The Church and the Empire Part 7

But such prohibition did not include any of the logical works; and in 1231 a bull of Gregory IX only excepted any of Aristotle's works until they had been examined and purged of all heresy. Finally, in 1254, a statute of the University actually prescribed nearly all the works of Aristotle, including even the most suspected, as text-books for the lectures. Meanwhile fresh translations were made from the Arabic by Michael Scot and others at the instance of Frederick II, so that by 1225 the whole body of his works was to be found in Latin form.

Further still, the Latin conquest of Constantinople in 1204 had brought back to the west a knowledge of a large part of Aristotle's writings in their original form. Translations were now made into Latin straight from the Greek; and Thomas Aquinas, seconded by Pope Urban IV, took especial pains to encourage such scholarship.

[Sidenote: The later Scholasticism.]

By this medium there was developed the great system of orthodox Aristotelianism which was the form taken by Scholasticism in the later Middle Ages. This was the work of the Friars, who, for the purpose of giving to their own students the best procurable training in theology, established houses of residence in Paris and elsewhere. The quarrels between the University of Paris and the munic.i.p.ality in the first half of the thirteenth century gave their opportunity to the Friars, and even after the settlement of the quarrels they remained and became formidable rivals to the teachers drawn from the secular clergy. It was only in 1255 that, after a severe struggle, the University was forced by a bull of Alexander IV to admit the Friars to its privileges, although it succeeded in imposing upon them an oath of obedience to its statutes.

[Sidenote: The change of position.]

It was the Franciscans who began this new intellectual movement in the persons of the Englishman, Alexander of Hales (died 1245), who was the first to be able to use the whole of the Aristotelian writings, and his pupil, the mystic Bonaventura (died 1274). But the scholastic philosophy as it is taught to this day was the work of the two great Dominicans, Albert of Bollstadt, a Suabian, known as Albertus Magnus (1193-1280), and his even greater pupil, Thomas of Aquino, an Italian (1227-74). The endeavour of these writers was to take over into the service of the Church the whole Aristotelian philosophy. It was a consequence of this that the old question of the nature of Universals was not so all-important, or that at any rate it ceased to be treated from a purely logical standpoint. The great Dominicans were very moderate Realists; but they treated Logic as only one among a number of subjects. Albert wrote works which in print fill twenty-one folio volumes (whence his name Magnus); but his fame has been somewhat obscured by the more methodical, if almost equally voluminous (in seventeen folio volumes) works of his successor. The result of their labours was a wonderfully complete harmonisation of philosophy and theology as these subjects were understood by their respective champions. This was brought about by the use of two methods. In the first place, the works of Aristotle on the one side, and the Bible and the writings of the Fathers on the other side, were treated as of equal authority in their respective spheres The ingenuity of the theologians was to be employed in harmonising them. It is, in fact, only from this period that "the Scholastic Philosophy became distinguished by that servile deference to authority" which we ordinarily attribute to it.

[Sidenote: Reason and faith.]

But, in the second place, any such harmonisation could only be carried out by some demarcation of territory. The earlier orthodox writers like Anselm, as we have seen, did not hesitate to attempt a philosophical explanation of the doctrine of the Trinity. But Aristotle and his Arabian commentators were monotheistic, and consequently the reconciliation between the Aristotelian philosophy and the Christian faith could only be effected by distinguishing between natural and revealed religion. The truths of the former were demonstrable by reason, of which Aristotle was the supreme guide. The truths of the latter were mysteries to be accepted on an equally good though different authority. By such methods these later schoolmen excepted and accepted the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation, though they allowed the doctrine of the existence of G.o.d to be susceptible of logical proof. But notwithstanding these exceptions, the teaching of the Dominicans was a wonderful attempt to abolish the inevitable dualism between faith and reason.

[Sidenote: Thomists and Scotists.]

The history of Scholasticism after Thomas Aquinas is largely occupied by an account of the quarrel between the rival schools of Thomists and Scotists. The great teacher of the generation after St. Thomas was a Franciscan, Duns Scotus, the "Subtle Doctor," who taught at Oxford and Paris and died in 1308. His teaching differed in two ways from that of his Dominican predecessor. In the first place he excepted a larger number of theological doctrines as not being capable of philosophic proof, so that his teaching tended to bring back and to emphasise the dualism between faith and reason. It is for this reason that his system has been considered as the beginning of the decline of Scholasticism. In the second place, the real quarrel between Thomists and Scotists centred round the question of the freedom of the will.

The followers of St. Thomas maintained that although the will is to some extent subordinate to the reason, yet it is free to determine its own course of action after a process of rational comparison, by contrast with the animals which act on the impulse of the moment. The Scotists, on the other hand, taught that what is called the will is merely a name for the possibility of determining without motive in either of two opposite directions. The importance of this difference of view consisted in this--that whereas the Thomists held that G.o.d subjects His will to a rational determination and therefore commands what is good because it is good, the Scotist taught that good is so because G.o.d wills it; if He chose to will the exact opposite, that would be equally good--in other words, he attributed to G.o.d an entirely arbitrary will. The two greatest disciples of St. Thomas were Dante and the Franciscan Roger Bacon (1214-92), the latter of whom fell into disfavour with the superiors of his own Order in consequence of his scientific studies, and spent many years at the end of his life in prison.

[Sidenote: Results of Scholasticism.]

The Scholastic philosophy failed to justify the doctrines of the Church to a rapidly expanding world. But it is unjust and ungrateful to stigmatise its results as barren. In the first place it gave a most valuable training in logical method to the keenest intellects of the time. Moreover, the very attempt to establish the Christian faith by argument was an unconscious homage to the supremacy of reason as the ultimate guide; while, finally, in the philosophy of St. Thomas, all nature was regarded as a fit subject for enquiry, and some of the greatest Schoolmen, as we have just seen, were noted for their investigations into natural phenomena.

CHAPTER VIII

GUELF AND GHIBELLINE. (I)

[Sidenote: Hadrian IV.]

Hadrian IV is interesting to us as the only Englishman who has ever sat upon the throne of St. Peter. As Nicholas Brakespeare he had led the life of a wandering scholar, chiefly in France. He entered the house of Canons Regular of St. Rufus near Avignon, and when Abbot of this monastery attracted the attention of Eugenius III, who made him Cardinal Bishop of Albano, and employed him as papal legate in freeing the Church in Scandinavia from its dependence on the Bishops in Germany. The prestige which he acquired in this work marked him out as the successor of the shortlived Anastasius. Hadrian was a much abler man than either of his predecessors, and, while fully conscious of the difficulties of his office, he did not let these deter him from the fulfilment of its obvious duties. We have seen how he drove Arnold from Rome. He found, however, a new danger in Sicily. Roger's son William, known as "the Bad," took up an att.i.tude of hostility, and when the Pope a.s.serted his overlordship, William's troops overran the Campagna. The Pope retorted by excommunicating his refractory va.s.sals and looking for help from the new German King.

[Sidenote: The new contest.]

With the accession of Frederick I the quarrel between Empire and Papacy enters on a new phase. On the death of Henry V the natural candidate of the papal party for the German throne was Henry the Black Duke of Bavaria, the head of the family of Welf or Guelf. But he was old, and related by marriage to the Hohenstaufen. He was, however, bribed to acquiesce in the election of Lothair by the offer of Lothair's daughter and heiress, Gertrude, as a wife for his son Henry the Proud. This marriage determined the whole course of German history. Henry the Proud obtained the duchy of Bavaria from his father and the duchy of Saxony from his father-in-law. Thus, if the Hohenstaufen family were the heirs of the Franconian Emperors, the Guelfs became the representatives of the opposition to that line which had centred in Saxony; and for the old contest between Papacy and Empire, Saxon and Franconian, there was now subst.i.tuted a dynastic struggle between Weiblingen or Ghibelline and Guelf. The Guelfs were the papal party only in the sense that, like the Saxons, they were in opposition to the dynasty which occupied the German throne and claimed the imperial t.i.tle. The name, however, was extended to Italy: it was applied to the collective opposition to the imperial power, and therefore came to denote the friends of the Papacy.

[Sidenote: Frederick I.]

So far the contest had been confined to Germany; for Lothair had sacrificed the claims of the empire to his own immediate interests, while Conrad had never set foot in Italy after his accession to the German throne. But as the attempt of Lothair to crush the acknowledged Ghibelline leaders had been thwarted, so Conrad had failed to render the Guelf harmless; and it was the pretensions of Henry the Lion, the son of Henry the Proud, which determined Conrad to waive the claims of his young son to the succession, and to recommend to the n.o.bles the choice of his nephew Frederick. But Conrad's nomination would have been of little account. Frederick's claims were largely personal.

Already before he succeeded his father as Duke of Suabia he had shown a combination of boldness in action with a conciliatory disposition which marked him out as a leader and a statesman. To this was added, as with Conrad, the prestige of a crusader; while in view of the bitter rivalries of the last two reigns, it was a recommendation that Frederick united in his person the two families whose strife had divided the kingdom. Two years elapsed from his accession before Frederick was free to set out for Italy. As the heir of the Franconians his probable att.i.tude was a matter of some anxiety at Rome and in Italy generally. He was no enemy of the Church. His first act after his coronation at Aachen (March 9th, 1152) was to announce his accession to the Pope, who sent him a return message of goodwill. But from the outset Frederick showed his intention of taking a high line, for, in a disputed election at Magdeburg he obtained a party for a nominee of his own who was already a bishop, and therefore ineligible, and by virtue of the Concordat he decided for his own candidate in defiance of all ecclesiastical laws, and straightway invested him with the regalia.

[Sidenote: Imperial rights.]

Moreover, he had a high idea of the imperial mission. It was seventeen years since any emperor had crossed the Alps; and it is difficult to say whether the selfish policy of Lothair or the non-appearance of Conrad must have been the more detrimental to the maintenance of imperial interests. But during the first few months of his reign appeals poured in from the Pope against his various enemies, from some barons of Apulia against the great Roger of Sicily, from the citizens of Lodi against the tyranny of Milan. These, together with the ridiculous proffer of the imperial crown from the lately formed Republic of Rome, seemed to open an opportunity for the successful recovery of imperial rights. And, much as the Italians resented the spasmodic interferences of the Emperor, they were proud of their imperial connection. The commerce of the East, largely increased by the Crusades, flowed into Western Europe chiefly through Italy. As a result, the north and centre of the peninsula were studded with a number of compact, self-governing communities inclined to resent any outside interference, however lawful in origin. But the larger cities were ever trying to group the smaller round them as satellites; and the constant quarrels which resulted, often produced a party which was ready to welcome the interposition of the Emperor. There was this common ground, then, between these cities and the Papacy that, whereas they found it equally necessary to invoke the aid of the Emperor as an outside power against their foes, each was threatened by the a.s.sertion of those imperial rights which it was the sole object of Frederick's journey to Italy to a.s.sert.

But the results of Frederick's first expedition to Italy were of a very doubtful kind. It is true that he was crowned at Rome, that he a.s.serted his imperial rights both positively in a great a.s.sembly on the plains of Roncaglia and, as it were, negatively by the destruction of three refractory towns, and that he got rid of Arnold of Brescia.

But, on the other hand, his a.s.sertion of power provoked hatred instead of fear; and although, despite some sharp differences, he parted amicably from the Pope, his return to Germany left Hadrian in an impossible position. The republican party in Rome remained untouched: William of Sicily was unsubdued.

[Sidenote: Papal defiance.]

Shortly after his accession Frederick had made an agreement with the then Pope that neither should make peace with the Romans or the Sicilian King without consent of the other. But now Hadrian, deserted, accepted the Commune as the civil authority in Rome, and even came to a treaty with William of Sicily, who engaged to hold all his lands as a va.s.sal of the Pope. Frederick was naturally angry at the repudiation of the mutual obligation with regard to peace and of the imperial suzerainty of William's duchy of Apulia. But he was too much occupied in Germany to do more than protest. And before he was able to a.s.sert his power in Italy again Pope Hadrian had, as it were, thrown down a challenge to him. At the Diet of Besancon in Burgundy in 1157 two papal envoys appeared with a complaint of Frederick's conduct in some particular. The letter which they bore spoke of the late coronation of the Emperor by the Pope and used the equivocal word _beneficia_ to describe the papal act. When the a.s.sembled n.o.bles resented the expression as implying a feudal relation between Pope and Emperor, the papal representative, the Chancellor Roland, boldly asked, "From whom, then, does the emperor hold the empire if not from the Pope?"

Frederick's authority alone saved the envoys from violence, and Hadrian found himself obliged to explain away the objectionable expressions.

[Sidenote: The breach.]

But the papal position had been formulated, and that before a German a.s.sembly. The Pope was no longer a suppliant: he claimed to be more than an equal. He had thrown down a challenge. Frederick proceeded to pick it up. In fact, it was this second expedition of Frederick to Italy which opened the long contest between Ghibelline and Guelf, a contest only to be ended by the practical destruction of one or other of the parties. It was the complaints of the other cities against the oppression of Milan, which were the immediate cause of Frederick's appearance in Italy in 1158; and the reduction of the Milanese was followed by the holding of an a.s.sembly on the plain of Roncaglia, to which Frederick summoned the most famous lawyers of Italy. By their decision rights and powers were given to him, which placed all the communes at his mercy. Moreover, these were not compatible with the rights a.s.serted since the time of Gregory VII by the papal supporters: the regalia were given to the Emperor at the expense of ecclesiastical as well as lay landowners and corporations. If the papal invest.i.ture of Apulia infringed the imperial rights, the invest.i.ture of Frederick's uncle, Welf VI of Bavaria, with the inheritance of the Countess Matilda openly ignored the oft-repeated claim of the Papacy.

Neither side seemed to take especial pains to avoid a breach. The acrimonious correspondence which ensued centred round the relations of the Italian bishops to the Emperor, the respective claims of each party to Rome, and the restoration of the Tuscan inheritance and all the other lands which it claimed, to the Papacy. The excommunication of the Emperor--the open declaration of war--was prevented by Hadrian's death on September 1, 1159.

[Sidenote: The papal schism.]

A schism was inevitable. The majority of the Cardinals elected the papal Chancellor Roland who had defied Frederick at Besancon, and who would be likely to maintain Hadrian's high claims: he was afterwards consecrated as Alexander III. The minority got possession of St.

Peter's and proclaimed an imperialist Cardinal as Victor IV. Neither Pope could be consecrated or could remain in Rome: both appealed by legates and letters for the recognition of Christendom. Frederick as Emperor summoned both candidates to submit their claims to the decision of a Council at Pavia. Alexander entirely repudiated the Emperor's implied claim to be the arbiter of Christendom in a spiritual matter, and found support in the fact that only fifty bishops, almost entirely from Germany and Lombardy, a.s.sembled at Pavia. The Council, of course, decided in favour of Victor IV.

Alexander, however, excommunicated the Emperor, and bent all his energies to gain the adherence of France and England. Not only was he successful in this, but he was also recognised by the Latins of the East and the lessor Christian kingdoms. Victor IV's only supporter was the Emperor.

Nor did Frederick gain anything by his successes in Lombardy. It cost him seven months to subdue the little town of Crema; while it was three years (1159-62) before Milan surrendered and was destroyed. It is true, Alexander could no longer maintain himself in Italy, but in 1162 sought refuge in France. Frederick's attempts to drive him from his new asylum failed. Alexander carried on skilful negotiations with Louis VII of France and Henry II of England; and at Whitsuntide, 1163, a Council a.s.sembled at Tours, composed of a large number of cardinals, bishops, and clergy, and acknowledged Alexander with the utmost solemnity, while at the joint invitation of the two Kings the Pope took up his abode at the city of Sens.

[Sidenote: Fredericks's chance.]

The death of the anti-Pope was a further blow to Frederick's cause, for the action of his representative in Italy committed him to recognise a second anti-Pope and laid him open to the accusation of desiring to perpetuate the schism. It seemed, however, as if his chance had come when the quarrel between Henry II and Thomas Becket drove the English Archbishop to take refuge with the Pope at Sens.

Alexander was in a difficulty. Henry was perhaps the most powerful monarch in Europe, and his support was of the utmost importance to the Pope. But the rights for which Thomas was contending were part of the rights which Alexander himself was claiming against the Emperor--the right of the Church to manage her own concerns without lay interference. While, therefore, prudence forbade him to throw down a distinct challenge to the English King, it was impossible that he should comply with Henry's demand for the condemnation of the refractory Archbishop. Frederick took advantage of Henry's ill-humour to propose a marriage alliance between the royal houses and to sound Henry on the question of a change of alliance. The marriage thus arranged--of Frederick's cousin, Henry the Lion, to Henry II's daughter--ultimately took place. But both clergy and people in England were for the most part in sympathy with Becket and unwilling to prolong the schism. The altars used by Frederick's envoys in England were purified after their departure; and although Henry's representatives appeared at the Diet of Wurzburg in May, 1165, and even took an oath to acknowledge the anti-Pope, the English King did not dare to ratify their action.

[Sidenote: Frederick's momentary triumph.]

Nor was this the only time when success seemed possible to Frederick.

This failure to move the English allegiance and the defection of a number even of the German clergy emboldened Alexander to a.s.sume the aggressive, and he ventured to leave France and to take up his abode at Rome. (December, 1165.) Again the discontents of Lombardy were the occasion for the Emperor's visit. In the autumn of 1166 he crossed the Alps, and after spending some months in Lombardy he forced an entrance into Rome, enthroned his own Pope in St. Peter's, and himself wore his imperial crown. Frederick refused to treat with Alexander except on the basis of the resignation of both existing Popes and the election of a third. Alexander's position was unbearable and he fled to Benevento. The Romans accepted Frederick as their lord. The Emperor's triumph seemed complete: Charlemagne's successor had indeed arrived.

But the triumph was short-lived. The summer pestilence, which so often attacked a German army in Italy, fell more fiercely than ever before.

Frederick fled northwards before it, and found so much hostility in Lombardy that it was only by bypaths and in disguise that he was able to make his way out of Italy.

[Sidenote: The Lombard League.]

It was seven years (1167-74) before Frederick was able to return to Italy; and although by that time his position in Germany was unquestioned and the mutual relations of Louis VII and Henry II precluded any likelihood of interference from France or England, the Italian foes of the Emperor had gathered strength and combined their forces. Chief among these were the cities of Lombardy. Divided as they were into imperialist and anti-imperialist, or, to use the terms coming into vogue, Ghibelline and Guelf, they at first followed no common policy. Milan had taken the lead of the anti-imperialists.

After the destruction of Milan a league formed by the cities of the Veronese March helped to force Frederick for a time to abandon his designs upon Italy (1164). During his expedition of 1166-7 a Lombard League sprang up and coalesced with the Veronese League; a common organisation was set up, Milan was restored, many of the staunchest imperial towns were forced to become members, and the crowning work of the League was the foundation of a common stronghold which in compliment to the Pope was named Alessandria.

[Sidenote: Alliance with the Pope.]

The real danger to the Emperor came from alliance of this League with the Pope. The Lombard cities were the Pope's natural enemies. Some of them were the rivals of Rome--Pavia as the capital of the kingdom of Italy; Milan the quondam champion of the cause of the married clergy; Ravenna as the rival patriarchate in Italy. Strong local feeling made them resent all outside interference, of Pope no less than of Emperor.

It was among these free, self-governing communities that heresy found its chief adherents. But for the moment the common danger from the Emperor overshadowed all other differences. The old imperial rights which Frederick designed to recover included the power of appointing local officers whether consuls or bishops. Alone, neither Pope nor Lombard cities could look for success. In 1162, when all the cities fell before Frederick, Alexander remained practically untouched. But although his position was immensely strengthened since then, experience had shown that the Pope could not hold his own in Italy or Rome without the help of some secular power. At the same time, in Europe at large he had proved a most potent force, since he wielded weapons which were independent of time and place for their action, and such as the most powerful secular prince had found it impossible to ignore. It was under direct encouragement from Alexander that the cities concluded their League in 1167. Before the next imperial expedition it had become all-powerful in Northern Italy; not only the chief Ghibelline cities, including Pavia itself, had joined, but even the remaining feudal n.o.bles had found it impossible to stand outside.

[Sidenote: Submission of Henry II.]

Nor was this Alexander's only triumph. So long as Archbishop Thomas Becket remained unreconciled to Henry II, the English King had done all in his power to influence Alexander. A marriage alliance was carried out between the royal families of England and Sicily, solely with the object on Henry's side of neutralising one of the chief papal supporters, and Henry scattered his bribes among the Lombard cities with the same intent. But the reconciliation to which the att.i.tude of his own people forced Henry in 1170 robbed him of all excuse for hara.s.sing the Pope, and the murder of the Archbishop by four of the King's knights in Canterbury Cathedral isolated Henry and forced him to a humiliating treaty with Alexander.

[Sidenote: Final failure of Frederick.]

Frederick entered Italy in 1174 with small chance of success, for his army was composed of mercenaries, and many of the leading German n.o.bles, notably his cousin Henry the Lion, refused to accompany him.