishops upon their episcopal office. These three tenets roused bitter opposition. Celibacy of the clergy had been a rule of Church discipline since early days, and from time to time efforts had been made to enforce the practice, but it had fallen into general disregard. A celibate clergy, with no affections or interests nearer or dearer than the Church, would be a tremendous ecclesiastical force, and far-sighted Popes always sought to enforce the rule. Necessarily the married clergy and many clerical bachelors were violent in opposition. The article against simony n.o.body openly gainsaid; but many bishops and abbots had obtained their offices by corrupt practices, and many n.o.bles looked forward to rich livings and high ecclesiastical places; both cla.s.ses opposed a change. The third article, against lay invest.i.ture of bishops, which was to be the cause of deadly war between Empire and Papacy, was a logical conclusion from the article against simony; for it was hard to suppose that in the appointment of bishops, kings and princes would disregard all worldly motives and appoint men solely for the good of souls. On the other hand, the great bishoprics and abbeys were among the most important fiefs in a king's gift, and carried with them feudal privileges of sovereignty, such as rights of coinage, toll, holding courts, etc.; in short, they were mere secular fiefs with ecclesiastical prerogatives added. It was natural that the German Emperors should claim the right to appoint and invest these spiritual barons, and insist that their episcopal territories should be subject to the same feudal obligations and the same civic duties as the territories granted to lay barons. This third article was a direct attack on the civil power. If all Imperial partic.i.p.ation were to be stricken out, and bishops put into possession of their fiefs solely by the Pope, then vast territories, estimated to be nearly half the Empire, would be withdrawn from civic obligations, even from military service, and the Pope, ousting the Emperor, would become monarch of half the Imperial domains. According to the canons of the Church, the clergy and the people of the diocese elected the bishop, and the Church bestowed on him ring and staff, the signs of episcopal office. The trouble arose over the fief. In feudal times the kings had enfeoffed bishops with great fiefs in order to counterbalance the insubordinate secular lords, and because, in episcopal hands, these fiefs did not become hereditary. When the reformers took the matter up, they found that in practice the kings did not wait for a canonical election of episcopal candidates, but invested their henchmen in return for money or some service which had no savour of sanct.i.ty. The episcopal office, as St. Peter Damian complained, was got "by flattering the king, studying his inclination, obeying his beck, applauding every word that fell from his mouth, by acting the parasite and playing the buffoon." The real difficulty lay in the double nature of the episcopal office, half ecclesiastical and half feudal; and, like other great political difficulties, would not yield to a peaceful solution, until there had been a trial of strength between the discordant interests.

The first consequence, however, of the reforming spirit was to enn.o.ble the whole Church, to purify her members, and animate them with a common zeal, and to uplift her head, the Papacy. It carried on, in a larger way and with a greater sweep, the work of ecclesiastical reformation begun by the intervention of the Emperors in the election of Popes, and gave a loftier tone to European politics.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] _Le cronache italiane del medio evo descritte_, Balzani, p. 123.

CHAPTER X

THE STRUGGLE OVER INVESt.i.tURES (1059-1123)