The Power Of The Popes Part 12

Not content with creating against this prince a new Lombard league, Gregory, impatient to remove him from the midst of European affairs, summoned him to perform the vow which he had taken to go and combat the infidels in Palestine. Frederick embarked, but called back to Brundosium by illness, was excommunicated as a perjurer: he resumed his route, and for proceeding without absolution he was excommunicated anew. He arrives, he compels the sultan of Egypt to abandon Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Sidon to him, yet, because he treats with an infidel and signs a truce, he is a third time excommunicated. On returning to Europe, he found La Fouille invaded, Italy armed against the empire, and his own son drawn by the pontiff into rebellion and almost into parricide. He triumphed, nevertheless, over so many enemies, arrested and imprisoned his unnatural son, and above all took advantage of a sedition of the Romans against the pope. The Romans who had resumed under Honorius the love of independence, banished Gregory IX. who, compelled to negotiate with the emperor, consented to absolve him for a large sum of money. But Gregory, among other pretensions, claimed Sardinia as a domain of the Holy See. Frederick claimed it as a fief of the empire. Now follows a fourth excommunication, in which Gregory, by the authority of 'Father, Son and Holy Ghost,' the authority of the apostles and his own, anathematizes 'Frederick, late emperor,' looses from their oaths those who had sworn fidelity to him, and forbids them to recognize him as sovereign. This bull, sent to all monarchs, lords, and prelates of Christendom, was accompanied by a circular letter, which commands the publication of the anathema, to the sound of bells, throughout all the churches. Various writings of the Holy Father4 represent Frederick as one of the monarchs described in the Apocalypse; political and religious crimes of every species are imputed to this prince by him, even that of having termed Moses, Jesus, and Mahomet, three impostors. Frederick stooped to reply to this torrent of accusation and insult; and that the apology should correspond with the accusation, he treated Gregory as Balaam, as Antichrist, the great dragon, the prince of darkness. By a special epistle5 to the king of France, Louis IX. or St. Louis the pope offered the empire to the brother of this monarch, Robert count of Artois, on condition that the French should make a crusade against Frederick. St. Louis replied, that he saw with astonishment a pope attempt to depose an emperor; that such a power belonged to a general council alone, and only on the plea of the acknowledged unworthiness of the sovereign; that Frederick on the contrary appeared irreproachable; that he had exposed himself to the dangers of war and of the sea, for the service of Jesus Christ, while Gregory, his implacable enemy, took advantage of his absence to plunder him of his States; that the pope, counting for nothing the rivers of blood which had flowed to satisfy his ambition or his vengeance, wished to subject the emperor, for the sole purpose of afterwards subjugating all the other sovereigns; that his offers proceeded less from a predilection for the French, than from inveterate hatred for Frederick; that he would, however, make inquiry as to the orthodoxy of this prince, and if he proved a heretic, would make the most implacable war against him, as in such case he would not fear doing with the pope himself. This epistle, without doubt, mingled errors of the grossest kind with the expression of the most generous resolutions. What! an a.s.sembly of priests possess the right of dethroning a sovereign! What! the religious opinions of a prince be a sufficient motive, with those who did not possess the same, to declare war against him! Yes, such were the indisputable results of those decretals from which the popes had compiled the public law of Christendom.

5 Concilior. vol. 11, p. 340, 346, 357.

6 Matt Paris, ann. 1239, p. 444.-Daniels, Hist, of France, vol. 3.

p. 210.-Bossuet Def. Cler. Gall. 1. 4. c. 6.

But the more deplorable this madness, the greater is the homage due to the prince, who, fettered by the bands of so many prejudices, could find in his own excellent heart a disinterestedness, a loyalty, and a courage, worthy of the happiest periods of history.

All the reputation of his exemplary piety was needed by Louis IX. to escape the anathemas of Gregory IX. and even the enterprises of the French bishops; for he repressed the bishops with firmness, whenever his understanding allowed him to perceive the abuses of their spiritual functions which they practised. They were seen, for the most trifling temporal interest, shut the churches, and suspend the administration of the sacraments. Experience had taught them the efficacy of these measures; they obtained by this species of pettishness the various objects of their desires. But a bishop of Beauvais, and an archbishop of Rouen, having employed this system with too little caution, and thinking proper to excommunicate some royal officers, St. Louis had their temporalities seized, and obtained from the pope a bull which forbade the interdiction of the royal chapels.:

"He had "for a maxim, never to yield a blind respect to the "orders of the ministers of the church, whom he "knew to be subject to the intemperancies of pa.s.sion "as well as other men."

Thus does Daniel the historian express himself, the least suspected a.s.suredly that we can instance here. Joinville relates how the clergy complained bitterly of the little concern of civil officers for sentences of excommunication, and how Louis IX. expressed himself so decisively, on the necessity of ascertaining the justice of these sentences, that they abstained from urging the matter on him. This pious monarch one day caused the money levied for the Holy See to be seized, being unwilling it should be applied to the accomplishment of the ambitious projects of Gregory IX. The pontiff, to be revenged, annulled the election of Peter Chariot to the bishop.r.i.c.k of Noyou; this person was a natural and a legitimated son of Philip Augustus. Louis IX. was not to be shaken; he declared that no other person should possess this bishop.r.i.c.k. Gregory, though he exaggerated his pontifical power, though he protested, that G.o.d had confided to the pope the privileges of empire on earth as well as in heaven, confined himself to simple menaces; and France was indebted to her pious sovereign for a firmness, which he had still further occasion to manifest under the succeeding pontificates.

That of Gregory IX. more particularly memorable for the disputes with the emperor Frederick II., is so, likewise, for the publication of an ecclesiastical code compiled by Raymond de Pennafort the third general of the Dominicans. Since the decree of Gratian, decretals, and collections of decretals, had multiplied to that degree that one could scarcely see his way among them. Gregory had, to his own decisions, caused those of his predecessors from Eugenius III. to be added. There resulted from it a collection, of which the subjects are distributed into six books. A sorry verse6 which announces this distribution, maybe too faithfully translated and appreciated in the following:

Judges, judgments, the clergy, marriages, and crimes.

7 Judex, judicium, clerus, sponsalia, crimen.

The canonists cite this code under the name of 'The Decretals of Gregory IX.' or simply 'The Decretals,' and sometimes by the word 'extra,' that is, without the decree of Grattan; which decree had been for two centuries the sole source of ecclesiastical jurisprudence. As fruits of the vast correspondence of Alexander III., of Innocent III. and of Gregory IX., these five books are in every respect worthy to serve as a sequel to the decree: they have with it contributed to the propagation of maxims subversive of all government.

The election of Sinibald of Fiesque to the papacy, seemed to promise some years of peace between the priesthood and the empire: Sinibald had for a long time been connected by friendship with Frederick; but the cardinal friend became a pontiff enemy, even as the emperor had foretold. Innocent IV. the name of this pope, having placed on the absolution of Frederick, conditions which he would not accept, war was rekindled, and the pope, compelled to fly from Genoa, his country, came thence to solicit an asylum in France. Louis IX. consulted his barons, who maintained, that the court of Rome was always expensive to its guests, that a pope would obscure the royal dignity, and would form in the state another independent one.7 Rejected by the King of France, refused also by the King of Arragon, Innocent addressed himself to the English, whose reply was not more favourable. What! they say, have we not already simony and usury, wherefore then need a pope, who would come in person to devour the kingdom and our churches. Very well! cried the pontiff incensed at this triple affront; we must finish with Frederick; when we have crushed or tamed this great dragon, these petty serpents will not dare to raise their heads, and we shall crush them under our feet.8 To attain this object, he holds a general council at Lyons, a city which at that time belonged neither to France nor the emperor: the archbishops usurped to themselves the sovereignty in it, and maintained that it had ceased to be a fief of the empire.? There Frederick II.

was deposed:

"In virtue, says the pope, of the power to "bind and to loose, which Jesus Christ has given "us in the person of St Peter, we deprive the late "emperor, Frederick, of all honor and dignity; we "prohibit obedience to him, to consider him as em- "peror or king, or to give aid or counsel to him, "under the penalty of excommunication by the act "alone."

8 Velly, vol. iv. p. 306, 307.

? Matt. Paris, p. 600.

4 While Innocent was at Lyons, some prebends of the church of this city became vacant, and he attempted to bestow them, in the plenitude of his authority, on foreigners, his relatives; but the people, and even the clergy of Lyons, resisted him to his face, and compelled him to relinquish this undertaking.

To annihilate the house of Swabia had been for a long time the most ardent wish of the popes, especially of Innocent IV.; but he proclaimed almost fruitlessly, a crusade against Frederick: real crusades occupied them at the time, that is, expeditions into the East, and the fugitive Innocent IV. did not inherit the omnipotence of Innocent III.. The low clergy itself no longer adored the pontifical decrees: a curate of Paris, announcing to his parishioners that which deposed Frederick, addressed them in these remarkable words;:

"I am igno- "rant my very dear brethren, of the motives of this "anathema, I only know, that there exists between "the pope and the emperor great differences, and an "implacable hatred; which of them is right I can- "not inform you: but I excommunicate as far as "in me lies, him who is wrong, and I absolve him "who is aggrieved in his privileges."

This is the most sensible sermon which, to our knowledge, has been preached in the 17th century. St. Louis, who censured more loudly than the curate the deposition of Frederick, went to Cluni, and drew the pope there also, whom he would not suffer to enter farther into the kingdom.

Their first conferences remain secret; and all that can be said of them is, that the obstinate pontiff was deaf to the pacific counsel of the sainted king. But history4 has handed down to us a little more of the details of a second interview, which took place the following year, at Cluni also, between Innocent and Louis.:

"The Holy- "land is in danger, said the king; and no hope ex- "ists of delivering it without the help of the emperor "who holds so many ports, isles, and coasts under "his authority. Most Holy Father, accept his "promises, I beseech you in my own name, and "in the name of the thousands of faithful pil- "grims, in the name of the universal church: "open the arms to him who seeks for mercy: "it is the gospel which commands you to do "so; imitate the goodness of him whose vicar you "are."

The pope 'bridling up,' says Fleury,4 persisted in his refusal. Thus these two personages, we may say, exchanged their provinces; it was the monarch who a.s.sumed the charitable language of the gospel, it was the priest who preserved the inflexible att.i.tude of presumptuous power. At the same period, we behold a sultan of Egypt, Melie-Saleh, giving lessons of probity to the successor of St. Peter. Pressed by Innocent IV. to abandon, contrary to the faith of treaties, the interests of Frederick, Melie-Saleh replied:

"Your envoy has spoken to us about Jesus "Christ, with whom we are better acquainted than "you are, and whom we more worthily honour.- "You pretend that peace between all nations is the "object of your desires; we do not desire it less "than you. But there exists between us and the "emperor of the West, an alliance, a reciprocal "friendship, which commenced with the reign of the "sultan our father, whom may G.o.d receive to glory: "we shall therefore, conclude no treaty unknown to "Frederick, or contrary to his interests."

4 Matt. Paris, p. 697. Velly's Hist, of France, vol. iv. p. 469.-La Chaise's Hist, of St Louis, p. 449.

4 Hist. Eccles. 1. 83. n. 40.

However, after useless attempts at reconciliation, and various vicissitudes of success and misfortune, Frederick died in 1250, probably strangled, as they say, by his son, Manfred. On receiving this news, Innocent IV. invites the heavens and the earth to rejoice; these are the very words of a letter which he wrote to the prelates, lords, and people of the kingdom of Sicily. He terms Frederick the son of Satan.4

4 Hist. Eccles. 1. 83, n. 25-26.

Conrade IV. son of Frederick II. was called to succeed him; and, in the absence of Conrade, Manfred his brother governed the two Sicilies.

Innocent declares, that the children of an excommunicated person can inherit nothing from their parent; he proclaims a crusade against them, and draws into the revolt the Neapolitan n.o.bles. Manfred succeeded in subduing them; he took the city of Naples by a.s.sault, and compelled the pope to fly once more to Genoa. The crusade is again preached against the sons of Frederick, and their kingdom is offered to an English prince. The quarrels which soon sprang up between the two brothers, re-animated the hopes of the Court of Rome; it received the most lively expectations from them, when it learned the death of Conrade, when Manfred was suspected of parricide, and nothing more was wanting, but to destroy the last branch of the house of Swabia, Conradine, a child of ten years of age, the son of Conrade, and as grandson, legitimate heir of Frederick II. The pope hesitated no longer to erect himself into king of Naples: in order to support this t.i.tle, he levied an army; but this army had only a legate for its leader; it was beaten by Manfred.

Innocent IV. died from despair in consequence, at the moment he had entered on a negociation with Louis IX. which had for its basis, the conferring on a brother or son of this monarch, the kingdom of the two Sicilies. This pope had excited a civil war in Portugal, by deposing the king Alphonso II., already interdicted by Gregory IX., and calling to the throne a count of Boulogne, brother of Alphonso. Innocent had disputes also with the English, who complained loudly of his extortions, his breach of the laws, and disregard of treaties.4

"The Peter's pence tax did not satisfy him, "they said; he exacted from all the clergy enor- "mous contributions; he had general taxes a.s.ses- "sed, and levied, without the king's consent: in "contempt of the right of patrons, he conferred "benefices on Romans, who did not understand "the English tongue, and who exported the money "of the kingdom."

44 Fleury's Ecclesiastical Hist. 1. 82. n. 28. He relates also, 1.

83, n. 43, the reproaches which Robert Greathead, bishop of Lincoln, a learned and pious prelate, addressed to the Court of Rome, and particularly to Innocent IV. "The pope has not been ashamed to annul the const.i.tutions of his predecessors, with a Non obstante: in which he evinces too great a contempt for them, and gives a precedent for disregarding his own. Although many popes have al-ready afflicted the church, this pope has reduced it to a greater degree of bondage, princ.i.p.ally by the usurers he has introduced into England, and who are worse than the Jews. Besides, he has directed the friars preachers and the friars minors, when administering to the dying, to persuade them to bequeath by will their property for the succour of the Holy Land, in order to defraud the heirs of their wealth whether they should live or die.

He sells crusaders to the laity as formerly sheep and oxen were sold in the temple, and measures the indulgence by the money which they bestow towards the crusade: furthermore the pope commands the prelates by his letters, to provide such a one with a benefice, according as he may wish to purchase, although he be a foreigner, illiterate, in every respect unworthy, or ignorant of the language of the country: so that he can neither preach nor hear confessions, neither relieve the poor nor receive the traveller, as he is not a resident." Fleury adds, that Robert Greathead enlarged on the views of the court of Rome, especially its avarice and dissoluteness. "To swallow up every thing, it drew to itself the wealth of those who died intestate; and in order to pillage with the less restraint, it divided the plunder with the king. The bishop of Lincoln still more laments that the pope employed, in the collection of his extortions, the mendicant friars, learned and virtuous men, thus abusing their obedience by compelling them to mix with that world they had left; he sent them into England with great power as legates in disguise, not being allowed to send there in form and openly unless the king requested it." Such were, says Fleury, the complaints of the bishop of Lincoln, too sharp indeed, but too well founded, as appears by the writings of the period, even by the epistles of the popes.

Let us observe further, that in publishing crusades against Frederick II. and against his son, Innocent granted greater indulgences to them than to the expeditions into Palestine. The pope, said the French n.o.bles, extends his own sovereignty by crusades against the Christians, and leaves our sovereign the task of fighting and suffering for the faith. St. Louis was then in the Holy Land, just released from his captivity. His mother, Queen Blanche, caused the property of the pope's crusaders against Conrade to be seized: let the pope, said she, maintain those who are in his service, and let them begone never to return.44 Thus did the Guelph crusade miscarry in France, in spite of the exertions of the 'pious preachers' and 'pious minors,' the zealous servants of the Holy See. But from the accession of Gregory IX. Italy and Germany never ceased to be torn by the factions of Guelph, and Ghibeline, which a.s.sumed more and more their original direction, the latter against the pope, the former against the emperor, and especially against the house of Swabia.

45 Matt. Paris, p. 713,-Velly's History of France, vol. v. p.

102-100.

Alexander IV. who succeeded Innocent in 1254, continued to contend with Manfred, summoned him, excommunicated him, and designed him for the victim of a crusade, which did not, however, take place. The pope succeeded only in extorting from the king of England, Henry III. fifty thousand pounds sterling. Henry had made a vow to go into Palestine; this vow was commuted into a stipulated contribution, destined to the support of the war against Manfred. To obtain such a sum, Alexander promised the crown of Naples to prince Edward, son of Henry; which did not, however, prevent his continuing the negociation with Louis IX. and his brother Charles of Anjou. But Alexander was not sufficiently favoured by circ.u.mstances, and was too little endowed with energetic qualifications, to obtain much success; he could scarcely keep his ground in the midst of his own domains: a sedition of the Romans compelled him to withdraw to Viterbo, and his seven years reign produced no important result, unless we consider as such the establishment of the inquisition in the bosom of France. We are concerned we cannot conceal, that St Louis had solicited as a favour such an inst.i.tution. It had become from the time of Innocent III. much consolidated: in 1229, a council at Thoulouse had decreed, that the bishops should depute in each parish one clergyman, and two laymen, for the purpose of seeking out heretics, denouncing them to the prelates appointed to try them, and delivering them to the officers charged with their punishment. Gregory IX. in 1233, had invested the Dominicans, or brother preachers, with these inquisitorial functions; the church was unquestionably enriched by this new power, and St. Louis had the misfortune of not preserving his subjects from it. He paid two enormous tributes to the ignorance of his age, the crusade, and the inquisition.-He was even not far from a.s.suming the Dominican habit, and ceasing to be a king in order to become an inquisitor.45 We enter into these particulars, because they are all effects of the ascendancy of the popes, of that unbounded extent which their temporal royalty gave to their ecclesiastical authority.- Alexander IV. was a zealous protector of the monks, especially the mendicants. This predilection made him unjust to the universities; he was the avowed enemy of that of Paris. The historian of this university, Ega.s.se du Boulay,46 tells us, that the death of this pope gave peace to the Parisian muses.

46 Velly's Hist, of France, vol. v. p. 193-197.

47 Hist. Univ. Paris, vol. iii. p. 365.

It was a Frenchman, born at Troyes, who become pope by the name of Urban IV. advanced princ.i.p.ally the negociations with the count of Anjou.

Impatient to exterminate Manfred, Urban saw too well that the publication of crusades, indulgencies, the equipment of pontifical troops, with all the temporal and spiritual arms of the Holy See, would remain powerless, without the active partic.i.p.ation of a sovereign, interested by the allurement of a crown, to complete the ruin of the house of Swabia. Popular commotions rendered the residence of Rome rather uneasy to the sovereign pontiff; Urban had retired to Orvieto, whence by some mutinous acts, he was again driven to Perugia. He was, therefore, solicitous to conclude with Charles of Anjou; although this prince had seemed to detach himself from the pope, in accepting the dignity of senator of Rome, and the treaty, was about to be signed when Urban died: his successor, Clement IV. completed his design.

The incompatibility of the crown of Sicily with the imperial crown, as also with the sovereignty over Lombardy, or over Tuscany; the cession of Beneventum and its territory to the Holy See: annual tributes and subsidies to the church; recognizance of the immunities of the clergy of the Two Sicilies; inheritance of this kingdom reserved to the descendants of Charles alone; in default thereof, power granted to the pope to choose the successors to them. Such were the princ.i.p.al conditions of the treaty, which called Charles of Anjou to reign over the Neapolitans. He would have subscribed to still more humiliating ones. He promised to abdicate before the expiration of three years the t.i.tle of senator of Rome; even to renounce it sooner, if he completed before this period the conquest of the kingdom which had been bestowed him, and, to neglect nothing to dispose the Romans to concede the disposal of this dignity to the sovereign pontiff: he subjected himself to interdiction, excommunication, deposition, if he should ever break his engagements: he finally p.r.o.nounced an oath, framed in these terms:47

"I, per- "forming full allegiance and va.s.salage to the church, "for the kingdom of Sicily, and for all the territory "on this side the Pharos of Messina, to the fron- "tiers of the ecclesiastical state, now and hence- "forward promise to be faithful and obedient to St.

"Peter, to the pope my supreme liege, and to his "successors canonically elected; I shall form no "alliance contrary to their interests; and, if from "ignorance I shall be unfortunate enough to form "such, I shall renounce it on the first order which "they may be disposed to signify to me.

48 Velly's Hist, of France, vol. v. p. 326-345.

It was in order to obtain so precarious a crown, to usurp a throne so degraded, that Charles of Anjou entered Sicily, animated by his presence the Guelphic faction, and set it at variance, from the Alps to Mount Etna, with that of the Ghibelines. The latter attached itself more than ever to Manfred, who, after some success, fell and perished at the battle of Beneventum. The young Conradine, until now eclipsed by Manfred, and detained by his mother in Germany, at length appeared: everywhere the Ghibelines received him, and strenuously supported him against the arms of Charles, and the anathemas of Clement; but, defeated at the plain of Tagliaoozzo, he fell into the hands of his rival.

Charles was ungenerous enough to deliver his disarmed enemy into the hands of corrupt judges: distrust and revenge borrowed juridical forms; Conradine, at the age of eighteen, was decapitated at Naples, the 26th October, 1258; and the most faithful defenders of his indisputable rights shared his fate. The Ghibelines were proscribed through all Italy; rivers of blood bathed the steps of the subaltern throne, in which Charles went to seat himself at a pontiff's feet. Some writers a.s.sert that Clement disapproved of the murder of the young prince; others accuse him of having advised it, and of having said, that the saving of Conradine, would be the ruin of Charles; that the safety of Charles exacted the death of Conradine48 However it was, the Holy See triumphed by the extinction of the house of Swabia.

4? Vita Corradini, mors Caroli; mors Corradini, vita Caroli.

Giannone, Istoria di Napoli. 19, c. 4.

Full of the idea of his power4? Clement decided, that all ecclesiastical benefices were at the disposal of the pope; that he could confer them whether vacant or not vacant, giving them in the latter case in reversion, or as they term it in expectancy. Such audacity astonished Louis, and the indignation he conceived at it dictated an ordinance, known by the name of 'the pragmatic sanction' of which the following is a summary:

"The prelates, patrons, and collators to benefices, "shall fully enjoy their privileges.

"The cathedral and other churches of the king- "dom shall make their elections freely.

"The crime of simony shall be banished the "kingdom.

"Promotions and collations to benefices shall be "made according to common right and the decrees "of councils.