Transcriber's Note:
Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
THE MAKERS
OF
MODERN ROME
[Illustration: POPE GREGORY.
_Frontispiece._]
THE MAKERS
OF
MODERN ROME
IN FOUR BOOKS
I. HONOURABLE WOMEN NOT A FEW
II. THE POPES WHO MADE THE PAPACY
III. LO POPOLO: AND THE TRIBUNE OF THE PEOPLE
IV. THE POPES WHO MADE THE CITY
BY
MRS. OLIPHANT
AUTHOR OF "THE MAKERS OF FLORENCE"
_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY HENRY P. RIVIERE, A.R.W.S.
AND JOSEPH PENNELL_
New York
MACMILLAN AND CO.
AND LONDON
1896
_All rights reserved_
COPYRIGHT, 1895,
BY MACMILLAN AND CO.
Set up and electrotyped November, 1895. Reprinted
January, 1896.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith.
Norwood Mass. U.S.A.
I INSCRIBE THIS BOOK
WITH THE DEAR NAMES OF THOSE OF MINE
WHO LIE UNDER THE WALLS OF ROME:
AND OF HIM, THE LAST OF ALL,
WHO WAS BORN IN THAT SAD CITY:
ALL NOW AWAITING ME, AS I TRUST,
WHERE GOD MAY PLEASE.
F. W. O.
M. W. O.
F. R. O.
PREFACE.
Nobody will expect in this book, or from me, the results of original
research, or a settlement--if any settlement is ever possible--of
vexed questions which have occupied the gravest students. An
individual glance at the aspect of these questions which most clearly
presents itself to a mind a little exercised in the aspects of
humanity, but not trained in the ways of learning, is all I attempt or
desire. This humble endeavour has been conscientious at least. The
work has been much interrupted by sorrow and suffering, on which
account, for any slips of hers, the writer asks the indulgence of her
unknown friends.
CONTENTS.
BOOK I.
HONOURABLE WOMEN NOT A FEW.
CHAPTER I. PAGE
ROME IN THE FOURTH CENTURY 1
CHAPTER II.
THE PALACE ON THE AVENTINE 14
CHAPTER III.
MELANIA 29
CHAPTER IV.
THE SOCIETY OF MARCELLA 43
CHAPTER V.
PAULA 65
CHAPTER VI.
THE MOTHER HOUSE 89
BOOK II.
THE POPES WHO MADE THE PAPACY.
CHAPTER I.
GREGORY THE GREAT 119
CHAPTER II.
THE MONK HILDEBRAND 181
CHAPTER III.
THE POPE GREGORY VII 230
CHAPTER IV.
INNOCENT III 307
BOOK III.
LO POPOLO: AND THE TRIBUNE OF THE PEOPLE.
CHAPTER I.
ROME IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY 381
CHAPTER II.
THE DELIVERER 402
CHAPTER III.
THE BUONO STATO 428
CHAPTER IV.
DECLINE AND FALL 460
CHAPTER V.
THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE 486
CHAPTER VI.
THE END OF THE TRAGEDY 493
BOOK IV.
THE POPES WHO MADE THE CITY.
CHAPTER I.
MARTIN V.--EUGENIUS IV.--NICOLAS V. 513
CHAPTER II.
CALIXTUS III.--PIUS II.--PAUL II.--SIXTUS IV. 552
CHAPTER III.
JULIUS II.--LEO X. 581
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
POPE GREGORY _Frontispiece_
COLOSSEUM BY MOONLIGHT, _by H. P. Riviere_ 37
TEMPLE OF VENUS AND RIVER FROM THE COLOSSEUM (1860), _by
H. P. Riviere_ 73
TEMPLE OF VESTA, _by H. P. Riviere_ 111
ARCH OF CONSTANTINE, _by H. P. Riviere_ 153
THE FORUM, _by H. P. Riviere_ 171
ARCH OF TITUS, _by H. P. Riviere_ 209
SANTA MARIA MAGGIORE, _by H. P. Riviere_ 247
ARCH OF DRUSUS (1860), _by H. P. Riviere_ 267
ISLAND ON TIBER, _by H. P. Riviere_ 287
THE CAPITOL, _by J. Pennell_ 317
PORTA MAGGIORE, _by H. P. Riviere_ 327
IN THE CAMPAGNA (1860), _by H. P. Riviere_ 347
ST. PETER'S AND THE CASTLE OF ST. ANGELO, _by H. P. Riviere_ 367
APPROACH TO THE CAPITOL (1860), _by H. P. Riviere_ 387
THEATRE OF MARCELLUS, _by J. Pennell_ 407
AQUA FELICE, _by H. P. Riviere_ 463
THE TARPEIAN ROCK, _by J. Pennell_ 481
ANCIENT, MEDIÆVAL, AND MODERN ROME, _by J. Pennell_ 503
MODERN ROME: SHELLEY'S TOMB, _by J. Pennell_ 519
FOUNTAIN OF TREVI, _by H. P. Riviere_ 527
SANTA MARIA DEL POPOLO, _by H. P. Riviere_ 547
PIAZZA COLONNA, _by J. Pennell_ 565
OLD ST. PETER'S, _from the engraving by Campini_ 585
MODERN ROME: THE GRAVE OF KEATS, _by J. Pennell_ 593
ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT.
THE COLOSSEUM, _by J. Pennell_ 1
THE PALATINE, FROM THE AVENTINE, _by J. Pennell_ 13
THE RIPETTA, _by J. Pennell_ 14
ON THE PALATINE, _by J. Pennell_ 27
THE WALLS BY ST. JOHN LATERAN, _by J. Pennell_ 29
THE TEMPLE OF VESTA, _by J. Pennell_ 42
CHURCHES ON THE AVENTINE, _by J. Pennell_ 43
THE STEPS OF THE CAPITOL, _by J. Pennell_ 51
THE LATERAN FROM THE AVENTINE, _by J. Pennell_ 64
PORTICO OF OCTAVIA, _by J. Pennell_ 65
TRINITA DE' MONTI, _by J. Pennell_ 76
FROM THE AVENTINE, _by J. Pennell_ 87
THE CAPITOL FROM THE PALATINE, _by J. Pennell_ 89
SAN BARTOLOMMEO, _by J. Pennell_ 97
ST. PETER'S, FROM THE JANICULUM, _by J. Pennell_ 103
ST. PETER'S, FROM THE PINCIO, _by J. Pennell_ 107
PORTA SAN PAOLA, _by J. Pennell_ 115
THE STEPS OF SAN GREGORIO, _by J. Pennell_ 119
VILLA DE' MEDICI, _by J. Pennell_ 133
SAN GREGORIO MAGNO, AND ST. JOHN AND ST. PAUL, _by J.
Pennell_ 145
THE PIAZZA DEL POPOLO, _by J. Pennell_ 157
MONTE PINCIO, FROM THE PIAZZA DEL POPOLO, _by J. Pennell_ 167
PONTE MOLLE, _by J. Pennell_ 180
THE PALATINE, _by J. Pennell_ 181
PYRAMID OF CAIUS CESTIUS, _by J. Pennell_ 197
TRINITA DE' MONTI, _by J. Pennell_ 207
THE VILLA BORGHESE, _by J. Pennell_ 220
WHERE THE GHETTO STOOD, _by J. Pennell_ 228
FROM SAN GREGORIO MAGNO, _by J. Pennell_ 230
IN THE VILLA BORGHESE, _by J. Pennell_ 306
THE FOUNTAIN OF THE TORTOISE, _by J. Pennell_ 307
ALL THAT IS LEFT OF THE GHETTO, _by J. Pennell_ 377
ON THE TIBER, _by J. Pennell_ 381
ON THE PINCIO, _by J. Pennell_ 402
THE LUNGARA, _by J. Pennell_ 428
PORTA DEL POPOLO (FLAMINIAN GATE), _by J. Pennell_ 459
THEATRE OF MARCELLUS, _by J. Pennell_ 460
THE BORGHESE GARDENS, _by J. Pennell_ 486
TOMB OF CECILIA METELLA, _by J. Pennell_ 493
LETTER WRITER, _by J. Pennell_ 510
PIAZZA DEL POPOLO, _by J. Pennell_ 513
ON THE PINCIO, _by J. Pennell_ 533
IN THE CORSO: CHURCH DOORS, _by J. Pennell_ 542
MODERN DEGRADATION OF A PALACE, _by J. Pennell_ 552
FOUNTAIN OF TREVI, _by J. Pennell_ 581
A BRIC-A-BRAC SHOP, _by J. Pennell_ 600
BOOK I.
HONOURABLE WOMEN NOT A FEW.
[Illustration: THE COLOSSEUM.]
BOOK I.
HONOURABLE WOMEN NOT A FEW.
CHAPTER I.
ROME IN THE FOURTH CENTURY.
There is no place in the world of which it is less necessary to
attempt description (or of which so many descriptions have been
attempted) than the once capital of that world, the supreme and
eternal city, the seat of empire, the home of the conqueror, the
greatest human centre of power and influence which our race has ever
known. Its history is unique and its position. Twice over in
circumstances and by means as different as can be imagined it has
conquered and held subject the world. All that was known to man in
their age gave tribute and acknowledgment to the Cæsars; and an
ever-widening circle, taking in countries and races unknown to the
Cæsars, have looked to the spiritual sovereigns who succeeded them as
to the first and highest of authorities on earth. The reader knows, or
at least is assisted on all hands to have some idea and conception of
the classical city--to be citizens of which was the aim of the whole
world's ambition, and whose institutions and laws, and even its
architecture and domestic customs, were the only rule of
civilisation--with its noble and grandiose edifices, its splendid
streets, the magnificence and largeness of its life; while on the
other hand most people are able to form some idea of what was the Rome
of the Popes, the superb yet squalid mediæval city with its great
palaces and its dens of poverty, and that conjunction of exuberance
and want which does not strike the eye while the bulk of a population
remains in a state of slavery. But there is a period between, which
has not attracted much attention from English writers, and which the
reader passes by as a time in which there is little desirable to dwell
upon, though it is in reality the moment of transition when the old is
about to be replaced by the new, and when already the energy and
enthusiasm of a new influence is making its appearance among the
tragic dregs and abysses of the past. An ancient civilisation dying in
the impotence of luxury and wealth from which all active power or
influence over the world had departed, and a new and profound internal
revolt, breaking up its false calm from within, before the raging
forces of another rising power had yet begun to thunder at its gates
without--form however a spectacle full of interest, especially when
the scene of so many conflicts is traversed and lighted up by the most
lifelike figures, and has left its record, both of good and evil, in
authentic and detailed chronicles, full of individual character and
life, in which the men and women of the age stand before us, occupied
and surrounded by circumstances which are very different from our
own, yet linked to us by that unfailing unity of human life and
feeling which makes the farthest off foreigner a brother, and the most
distant of our primeval predecessors like a neighbour of to-day.
The circumstances of Rome in the middle and end of the fourth century
were singular in every point of view. With all its prestige and all
its memories, it was a city from which power and the dominant forces
of life had faded. The body was there, the great town with its high
places made to give law and judgment to the world, even the officials
and executors of the codes which had dispensed justice throughout the
universe; but the spirit of dominion and empire had passed away. A
great aristocracy, accustomed to the first place everywhere, full of
wealth, full of leisure, remained; but with nothing to do to justify
this greatness, nothing but luxury, the prize and accompaniment of it,
now turned into its sole object and meaning. The patrician class had
grown by use, by the high capability to fill every post and lead every
expedition which they had constantly shown, which was their original
cause and the reason of their existence, into a position of unusual
superiority and splendour. But that reason had died away, the empire
had departed from them, the world had a new centre: and the sons of
the men who had conducted all the immense enterprises of Rome were
left behind with the burden of their great names, and the weight of
their great wealth, and nothing to do but to enjoy and amuse
themselves: no vocations to fulfil, no important public functions to
occupy their time and their powers. Such a position is perhaps the
most dreadful that can come to any class in the history of a nation.
Great and irresponsible wealth, the supremacy of high place, without
those bonds of practical affairs which, in the case of all
rulers--even of estates or of factories--preserve the equilibrium of
humanity, are instruments of degradation rather than of elevation. To
have something to do for it, something to do with it, is the
condition which alone makes boundless wealth wholesome. And this had
altogether failed in the imperial city. Pleasure and display had taken
the place of work and duty. Rome had no longer any imperial affairs in
hand. Her day was over: the absence of a court and all its intrigues
might have been little loss to any community--but that those threads
of universal dominion which had hitherto occupied them had been
transferred to other hands, and that all the struggles, the great
questions, the causes, the pleas, the ordinances of the world were now
decided and given forth at Constantinople, was ruin to the once
masters of the world. It was worse than destruction, a more dreadful
overthrow than anything that the Goths and barbarians could bring--not
death which brings a satisfaction of all necessities in making an end
of them--but that death in life which fills men's blood with cold.
The pictures left us of this condition of affairs do indeed chill the
blood. It is natural that there should be a certain amount of
exaggeration in them. We read daily in our own contemporary annals,
records of society of which we are perfectly competent to judge, that
though true to fact in many points, they give a picture too dark in
all its shadows, too garish in its lights, to afford a just view of
the state of any existing condition of things. Contemporaries know how
much to receive and how much to reject, and are apt to smile at the
possibility of any permanent impression upon the face of history being
made by lights and darks beyond the habit of nature. But yet when
every allowance has been made, the contemporary pictures of Rome at
this unhappy period leave an impression on the mind which is not
contradicted but supported and enforced by the incidents of the time
and the course of history. The populace, which had for ages been fed
and nourished upon the bread of public doles and those entertainments
of ferocious gaiety which deadened every higher sense, had sunk into
complete debasement. Honest work and honest purpose, or any hope of
improving their own position, elevating themselves or training their
children, do not seem to have existed among them. A half-ludicrous
detail, which reminds us that the true Roman had always a trifle of
pedantry in his pride, is noted with disgust and disdain even by
serious writers--which is that the common people bore no longer their
proper names, but were known among each other by nicknames, such as
those of Cabbage-eaters, Sausage-mongers, and other coarse familiar
vulgarisms. This might be pardoned to the crowd which spent its idle
days at the circus or spectacle, and its nights on the benches in the
Colosseum or in the porch of a palace; but it is difficult to
exaggerate the debasement of a populace which lived for amusement
alone, picking up the miserable morsels which kept it alive from any
chance or tainted source, without work to do or hope of amelioration.
They formed the shouting, hoarse accompaniment of every pageant, they
swarmed on the lower seats of every amphitheatre, howling much
criticism as well as boisterous applause, and keeping in fear, and
disgusted yet forced compliance with their coarse exactions, the
players and showmen who supplied their lives with an object. According
to all the representations that have reached us, nothing more degraded
than this populace--encumbering every portico and marble stair,
swarming over the benches of the Colosseum, basking in filth and
idleness in the brilliant sun of Rome, or seeking, among the empty
glories of a triumphal age gone by, a lazy shelter from it--has ever
been known.
The higher classes suffered in their way as profoundly, and with a
deeper consciousness, from the same debasing influences of stagnation.
The descriptions of their useless life of luxury are almost too
extravagant to quote. "A loose silken robe," says the critic and
historian of the time, Ammianus Marcellinus, speaking of a Roman
noble,--"for a toga of the lightest tissue would have been too heavy
for him--linen so transparent that the air blew through it, fans and
parasols to protect him from the light, a troop of eunuchs always
round him." This was the appearance and costume of a son of the great
and famous senators of Rome. "When he was not at the bath, or at the
circus to maintain the cause of some charioteer, or to inspect some
new horses, he lay half asleep upon a luxurious couch in great rooms
paved with marble, panelled with mosaic." The luxurious heat implied,
which makes the freshness of the marble, the thinness of the linen, so
desirable, as in a picture of Mr. Alma Tadema's, bids us at the same
time pause in receiving the whole of this description as
unquestionable; for Rome has its seasons in which vast chambers paved
with marble are no longer agreeable, though the manners and utterances
of the race still tend to a complete ignoring of this other side of
the picture: but yet no doubt its general features are true.
When this Sybarite went out it was upon a lofty chariot, where he
reclined negligently, showing off himself, his curled and perfumed
locks, his robes, with their wonderful embroideries and tissues of
silk and gold, to the admiration of the world; his horses' harness
were covered with ornaments of gold, his coachman armed with a golden
wand instead of a whip, and the whole equipage followed by a
procession of attendants, slaves, freedmen, eunuchs, down to the
knaves of the kitchen, the hewers of wood and drawers of water, to
give importance to the retinue, which pushed along through the streets
with all the brutality which is the reverse side of senseless display,
pushing citizens and passers-by out of the way. The dinner parties of
the evening were equally childish in their extravagance: the tables
covered with strange dishes, monsters of the sea and of the mountains,
fishes and birds of unknown kinds and unequalled size. The latter
seems to have been a special subject of pride, for we are told of the
servants bringing scales to weigh them, and notaries crowding round
with their tablets and styles to record the weight. After the feast
came a "hydraulic organ," and other instruments of corresponding
magnitude, to fill the great hall with resounding music, and
pantomimical plays and dances to enliven the dulness of the luxurious
spectators on their couches--"women with long hair, who might have
married and given subjects to the state," were thus employed, to the
indignation of the critic.
This chronicler of folly and bad manners would not be human if he
omitted the noble woman of Rome from his picture. Her rooms full of
obsequious attendants, slaves, and eunuchs, half of her time was
occupied by the monstrous toilette which annulled all natural charms
to give to the Society beauty a fictitious and artificial display of
red and white, of painted eyelids, tortured hair, and extravagant
dress. An authority still more trenchant than the heathen historian,
Jerome, describes even one of the noble ladies who headed the
Christian society of Rome as spending most of the day before the
mirror. Like the ladies of Venice in a later age, these women, laden
with ornaments, attired in cloth of gold, and with shoes that crackled
under their feet with the stiffness of metallic decorations, were
almost incapacitated from walking, even with the support of their
attendants; and a life so accoutred was naturally spent in the display
of the charms and wealth thus painfully set forth.
The fairer side of the picture, the revolt of the higher nature from
such a life, brings us into the very heart of this society: and
nothing can be more curious than the gradual penetration of a
different and indeed sharply contrary sentiment, the impulse of
asceticism and the rudest personal self-deprivation, amid a community
spoilt by such a training, yet not incapable of disgust and impatience
with the very luxury which had seemed essential to its being. The
picturesqueness and attraction of the picture lies here, as in so many
cases, chiefly on the women's side.
It is necessary to note, however, the curious mixture which existed in
this Roman society, where Christianity as a system was already strong,
and the high officials of the Church were beginning to take gradually
and by slow degrees the places abandoned by the functionaries of the
empire. Though the hierarchy was already established, and the Bishop
of Rome had assumed a special importance in the Church, Paganism still
held in the high places that sway of the old economy giving place to
the new, which is at once so desperate and so nerveless--impotence and
bitterness mingling with the false tolerance of cynicism. The worship
of the gods had dropped into a survival of certain habits of mind and
life, to which some clung with the angry revulsion of terror against a
new revolutionary power at first despised: and some held with the
loose grasp of an imaginative and poetical system, and some with a
sense of the intellectual superiority of art and philosophy over the
arguments and motives that moved the crowd. Life had ebbed away from
these religions of the past. The fictitious attempt of Julian to
re-establish the worship of the gods, and bring new blood into the
exhausted veins of the mythological system, had in reality given the
last proof of its extinction as a power in the world: but still it
remained lingering out its last, holding a place, sometimes dignified
by a gleam of noble manners and the graces of intellectual life--and
often, it must be allowed, justified by the failure of the Church to
embody that purity and elevation which its doctrines, but scarcely its
morals or life, professed. Thus the faith in Christ, often real, but
very faulty--and the faith in Apollo, almost always fictitious, but
sometimes dignified and superior--existed side by side. The father
might hold the latter with a superb indifference to its rites, and a
contemptuous tolerance for its opponents, while the mother held the
first with occasional hot impulses of devotion, and performances of
penance for the pardon of those worldly amusements and dissipations to
which she returned with all the more zest when her vigils and prayers
were over.
This conjunction of two systems so opposite in every impulse,
proceeding from foundations so absolutely contrary to each other,
could not fail to have an extraordinary effect upon the minds of the
generations moved by it, and affords, I think, an explanation of some
events very difficult to explain on ordinary principles, and
particularly the abandonment of what would appear the most
unquestionable duties, by some of the personages, especially the women
whose histories and manners fill this chapter of the great records of
Rome. Some of them deserted their children to bury themselves in the
deserts, to withdraw to the mountains, placing leagues of land and sea
between themselves and their dearest duties--why? the reader asks. At
the bidding of a priest, at the selfish impulse of that desire to save
their own souls, which in our own day at least has come to mean a
degrading motive--is the general answer. It would not be difficult,
however, to paint on the other side a picture of the struggle with the
authorities of her family for the training of a son, for the marriage
of a daughter, from which a woman might shrink with a sense of
impotence, knowing the prestige of the noble guardian against whom she
would have to contend, and all the forces of family pride, of
tradition and use and wont, that would be arrayed against her. Better
perhaps, the mother might think, to abandon that warfare, to leave the
conflict for which she was not strong enough, than to lose the love of
her child as well, and become to him the emblem of an opposing faction
attempting to turn him from those delights of youth which the
hereditary authority of his house encouraged instead of opposing. It
is difficult perhaps for the historians to take such motives into
consideration, but I think the student of human nature may feel them
to be worth a thought, and receive them as some justification, or at
least apology, for the actions of some of the Roman women who fill the
story of the time.
Unfortunately it is not possible to leave out the Church in Rome when
we collect the details of depravity and folly in Society. One cannot
but feel how robust is the faith which goes back to these ages for
guidance and example when one sees the image in St. Jerome's pages of
a period so early in the history of Christianity. "Could ye not watch
with me one hour?" our Lord said to the chosen disciples, His nearest
friends and followers, in the moment of His own exceeding anguish,
with a reproach so sorrowful, yet so conscious of the weakness of
humanity, that it silences every excuse. We may say, for a poor four
hundred years could not the Church keep the impress of His teaching,
the reality of the faith of those who had themselves fallen and
fainted, yet found grace to live and die for their Master? But four
centuries are a long time, and men are but men even with the
inheritance of Christians. They belonged to their race, their age, and
the manifold influences which modify in the crowd everything it
believes or wishes. And they were exposed to many temptations which
were doubly strong in that world to which by birth and training they
belonged. How is an ordinary man to despise wealth in the midst of a
society corrupted by it, and in which it is supreme? how learn to be
indifferent to rank and prestige in a city where without these every
other claim was trampled under foot? "The virtues of the primitive
Church," says Villemain of a still later period, "had been under the
guard of poverty and persecution: they were weak in success and
triumph. Enthusiasm became less pure, the rules of life less severe.
In the always increasing crowd of proselytes were many unworthy
persons, who turned to Christianity for reasons of ambition and
self-interest, to make way at Court, to appear faithful to the
emperor. The Church, enriched at once by the spoil of the temples and
the offerings of the Christian crowd, began to clothe itself in
profane magnificence." Those who attained the higher clerical honours
were sure, according to the evidence of Ammianus, "of being enriched
by the offerings of the Roman ladies, and drove forth like noblemen in
lofty chariots, clothed magnificently, and sat down at tables worthy
of kings." The Church, endowed in an earlier period by converts, who
offered sometimes all their living for the sustenance of the community
which gave them home and refuge, had continued to receive the gifts of
the pious after the rules of ordinary life regained their force; and
now when she had yielded to a great extent to the prevailing
temptations of the age, found a large means of endowment in the gifts
of deathbed repentance and the weakness of dying penitents, of which
she was reputed to take large advantage: wealth grew within her
borders, and luxury with it, according to the example of surrounding
society. It is Jerome himself who reports the saying of one of the
highest of Roman officials to Bishop Damasus. "If you will undertake
to make me Bishop of Rome, I will be a Christian to-morrow." Not even
the highest place in the Government was so valuable and so great. It
is Jerome also who traces for us--the fierce indignation of his
natural temper, mingling with an involuntary perception of the
ludicrous side of the picture--a popular young priest of his time,
whose greatest solicitude was to have perfumed robes, a well fitting
shoe, hair beautifully curled, and fingers glittering with jewels, and
who walked on tip-toe lest he should soil his feet.
"What are these men? To those who see them pass they are
more like bridegrooms than priests. Some among them devote
their life and energies to the single object of knowing the
names, the houses, the habits, the disposition of all the
ladies in Rome. I will sketch for you, dear Eustochium, in
a few lines, the day's work of one of them, great in the
arts of which I speak, that by means of the master you may
the more easily recognise his disciples.
"Our hero rises with the sun: he regulates the order of his
visits, studies the shortest ways, and arrives before he is
wanted, almost before his friends are awake. If he
perceives anything that strikes his fancy, a pretty piece
of furniture or an elegant marble, he gazes at it, praises
it, turns it over in his hands, and grieves that he has not
one like it--thus extorting rather than obtaining the
object of his desires; for what woman would not hesitate to
offend the universal gossip of the town? Temperance,
modesty (_castitas_), and fasting are his sworn enemies. He
smells out a feast and loves savoury meats.
"Wherever one goes one is sure to meet him; he is always
there before you. He knows all the news, proclaims it in an
authoritative tone, and is better informed than any one
else can be. The horses which carry him to the four
quarters of Rome in pursuit of this honest task are the
finest you can see anywhere; you would say he was the
brother of that King of Thrace known in story by the speed
of his coursers.
"This man," adds the implacable satirist in another letter,
"was born in the deepest poverty, brought up under the
thatch of a peasant's cottage, with scarcely enough of
black bread and millet to satisfy the cravings of his
appetite; yet now he is fastidious and hard to please,
disdaining honey and the finest flour. An expert in the
science of the table, he knows every kind of fish by name,
and whence come the best oysters, and what district
produces the birds of finest savour. He cares only for what
is rare and unwholesome. In another kind of vice he is not
less remarkable; his mania is to lie in wait for old men
and women without children. He besieges their beds when
they are ill, serves them in the most disgusting offices,
more humble and servile than any nurse. When the doctor
enters he trembles, asking with a faltering voice how the
patient is, if there is any hope of saving him. If there is
any hope, if the disease is cured, the priest disappears
with regrets for his loss of time, cursing the wretched old
man who insists on living to be as old as Methusalem."
The last accusation, which has been the reproach of the Church in many
different ages, had just been specially condemned by a law of the
Emperor Valentinian I., declaring null and void all legacies made to
priests, a law which called forth Jerome's furious denunciation, not
of itself, but of the abuse which called it forth. This was a graver
matter than the onslaught upon the curled darlings of the priesthood,
more like bridegrooms than priests, who carried the news from boudoir
to boudoir, and laid their entertainers under contribution for the
bibelots and ancient bric-a-brac which their hearts desired. Thus
wherever the eye turned there was nothing but luxury and the love of
luxury, foolish display, extravagance and emulation in all the arts of
prodigality, a life without gravity, without serious occupation, with
nothing in it to justify the existence of those human creatures
standing between earth and heaven, and capable of so many better
things. The revulsion, a revulsion inspired by disgust and not without
extravagance in its new way, was sure to come.
[Illustration: THE PALATINE, FROM THE AVENTINE.]
[Illustration: THE RIPETTA.]
CHAPTER II.
THE PALACE ON THE AVENTINE.
The strong recoil of human nature from those fatal elements which time
after time have threatened the destruction of all society is one of
the noblest things in history, as it is one of the most divine in
life. There are evidences that it exists even in the most wicked
individuals, and it very evidently comes uppermost in every
commonwealth from century to century to save again and again from
utter debasement a community or a nation. When depravity becomes the
rule instead of the exception, and sober principle appears on the
point of yielding altogether to the whirl of folly or the thirst of
self-indulgence, then it may always be expected that some ember of
divine indignation, some thrill of high disgust with the miserable
satisfactions of the world will kindle in one quarter or another and
set light to a thousand smouldering tires over all the face of the
earth. It is one of the highest evidences of that charter of our being
which is our most precious possession, the reflection of that image of
God which amid all degradations still holds its place in human nature,
and will not be destroyed. We may mourn indeed that so short a span of
centuries had so effaced the recollection of the brightest light that
ever shone among men, as to make the extravagance of a human revulsion
and revolution necessary in order to preserve and restore the better
life of Christendom. At the same time it is our salvation as a race
that such revolutions, however imperfect they may be in themselves,
are sure to come.
This revulsion from vice, degradation, and evil of every kind, public
and personal, had already come with the utmost excess of
self-punishment and austerity in the East, where already the deserts
were mined with caverns and holes in the sand, to which hermits and
coenobites, the one class scarcely less exalted in religious passion
and suffering than the other, had escaped from the current of evil
which they did not feel themselves capable of facing, and lived and
starved and agonised for the salvation of their own souls and for a
world lying in wickedness. The fame of the Thebaid and its saints and
martyrs, slowly making itself known through the great distances and
silences, had already breathed over the world, when Athanasius, driven
by persecution from his see and his country, came to Rome, accompanied
by two of the monks whose character was scarcely understood as yet in
the West, and bringing with him his own book, the life of St. Antony
of the desert, a work which had as great an effect in that time as the
most popular of publications, spread over the world in thousands of
copies, could have now. It puzzles the modern reader to think how a
book should thus have moved the world and revolutionised hundreds of
lives, while it existed only in manuscript and every example had to be
carefully and tediously copied before it could touch even those who
were wealthy enough to secure themselves such a luxury. What readings
in common, what earnest circles of auditors, what rapt intense hanging
upon the lips of the reader, there must have been before any work,
even the most sacred, penetrated to the crowd!--but to us no doubt the
process seems more slow and difficult than it really was when scribes
were to be found everywhere, and manuscripts were treated with
reverence and respect. When Athanasius found refuge in Rome, which was
during the pontificate, or rather--for the full papal authority had as
yet been claimed by no one--the primacy--of Liberius, and about the
year 341, he was received by all that was best in Rome with great
hospitality and sympathy. Rome so far as it was Christian was entirely
orthodox, the Arian heresy having gained no part of the Christian
society there--and a man of genius and imposing character, who brought
into that stagnant atmosphere the breath of a larger world, who had
shared the councils of the emperor and lived in the cells of Egypt--an
orator, a traveller, an exile, with every kind of interest attaching
to him, was such a visitor as seldom appeared in the city deserted by
empire. Something like the man who nine centuries later went about the
Italian streets with the signs upon him of one who had been through
heaven and hell, the Eastern bishop must have appeared to the languid
citizens, with the brown of the desert still on his cheeks, yet
something of the air of a courtly prelate, a friend of princes; while
his attendants, one with all the wildness of a hermit from the desert
in his eyes and aspect, in the unfamiliar robe and cowl--and the other
mild and young like the ideal youth, shy and simple as a girl--were
wonderful apparitions in the fatigued and _blasé_ society, which
longed above everything for something new, something real, among all
the mocks and shows of their impotent life.
One of the houses in which Athanasius and his monks were most welcome
was the palace of a noble widow, Albina, who lived the large and
luxurious life of her class in the perfect freedom of a Roman matron,
Christian, yet with no idea in her mind of retirement from the world,
or renunciation of its pleasures. A woman of a more or less
instructive mind and lively intelligence, she received with the
greatest interest and pleasure these strangers who had so much to
tell, the great bishop flying from his enemies, the monks from the
desert. That she and her circle gathered round him with that rapt and
flattering attention which not the most abstracted saint any more than
the sternest general can resist, is evident from the story, and it
throws a gleam of softer light upon the impassioned theologian who
stood fast, "I, Athanasius, against the world" for that mysterious
splendour of the Trinity, against which the heretical East had risen.
In the Roman lady's withdrawingroom, in his dark and flowing Eastern
robes, we find him amid the eager questionings of the women,
describing to them the strange life of the desert which it was such a
wonder to hear of--the evensong that rose as from every crevice of the
earth, while the Egyptian after-glow burned in one great circle of
colour round the vast globe of sky, diffusing an illumination weird
and mystic over the fantastic rocks and dark openings where the
singers lived unseen. What a picture to be set before that soft, eager
circle, half rising from silken couches, clothed with tissues of gold,
blazing with jewels, their delicate cheeks glowing in artificial red
and white, their crisped and curled tresses surmounted by the
fantastic towering headdress which weighed them down!
Among the ladies was the child of the house, the little girl who was
her mother's excuse for retaining the freedom of her widowhood,
Marcella: a thoughtful and pensive child, devouring all these
wonderful tales, listening to everything and laying up a store of
silent resolutions and fancies in her heart. Her elder sister Asella
would seem to have already secluded herself in precocious devotion
from the family, or at least is not referred to. The story which
touched the general mind of the time with so strange and strong an
enthusiasm, fell into the virgin soil of this young spirit like the
seed of a new life. But the little Roman maiden was no ascetic. She
had evidently no impulse, as some young devotees have had, to set out
barefoot in search of suffering. When Athanasius left Rome, he left in
the house which had received him so kindly his life of St. Antony, the
first copy which had been seen in the Western world. This manuscript,
written perhaps by the hand of one of those wonderful monks, the
strangest figures in her luxurious world whom Marcella knew, became
the treasure of her youth. Such a present, at such a time, was enough
to occupy the visionary silence of a girl's life, often so full of
dreams unknown and unsearchable even to her nearest surroundings. She
went through however the usual routine of a young lady's life in Rome.
Madame Albina the mother, though full of interest and curiosity in
respect to all things intellectual and Christian, held still more
dearly a mother's natural desire to see her only remaining child nobly
married and established in the splendour and eminence to which she was
born. We are told that Marcella grew up to be one of the beauties of
Rome, but as this is an inalienable qualification of all these
beautiful souls, it is not necessary to believe that the "insignem
decorem corporis" meant any extraordinary distinction. She carried out
at all events her natural fate and married a rich and noble husband,
of whom however we know no details, except that he died some months
after, leaving her without child or tie to the ordinary life of the
world, in all the freedom of widowhood, at a very early age.
Thus placed in full command of her fate, she never seems to have
hesitated as to what she should do with herself. She was, as a matter
of course, assailed by many new suitors, among whom her historian, who
is no other than St. Jerome himself, makes special mention of the
exceptionally wealthy Cerealis ("whose name is great among the
consuls"), and who was so splendid a suitor that the fact that he was
old scarcely seems to have told against him. Marcella's refusal of
this great match and of all the others offered to her, offended and
alienated her friends and even her mother, and there followed a moment
of pain and perplexity in her life. She is said to have made a
sacrifice of a part of her possessions to relatives to whom, failing
herself, it fell to keep up the continuance of the family name, hoping
thus to secure their tolerance. And she acquired the reputation of an
eccentric, and probably of a _poseuse_, so general in all times when a
young woman forsakes the beaten way, as she had done by giving up the
ridiculous fashions and toilettes of the time, putting aside the rouge
and antimony, the disabling splendour of cloth of gold, and assuming a
simple dress of a dark colour, a thing which shocked her generation
profoundly. The gossip rose and flew from mouth to mouth among the
marble salons where the Roman ladies languished for a new subject, or
in the ante-rooms, where young priests and deacons awaited or
forestalled the awakening of their patronesses. It might be the Hôtel
Rambouillet of which we are reading, and a fine lady taking refuge at
Port Royal who was being discussed and torn to pieces in those antique
palaces. What was the meaning that lay beneath that brown gown? Was it
some unavowed disappointment, or, more exciting still, some secret
intrigue, some low-placed love which she dared not acknowledge?
Withdrawn into a villa had she, into the solitude of a suburban
garden, hid from every eye? and who then was the companion of
Marcella's solitude? The ladies who discussed her had small faith in
austerities, nor in the desire of a young and attractive woman to live
altogether alone.
It is very likely that Marcella herself, as well as her critics, soon
began to feel that the mock desert into which she had made the gardens
of her villa was indeed a fictitious way of living the holy life, and
the calumny was more ready and likely to take hold of this artificial
retirement, than of a course of existence led within sight of the
world. She finally took a wiser and more reasonable way. Her natural
home was a palace upon the Aventine to which she returned,
consecrating a portion of it to pious uses, a chapel for common
worship and much accommodation for the friends of similar views and
purposes who immediately began to gather about her. It is evident that
there were already many of these women in the best society of Rome. A
lively sentiment of feminine society, of the multiplied and endless
talks, consultations, speculations, of a community of women, open to
every pleasant curiosity and quick to every new interest, rises
immediately before us in that first settlement of monasticism--or, as
the ecclesiastical historians call it, the first convent of Rome,
before our eyes. It was not a convent after all so much as a large and
hospitable feminine house, possessing the great luxury of beautiful
rooms and furniture, and the liberal ways of a large and wealthy
family, with everything that was most elegant, most cultured, most
elevated, as well as most devout and pious. The "Souls," to use our
own jargon of the moment, would seem indeed to have been more truly
represented there than the Sisters of our modern understanding, though
we may acknowledge that there are few communities of Sisters in which
this element does not more or less flourish. Christian ladies who were
touched like herself with the desire of a truer and purer life,
gathered about her, as did the French ladies about Port Royal, and
women of the same class everywhere, wherever a woman of influential
character leads the way.
The character and position of these ladies was not perhaps so much
different as we might suppose from those of the court of Louis XIV. or
any other historical period in which great luxuries and much
dissipation had sickened the heart of all that was good and noble. Yet
there were very special characteristics in their lot. Some of them
were the wives of pagan officials of the empire, holding a sometimes
devious and always agitated course through the troubles of a divided
household: and there were many young widows perplexed with projects of
remarriage, of whom some would be tempted by the prospects of a
triumphant re-entry into the full enjoyments of life, although a
larger number were probably resistant and alarmed, anxious to retain
their freedom, or to devote themselves as Marcella had done to a
higher life. Women of fashion not unwilling to add a devotion _à la
mode_ to their other distractions, women of intellectual aspirations,
lovers of the higher education, seekers after a society altogether
brilliant and new, without any special emotions of religious feeling,
no doubt filled up the ranks. "A society," says Thierry, in his _Life
of Jerome_, "of rich and influential women, belonging for the great
part to patrician families, thus organised itself, and the oratory on
the Aventine became a seat of lay influence and power which the clergy
themselves were soon compelled to reckon with."
The heads of the community bore the noblest names in Rome, which
however at that period of universal deterioration was not always a
guarantee of noble birth, since the greatest names were sometimes
assumed with the slenderest of claims to their honours. Marcella's
sister, Asella, older than the rest, and a sort of mother among them,
had for a long time before "lived the life" in obscurity and
humbleness, and several others not remarkable in the record, were
prominent associates. The actual members of the community, however,
are not so much remarked or dwelt upon as the visitors who came and
went, not all of them of consistent religious character, ladies of the
great world. One of these, Fabiola, affords an amusing episode in the
graver tale, the contrast of a butterfly of society, a _grande dame_
of fascinating manners, airs, and graces, unfortunate in her husbands,
of whom she had two, one of them divorced--and not quite unwilling to
divorce the second and try her luck again. Another, one of the most
important of all in family and pretensions, and by far the most
important in history of these constant visitors, was Paula, a
descendant (collateral, the link being of the lightest and easiest
kind, as was characteristic of the time) of the great Æmilius Paulus,
the daughter of a distinguished Greek who claimed to be descended from
Agamemnon, and widow of another who claimed Æneas as his ancestor.
These large claims apart, she was certainly a great lady in every
sense of the word, delicate, luxurious, following all the fashions of
the time. She too was a widow, with a family of young daughters, in
that enviable state of freedom which the Roman ladies give every sign
of having used and enjoyed to the utmost, the only condition in which
they were quite at liberty to regulate their own fate. Paula is the
most interesting of the community, as she is the one of whom we know
the most. No fine lady more exquisite, more fastidious, more splendid
than she. Not even her Christianity had beguiled her from the
superlative finery of her Roman habits. She was one of the fine ladies
who could not walk abroad without the support of her servants, nor
scarcely cross the marble floor from one silken couch to another
without tottering, as well she might, under the weight of the heavy
tissues interwoven with gold, of which her robes were made. A widow at
thirty-five, she was still in full possession of the charms of
womanhood, and the sunshine of life (though we are told that her grief
for her husband was profound and sincere)--with her young daughters
growing up round her, more like her sisters than her children, and
sharing every thought. Blæsilla, the eldest, a widow at twenty, was,
like her mother, a Roman exquisite, loving everything that was
beautiful and soft and luxurious. In the affectionate gibes of the
family she is described as spending entire days before her mirror,
giving herself up to all the extravagances of dress and personal
decoration, the tower of curls upon her head, the touch of rouge on
her cheeks. A second daughter, Paulina, was on the eve of marriage
with a young patrician, as noble, as rich, and, as was afterwards
proved, as devoutly Christian as the family into which he married. The
third member of the family, Eustochium, a girl of sixteen, of a
character contrasting strongly with those of her beautiful mother and
sister, a saint from her birth, was the favourite, and almost the
child, of Marcella, instructed by her from her earliest years, and had
already fixed her choice upon a monastic life, and would seem to have
been a resident in the Aventine palace to which the others were such
frequent visitors. Of all this delightful and brilliant party she is
the one born recluse, severe in youthful virtue, untouched by any of
the fascinations of the world. The following very pretty and graphic
story is told of her, in which we have a curious glimpse into the
strangely mixed society of the time.
The family of Paula though Christian, and full of religious fervour,
or at least imbued with the new spirit of revolt against the
corruption of the time, was closely connected with the still existing
pagan society of Rome. Her sister-in-law, sister of her husband and
aunt of her children, was a certain lady named Prætextata, the wife of
Hymettius, a high official under the Emperor Julian the Apostate, both
of them belonging, with something of the fictitious enthusiasm of
their master, to the faith of the old gods. No doubt one of the
severest critics of that society on the Aventine, Prætextata saw with
impatience and wrath, what no doubt she considered the artificial
gravity, inspired by her surroundings, of the young niece who had
already announced her intention never to marry, and to withdraw
altogether from the world. Such resolutions on the part of girls who
know nothing of the world they abandon have exasperated the most
devout of parents, and it was not wonderful if this pagan lady thought
it preposterous. The little plot which she formed against the serious
girl was, however, of the most good-natured and innocent kind. Finding
that words had no effect upon her, the elder lady invited Eustochium
to her house on a visit. The young vestal came all unsuspicious in her
little brown gown, the costume of humility, but had scarcely entered
her aunt's house when she was seized by the caressing and flattering
hands of the attendants, interested in the plot as the favourite maids
of such an establishment would be, who unloosed her long hair and
twisted it into curls and plaits, took away her humble dress, clothed
her in silk and cloth of gold, covered her with ornaments and led her
before the mirror which reflected all these charms, to dazzle her eyes
with the apparition of herself, so different from the schoolroom
figure with which she was acquainted. The little plot was clever as
well as innocent, and might, no doubt, have made a heart of sixteen
beat high. But Eustochium with her Greek name, and her virgin heart,
was the grave girl we all know, the one here and there among the
garden of girls, born to a natural seriousness which is beyond such
temptations. She let them turn her round and round, received sweetly
in her gentle calm the applauses of the collected household, looked at
her image in the mirror as at a picture--and went home again in her
little brown gown with her story to tell, which, no doubt, was an
endless amusement and triumph to the ladies on the Aventine, repeated
to every new-comer with many a laugh at the foolishness of the clever
aunt who had hoped by such means to seduce Eustochium--Eustochium, the
most serious of them all!
Such was the first religious community in Rome. It was the natural
home of Marcella to which her friends gathered, without in most cases
deserting their own palaces, or forsaking their own place in the
world--a centre and home of the heart, where they met constantly, the
residents ever ready to receive, not only their closer associates, but
all the society of Roman ladies, who might be attracted by the higher
aspirations of intellect and piety. Not a stone exists of that noble
mansion now, but it is supposed to have stood close to the existing
church of Sta. Sabina, an unrivalled mount of vision. From that mount
now covered with so many ruins the ladies looked out upon the yet
unbroken splendour of the city, Tiber far below sweeping round under
the walls. Palatinus, with the "white roofs" of that home to which
Horatius looked before he plunged into the yellow river, still stood
intact at their right hand: and, older far, and longer surviving, the
wealth of nature, the glory of the Roman sky and air, the
white-blossomed daphne and the starry myrtle, and those roses which
are as ancient inhabitants of the world as any we know flinging their
glories about the marble balustrades and making the terraces sweet.
There would they walk and talk, the recluses at ease and simple in
their brown gowns, the great ladies uneasy under the weight of their
toilettes, but all eager to hear, to tell, to read the last letter
from the East, from the desert or the cloister, to exchange their
experiences and plan their charities. There is nothing ascetic in the
picture, which is a very different one from that of those austere
solitudes of the desert, which had suggested and inspired it--the lady
Paula tottering in, with a servant on either side to conduct her to
the nearest couch, and young Blæsilla making a brilliant irruption in
all her bravery, with her jewels sparkling and her transparent veil
floating, and her golden heels tapping upon the marble floor. This is
not how we understand the atmosphere of a convent; yet, if fact were
taken into due consideration, the greatest convents have been very
like it, in all ages--the finest ladies having always loved that
intercourse and contrast, half envious of the peace of their
cloistered sisters, half pleased to dazzle them with a splendour which
never could be theirs.
"No fixed rule," says Thierry, in his _Life of St. Jerome_,
"existed in this assembly, where there was so much
individuality, and where monastic life was not even
attempted. They read the Holy Scriptures together, sang
psalms, organised good works, discussed the condition of
the Church, the progress of spiritual life in Italy and in
the provinces, and kept up a correspondence with the
brothers and sisters outside of a more strictly monastic
character. Those of the associates who carried on the
ordinary life of the world came from time to time to
refresh their spirits in these holy meetings, then returned
to their families. Those who were free gave themselves up
to devotional exercises, according to their taste and
inclination, and Marcella retired into her desert. In a
short time these exercises were varied by the pursuit of
knowledge. All Roman ladies of rank knew a little Greek, if
only to be able to say to their favourites, according to
the _mot_ of Juvenal, repeated by a father of the Church,
[Greek: Zôê kai psuchê], my life and my soul: the Christian
ladies studied it better and with a higher motive. Several
later versions of the Old and New Testament were in general
circulation in Italy, differing considerably from each
other, and this very difference interested anxious minds in
referring to the original Greek for the Gospels, and for
the Hebrew books to the Greek of the Septuagint, the
favourite guide of Western translators. The Christian
ladies accordingly set themselves to perfect their
knowledge of Greek, and many, among whom were Marcella and
Paula, added the Hebrew language, in order that they might
sing the psalms in the very words of the prophet-king.
Marcella even became, by intelligent comparison of the
texts, so strong in exegetical knowledge that she was often
consulted by the priests themselves."
It was about the year 380 that this establishment was formed. "The
desert of Marcella" above referred to was, as the reader will
remember, a great garden in a suburb of Rome, which she had pleased
herself by allowing to run wild, and where occasionally this great
Roman lady played at a hermit's life in solitude and abstinence.
Paula's desert, perhaps not so easy a one, was in her own house,
where, besides the three daughters already mentioned, she had a
younger girl Rufina, not yet of an age to show any marked tendencies,
and a small boy Toxotius, her only son, who was jealously looked after
by his pagan relatives, to keep him from being swept away by this tide
of Christianity.
[Illustration: ON THE PALATINE.]
Such was the condition of the circle on the Aventine, when a great
event happened in Rome. Following many struggles and disasters in the
East, chiefly the continually recurring misfortune of a breach of
unity, a diocese here and there exhibiting its freedom by choosing two
bishops representing different parties at the same time, and thus
calling for the exercise of some central authority--Pope Damasus had
called a council in Rome. He was so well qualified to be a judge in
such cases that he had himself won his see at the point of the sword,
after a stoutly contested fight in which much blood was shed, and the
church of S. Lorenzo, the scene of the struggle, was besieged and
taken like a castle. If he had hoped by this means to establish the
universal authority of his see, a pretension as yet undeveloped, it
was immediately forestalled by the Bishop of Constantinople, who at
once called together a rival council in that place. The Council of
Rome, however, is of so much more importance to us that it called into
full light in the Western world the great and remarkable figure of
Jerome: and still more to our record of the Roman ladies of the
Aventine, since it suddenly introduced to them the man whose name is
for ever connected with theirs, who is supposed erroneously, as the
reader will see, to have been the founder of their community, but who
henceforward became its most trusted leader and guide in the spiritual
life.
[Illustration: THE WALLS BY ST. JOHN LATERAN.]
CHAPTER III.
MELANIA.
It may be well, however, before continuing this narrative to tell the
story of another Roman lady, not of their band, nor in any harmony
with them, which had already echoed through the Christian world, a
wild romance of enthusiasm and adventure in which the breach of all
the decorums of life was no less remarkable than the abandonment of
its duties. Some ten years before the formation of Marcella's
religious household (the dates are of the last uncertainty) a young
lady of Rome, of Spanish origin, rich and noble and of the highest
existing rank, found herself suddenly left in the beginning of a
splendid and happy life, in desolation and bereavement. Her husband,
whose name is unrecorded, died early leaving her with three little
children, and shortly after, while yet unrecovered from this crushing
blow, another came upon her in the death of her two eldest children,
one following the other. The young woman, only twenty-three, thus
terribly stricken, seems to have been roused into a fever of
excitement and passion by a series of disasters enough to crush any
spirit. It is recorded of her that she neither wept nor tore her hair,
but advancing towards the crucifix with her arms extended, her head
high, her eyes tearless, and something like a smile upon her lips,
thanked God who had now delivered her from all ties and left her free
to serve Himself. Whether she had previously entertained this desire,
or whether it was only the despair of the distracted mother which
expressed itself in such words, we are not told. In the haste and
restlessness of her anguish she arranged everything for a great
funeral, and placing the three corpses on one bier followed them to
Rome to the family mausoleum alone, holding her infant son, the only
thing left to her, in her arms. The populace of Rome, eager for any
public show, had crowded upon the course of many a triumph, and
watched many a high-placed Cæsar return in victory to the applauding
city, but never had seen such a triumphal procession as this, Death
the Conqueror leading his captives. We are not told whether it was
attended by the overflowing charities, extravagant doles and offerings
to the poor with which other mourners attempted to assuage their
grief, or whether Melania's splendour and solitude of mourning was
unsoftened by any ministrations of charity; but the latter is more in
accordance with the extraordinary fury and passion of grief, as of a
woman injured and outraged by heaven to which she thus called the
attention of the spheres.
The impression made by that funeral splendour and by the sight of the
young woman following tearless and despairing with her one remaining
infant in her arms, had not faded from the minds of the spectators
when it was rumoured through Rome that Melania had abandoned her one
remaining tie to life and gone forth into the outside world no one
knew where, leaving her child so entirely without any arrangement for
its welfare that the official charged with the care of orphans had to
select a guardian for this son of senators and consuls as if he had
been a nameless foundling. What bitterness of soul lay underneath such
an incomprehensible desertion, who could say? It might be a sense of
doom such as overwhelms some sensitive minds, as if everything
belonging to them were fated and nothing left them but the tragic
expedient of Hagar in the desert, "Let me not see the child die."
Perhaps the courage of the heartbroken young woman sank before the
struggle with pagan relations, who would leave no stone unturned to
bring up this last scion of the family in the faith or no-faith of his
ancestors; perhaps she was in reality devoid of those maternal
instincts which make the child set upon the knee the best comforter of
the woman to whom they have brought home her warrior dead. This was
the explanation given by the world which tore the unhappy Melania to
pieces and held her up to universal indignation. Not even the
Christians already touched with the enthusiasm and passion of the
pilgrim and ascetic could justify the sudden and mysterious
disappearance of a woman who still had so strong a natural bond to
keep her in her home. But whatever the character of Melania might be,
whether destitute of tenderness, or only distracted by grief and
bereavement, and hastening to take her fatal shadow away from the
cradle of her child, she was at least invulnerable to any argument or
persuasion. "God will take care of him better than I can," she said as
she left the infant to his fate. It was probably a better one than had
he been the charge of this apparently friendless young woman, with her
pagan relations, her uncompromising enthusiasm and self-will, and with
all the risks surrounding her feet which made the path of a young
widow in Rome so full of danger; but it is fortunate for the world
that few mothers are capable of counting those risks or of turning
their backs upon a duty which is usually their best consolation.
There is, however, an interest in the character and proceedings of
such an exceptional woman which has always excited the world, and
which the thoughtful spectator will scarcely dismiss with the common
imputation of simple heartlessness and want of feeling. Melania was a
proud patrician notwithstanding that she flung from her every trace of
earthly rank or wealth, and a high-spirited, high-tempered individual
notwithstanding her subsequent plunge into the most self-abasing
ministrations of charity. And these features of character were not
altered by her sudden renunciation of all things. She went forth a
masterful personage determined, though no doubt unconsciously, to sway
all circumstances to her will, though in the utmost self-denial and
with all the appearances and surroundings of humility. This is a
paradox which meets us on every side, in the records of such
world-abandonment as are familiar in every history of the beginnings
of the monastic system, in which continually both men and women give
up all things while giving up nothing, and carry their individual will
and way through circumstances which seem to preclude the exercise of
either.
The disappearance of Melania made a great sensation in Rome, and no
doubt discouraged Christian zeal and woke doubts in many minds even
while proving to others the height of sacrifice which could be made
for the faith. On the other hand the adversary had boundless occasion
to blaspheme and denounce the doctrines which, as he had some warrant
for saying, thus struck at the very basis of society and weakened
every bond of nature. What more dreadful influence could be than one
which made a woman forsake her child, the infant whom she had carried
in her arms to the great funeral, in the sight of all Rome, the son
of her sorrow? Nobody except a hot-headed enthusiast could take her
part even among her fellow-Christians, nor does it appear that she
sought any support or made any apology for herself. Jerome, then a
young student and scholar from the East, was in Rome, in obscurity,
still a catechumen preparing for his baptism, at the time of Melania's
flight; and though there is no proof that he was even known to her,
and no probability that so unknown a person could have anything to do
with her resolution, or could have influenced her mind, it was
suggested in later times when he was well known, that probably he had
much to do--who can tell if not the most powerful and guilty of
motives?--in determining her flight. Such a vulgar explanation is
always adapted to the humour of the crowd, and gives an easy solution
of the problems which are otherwise so difficult to solve. As a matter
of fact these two personages, not unlike each other in force and
spirit, had much to do with each other, though mostly in a hostile
sense, in the after part of their life.
We find Melania again in Egypt, to which presumably she at once
directed her flight as the headquarters of austere devotion and
self-sacrifice, on leaving Rome--alone so far as appears. This was in
the year 372 (nothing can be more delightful than to encounter from
time to time a date, like an angel, in the vague wilderness of letters
and narratives), when Athanasius the great Bishop was near his end.
The young fugitive, whose arrival in Alexandria would not be attended
by such mystery as shrouded her departure from Rome, was received
kindly by the dying saint, to whom she had probably been known in her
better days, and who in his enthusiasm for the life of monastic
privation and sacrifice probably considered her flight and her
resolution alike inspired by heaven. He gave her, let us hope, his
blessing, and much good counsel--in addition to the sacred sheepskin
which had formed the sole garment of the holy Macarius in his cell in
the desert, which she carried away with her as her most valued
possession. The great Roman lady then pursued her way into the
wilderness, which was indeed a wilderness rather in name than in fact,
being peopled on every side by communities both of men and women,
while in every rocky fissure and cavern were hermits jealously shut
each in his hole, the more inaccessible the better. Nothing can be
more contradictory than the terms used. This desert of solitaries gave
forth the evening hymn over all its extent as if the very sands and
rocks sang, so many were the unseen worshippers. And the traveller
went into the wilderness alone so to speak, in the utmost
self-abnegation and humility, yet attended by an endless retinue of
servants whose attendance was indispensable, if only to convey and
protect the store of provisions and presents which she carried with
her.
The conception of a lonely figure on the edge of a trackless sandy
waste facing all perils, and encountering perhaps after toilsome days
of solitude a still more lonely anchorite in his cell, to give her the
hospitality of a handful of peas, and a shrine of prayer, which is the
natural picture which rises before us--changes greatly when the
details are examined. Melania evidently travelled with a great
caravanserai, with camels laden with grain and every kind of provision
that was necessary to sustain life in those regions. The times were
more troublous even than usual. The death of Athanasius was the signal
for one of those outbursts of persecution which rent the Christian
world in its very earliest ages, and which alas! the Church herself
has never been slow to learn the use of. The underground or overground
population of the Egyptian desert was orthodox; the powers that were,
were Arian; and hermits and coenobites alike were hunted out of
their refuges and dragged before tribunals, where their case was
decided before it was heard and every ferocity used against them. In a
country so rent by the most violent of agitations Melania passed like
an angel of charity. She became the providence of the hunted and
suffering monks. She is said for a short period to have provided for
five thousand in Nitria, which proves that however secret her
disappearance from Rome had been, her address as we should say must
have been well known to her bankers, or their equivalent. Thus it is
evident that a robe of sackcloth need not necessarily imply poverty,
much less humility, and that a woman may ride about on the most sorry
horse (chosen it would seem because it was a more abject thing than
the well-conditioned ass of the East) and yet demean herself like a
princess.
There is one story told of this primitive Lady Bountiful by Palladius
which if it did not recall the action of St. Paul in somewhat similar
circumstances would be highly picturesque. The proconsul in Palestine,
not at all aware who was the pestilent woman who persisted in
supplying and defending the population of the religious which it was
his mission to get rid of--even going so far as to visit and nourish
them in his prisons--had her arrested to answer for her interference.
There is nothing more likely than that Melania remembered the method
adopted by St. Paul to bring his judges to his feet. She sent the
consul a message in which a certain compassionate scorn mingles with
pride. "You esteem me by my present dress," she said, "which it is
quite in my power to change when I will. Take care lest you bring
yourself into trouble by what you do in your ignorance." This incident
happened at Cæsarea, the great city on the Mediterranean shore which
Herod had built, and where the prodigious ruins still lie in sombre
grandeur capable of restoration to the uses of life. The governor of
the Syrian city trembled in his gilded chair. The names which Melania
quoted were enough to unseat him half a dozen times over, though,
truth to tell, they are not very clearly revealed to the distant
student. He hastened to set free the sunburnt pilgrim in her brown
gown, and leave her to her own devices. "One must answer a fool
according to his folly," she said disdainfully, as she accepted her
freedom. This lady's progress through the haunted deserts, her
entrance into town after town, with the shield of rank ready for use
in any emergency, attended by continual supplies from the stewards of
her estates, and the power of shedding abundance round her wherever
she went, could hardly be said to merit the rewards of privation and
austerity even if her delicate feet were encased in rude sandals and
the cloth of gold replaced by a tunic of rough wool.
[Illustration: COLOSSEUM BY MOONLIGHT.
_To face page 36._]
Melania had been, presumably for some time before this incident,
accompanied by a priest named Rufinus, a fellow-countryman,
schoolfellow and dear friend of Jerome, the future Father of the
Church, at this period a young religious adventurer if we may use the
word:--which indeed seems the only description applicable to the bands
of young, devout enthusiasts, who roamed about the world, not bound to
any special duties, supporting themselves one knows not how, aiming at
one knows not what, except some devotion of mystical religious life,
or indefinite Christian service to the world. The object of saving
their souls was perhaps for most the prevailing object, and the
greater part of them had at least passed a year or two in those
Eastern deserts where renunciation of the world had been pushed to its
furthest possibilities. But they were also hungry for learning, for
knowledge, for disciples, and full of that activity of youth which is
bound to go everywhere and see everything whether with possible means
and motives or not. Whatever they were, they were not so far as can be
made out missionaries in any sense of the word. They were received
wherever they went, in devout households here and there, in any of the
early essays at monasteries which existed by bounty and Christian
charity, among the abounding dependents of great houses, or by the
bishop or other ecclesiastical functionary. They were this man's
secretary, that man's tutor--seldom so far as we can see were they
employed as chaplains. Rufinus indeed was a priest, but few of the
others were so, Jerome himself only having consented to be ordained
from courtesy, and in no way fulfilling the duties of the priesthood.
There were, however, many offices no doubt appropriate to them in the
household of a bishop, who was often the distributor of great
charities and the administrator of great possessions. But it is
evident that there were always a number of these scholar-student monks
available to join any travelling party, to serve their patron with
their knowledge of the desert and their general experience of the ways
of the world. "To lead about a sister":--St. Paul perhaps had already
in his time some knowledge of the usefulness of such a functionary,
and of the perfectly legitimate character of his office. Rufinus
joined Melania in this way, to all appearance as the other head of the
expedition, on perfectly equal terms, though it was her purse which
supplied everything necessary. Jerome himself (with a train of
brethren behind him) travelled in the same way with Paula--Oceanus
with Fabiola. Nothing could be more completely in accordance with the
fashion of the time. Perhaps the young men provided for their own
expenses as we say, but the caravan was the lady's and all the immense
and indiscriminate charity which flowed from it.
It is not necessary for us to follow the career of Rufinus any more
than we intend to follow that of Jerome, into the violent controversy
which is the chief link which connects their names, or indeed in any
way except that of their association with the women of our tale.
Rufinus was a Dalmatian from the shores of the Adriatic, learned
enough according to the fashion of his time, though not such a scholar
as Jerome, and apt to despise those elegances of literature which he
was incapable of appreciating. He too, no doubt, like Jerome, had
some following of other men like himself, ready for any adventure, and
glad to make themselves the almoners of Melania and form a portion of
her train. It is a strange conjunction according to our modern ideas,
and no doubt there were vague and flying slanders, such as exist in
all ages, accounting for anything that is unusual or mysterious by the
worse reasons. But it must be remembered that such partnerships were
habitual in those days, permitted by the usage of a time of which
absolute purity was the craze and monomania, if we may so speak, as
well as the ideal: and also that the solitude of those pilgrims was at
all times that of a crowd--the supposed fugitive flying forth alone
being in reality, as has been explained already, accompanied on every
stage of the way by attendants enough to fill her ship and form her
caravan wherever she went.
From Cæsarea, where Melania discomfited the government by her high
rank and connections, it is but a little way to Jerusalem, where the
steps of the party were directed after their prolonged journey through
the desert. It had already become the end of many pilgrimages, the one
place in the world which most attracted the hearts and imaginations of
the devout throughout all the world; and we can well realise the
sensation of the wanderers when they came in sight of that green hill,
dominating the scene of so many tragedies, the still half-ruined but
immortal city of which the very dust was dear to the primitive
Christians. Who that has come suddenly upon that scene in quiet,
without offensive guidance or ciceroneship, has not named to himself
the Mount of Olives with such a thrill of identification as would move
him in scarcely any other landscape in the world? It was still
comparatively virgin soil in the end of the fourth century. The
Empress Helena had been there, making, as we all feel now, but too
easy and too exact discoveries: but the country was unexplored by any
vain searchings of curiosity, and the calm of solitude, as perfect
and far sweeter than amid the sands of the deserts, was still to be
found there. The pilgrims went no further. They chose each their site
upon the soft slope of that hill of divine memories. Rufinus took up
his abode in a rocky cell, Melania probably in some house in the city,
while their monasteries were being built. The great Roman lady with
her faithful stewards, always sending those ever valuable supplies, no
doubt provided for the expenses of both: and soon two communities
arose near each other preserving the fellowship of their founders,
where after some years of travel and movement Melania, with strength
and courage restored, took up her permanent abode.
It is difficult to decide what is meant by sacrifice and
self-abnegation in this world of human subterfuge and self-deception.
It is very likely that Melania, like Paula after her, gave herself to
the most humble menial offices, and did not scorn, great lady as she
was, to bow the haughty head which had made the proconsul of Palestine
tremble, to the modest necessities of primitive life. Perhaps she
cooked the spare food, swept the bare cells with her own hands:
undoubtedly she would superintend the flocks and herds and meagre
fields which kept her community supplied. We know that she rode the
sorriest horse, and wore the roughest gown. These things rank high in
the catalogue of privations, as privations are calculated in the
histories of the saints. And yet it is doubtful how far she is to be
credited, if it were a merit, with any self-sacrifice. She had
attained the full gratification of her own will and way, which is an
advantage not easily or often computed. She had settled herself in the
most interesting spot in the world, in the midst of a landscape which,
notwithstanding all natural aridity and the depressing effects of ruin
everywhere, is yet full of beauty as well as interest. Most of all
perhaps she was in the way of the very best of company, receiving
pilgrims of the highest eminence, bishops, scholars, princes,
sometimes ladies of rank like herself, who were continually coming and
going, bringing the great news of the world from every quarter to the
recluses who thus commanded everything that wealth could supply. One
may be sure that, as Jerome and Paula afterwards spent many a serene
evening in Bethlehem under their trees, Melania and Rufinus would
often sit under those hoary olives doubly grey with age, talking of
all things in heaven and earth, looking across the little valley to
the wall, all the more picturesque that it was broken, and lay here
and there in heaps of ruin, of Jerusalem, and hearing, in the pauses
of their conversation, the tinkling of that little brook which has
seen so many sacred scenes and over which our Lord and His favourite
disciples crossed to Gethsemane, on such a night as that on which His
servants sat and talked of Him. It is true that the accursed Arians,
and grave news of the fight going on between them and the Catholics,
or perhaps the question of Origen's orthodoxy, or how the struggle was
going between Paulinus and Meletius at Antioch, might occupy them more
than those sacred memories. But it is much to be doubted whether any
grandeur of Roman living would have been so much to Melania's mind as
the convent on the Mount of Olives, the stream of distinguished
pilgrims, and the society of her ever devoted companion and friend.
[Illustration: THE TEMPLE OF VESTA.]
[Illustration: CHURCHES ON THE AVENTINE.]
CHAPTER IV.
THE SOCIETY OF MARCELLA.
The council which was held in Rome in 382 with the intention of
deciding the cases of various contending bishops in distant sees,
especially in Antioch where two had been elected for the same seat--a
council scarcely acknowledged even by those on whose behalf it was
held, and not at all by those opposed to them--was chiefly remarkable,
as we have said, from the appearance for the first time, as a marked
and notable personage, of one of the most important, picturesque, and
influential figures of his time--Jerome: a scholar insatiable in
intellectual zeal, who had sought everywhere the best schools of the
time and was learned in all their science: and at the same time a monk
and ascetic fresh from the austerities of the desert and one of those
struggles with the flesh and the imagination which formed the epic of
the solitary. It was not unnatural that the régime of extreme
abstinence combined with utter want of occupation, and the
concentration of all thought upon one's self and one's moods and
conditions of mind, should have awakened all the subtleties of the
imagination, and filled the brooding spirit with dreams of every wild
and extravagant kind; but it would not occur to us now to represent
the stormy passage into a life dedicated to religion as filled with
dancing nymphs and visions of the grossest sensual enjoyment--above
all in the case of such a man as Jerome, whose chief temptations one
would have felt to be of quite another kind. This however was the
fashion of the time, and belonged more or less to the monkish ideal,
which exaggerated the force of all these lower fleshly impulses by way
of enhancing the virtue of him who successfully overcame them. The
early fathers all scourged themselves till they were in danger of
their lives, rolled themselves in the snow, lay on the cold earth, and
lived on a handful of dried grain, perhaps on the grass and wild herbs
to be found in the crevices of the rocks, in order to get the body
into subjection: which might have been more easily done, we should
have supposed, by putting other more wholesome subjects in the place
of these visionary temptations, or filling the vacancy of the hours
with hard work. But the dulness of an English clown or athlete, in
whom muscular exercise extinguishes all visions, would not have been
at all to the mind of a monkish neophyte, to whom the sharpest stings
of penitence and agonies of self-humiliation were necessary, whether
he had done anything to call them forth or not.
Jerome had gone through all these necessary sufferings without sparing
himself a pang. His face pale with fasting, and his body so worn with
penance and privation that it was almost dead, he had yet felt the
fire of earthly passions burning in his soul after the truest orthodox
model. "The sack with which I was covered," he says, "deformed my
members; my skin and flesh were like those of an Ethiop. But in that
vast solitude, burnt up by the blazing sun, all the delights of Rome
appeared before my eyes. Scorpions and wild beasts were my companions,
yet I seemed to hear the choruses of dancing girls."
Finding no succour anywhere, I flung myself at the feet of
Jesus, bathing them with tears, drying them with the hair
of my head. I passed day and night beating my breast, I
banished myself even from my cell, as if it were conscious
of all my evil thoughts; and, rigid against myself,
wandered further into the desert, seeking some deeper cave,
some wilder mountain, some riven rock which I could make
the prison of this miserable flesh, the place of my
prayers.
Sometimes he endeavoured to find refuge in his books, the precious
parchments which he carried with him even in those unlikely regions:
but here another temptation came in. "Unhappy that I am," he cries, "I
fasted yet read Cicero. After spending nights of wakefulness and tears
I found Plautus in my hands." To lay aside dramatist, orator, and
poet, so well known and familiar, and plunge into the imperfectly
known character of the Hebrew which he was learning, the
uncomprehended mysteries and rude style of the prophets, was almost as
terrible as to fling himself fasting on the cold earth and hear the
bones rattle in the skin which barely held them together. Yet
sometimes there were moments of deliverance: sometimes, when all the
tears were shed, gazing up with dry exhausted eyes to the sky blazing
with stars, "I felt myself transported to the midst of the angels, and
full of confidence and joy, lifted up my voice and sang, 'Because of
the savour of thy ointments we will run after thee.'" Thus both were
reconciled, his imagination freed from temptation, and the poetry of
the crabbed books, which were so different from Cicero, made suddenly
clear to his troubled eyes.
This was however but a small part of the training of Jerome. From his
desert, as his spirit calmed, he carried on a great correspondence,
and many of his letters became at once a portion of the literature of
his time. One in particular, an eloquent and oratorical appeal to one
of his friends, the Epistle to Heliodorus, with its elaborate
description of the evils of the world and impassioned call to the
peace of the desert, went through the religious circles of the time
with that wonderful speed and facility of circulation which it is so
difficult to understand, and was read in Marcella's palace on the
Aventine and learnt by heart by some fervent listeners, so precious
were its elaborate sentences held to be. This letter boldly proclaimed
as the highest principle of life the extraordinary step which Melania,
as well as so many other self-devoted persons, had taken--and called
every Christian to the desert, whatever duties or enjoyments might
stand in the way. Perhaps such exhortations are less dangerous than
they seem to be, for the noble ladies who read and admired and learned
by heart these moving appeals do not seem to have been otherwise
affected by them. Like the song of the Ancient Mariner, they have to
be addressed to the predestined, who alone have ears to hear.
Heliodorus, upon whom all that eloquence was poured at first hand,
turned a deaf ear, and lived and died in peace among his own people,
among the lagoons where Venice as yet was not, notwithstanding all his
friend could say.
"What make you in your father's house, oh sluggish soldier?" cried
that eager voice; "where are your ramparts and trenches, under what
tent of skins have you passed the bitter winter? The trumpet of heaven
sounds, and the great Leader comes upon the clouds to overcome the
world. Let the little ones hang upon other necks; let your mother rend
her hair and her garments; let your father stretch himself on the
threshold to prevent you from passing: but arise, come thou! Are you
not pledged to the sacrifice even of father and mother? If you believe
in Christ, fight with me for His name and let the dead bury their
dead." There were many who would dwell upon these entreaties as upon
a noble song rousing the heart and charming the ear, but the balance
of human nature is but rarely disturbed by any such appeal. Even in
that early age we may in the greater number of cases permit it to move
all hearers without any great fears for the issue.
Jerome, however, did not himself remain very long in his desert; he
was invaded in his very cell by the echoes of polemical warfare
drifting in from the world he had left: and was called upon to
pronounce himself for one side or the other, while yet, according to
his own account, unaware what it was all about. He left his retirement
unwillingly after some three years, quoting Virgil as to the barbarity
of the race which refused him the hospitality of a little sand, and
plunged into the fight at Antioch between contending bishops and
parties, the heresy of Apollinaris, and all the rage of religious
polemics. It was probably his intimate acquaintance with all the
questions so strongly contested in the East, and his power of giving
information on points which the Western Council could only know at
second hand, which led him to Rome on the eve of the Council already
referred to, called by Pope Damasus, in 382. The primary object of
this Council was to settle matters of ecclesiastical polity, and
especially the actual question as to which of the competitors was
lawful bishop of Antioch, besides other questions concerning other
important sees. It was no small assumption on the part of the bishops
of the West, an assumption supported in those days by no dogma as to
the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome, to interfere in the affairs of
the East to this extent. And it was at once crushed by the action of
the Church in the East, which immediately held a council of its own at
Constantinople, and authoritatively decided every practical question.
Jerome was the friend of all those bishops whose causes would have
been pleaded at Rome, had not their own section of the Church thus
made short work with them: and this no doubt commended him to the
special attention of Damasus, even after these practical questions
were set aside, and the heresy of Apollinaris, which had been intended
to be treated in the second place, was turned into the only subject
before the house. Jerome was deeply learned on the subject of
Apollinaris too. It was on account of this new heresy that his place
in Egypt had become untenable. His knowledge could not but be of the
utmost importance to the Western bishops, who were not as a rule
scholars, nor given to the subtle reasoning of the East. He was very
welcome therefore in Rome, especially after the illness of the great
Ambrose had denuded that Council, shorn of so much of its prestige, of
almost the only imposing name left to it. This was the opportunity of
such a man as Jerome, in himself, as we have said, still not much
different from the many young religious adventurers who scoured the
world. He was already, however, a distinguished man of letters: he was
known to Damasus, who had baptized him: he had learning enough to
supplement the deficiencies of an entire Council, and for once these
abilities were fully appreciated and found their right place. He had
scarcely arrived in Rome when he was named Secretary of the Council--a
temporary office which was afterwards prolonged and extended to that
of Secretary to the Pope himself: thus the stranger became at once a
functionary of the utmost importance in the proceedings of the See of
Rome and in its development as a supreme power and authority in the
Church.
There is something strangely familiar and quaint in the appearance, so
perfectly known to ourselves, of the gathering of a religious
congress, convocation, or general assembly, when every considerable
house and hospitable family is moved to receive some distinguished
clerical visitor--which thus took place in Rome in the end of the
fourth century, while still all was classic in the aspect of the
Eternal City, and the altars of the gods were still standing. The
bishops and their trains arrived, making a little stir, sometimes even
at the marble porticoes of great mansions where the master or mistress
still professed a languid devotion to Jove or Mercury. Jerome, burnt
brown by Egyptian suns, meagre and sinewy in his worn robe, with a
humble brother or two in his train, accepted, after a little modest
difficulty, the invitation or the allotment which led him to the
Aventine, to the palace of Marcella, where he was already well known,
and where, though his eyes were downcast with a becoming reserve at
the sight of all the ladies, he yet felt it right to follow the
example of the Apostle and industriously overcome his own bashfulness.
It was not perhaps a quality very strong in his nature, and very soon
his new and splendid habitation became to the ascetic a home more dear
than any he had yet known.
It is curious to find how completely the principle of the association
and friendship of a man and woman, failing closer ties, was adopted
and recognised among these mystics and ascetics, without apparent fear
of the comments of the world, or any of the self-consciousness which
so often spoils such a relationship in ordinary society. Perhaps the
gossips smiled even then upon the close alliance of Jerome with Paula,
or Rufinus with Melania. There were calumnies abroad of the coarsest
sort, as was inevitable; but neither monk nor lady seem to have been
affected by them. It has constantly been so in the history of the
Church, and it is interesting to collect such repeated testimony from
the most unlikely quarter, to the advantage of this natural
association. Women have had hard measure from Catholic doctors and
saints. Their conventional position, so to speak, is that of the
Seductress, always studying how to draw the thoughts of men away from
higher things. The East and the West, though so much apart on other
points, are at one in this. From the anguish of the fathers in the
desert to the supposed difficulties of the humblest ordinary priest of
modern times, the disturbing influence is always supposed to be that
of the woman. Gruesome figure as he was for any such temptation,
Antony of Egypt himself was driven to extremity by the mere thought of
her: and it is she who figures as danger or as victim in every
ultra-Protestant plaint over the condition of the priest (except in
Ireland, wonderful island of contradictions! where priests and all men
are more moved to fighting than to love). Yet notwithstanding there
has been no founder of ecclesiastical institutions, no reformer,
scarcely any saint, who has not been accompanied by the special
friendship and affection of some woman. Jerome, who was so much the
reverse, if we may venture to use these words, of a drawing-room hero,
a man more used to vituperation than to gentleness of speech, often
harsh as the desert from which he had come, was a notable example of
this rule. From the time of his arrival on the Aventine to that of his
death, his name was never dissociated from that of Paula, the pious
lady _par excellence_ of the group, the exquisite and delicate
patrician who could scarcely plant her golden shoe firmly on the
floor, but came tottering into Marcella's great house with a slave on
either side to support her, in all the languid grace which was the
highest fashion of the time. That such an example of conventional
delicacy and luxury should have become the humble friend and secretary
of Jerome, and that he, the pious solitary, acrid with opposition and
controversy, should have found in this fine flower of society his
life-long companion, both in labour and life, is more astonishing than
words can say.
[Illustration: THE STEPS OF THE CAPITOL.]
His arrival in Marcella's hospitable house, with its crowds of
feminine visitors, was in every way a great event. It brought the
ladies into the midst of all the ecclesiastical questions of the time:
and one can imagine how they crowded round him when he returned from
the sittings of the Council--perhaps in the stillness of the evening
after the dangerous hour of sunset, when all Rome comes forth to
breathe again--assembling upon the marble terrace, from which that
magical scene was visible at their feet: the long withdrawing distance
beyond the river, out of which some gleam might be apparent of the
great church which already covered the tombs of the Apostles, and the
white crest of the Capitol close at hand, and the lights of the town
scattered dimly like glowworms among the wide openings and level lines
of classical building which made the Rome of the time. The subjects
discussed were not precisely those which the lighter conventional
fancy, Boccaccio or Watteau, has associated with such groups, any more
than the dark monk resembled the troubadour. But they were subjects
which up to the present day have never lost their interest. The
debates of the Council were chiefly taken up with an extremely
abstruse heresy, concerning the humanity of our Lord, how far the
nature of man existed in him in connection with the nature of God, and
whether the Redeemer of mankind had taken upon himself a mere ethereal
appearance of flesh, or an actual human body, tempted as we are and
subject to all the influences which affect man. It is a question which
has arisen again and again at various periods and in various manners,
and the subtleties of such a controversy have proved of the
profoundest interest to many minds. Jerome was not alone to report to
those eager listeners the course of the debates, and to demolish over
again the intricate arguments by which that assembly of divines
wrought itself to fever heat. The great Bishop Epiphanius, the great
heresy-hunter of his day--who had fathomed all the fallacious
reasonings of all the schismatics, and could detect a theological
error at the distance of a continent, in whatever garb it might shield
itself--was the guest of Paula, and no doubt, along with his hostess,
would often join these gatherings. The two doctors thus brought
together would vie with each other in making the course of the
controversy clear to the women, who hung upon their lips with keen
apprehension of every phrase and the enthusiastic partisanship which
inspires debate. There could be no better audience for the fine-drawn
arguments which such a controversy demands. How strange to think that
these hot discussions were going on, and the flower of the artificial
society of Rome keenly occupied by such a question, while still the
shadow of Jove lingered on the Capitol, and the Rome of the heathen
emperors, the Rome of the great Republic, stood white and splendid, a
shadow, yet a mighty one, upon the seven hills!
Before his arrival in Rome, Jerome had been but little known to the
general world. His name had been heard in connection with some
eloquent letters which had flown about from hand to hand among the
finest circles; but his true force and character were better known in
the East than in the West, and it was in part this Council which gave
him his due place in the ranks of the Church. He was no priest to be
promoted to bishoprics or established in high places. He had indeed
been consecrated against his will by an enthusiastic prelate, eager to
secure his great services to the Church; but, monk and ascetic as he
was, he had no inclination towards the sacerdotal character, and had
said but one mass, immediately after his ordination, and no more. It
was not therefore as spiritual director in the ordinary sense of the
words that he found his place in Marcella's house, but at first at
least as a visitor merely and probably for the time of the Council
alone. But the man of the desert would seem to have been charmed out
of himself by the unaccustomed sweetness of that gentle life. He would
indeed have been hard to please if he had not felt the attraction of
such a retreat, not out of, but on the edge of, the great world, with
its excitements and warfare within reach, the distant murmur of the
crowd, the prospect of the great city with its lights and rumours, yet
sacred quiet and delightful sympathy within. The little community had
given up the luxuries of the age, but they could not have given up the
refinements of gentle breeding, the high-born manners and grace, the
charm of educated voices and cultivated minds. And there was even more
than these attractions to gratify the scholar. Not an allusion could
be made to the studies of which he was most proud, the rugged Hebrew
which he had painfully mastered, or ornate Greek, but some quick
intelligence there would take it up; and the poets and sages of their
native tongue, the Cicero and Virgil from whom he could not wean
himself even in the desert, were their own literature, their valued
inheritance. And not in the most devoted community of monks could the
great orator have found such undivided attention and interest in his
work as among the ladies of the Aventine, or secretaries so eager and
ready to help, so proud to be associated with it. He was at the same
time within reach of Bishop Damasus, a man of many experiences, who
seems to have loved him as a son, and who not only made him his
secretary, but his private counsellor in many difficulties and
dangers: and Jerome soon became the centre also of a little band of
chosen friends, distinguished personages in Roman society connected in
faith and in blood with the sisterhood, whom he speaks of as Daniel,
Ananias, Azarias, and Misael, some of whom were his own old companions
and schoolfellows, all deeply attached to him and proud of his
friendship. No more delightful position could have been imagined for
the repose and strengthening of a man who had endured many hardships,
and who had yet before him much more to bear.
Jerome remained nearly three years in this happy retreat, and it was
here that he executed the first portion of his great work, that first
authoritative translation of the entire Canon of Scripture which still
retains its place in the Church of Rome--the Vulgate, so named when
the Latin of Jerome, which is by no means that of Cicero, was the
language of the crowd. In every generation what is called the higher
education of women is treated as a new and surprising thing by the
age, as if it were the greatest novelty; but we doubt whether Girton
itself could produce graduates as capable as Paula and Marcella of
helping in this work, discussing the turning of a phrase or the
meaning of an abstruse Hebrew word, and often holding their own
opinion against that of the learned writer whose scribes they were so
willing to be. This undertaking gave a double charm to the life, which
went on with much variety and animation, with news from all quarters,
with the constant excitement of a new charity established, a new
community founded: and never without amusement either, much knowledge
of the sayings and doings of society outside, visits from the finest
persons, and a daily entertainment in the flutterings of young
Blæsilla between the world and the convent, and her pretty ways, so
true a woman of the world, yet all the same a predestined saint: and
the doings of Fabiola, one day wholly absorbed in the foundation of
her great hospital, the first in Rome, the next not so sure in her
mind that love, even by means of a second divorce, might not win the
day over devotion. Even Paula in these days was but half decided, and
came, a dazzling vision in her jewels and her crown, to visit her
friends, in all the pomp of autumnal beauty, among her daughters, of
whom that serious little maiden Eustochium was the only one quite
detached from the world. For was there not also going on under their
eyes the gentle wooing of Pammachius and Paulina to make it apparent
to the world that the ladies on the Aventine did not wholly discredit
the ordinary ties of life, although they considered with St. Paul that
the other was the better way? The lovers were as devout and as much
given up to good works as any of them, yet, as even Jerome might
pardon once in a way, preferred to the cloister the common happiness
of life. These good works were the most wonderful part of all, for
every member of the community was rich. Their fortunes were like the
widow's cruse. One hears of great foundations like that of Fabiola's
hospital and Melania's provision for the monks in Africa, for which
everything was sacrificed; yet, next day, next year, renewed
beneficences were forthcoming, and always a faithful intendant, a good
steward, to continue the bountiful supplies. So wonderful indeed are
these liberalities, and so extraordinary the details, that it is
surprising to find that no learned German, or other savant, has, as
yet, attempted to prove that the fierce and vivid Jerome never
existed, that his letters were the work of half a dozen hands, and the
subjects of his brilliant narrative altogether fictitious--Melania and
Paula being but mythical repetitions of the same incident, wrapt in
the colours of fable. This hypothesis might be made to seem very
possible if it were not, perhaps, a little too late in the centuries
for the operations of that high-handed criticism, and Jerome himself a
very hard fact to encounter.
But the great wealth of these ladies remains one of the most singular
circumstances in the story. When they sell and sacrifice everything it
is clear it must only be their floating possessions, leaving untouched
the capital, as we should say, or the estates, perhaps, more justly,
the wealthy source from which the continued stream flowed. This gave a
splendour and a largeness of living to the home on the Aventine. There
was no need to send any petitioner away empty, charity being the rule
of life, and no thought having as yet entered the most elevated mind
that to give to the poor was inexpedient for them, and apt to
establish a pauper class, dependent and willing to be so. These ladies
filled with an even and open hand every wallet and every mouth. They
received orphans, they provided for widows, they filled the poor
quarters below the hill--where all the working people about the
Marmorata clustered near the river bank, in the garrets and courtyards
of the old houses--with asylums and places of refuge. The miserable
and idle populace of which the historian speaks so contemptuously, the
fellows who hung about the circuses, and had no name but the nicknames
of coarsest slang, the Cabbage-feeders, the Sausage-eaters, &c., the
Porringers and Gluttons, were, no doubt, left all the more free to
follow their own foul devices; but the poor women, who though perhaps
far from blameless suffer most in the debasement of the population,
and the unhappy little swarms of children, profited by this universal
balm of charity, and let us hope grew up to something a little better
than their sires. For however paganism might linger among the higher
class, the multitudes were all nominally Christian. It was to the
tombs of the Apostles that they made their pilgrimages, rather than to
the four hundred temples of the gods. "For all its gilding the Capitol
looks dingy," says Jerome himself in one of his letters; "every temple
in Rome is covered with soot and cobwebs, and the people pour past
those half-ruined shrines to visit the tombs of the apostles."
The house of Marcella was in the condition we have attempted to
describe when Jerome became its guest. It was in no way more rigid in
its laws than at the beginning. The little _ecclesia domestica_, as he
happily called it, seems to have been entirely without rule or
conventual order. They sang psalms together (sometimes we are led to
believe, in the original Hebrew learned for the purpose--but it must
have been few who attained to this height), they read together, they
held their little conferences on points of doctrine, with much
consultation of learned texts; but there is no mention even of any
regular religious service, much less of matins, and vespers, and nones
and compline, and the other ritualistic divisions of a monastic day;
for indeed no rule had been as yet invented for any coenobites of
the West. We do not hear even of a daily mass. Often there were
desertions from the ranks, sometimes a young maiden withdrawing from
the social enclosure, sometimes a young widow drawn back into the
vortex of the fashionable world. But on the whole the record of the
little domestic church, with its bodyguard of faithful friends and
servitors outside, and Jerome, its pride and crown of glory, within,
is one of serene and happy life, dignified by everything that was best
in the antique world.
It was after the arrival of Jerome that the little tragedy of
Blæsilla, the eldest daughter of Paula, occurred, rending their gentle
hearts. "Our dear widow," as Jerome called her, had no idea of second
marriage in her mind. The first, it would appear, had not been happy;
and Blæsilla, fair and rich and young, had every mind to enjoy her
freedom, her fine dresses, and all the pleasures of her youth. Safely
lodged under her mother's wing, with those irreproachable friends 011
the Aventine about her, no gossip touched her gentle name. The
community amused itself with her light-hearted ways. "Our widow loves
to adorn herself. She is the whole day before her mirror," says
Jerome, and there is no harsh tone in his voice. But in the midst of
her gay and innocent life she fell ill of a fever, no unusual thing.
It lingered, however, more than a month and took a dangerous form, so
that the doctors began to despair. When things were at this point
Blæsilla had a dream or vision, in her fever, in which the Saviour
appeared to her and bade her arise as He had done to Lazarus. It was
the crisis of the disease, and she immediately began to recover, with
the deepest faith that she had been cured by a miracle. The butterfly
was touched beyond measure by this divine interposition, as she
believed, in her favour, and as soon as she was well, made up her mind
to devote herself to God. "An extraordinary thing has happened," cries
Jerome. "Blæsilla has put on a brown gown! What a scandal is this!" He
launches forth thereupon into a diatribe upon the fashionable ladies,
with faces of gypsum like idols, who dare not shed a tear lest they
should spoil their painted cheeks, and who are the true scandal to
Christianity: then narrates with growing tenderness the change that
has taken place in the habits of the young penitent. She, whose
innocent head was tortured with curls and plaits and crowned with the
fashionable _mitella_, now finds a veil enough for her. She lies on
the ground who found the softest cushions hard, and is up the first in
the morning to sing Alleluia in her silvery voice.
The conversion rang through Rome all the more that Blæsilla was known
to have had no inclination toward austerity of life. Her relations,
half pagan and altogether worldly, were hot against the fanatic monk,
who according to the usual belief tyrannised over the whole house in
which he had been so kindly received, and the weak-minded mother who
had lent herself to his machinations. The question fired Rome, and
became a matter of discussion under every portico and wherever men or
women assembled. Was it lawful, had it any warrant in law or history,
this new folly of opposing marriage and representing celibacy as a
happier and holier state? It was against every tradition of the race;
it tore families in pieces, abstracted from society its most brilliant
members, alienated the patrimony of families, interfered with
succession and every natural law. In the turmoil raised by this event,
a noisy public controversy arose. Two assailants presented themselves,
one a priest, who had been for a time a monk, and one a layman, to
maintain the popular canon, the superiority of marriage and the
natural life of the world. These arguments had a great effect upon the
public mind, naturally prone to take fright at any interference with
its natural laws. They had very serious results at a later period both
in the life of Paula and that of Jerome, and they seem to have
threatened for a time serious injury to the newly established convents
which Marcella's community had planted everywhere, and from which
half-hearted sisters took this opportunity of separating themselves.
It is amusing to find that, by a curious and furious twist of the
usual argument, Jerome in his indignant and not always temperate
defence describes these deserters as old and ugly, and unable to find
husbands notwithstanding the most desperate efforts. It has been very
common to allege this as a reason for the self-dedication of nuns: and
it is always a handy missile to throw.
Jerome was not the man to let any such fine opening for a controversy
pass. He burst forth upon his opponents, thundering from the heights
of the Aventine, reducing the feeble writers who opposed him to
powder. Helvidius, the layman above mentioned, had taken up the
question--a question always offensive and injurious to natural
sentiment and prejudice, exclusive even of religious feeling, and
which, whatever opinions may prevail, it must always be profane to
touch--of the Virgin Mary herself, and the existence of persons called
brothers and sisters of our Lord. To him Jerome replied by a flood of
angry eloquence, as well as some cogent argument--though argument,
however strong, is insupportable on such a subject. And he launched
forth upon the other, Jovinian, the false monk, that famous letter on
Virginity, nominally addressed to Eustochium, in which one of the most
trenchant pictures ever made of society, both lay and clerical--the
habits, the ideas, the follies of debased and fallen Rome--is of far
more force and importance than the argument, and furnishes us with
such a spectacle as very few writers at any time or in any place are
capable of placing before the eyes of the world. I have already quoted
from this wonderful composition the portrait of the popular priest.
The foolish virgin who puts on an appearance of indifference to
worldly things, and "under the ensign of a holy profession draws
towards her the regard of men," is treated with equal severity.
We cast out and banish from our sight those virgins who
only wish to seem to be so. Their robes have but a narrow
stripe of purple, they let their hair hang about their
shoulders, their sleeves are short and narrow, and they
have cheap shoes upon their feet. This is all their
sanctity. They make by these pretences a higher price for
their innocence. Avoid, dear Eustochium, the secret
thought that having ceased to court attention in cloth of
gold you may begin to do so in mean attire. When you come
into an assembly of the brothers and sisters do not, like
some, choose the lowest seat or plead that you are unworthy
of a footstool. Do not speak with a faltering voice as if
worn out with fasting, or lean upon the shoulders of your
neighbours as if fainting. There are some who thus
disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to fast.
As soon as they are seen, they begin to groan, they look
down, they cover their faces, all but one eye. Their dress
is sombre, their girdles are of sackcloth. Others assume
the mien of men, blushing that they have been born women,
who cut their hair short, and walk abroad with effrontery,
confronting the world with the impudent faces of
eunuchs.... I have seen, but will not name, one among the
noblest of Rome who in the very basilica of the blessed
Peter gave alms with her own hands at the head of her
retinue of servants, but struck in the face a poor woman
who had twice held out her hand. Flee also the men who wear
an iron chain, who have long hair like women against the
rule of the Apostle, a miserable black robe, who go
barefooted in the cold, and have in appearance at least an
air of sadness and anxiety.
The following sketch of the married woman who thinks of the things of
the world, how she may please her husband, while the unmarried are
free to please God, has an interest long outliving the controversy, in
the light it throws upon contemporary Roman life.
Do you think there is no difference between one who spends
her time in fastings, and humbles herself night and day in
prayer--and her who must prepare her face for the coming of
her husband, ornament herself, and put on airs of
fascination? The first veils her beauty and the graces
which she despises; the other paints herself before a
mirror, to make herself more fair than God has made her.
Then come the children, crying, rioting, hanging about her
neck, waiting for her kiss. Expenses follow without end,
her time is spent in making up her accounts, her purse
always open in her hand. Here there is a troop of cooks,
their garments girded like soldiers for the battle, hashing
and steaming. Then the women spinning and babbling. Anon
comes the husband, followed by his friends. The wife flies
about like a swallow from one end of the house to the
other, to see that all is right, the beds made, the marble
floors shining, flowers in the vases, the dinner prepared.
Is there in all that, I ask, a thought of God? Are these
happy homes? No, the fear of God is absent there, where the
drum is sounded, the lyre struck, where the flute breathes
out and the cymbals clash. Then the parasite abandons shame
and glories in it, if he amuses the host who has invited
him. The victims of debauch have their place at these
feasts; they appear half naked in transparent garments
which unclean eyes see through. What part is there for the
wife in these orgies? She must learn to take pleasure in
such scenes, or else to bring discord into her house.
He paints for us, in another letter, a companion picture of the widow
remarried.
Your contract of marriage will scarcely be written when you
will be compelled to make your will. Your new husband
pretends to be very ill, and makes a will in your favour,
desiring you to do the same. But he lives, and it is you
who die. And if it happens that you have sons by your
second marriage, war blazes forth in your house, a domestic
contest without term or conclusion. Those who owe life to
you, you are not permitted to love equally, fully. The
second envies the caress which you give to the son of the
first. If, on the contrary, it is he who has children by
another wife, although you may be the most loving of
mothers, you are condemned as a stepmother by all the
rhetoric of the comedies, the pantomimes, and orators. If
your stepson has a headache you have poisoned him. If he
eats nothing you starve him, if you serve him his food it
is worse still. What compensation is there in a second
marriage to make up for so many woes?
This tremendous outburst and others of a similar kind raised up, as
was natural, a strong feeling against Jerome. It was not likely that
the originals of these trenchant sketches would forgive easily the man
who put them up in effigy on the very walls of Rome. That the pictures
were identified was clear from another letter, in which he asks
whether he is never to speak of any vice or folly lest he should
offend a certain Onasus, who took everything to himself. Little cared
he whom he offended, or what galled jade might wince. But at last the
remonstrances of his friends subdued his rage. "When you read this you
will bend your brows and check my freedom, putting a finger on my
mouth to stop me from speaking," he wrote to Marcella. It was full
time that the prudent mistress of the house which contained such a
champion should interfere.
While still the conflict raged which had been roused by the retirement
of Blæsilla from the world, and which had thus widened into the
general question, far more important than any individual case, between
the reforming party in the Church, the Puritans of the time--then
specially represented by the new development of monasticism--and the
world which it called all elevated souls to abandon: incidents were
happening which plunged the cheerful home on the Aventine into sorrow
and made another noble house in Rome desolate. The young convert in
the bloom of her youthful devotion, who had been raised up
miraculously as they all thought from her sick bed in order that she
might devote her life to Christ, was again struck down by sickness,
and this time without any intervention of a miracle. Blæsilla died in
the fulness of her youth, scarcely twenty-two, praying only that she
might be forgiven for not having been able to do what she had wished
to do in the service of her Lord. She was a great lady, though she had
put her natural splendour away from her, and it was with all the pomp
of a patrician funeral that she was carried to her rest. It is again
Jerome who makes visible to us the sad scene of this funeral, and the
feeling of the multitude towards the austere reformers who had by
their cruel exactions cut off this flower of Roman society before her
time. Paula, the bereaved mother, followed, as was the custom, the
bier of her daughter through the crowded streets of Rome, scarcely
able in the depths of her grief to support herself, and at last fell
fainting into the arms of the attendants and had to be carried home
insensible. At this sight, which might have touched their hearts, the
multitude with one voice cried out against the distracted mother. "She
weeps, the daughter whom she has killed with fastings," they cried.
"Why are not these detestable monks driven from the city? why are they
not stoned or thrown into the river? It is they who have seduced this
miserable woman to be herself a monk against her will--this is why she
weeps for her child as no woman has ever wept before." Paula, let us
hope, did not hear these cries of popular rage. The streets rung with
them, the populace always ready for tumult, and the disgusted and
angry nobles encouraging every impulse towards revolt. No doubt many
of the higher classes had looked on with anxiety and alarm at the new
movement which dissipated among the poor so many fine inheritances
and threatened to carry off out of the world, of which they had been
the ornaments, so many of the most distinguished women. Any sudden
rising which might kill or banish the pestilent monk or disperse the
troublesome community would naturally find favour in their eyes.
[Illustration: THE LATERAN FROM THE AVENTINE.]
[Illustration: PORTICO OF OCTAVIA.]
CHAPTER V.
PAULA.
Paula was a woman of very different character from the passionate and
austere Melania who preceded and resembled her in many details of her
career. Full of tender and yet sprightly humour, of love and
gentleness and human kindness, a true mother benign and gracious, yet
with those individualities of lively intelligence, understanding, and
sympathy which quicken that mild ideal and bring in all the elements
of friendship and the social life--she was the most important of those
visitors and associates who made the House on the Aventine the
fashion, and filled it with all that was best in Rome. Though her
pedigree seems a little delusive, her relationship to Æmilius Paulus
resolving itself into a descent from his sister through her own
mother, it is yet apparent that her claims of the highest birth and
position were fully acknowledged, and that no Roman matron held a
higher or more honourable place. She was rich as they all were, highly
allied, the favourite of society, neglecting none of its laws, though
always with a love of intellectual intercourse and a tendency to
devotion. Which of these tendencies drew her first towards Marcella
and her little society we cannot tell: but it is evident that both
found satisfaction there, and were quickened by the strong impulse
given by Jerome when he came out of the schools and out of the wilds,
at once Scholar and Hermit, to this house of friendship, the Ecclesia
Domestica of Rome. That all this rising tide of life, the books, the
literary work, the ever-entertaining companionship, as well as the
higher influence of a life of self-denial and renunciation, as
understood in those days--should have at first added a charm even to
that existence upon its border, the life in which every motive
contradicted the new law, is very apparent. Many a great lady, deeply
plunged in all the business of the world, has felt the same
attraction, the intense pleasure of an escape from those gay
commotions which in the light of the other life seem so insignificant
and wearisome, the sensation of rest and tranquillity and something
higher, purer, in the air--which yet perhaps at first gave a zest to
the return into the world, in itself once more a relief from that
higher tension and those deeper requirements. The process by which the
attraction grew is very comprehensible also. Common pleasures and
inane talk of society grow duller and duller in comparison with the
conversation full of wonders and revelations which would keep every
faculty in exercise, the mutual studies, the awe yet exhilaration of
mutual prayers and psalms, the realisation of spiritual things. And no
doubt the devout child's soul so early fixed, the little daughter who
had thought of nothing from her cradle but the service of God, must
have drawn the ever-tender, ever-sympathetic mother still nearer to
the centre of all. The beautiful mother among her girls, one
betrothed, one self-consecrated, one in all the gay emancipation of
an early widowhood, affords the most charming picture among the graver
women--women all so near to each other in nature,--mutually related,
members of one community, linked by every bond of common association
and tradition.
When Blæsilla on her recovery from her illness threw off her gaieties
and finery, put on the brown gown, and adopted all the rules of the
community, the life of Paula, trembling between two spheres, was
shaken by a stronger impulse than ever before. But how difficult was
any decision in her circumstances! She had her boy and girl at home as
yet undeveloped--her only boy, dragged as much as might be to the
other side, persuaded to think his mother a fanatic and his sisters
fools. Paula did all she could to combine the two lives, indulging
perhaps in an excess of austerities under the cloth of gold and jewels
which, as symbols of her state and rank, she could not yet put off.
The death of Blæsilla was the shock which shattered her life to
pieces. Even the coarse reproaches of the streets show us with what
anguish of mourning this first breach in her family overwhelmed her.
"This is why she weeps for her child as no woman has ever wept
before," the crowd cried, turning her sorrow into an accusation, as if
she had thus acknowledged her own fault in leaving Blæsilla to
privations she was not able to endure. Did the cruel censure perhaps
awake an echo in her heart, ready as all hearts are in that moment of
prostration to blame themselves for something neglected, something
done amiss? At least it would remind Paula that she herself had never
made completely this sacrifice which her child had made with such
fatal effect. She was altogether overcome by her sorrow: her sobs and
cries rent the hearts of her friends. She refused all food, and when
exhausted by the paroxysms of violent grief fell into a lethargy of
despair more alarming still. When every one else had tried their best
to draw her from this excess of affliction, the ladies had recourse
to Jerome in their extremity: for it was clear that Paula must be
roused from this collapse of all courage and hope, or she must die.
Jerome did not refuse to answer the appeal: though helpless as even
the most anxious affection is in face of this anguish of the mother
which will not be comforted, he did what he could; he wrote to her
from the house of their friends who shared yet could not still her
sorrow, a letter full of grief and sympathy, in the forlorn hope of
bringing her back to life. Such letters heaven knows are common
enough. We have all written, and most of us have received them, and
found in their tender arguments, in their assurances of final good and
present fellow feeling, only fresh pangs and additional sickness of
heart. Yet Jerome's letter was not of a common kind. No one could have
touched the shrinking heart with a softer touch than this fierce
controversialist, this fiery and remorseless champion: for he had yet
a more effectual spell to move the mourner, in that he was himself a
mourner, not much less deeply touched than she. "Who am I," he cries,
"to forbid the tears of a mother who myself weep? This letter is
written in tears. He is not the best consoler whom his own groans
master, whose being is un-manned, whose broken words distil into
tears. Yes, Paula, I call to witness Christ Jesus whom our Blæsilla
now follows, and the angels who are now her companions, I, too, her
father in the spirit, her foster-father in affection, could also say
with you--Cursed be the day that I was born. Great waves of doubt
surge over my soul as over yours. I, too, ask myself why so many old
men live on, why the impious, the murderers, the sacrilegious, live
and thrive before our eyes, while blooming youth and childhood without
sin are cut off in their flower." It is not till after he has thus
wept with her that he takes a severer tone. "You deny yourself food,
not from desire of fasting, but of sorrow. If you believed your
daughter to be alive, you would not thus mourn that she has migrated
to a better world. Have you no fear lest the Saviour should say to
you, 'Are you angry, Paula, that your daughter has become my daughter?
Are you vexed at my decree, and do you with rebellious tears grudge me
the possession of Blæsilla?' At the sound of your cries Jesus,
all-clement, asks, 'Why do you weep? the damsel is not dead but
sleepeth.' And when you stretch yourself despairing on the grave of
your child, the angel who is there asks sternly, 'Why seek ye the
living among the dead?'"
In conclusion Jerome adds a wonderful vow: "So long as breath animates
my body, so long as I continue in life, I engage, declare and promise
that Blæsilla's name shall be for ever on my tongue, that my labours
shall be dedicated to her honour, and my talents devoted to her
praise." It was the last word which the enthusiasm of tenderness could
say: and no doubt the fervour and warmth of the promise, better kept
than such promises usually are, gave a little comfort to the sorrowful
soul.
When Paula came back to the charities and devotions of life after this
terrible pause a bond of new friendship was formed between her and
Jerome. They had wept together, they bore the reproach together, if
perhaps their trembling hearts might feel there was any truth in it,
of having possibly exposed the young creature they had lost to
privations more than she could bear. But it is little likely that this
modern refinement of feeling affected these devoted souls; for such
privations were in their eyes the highest privileges of life, and in
fasting man was promoted to eat the food of angels. At all events, the
death of Blæsilla made a new bond between them, the bond of a mutual
and most dear remembrance never to be forgotten.
This natural consequence of a common sorrow inflamed the popular rage
against Jerome to the wildest fury. Paula's relations and connections,
half of them, as in most cases in the higher ranks of society, still
pagan--who now saw before them the almost certain alienation to
charitable and religious purposes of Paula's wealth, pursued him with
calumny and outrage, and did not hesitate to accuse the lady and the
monk of a shameful relationship and every crime. To make things worse,
Damasus, whose friend and secretary, almost his son, Jerome had been,
died a few months after Blæsilla, depriving him at once of that high
place to which the Pope's favour naturally elevated him. He complains
of the difference which his close connection with Paula's family had
made on the general opinion of him. "All, almost without exception,
thought me worthy of the highest sacerdotal position; there was but
one word for me in the world. By the mouth of the blessed Damasus it
was I who spoke. Men called me holy, humble, eloquent." But all this
had changed since the recent events in Paula's house. She on her side,
wounded to the heart by the reproaches poured upon her, and the
shameful slanders of which she was the object, and which had no doubt
stung her into renewed life and energy, resolved upon a step stronger
than that of joining the community, and announced her intention of
leaving Rome, seeking a refuge in the holy city of Jerusalem, and
shaking the dust of her native country, where she had been so
vilified, from her feet. This resolution was put to Jerome's account
as might have been expected, and when his patron's death left him
without protection every enemy he had ever made, and no doubt they
were many, was let loose. He whom courtiers had sought, whose hands
had been kissed and his favour implored by all who sought anything
from the Pope, was now greeted when he appeared in the streets by
fierce cries of "Greek," "Impostor," "Monk," and his presence became a
danger for the peaceful house in which he had found a refuge.
It is scarcely possible to be very sorry for Jerome. He had not minced
his words; he had flung libels and satires about that must have stung
and wounded many, and in such matters reprisals are inevitable. But
Paula had done no harm. Even granting the case that Blæsilla's health
had been ruined by fasting, the mother herself had gone through the
same privations and exulted in them: and her only fault was to have
followed and sympathised in, with enthusiasm, the new teaching and
precepts of the divine life in the form which was most highly esteemed
in her time. No cry from that silent woman comes into the old world,
ringing with so many outcries, where the rude Roman crowd bellowed
forth abuse, and the ladies on their silken couches whispered the
scandal of Paula's liaison to each other, and the men scoffed and
sneered over their banquets at the mere thought of such a friendship
being innocent. Some one of their enemies ventured to speak or write
publicly the vile accusation, and was instantly brought to book by
Jerome, and publicly forswore the scandal he had spread. "But," as
Jerome says, "a lie is hard to kill; the world loves to believe an
evil story: it puts its faith in the lie, but not in the recantation."
And the situation of affairs became such that he too saw no expedient
possible but that of leaving Rome. He would seem to have been, or to
have imagined himself, in danger of his life, and his presence was
unquestionably a danger for his friends. A man of more patient
temperament and quiet mind might have thought that Paula's resolution
to go away was a reason for him to stay, and thus to bear the scandal
and outrage alone, at least until she was safe out of its
reach--giving no possible occasion for the adversary to blaspheme. But
Jerome was evidently not disposed to any such self-abnegation, and
indeed it is very likely that his position had become intolerable and
that his only resource was departure. It was in the summer of 385,
nearly three years after his arrival in Rome--in August, seven months
after the death of Damasus, and not a year after that of Blæsilla,
that he left "Babylon," as he called the tumultuous city, writing his
farewell with tears of grief and wrath to the Lady Asella, now one of
the eldest and most important members of the community, and thanking
God that he was found worthy of the hatred of the world. We are apt to
speak as if travelling were an invention of our time: but as a matter
of fact facilities of travelling then existed little inferior to those
we ourselves possessed thirty or forty years ago, and it was no
strange or unusual journey from Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber, by
the soft Mediterranean shores, past the vexed rocks of the Sirens in
the blazing weather, to Cyprus that island of monasteries, and Antioch
a vexed and heresy-tainted city yet full of friends and succour.
Jerome had a cluster of faithful followers round him, and was escorted
by a weeping crowd to the very point of his embarkation: but yet swept
forth from Rome in a passion of indignation and distress.
[Illustration: TEMPLE OF VENUS AND ROME FROM THE COLOSSEUM (1860).
_To face page 72._]
It was while waiting for the moment of departure in the ship that was
to carry him far from his friends and the life he loved, that Jerome's
letters to Asella were written. They were full of anger and sorrow,
the utterance of a heart sore and wounded, of a man driven almost to
despair. "I am said," he cries, "to be an infamous person, a deceiver
full of guile, an impostor with all the arts of Satan at his fingers'
ends.... These men have kissed my hands in public, and stung me in
secret with a viper's tooth; they compassionate me with their lips and
rejoice in their hearts. But the Lord saw them, and had them in
derision, reserving them to appear with me, his unfortunate servant,
at the last judgment. One of them ridicules my walk, and my laugh:
another makes of my features a subject of accusation: to another the
simplicity of my manners is the evil thing: and I have lived three
years in the company of such men!" He continues his indignant
self-defence as follows:
"I have lived surrounded by virgins, and to some of them I
explained as best I could the divine books. With study came an
increased knowledge of each other, and with that knowledge mutual
confidence. Let them say if they have ever found anything in my
conduct unbecoming a Christian. Have I not refused all presents, great
or small? Gold has never sounded in my palm. Have they heard from my
lips any doubtful word, or seen in my eyes a bold or hazardous look?
Never, and no one dares say so. The only objection to me is that I am
a man: and that objection only appeared when Paula announced her
intention of going to Jerusalem. They believed my accuser when he
lied: why do they not believe him when he retracts? He is the same man
now as then. He imputed false crimes to me, now he declares me
innocent. What a man confesses under torture is more likely to be true
than that which he gives forth in a moment of gaiety: but people are
more prone to believe such a lie than the truth.
"Of all the ladies in Rome Paula only, in her mourning and fasting,
has touched my heart. Her songs were psalms, her conversations were of
the Gospel, her delight was in purity, her life a long fast. But when
I began to revere, respect, and venerate her, as her conspicuous
virtue deserved, all my good qualities forsook me on the spot.
"Had Paula and Melania rushed to the baths, taken advantage of their
wealth and position to join, perfumed and adorned, in one worship God
and their wealth, their freedom and pleasure, they would have been
known as great and saintly ladies; but now it is said they seek to be
admired in sackcloth and ashes, and go down to hell laden with fasting
and mortifications: as if they could not as well have been damned
along with the rest, amid the applauses of the crowd. If it were
Pagans and Jews who condemned them, they would have had the
consolation of being hated by those who hated Christ, but these are
Christians, or men known by that name.
"Lady Asella, I write these lines in haste, while the ship spreads its
sails. I write them with sobs and tears, yet giving thanks to God to
have been found worthy of the hatred of the world. Salute Paula and
Eustochium, mine in Christ whether the world pleases or not, salute
Albina your mother, Marcella your sister, Marcellina, Felicita: say to
them that we shall meet again before the judgment seat of God, where
the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed. Remember me, oh example
of purity! and may thy prayers tranquillise before me the tumults of
the sea!"
[Illustration: TRINITA DE' MONTI.]
The agitation with which the community of ladies must have received
such a letter may easily be imagined. They were better able than any
others to judge of the probity and honour of the writer who had lived
among them so long: and no doubt all these storms raging about, the
injurious and insulting imputations, all the evil tongues of Rome let
loose upon the harmless house, their privacy invaded, their quiet
disturbed, must, during the whole course of the deplorable incident,
have been the cause of pain and trouble unspeakable to the gentle
society on the Aventine. Marcella it is evident had done what she
could to stop the mouth of Jerome when the trouble began; it is
perhaps for this reason that the letter of farewell is addressed to
the older Asella, perhaps a milder judge.
Paula's preparations had begun before Jerome had as yet thought of his
more abrupt departure. They were not so easily made as those of a
solitary already detached from the world. She had all her family
affairs to regulate, and, what was harder still, her children to part
with, the most difficult of all, and the special point in her conduct
with which it is impossible for us to sympathise. But it must be
remembered that Paula, a spotless matron, had been branded with the
most shameful of slanders, that she had been shrieked at by the crowd
as the slayer of her daughter, and accused by society of having
dishonoured her name. She had been the subject of a case of libel, as
we should say, before the public courts, and though the slanderer had
confessed his falsehood (under the influence of torture it would seem,
according to the words of Jerome), the imputation, as in most cases,
remained. Outraged and wounded to the quick, it is very possible that
she may have thought that it was well for her younger children that
she should leave them, that they might not remain under the wing of a
mother whose name had been bandied about in the mouths of men. Her
daughter Paulina was by this time married to the good and faithful
Pammachius, whose protection might be of greater advantage to the
younger girl and boy than her own. And Paula had full knowledge of the
tender mercies of her pagan relations, and of the influence they were
likely to exercise against her, even in her own house. The staid young
Eustochium, grave and calm, clung to her mother's side, her youthful
head already covered by the veil of the dedicated virgin, a serene
and unfaltering figure in the midst of all the agitations of the
parting. All Rome poured forth to accompany them to the port, brothers
and sisters with their wives and husbands, relations less near, a
crowd of friends. All the way along the winding banks of the Tiber
they plied Paula with entreaties and reproaches and tears. She made
them no reply. She was at all times slow to speak, as the tender
chronicle reports. "She raised her eyes to heaven, pious towards her
children but more pious to God." She retained her self-command until
the vessel began to move from the shore, where little Toxotius, the
boy of ten years old, stood stretching out his hands to her in a last
appeal, his sister Rufina silent, with wistful eyes, by his side.
Paula's heart was like to burst. She turned her eyes away unable to
bear that cruel sight, while Eustochium, firm and steadfast, supported
her weaker mother in her arms.
Was it a cruel desertion, a heartless abandonment of duty? Who can
tell? There are desertions, cruelties in this kind, which are the
highest sacrifice, and sometimes the most bitter proof of
self-devotion. Did Paula in her heart believe, most painful thought
that can enter a mother's mind, that her boy would be better without
her, brought up in peace among his uncles and guardians, who, had she
been there, would have made his life a continual struggle between two
sides? Was Rufina more likely to be happy in her gentle sister's
charge, than with her mind disturbed, and perhaps her marriage
spoiled, by her mother's religious vows, and all that was involved in
them? She might be wrong in thinking so, as we are all wrong often in
our best and most painfully pondered plans. But condemnation is very
easy, and gives so little trouble--there is surely a word to be said
on the other side of the question.
When these pilgrims leave Rome they cease to have any part in the
story of the great city with which we have to do. Yet their after-fate
may be stated in a few words. No need to follow the great lady in her
journey over land and sea to the Holy Land with all its associations,
where Jerusalem out of her ruins, decked with a new classic name, was
already rising again into the knowledge and the veneration of the
world. These were not the days of excursion trains and steamers, it is
true; but the number of pilgrims ever coming and going to those more
than classic shores, those holy places, animated with every higher
hope, was perhaps greater in proportion to the smaller size and less
population of the known world than are our many pilgrimages now,
though this seems so strange a thing to say. But is there not a
Murray, a Baedeker, of the fourth century, still existent, the
_Itinéraire de Bordeaux à Jerusalem_, unquestioned and authentic,
containing the most careful account of inns and places of refuge and
modes of travel for the pilgrims? It is possible that the lady Paula
may have had that ancient roll in her satchel, or slung about the
shoulders of her attendant for constant reference. Her ship was
occupied by her own party alone, and conveyed, no doubt, much baggage
and many provisions as an emigration for life would naturally do; and
it was hindered by no storms, as far as we hear, but only by a great
calm which delayed the vessel much and made the voyage tedious,
necessitating the use of the galley's oars, which very likely the
ladies would like best, though it kept them so many more days upon the
sea. They reached Cyprus at last, that holy island now covered with
monasteries, where Epiphanius, once Paula's guest in Rome, awaited and
received her with every honour, and where there were many visits to be
paid to monks and nuns in their new establishments, the favourite
dissipation of the cloister. The ladies afterwards continued their
voyage to Antioch, where they met Jerome; and proceeded on their
journey, having probably had enough of the sea, along the coast by
Tyre and Sidon, by Herod's splendid city of Cæsarea, and Joppa with
its memories of the Apostles--not without a thought of Andromeda and
her monster as they looked over the dark and dangerous reefs which
still scare the traveller: for they loved literature, notwithstanding
their separation from the world. They formed by this time a great
caravanserai, not unlike, to tell the truth, one of those parties
which we are so apt to despise, under charge of guides and attendants
who wear the livery of Cook. But such an expedition was far more
dignified and important in those distant days. Jerome and his monks
made but one family of sisters and brothers with the Roman ladies and
their followers, who endured so bravely all the fatigues and dangers
of the way. Paula the pilgrim was no longer a tottering fine lady, but
the most animated and interested of travellers, with no mere mission
of hermit-hunting like Melania, but the truest human enthusiasm for
all the storied scenes through which she passed. When they reached
Jerusalem she went in a rapture of tears and exaltation from one to
another of the sacred sites, kissing the broken stone which was
supposed to have been that which was rolled against the door of the
Holy Sepulchre, and following with pious awe and joy the steps of
Helena into the cave where the True Cross was found. The legend was
still fresh in those days, and doubts there were none. The enthusiasm
of Paula, the rapture and exaltation, which found vent in torrents of
tears, in ecstasies of sacred emotion, joy and prayer, moved all the
city, thronged with pilgrims, devout and otherwise, to whom the great
Roman lady was a wonder: the crowd followed her about from point to
point, marvelling at her devotion and the warmth of natural feeling
which in all circumstances distinguished her. The reader cannot but
follow still with admiring interest a figure so fresh, so
unconventional, so profoundly touched by all those holy and sacred
associations. Amid so many who are represented as almost more
abstracted among spiritual thoughts than nature permits, her frank
emotion and tender, natural enthusiasm are always a refreshment and a
charm.
We come here upon a break in the hitherto redundant story. Melania and
Rufinus were in possession of their convents, and fully established as
residents on the Mount of Olives, when the other pilgrims arrived; and
there can be but little doubt that every grace of hospitality was
extended by the one Roman lady to the other, as well as by the old
companions of Jerome to her friend. But in the course of the
after-years these dear friends quarrelled bitterly, not on personal
matters, so far as appears, but on points of doctrine, and fell into
such prolonged warfare of angry and stinging words as hurt more than
blows. By means of this very intimacy they knew everything that had
ever been said or whispered of each other, and in the heat of conflict
did not hesitate to use every old insinuation, every suggestion that
could hurt or wound. The struggle ran so high that the after-peace of
both parties was seriously affected by it; and one of its most
significant results was that Jerome, a man great enough and little
enough for anything, either in the way of spitefulness or magnanimity,
cut off from his letters and annals all mention of this early period
of peace, and all reference to Melania, whom he is supposed to have
praised so highly in his first state of mind that it became impossible
in his second to permit these expressions of amity to be connected
with her name. This is a melancholy explanation of the silence which
falls over the first period of Paula's residence in Palestine, but it
is a very natural one: and both sides were equally guilty. The quarrel
happened, however, years after the first visit, which we have every
reason to believe was all friendliness and peace.
After this first pause at Jerusalem, the caravanserai got under way
again and set out on a long journey through all the scenes of the Old
Testament, the storied deserts and ruins of Syria, not much less
ancient to the view and much less articulate than now. This was in
the year 387, two years after their departure from Rome. Even now,
with all our increased facilities for travel--neutralised as they are
by the fact that these wild and desert lands will probably never be
adapted to modern methods--the journey would be a very long and
fatiguing business. Jerome and his party "went everywhere," as we
should say; they were daunted by no difficulties. No modern lady in
deer-stalker's costume could have shrunk less from any dangerous road
than the once fastidious Paula. They stopped everywhere, receiving the
ready hospitality of the convents in every awful pass of the rocks and
stony waste where such homes of penance were planted. Those
wildernesses of ruin, from which our own explorers have picked
carefully out some tradition of Gilgal or of Ziklag, some Philistine
stronghold or Jewish city of refuge--were surveyed by these
adventurers fourteen hundred years ago, when perhaps there was greater
freshness of tradition, but none of the aids of science to decipher
what would seem even more hoary with age to them than it does to us.
How trifling in our pretences at exploration do the luxurious parties
of the nineteenth century seem, abstracted from common life for a few
months at the most, and with all the resources of civilisation to fall
back upon, in comparison with that of these patient wanderers, eating
the Arab bread and clotted milk, and such fare as was to be got at,
finding shelter among the dark-skinned ascetics of the desert
communities, taking refuge in the cave which some saint but a day or
two before had inhabited, wandering everywhere, over primeval ruin and
recent shrine!
When they came back from these savage wildernesses to green Bethlehem
standing up on its hillside over the pleasant fields, the calm and
sweetness of the place went to their hearts. It was in this sacred
spot that they decided to settle themselves, building their two
convents, Jerome's upon the hill near the western gate, Paula's upon
the smiling level below. He is said to have sold all that he had,
some remains of personal property in Dalmatia belonging to himself and
his brother, who was his faithful and constant companion, to provide
for the expenses of the building, on his side; and no doubt the
abundant wealth of Paula supplemented all that was wanting. Gradually
a conventual settlement, such as was the ideal of the time, gathered
in this spot. After her own convent was finished Paula built two
others near it, which were soon filled with dedicated sisters. And she
built a hospice for the reception of travellers, so that, as she said
with tender smiles and tears, "If Joseph and Mary should return to
Bethlehem, they might be sure of finding room for them in the inn."
This soft speech shines like a gleam of tender light upon the little
holy city with all its memories, showing us the great lady of old in
her gracious kindness, full of noble natural kindness, and seeing in
every poor pilgrim who passed that way some semblance of that simple
pair, who carried the Light of the World to David's little town among
the hills.
All these homes of piety and charity are swept away, and no tradition
even of their site is left; but there is one storied chamber that
remains full of the warmest interest of all. It is the rocky room, in
one of the half caves, half excavations close to that of the Nativity,
and communicating with it by rudely hewn stairs and passages, in which
Jerome established himself while his convent was building, which he
called his Paradise, and which is for ever associated with the great
work completed there. All other traditions and memories grow dim in
the presence of the great and sacred interest of the place. Yet it
will be impossible even there for the spectator who knows their story
to stand unmoved in the scene, practically unaltered since their day,
where Jerome laboured at his great translation, and Paula and
Eustochium copied, compared, and criticised his daily labours. A
great part of the Vulgate had been completed in Rome, but since
leaving that city Jerome had much increased his knowledge of Hebrew,
losing no opportunity, during his travels, of studying the language
with every learned Rabbi he encountered, and acquiring much
information in respect to the views and readings of the doctors in the
law. He took the opportunity of his retirement at Bethlehem to revise
what was already done and to finish the work. His two friends had both
learned Hebrew in a greater or less degree before leaving Rome. They
had no doubt shared his studies on the way. They read with him daily a
portion of the Scriptures in the original; and it was at their
entreaty and with their help that he began the translation of the
Psalms, so deeply appropriate to this scene, in which the voice of the
shepherd of Bethlehem could almost be heard, singing as he led his
flock about the little hills. I quote from M. Amédée Thierry a
sympathetic description of the method of this work as it was carried
out in the rocky chamber at Bethlehem, or in the convent close by.
His two friends charged themselves with the task of
collecting all the materials, and this edition, prepared by
their care, is that which remains in the Church under
Jerome's name. We have his own instructions to them for
this work, even to the lines traced for greater exactness,
and the explanation of the signs which he had adopted in
the collation of the different versions with his text,
sometimes a line underscored, sometimes an obelisk or
asterisk. A comma followed by two points indicated the
cutting out of superfluous words coming from some
paraphrase of the Septuagint; a star followed by two points
showed, on the contrary, where passages had to be inserted
from the Hebrew; another mark denoted passages borrowed
from the translation of Theodosius, slightly different from
the Septuagint as to the simplicity of the language. In
reading these various symbols it is pleasant to think of
the two noble Roman ladies seated before the vast desk upon
which were spread the numerous manuscripts, Greek, Hebrew,
and Latin--the Hebrew text of the Bible, the different
editions of the Septuagint, the Hexapla of Origen,
Theodosius, Symmachus, Aquila, and the Italian
Vulgate--whilst they examined and compared, reducing to
order under their hands, with piety and joy, that Psalter
of St. Jerome which we still sing, at least the greater
part of it, in the Latin Church at the present day.
It is indeed a touching association with that portion of Scripture
which next to the Gospel is most dear to the devout, that the
translation still in daily use throughout the churches of Continental
Europe, the sonorous and noble words which amid all the babble of
different tongues still form a large universal language, of which all
have at least a conventional understanding--should have been thus
transcribed and perfected for the use of the generations. Jerome is no
gentle hero, and, truth to tell, has never been much loved in the
Church which yet owes so much to him. Yet there is no other work of
the kind which carries with it so many soft and tender associations.
The cave at Bethlehem is as little adapted as a scene for that
domestic combination as Jerome is naturally adapted to be its centre.
And no doubt there are unkindly critics who will describe this austere
yet beautiful interior as the workshop of two poor female slaves
dragged after him by the tyranny of their grim taskmaster to do his
work for him. No such idea is consistent with the record. The gentle
Paula was a woman of high spirit as well as of much grace and
courtesy, steadfastness and humour, the last the most unusual quality
of all. The imaginative devotion which had induced her to learn Hebrew
in order to sing the Psalmist's songs in the original, among the
little band of Souls, under Marcella's gilded roof, had its natural
evolution in the gentle pressure laid upon Jerome to make of them an
authoritative translation: and where could so fit a place for this
work have been found as in the delightful rest after their travels
were over, in the very scene where these sacred songs were first
begun? It would be almost as impertinent and foolish to suppose that
any modern doubt of their authenticity existed in Paula's mind as to
suggest that these were forced and dreary labours to which she was
driven by a spiritual tyrant. To our mind this mutual labour and study
adds the last charm to their companionship. The sprightly, gentle
woman who shed so much light over that curious self-denying yet
self-indulgent life, and the grave young daughter who never left her
side, whose gentle shadow is one with her, so that while Paula lived
we cannot distinguish them apart--must have found a quiet happiness
above all they had calculated on in this delightful intercourse and
work. Their minds and thoughts occupied by the charm of noble poetry,
by the puzzle of words to be cleared and combined aright, and by
constant employment in a matter which interested them so deeply, which
is perhaps the best of all--must have drawn closer and ever closer,
mother to child, and child to mother, as well as both to the friend
and father whom they delighted to serve, and whose large intellect and
knowledge kept theirs going in constant sympathy--not unmingled with
now and then a little opposition, and the pleasant stir of independent
opinion.
It is right to give Jerome himself, so fierce in quarrel and
controversy, the advantage of this gentle lamp which burns for ever in
his little Paradise. And can any one suppose that Paula, once so
sensitive and exquisite, now strong and vigorous in the simplicity of
that retirement, with her hands full and her mind, plenty to think of,
plenty to do, had not her advantage also? The life would be ideal but
for the thought that must have come over her by times, of the young
ones left in Rome, and what was happening to them. She was indeed
prostrated by grief again and again by the death of her daughters
there, one after another, and mourned with a bitterness which makes us
wonder whether that haunting doubt and self-censure, which perhaps
gave an additional sting to her sorrow in the case of Blæsilla, may
not have overwhelmed her heart again though on a contrary ground--the
doubt whether perhaps the austerities she enjoined and shared had been
fatal to one, the contradictory doubt whether to leave them to the
usual course of life might not have been fatal to the others. Such a
woman has none of the self-confidence which steels so many against
fate--and, finding nothing effectual for the safety of those she
loved, neither a sacred dedication nor that consent to commonplace
happiness which is the ordinary ideal of a mother's duty, might well
sometimes fall into despair--a despair silently shared by many a
trembling heart in all ages, which finds its best-laid plans, though
opposite to each other, fall equally into downfall and dismay.
[Illustration: FROM THE AVENTINE.]
But she had her compensations. She had her little glory, too, in the
books which went forth from that seclusion in Bethlehem, bearing her
name, inscribed to her and her child by the greatest writer of the
time. "You, Paula and Eustochium, who have studied so deeply the books
of the Hebrews, take it, this book of Esther, and test it word by
word; you can tell whether anything is added, anything withdrawn: and
can bear faithful witness whether I have rendered aright in Latin this
Hebrew history." Few women would despise such a tribute, and fewer
still the place of these two women in the Paradise of that laborious
study, and at the doors of that beautiful Hospice on the Jerusalem
road, where Joseph and Mary had they but come again would have run no
risk of finding room!
They died all three, one after another, and were laid to rest in the
pure and wholesome rock near the sacred spot of the Nativity. There is
a touching story told of how Eustochium, after her mother's death,
when Jerome was overwhelmed with grief and unable to return to any of
his former occupations, came to him with the book of Ruth still
untranslated in her hand, at once a promise and an entreaty. "Where
thou goest I will go. Where thou dwellest I will dwell"--and a
continuation at the same time of the blessed work which kept their
souls alive.
[Illustration: THE CAPITOL FROM THE PALATINE.]
CHAPTER VI.
THE MOTHER HOUSE.
Amid all these changes the house on the Aventine--the mother house as
it would be called in modern parlance--went on in busy quiet, no
longer visible in that fierce light which beats upon the path of such
a man as Jerome, doing its quiet work steadily, having a hand in many
things, most of them beneficent, which went on in Rome. Albina the
mother of Marcella, and Asella her elder sister, died in peace: and
younger souls, with more stirring episodes of life, disturbed and
enlivened the peace of the cloister, which yet was no cloister but
open to all the influences of life, maintaining a large correspondence
and much and varied intercourse with the society of the times. In the
first fervour of the settlement in Bethlehem both Paula and Jerome
(she by his hand) wrote to Marcella urging her to join them, to
forsake the world in a manner more complete than she had yet done.
"... You were the first to kindle the fire in us" (the letter is
nominally from Paula and Eustochium): "the first by precept and
example to urge us to adopt our present life. As a hen gathers her
chickens, who fear the hawk and tremble at every shadow of a bird, so
did you take us under your wing. And will you now let us fly about at
random with no mother near us?"
This letter is full not only of affectionate entreaties but of
delightful pictures of their own retired and peaceful life. "How shall
I describe to you," the writer says, "the little cave of Christ, the
hostel of Mary? Silence is more respectful than words, which are
inadequate to speak its praise. There are no lines of noble
colonnades, no walls decorated by the sweat of the poor and the labour
of convicts, no gilded roofs to intercept the sky. Behold in this poor
crevice of the earth, in a fissure of the rock, the builder of the
firmament was born." She goes on with touching eloquence to put forth
every argument to move her friend.
Read the Apocalypse of St. John and see there what he says
of the woman clothed in scarlet, on whose forehead is
written blasphemy, and of her seven hills, and many waters,
and the end of Babylon. "Come out of her, my people," the
Lord says, "that ye be not partakers of her sins." There is
indeed there a holy Church; there are the trophies of
apostles and martyrs, the true confession of Christ, the
faith preached by the apostles, and heathendom trampled
under foot, and the name of Christian every day raising
itself on high. But its ambition, its power, the greatness
of the city, the need of seeing and being seen, of greeting
and being greeted, of praising and detracting, hearing or
talking, of seeing, even against one's will, all the crowds
of the world--these things are alien to the monastic
profession and they have spoiled Rome, they all oppose an
insurmountable obstacle to the quiet of the true monk.
People visit you: if you open your doors, farewell to
silence: if you close them, you are proud and unfriendly.
If you return their politeness, it is through proud
portals, through a host of grumbling insolent lackeys. But
in the cottage of Christ all is simple, all is rustic:
except the Psalms, all is silence: no frivolous talk
disturbs you, the ploughman sings Allelujah as he follows
his plough, the reaper covered with sweat refreshes himself
with chanting a psalm, and it is David who supplies with a
song the vine dresser among his vineyards. These are the
songs of the country, its ditties of love, played upon the
shepherd's flute. Will the time never come when a
breathless courier will bring us the good news, your
Marcella has landed in Palestine? What a cry of joy among
the choirs of the monks, among all the bands of the
virgins! In our excitement we wait for no carriage but go
on foot to meet you, to clasp your hand, to look upon your
face. When will the day come when we shall enter together
the birthplace of Christ: when, leaning over the divine
sepulchre, we weep with a sister, a mother, when our lips
touch together the sacred wood of the Cross: when on the
Mount of Olives our hearts and souls rise together in the
rising of our Lord? Would not you see Lazarus coming out of
his tomb, bound in his shroud? and the waters of Jordan
purified for the washing of the Lord? Then we shall hasten
to the shepherds' folds, and pray at the tomb of David.
Listen, it is the prophet Amos blowing his shepherd's horn
from the height of his rock; we shall see the monuments of
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the three famous women, and
Samaria and Nazareth, the flower of Galilee, and Shiloh and
Bethel and other holy places, accompanied by Christ, where
churches rise everywhere like standards of the victories of
Christ. And when we return to our cavern we will sing
together always, and sometimes we shall weep; our hearts
wounded with the arrow of the Lord, we will say one to
another, "I have found Him whom my soul loveth; I will hold
Him, and will not let Him go!"
Similar words upon the happiness of rural life and retirement Jerome
had addressed to Marcella before. He had warned her of the danger of
the tumultuous sea of life, and how the frail bark, beaten by the
waves, ought to seek the shelter of the port before the last hurricane
breaks. The image was even more true than he imagined; but it was not
of the perils of Rome in the dreadful time of war and siege which was
approaching that he spoke, but of the usual dangers of common life to
the piety of the recluse. "The port which we offer you, it is the
solitude of the fields," he says:
Brown bread, herbs watered by our own hands, and milk, the
daintiest of the country, supply our rustic feasts. We have
no fear of drowsiness in prayer or heaviness in our
readings, on such fare. In summer we seek the shade of our
trees; in autumn the mild weather and pure air invite us to
rest on a bed of fallen leaves; in spring, when the fields
are painted with flowers, we sing our psalms among the
birds. When winter comes, with its chills and snows, the
wood of the nearest forest supplies our fire. Let Rome keep
her tumults, her cruel arena, her mad circus, her luxurious
theatres; let the senate of matrons pay its daily visits.
It is good for us to cleave to the Lord and to put all our
hope in Him.
But Marcella turned a deaf ear to these entreaties. Perhaps she still
loved the senate of matrons, the meetings of the Souls, the irruption
of gentle visitors, the murmur of all the stories of Rome, and the
delicate difficulties of marriage and re-marriage brought to her for
advice and guidance. The allusions in both these letters point to such
a conclusion, and there is no reason why it should not have been so.
The Superior of a convent has in this fashion in much later days
fulfilled more important uses than the gentle nun of the fields. At
all events this lady remained in her home, her natural place, and
continued to pour forth her bounty upon the poor of her native city:
which many would agree was perhaps the better, though it certainly was
not the safer, way. The death of her mother, which made a change in
her life, and might have justified a still greater breaking up of all
old customs and ties, was perhaps the occasion of these affectionate
arguments; but Marcella would herself be no longer young and in a
position much resembling that of a mother in her own person, the
trusted friend of many in Rome, and their closest tie to a more
spiritual and better life. The light of such a guest as Jerome,
attracting all eyes to the house and bringing it within the records of
literary history, that sole mode of saving the daily life of a
household from oblivion--had indeed died away, leaving life perhaps a
little flat and blank, certainly much less agitated and visible to the
outer world than when he was pouring forth fire and flame upon every
adversary from within the shelter of its peaceful walls. But no other
change had happened in the circumstances under which Marcella opened
her palace to a few consecrated sisters, and made it a general oratory
and place of pious counsel and retreat for the ladies of Rome. The
same devout readings, the same singing of psalms (sometimes in the
original), the same life of mingled piety and intellectualism must
have gone on as before: and other fine ladies perhaps not less
interesting than Paula must have sought with their confessions and
confidences the ear of the experienced woman, who as Paula says in
respect to herself and her daughters, "first carried the sparkle of
light to our hearts, and collected us like chickens under your wing."
She was the same, "our gentle, our sweet Marcella, sweeter than
honey," open to every charity and kindness: not refusing, it would
seem, to visit as well as to be visited, and willing to "live the
life" without forsaking any ordinary bonds or traditions of existence.
There is less to tell of her for this reason, but not perhaps less to
praise.
Marcella had her share no doubt in forming the minds of the two
younger spirits, vowed from their cradle to the perfect life of
virginhood, the second Paula, daughter of Toxotius and his Christian
wife; and the younger Melania, daughter also of the son whom his
mother had abandoned as an infant. It is a curious answer to the stern
virtue which reproaches these two Roman ladies with the cruel
desertion of their children, to find that both those children, grown
men, permitted or encouraged the vocation of their daughters, and were
proud of the saintly renown of the mothers who had left them to their
fate. The consecrated daughters however leave only a faint trace as of
two spotless catechumens in the story. Incidents of a more exciting
character broke now and then the calm of life in the palace on the
Aventine. M. Thierry in his life of Jerome gives us perhaps a sketch
too entertaining of Fabiola, one of the ladies more or less associated
with the house of Marcella, a constant visitor, a penitent by times,
an enthusiast in charity, a woman bent on making, or so it seemed, the
best of both worlds. She had made early what for want of a better
expression we may call a love match, in which she had been bitterly
disappointed. That a divorce should follow was both natural and lawful
in the opinion of the time, and Fabiola had already formed a new
attachment and made haste to marry again. But the second marriage was
a disappointment even greater than the first, and this repeated
failure seems to have confused and excited her mind to issues by no
means clear at first, probably even to herself. She made in the
distraction of her life a sudden and unannounced visit to Paula's
convent at Bethlehem, where she was a welcome and delightful visitor,
carrying with her all the personal news that cannot be put into
writing, and the gracious ways of an accomplished woman of the world.
She is supposed to have had a private object of her own under this
visit of friendship, but the atmosphere and occupations of the place
must have overawed Fabiola, and though her object was hidden in an
artful web of fiction she was not bold enough to reveal it, either to
the stern Jerome or the mild Paula. What she did was to make herself
delightful to both in the little society upon which we have so many
side-lights, and which doubtless, though so laborious and full of
privations, was a very delightful society, none better, with such a
man as Jerome, full of intellectual power, and human experience, at
its head, and ladies of the highest breeding like Paula and her
daughter to regulate its simple habits. We are told of one pretty
scene where--amid the talk which no doubt ran upon the happiness of
that peaceful life amid the pleasant fields where the favoured
shepherds heard the angels' song--there suddenly rose the voice of the
new-comer reciting with the most enchanting flattery a certain famous
letter which Jerome long before had written to his friend Heliodorus
and which had been read in all the convents and passed from hand to
hand as a _chef d'oeuvre_ of literary beauty and sacred enthusiasm.
Fabiola, quick and adroit and emotional, had learned it by heart, and
Jerome would have been more than man had he not felt the charm of such
flattery.
For a moment the susceptible Roman seems to have felt that she had
attained the haven of peace after her disturbed and agitated life.
Her hand was full and her heart generous: she spread her charities far
and wide among poor pilgrims and poor residents with that undoubting
liberality which considered almsgiving as one of the first of
Christian duties. But whether the little busy society palled after a
time, or whether it was the great scare of the rumour that the Huns
were coming that frightened Fabiola, we cannot tell, nor precisely how
long her stay was. Her coming and going were at least within the space
of two years. She was not made to settle down to the revision of
manuscripts like her friends, though she had dipped like them into
Hebrew and had a pretty show of knowledge. She would seem to have
evidenced this however more by curious and somewhat frivolous
questions than by any assistance given in the work which was going on.
Nothing could be more kind, more paternal, than Jerome to the little
band of women round him. He complains, it is true, that Fabiola
sometimes propounded problems and did not wait for an answer, and that
occasionally he had to reply that he did not know, when she puzzled
him with this rapid stream of inquiry. But it is evident also that he
did his best sincerely to satisfy her curiosity as if it had been the
sincerest thing in the world. For instance, she was seized with a
desire to know the symbolical meaning of the costume of the high
priest among the Jews: and to gratify this desire Jerome occupied a
whole night in dictating to one of his scribes a little treatise on
the subject, which probably the fine lady scarcely took time to read.
Nothing can be more characteristic than the indications of this bright
and charming visitor, throwing out reflections of all that was going
on round her, so brilliant that they seemed better than the reality,
fluttering upon the surface of their lives, bringing all under her
spell.
There seems but little ground however for the supposition of M.
Thierry that it was in the interest of Fabiola that Amandus, a priest
in Rome, wrote a letter laying before Jerome a case of conscience,
that of a woman who had divorced her husband and married again, and
who now was troubled in her mind as to her duty; whether the second
husband was wholly unlawful, and whether she could remain in full
communion with the Church, having made this marriage? If she was the
person referred to no one has been able to divulge what the question
meant--whether she had a third marriage in her mind, or if a wholly
unnecessary fit of compunction had seized her; for as a matter of fact
she had never been subjected by the Church to any pains or penalties
in consequence of her second marriage. Jerome however, as might have
been expected of him, gave forth no uncertain sound in his reply.
According to the Church, he said, there could be but one husband, the
first. Whatever had been his unworthiness, to replace him by another
was to live in sin. Whether it was this answer which decided her
action, or whether she had been moved by the powerful fellowship of
Bethlehem to renounce the more agitating course of worldly life, at
least it is certain that Fabiola's career was changed from this time.
Perhaps it was her desire to shake off the second husband which moved
her. At all events on her return to Rome she announced to the bishop
that she felt herself guilty of a great sin, and that she desired to
make public penance for the same.
[Illustration: SAN BARTOLOMMEO.]
Accordingly on the eve of Easter, when the penitents assembled under
the porch of the great Church of St. John Lateran, amid all the wild
and haggard figures appearing there, murderers and criminals of all
kinds, the delicate Fabiola, with her hair hanging about her
shoulders, ashes on her head and on the dark robe that covered her,
her face pale with fasting and tears, stood among them, a sight for
the world. Under many aspects had all Rome seen this daughter of the
great Fabian race, in the splendour of her worldly espousals, and at
all the great spectacles and entertainments of a city given up to
display and amusement. Her jewels, her splendid dresses, her fine
equipages, were well known. With what curiosity would all her old
admirers, her rivals in splendour, those who had envied her luxury and
high place, gather to see her now in her voluntary humiliation,
descending to the level of the very lowest as she had hitherto been on
the very highest apex of society! All Rome we are told was there,
gazing, wondering, tracing her movements under the portico, among
these unaccustomed companions. Perhaps there might be a supreme
fantastic satisfaction to the penitent--with that craving for
sensation which the exhaustion of all kinds of triumphs and pleasures
brings--in thus stepping from one extreme to the other, a
gratification in the thought that Rome which had worshipped her beauty
and splendour was now gazing aghast at her bare feet and dishevelled
hair. One can have no doubt of the sensation experienced by the _Tota
urbe spectante Romana_. It was worth while frequenting religious
ceremonies when such a sight was possible! Fabiola,--once with mincing
steps, and gorgeous liveried servants on either hand, descending
languidly the great marble steps from her palace to the gilded
carriage in which she sank fatigued when that brief course was over,
the mitella blazing with gold upon her head, her robe woven with all
the tints of the rainbow into metallic splendour of gold and silver
threads. And now to see her amid that crowd of ruffians from the
Campagna, and unhappy women from the purlieus of the city, her
splendid head uncovered, her thin hands crossed in the rough sleeves
of the penitent's gown! It might be to some perhaps a salutary
sight--moving other great ladies with heavier sins on their heads than
Fabiola's to feel the prickings of remorse; though no doubt it is
equally possible that they might think they saw through her, and the
new form of self-exhibition which attracted all the world to gaze. We
are not told whether Fabiola found refuge in the house on the Aventine
with Marcella, who had lit the fire of Christian faith in her heart as
well as in that of Paula: or whether she remained, like Marcella, in
her own house, making it another centre of good works. But at all
events her life from this moment was entirely given up to charity and
spiritual things. Her kinsfolk and noble neighbours still more or less
Pagan, were filled with fury and indignation and that sharp disgust at
the loss of so much good money to the world, which had so much to do
in embittering opposition: but the Christians were deeply impressed,
the homage of such a great lady to the faith, and her recantation of
her errors affecting many as a true martyrdom.
If it was really compunction for the sin of the second marriage which
so moved her, her position would much resemble that of the _fine
fleur_ of French society as at present constituted, in its tremendous
opposition to the law of divorce, now lawful in France of the
nineteenth century as it was in Rome of the fourth--but resisted with
a splendid bigotry of feeling, altogether independent of morality or
even of reason, by all that is noblest in the country. Fabiola's
divorce had been perfectly lawful and according to all the teaching
and traditions of her time. The Church had as yet uplifted no voice
against it. She had not been shut out from the society even of the
most pious, or condemned to any penance or deprivation. Not even
Jerome (till forced to give a categorical answer), nor that purest
circle of devout women at Bethlehem, had refused her any privilege.
Her action was unique and unprecedented as a protest against the
existing law of the land, as well as universal custom and tradition.
We are not informed whether it had any lasting effect, or formed a
precedent for other women. No doubt it encouraged the formation of the
laws against divorce which originated in the Church itself but have
held through the intervening ages a doubtful sway, broken on every
side by Papal dispensations, until now that they have settled down
into a bond of iron on the consciences of the devout--chiefly the
women, more specially still the gentlewomen--of Catholic Europe, where
as in Fabiola's time they are once more against the law of the land.
The unworthy second husband we are informed had died even before
Fabiola's public act of penitence; but no further movements towards
the world, or the commoner ways of life reveal themselves in her
future career. If she returned to life with the veiled head and bare
feet of her penitence, or if she resumed, like Marcella, much of the
ordinary traffic of society, we have no information. But she was the
founder of the first public hospital in Rome, besides the usual
monasteries, and built in concert with Pammachius a hospice at Ostia
at the mouth of the Tiber, where strangers and travellers from all
parts of the world were received, probably on the model of that
hospice for pilgrims which Paula had established. And she was herself
the foremost nurse in her own hospital, shrinking from no office of
charity. The Church has always and in all circumstances encouraged
such practical acts of self-devotion.
The ladies of the Aventine and all the friends of Jerome had been
disturbed a little before by the arrival of a stranger in Rome, also a
pretended friend of Jerome, and at first very willing to shelter
himself under that title, Rufinus, who brought with him--after a
moment of delusive amiability during which he had almost deceived the
very elect themselves--a blast of those wild gales of polemical
warfare which had been echoing for some time with sacrilegious force
and inappropriateness from the Mount of Olives itself. The excitement
which he raised in Rome in respect to the doctrines of Origen caused
much commotion in the community, which lived as much by news of the
Church and reports of all that was going on in theology as by the
daily bread of their charities and kindness. It was to Marcella that
Jerome wrote, when, reports having been made to him of all that had
happened, he exploded, with the flaming bomb of his furious rhetoric,
the fictitious statements of Rufinus, by which he was made to appear a
supporter of Origen. Into that hot and fierce controversy we have no
need to enter. No one can study the life of Jerome without becoming
acquainted with this episode and finding out how much the wrath of a
Father of the Church is like the rage of other men, if not more
violent; but happily as Rome was not the birthplace of this fierce
quarrel it is quite immaterial to our subject or story. It filled the
house of Marcella with trouble and doubt for a time, with indignation
afterwards when the facts of the controversy were better known; but
interesting as it must have been to the eager theologians there,
filling their halls with endless discussions and alarms, lest this
new agitation should interfere with the repose of their friend, it is
no longer interesting except to the student now. Rufinus was finally
unmasked, and condemned by the Bishop of Rome, chiefly by the
exertions of Marcella, whom Oceanus, coming hot from the scene of the
controversy, and Paulinian the brother of Jerome, had instructed in
his true character. Events were many at this moment in that little
Christian society. The tumult of controversy thus excited and all the
heat and passion it brought with it had scarcely blown aside, when the
ears of the Roman world were made to tingle with the wonderful story
of Fabiola, and the crowd flew to behold in the portico of the Lateran
her strange appearance as a penitent; and the commotion of that event
had scarcely subsided when another wonderful incident appears in the
contemporary history filling the house with lamentation and woe.
The young Paulina, dear on all accounts to the ladies of the Aventine
as her mother's daughter, and as her husband's wife (for Pammachius,
the friend and schoolfellow of Jerome, was one of the fast friends and
counsellors of the community), as well as for her own virtues, died in
the flower of life and happiness, a rich and noble young matron
exhibiting in her own home and amid the common duties of existence,
all the noblest principles of the Christian faith. She had not chosen
what these consecrated women considered as the better way: but in her
own method, and amid a world lying in wickedness, had unfolded that
white flower of a blameless life which even monks and nuns were
thankful to acknowledge as capable of existing here and there in the
midst of worldly splendours and occupations. She left no children
behind her, so that her husband Pammachius was free of the anxieties
and troubles, as well as of the joy and pride, of a family to regulate
and provide for. His young wife left to him all her property on
condition that it should be distributed among the poor, and when he
had fulfilled this bequest the sorrowful husband himself retired from
life, and entered a convent, in obedience to the strong impulse which
swayed so many. Before this occurred however "all Rome" was roused by
another great spectacle. The entire city was invited to the funeral of
Paulina as if it had been to her marriage, though those who came were
not the same wondering circles who crowded round the Lateran gate to
see Fabiola in her humiliation. It was the poor of Rome who were
called by sound of trumpet in every street, to assemble around the
great Church of St. Peter, where were those tombs of the Apostles
which every Christian visited as the most sacred of shrines, and where
Paulina was laid forth upon her bier, the mistress of the feast. The
custom was an old one, and chambers for these funeral repasts were
attached to the great catacombs and all places of burial. The funeral
feast of Paulina however meant more than ordinary celebrations of the
kind, as the place in which it was held was more impressive and
imposing than an ordinary sepulchre however splendid. She must have
been carried through the streets in solemn procession, from the
heights on which stood the palaces of her ancient race, across the
bridge, and by the tomb of Hadrian to that great basilica where the
Apostles lay, her husband and his friends following the bier: and in
all likelihood Marcella and her train were also there, replacing the
distant mother. St. Peter's it is unnecessary to say was not the St.
Peter's we know; but it was even then a great basilica, with wide
extending porticoes and squares, and lofty roof, though the building
was scarcely quite detached from the rock out of which the back part
of the cathedral had been hewn.
[Illustration: ST. PETER'S, FROM THE JANICULUM.]
Many strange sights have been seen in that spot which once was the
centre of the civilised world, and this which seems to us one of the
strangest was in no way unusual or against the traditions of the age
in which it occurred. The church itself, and all its surroundings,
nave and aisles and porticoes, and the square beyond, were filled with
tables, and to these from all the four quarters of Rome, from the
circus and the benches of the Colosseum, where the wretched slept and
lurked, from the sunny pavements, and all the dens and haunts of the
poor by the side of the Tiber, the crowds poured, in those
unconceivable yet picturesque rags which clothe the wretchedness of
the South. They were ushered solemnly to their seats, the awe of the
place, let us hope, quieting the voices of a profane and degraded
populace, and overpowering the whispering, rustling, many-coloured
multitude. Outside the later comers would be more unrestrained, and
the roar, even though subdued, of thronging humanity must have come in
strangely to the silence of the great church, and of the mourners,
bent upon doing Paulina honour in this curious way. Did she lie there
uplifted on her high bier to receive her guests? Or was the
heart-broken Pammachius the host, standing pale upon the steps, over
the grave of the Apostles? When they were "saturated" with food and
wine, the first assembly left their places and were succeeded by
another, each as he went away receiving from the hands of Pammachius
himself a sum of money and a new garment. "Happy giver, unwearied
distributor!" says the record. The livelong day this process went on;
a winter day in Rome, not always warm, not always genial, very cold
outside in the square under the evening breeze, and no doubt growing
more and more noisy as one band continued to succeed another, and the
first fed lingered about comparing their gifts, and hoping perhaps for
some remnants to be collected at the end from the abundant and
oft-renewed meal. There were no doubts in anybody's mind, as we have
said, about encouraging pauperism or demoralising the recipients of
these gifts; perhaps it would have been difficult to demoralise
further that mendicant crowd. But one cannot help wondering how the
peace was kept, whether there were soldiers or some manner of
classical police about to keep order, or if the disgusted Senators
would have to bestir themselves to prevent this wild Christian
carnival of sorrow and charity from becoming a danger to the public
peace.
We are told that it was the sale of Paulina's jewels, and her splendid
toilettes which provided the cost of this extraordinary funeral feast.
"The beautiful dresses woven with threads of gold were turned into
warm robes of wool to cover the naked; the gems that adorned her neck
and her hair filled the hungry with good things." Poor Paulina! She
had worn her finery very modestly according to all reports; it had
served no purposes of coquetry. The reader feels that something more
congenial than that coarse and noisy crowd filling the church with its
deformities and loathsomeness might have celebrated her burial. But
not so was the feeling of the time; that they were more miserable than
words could say, vile, noisome, and unclean, formed their claim of
right to all these gifts--a claim from which their noisy and rude
profanity, their hoarse blasphemy and ingratitude took nothing away.
Charity was more robust in the early centuries than in our fastidious
days. "If such had been all the feasts spread for thee by thy
Senators," cried Bishop Paulinus, the historian of this episode, "oh
Rome thou might'st have escaped the evils denounced against thee in
the Apocalypse." We must remember that whatever might have been the
opinion later, there was no doubt in any Christian mind in the fourth
century that Rome was the Scarlet Woman of the Revelation of St. John,
and that a dreadful fate was to overwhelm her luxury and pride.
Pammachius, when he had fulfilled the wishes of his wife in this way,
thrilling the hearts of the mourning mother and sister in Bethlehem
with sad gratification, and edifying the anxious spectators on the
Aventine, carried out her will to its final end by becoming a monk,
but with the curious mixture of devotion and independence common at
the time, retired to no cloister, but lived in his own house,
fulfilling his duties, and appearing even in the Senate in the gown
and cowl so unlike the splendid garb of the day. He was no doubt one
of the members for the poor in that august but scarcely active
assembly, and occupied henceforward all his leisure in works of
charity and religious organisations, in building religious houses, and
protecting Christians in every necessity of life.
We have said that Rome in these days was as freely identified with the
Scarlet Woman of the Apocalypse as ever was done by any Reformer or
Puritan in later times. To Jerome she was as much Babylon, and as
damnable and guilty in every way as if he had been an Orangeman or
Covenanter. Mildness was not general either in speech or thought: it
has seldom been so perhaps in religious controversy. It is curious
indeed to mark how, so near the fount of Christianity, the Church had
already come to rend itself with questions of doctrine, and expend on
discussions of philosophical subtlety the force that was wanted for
the moral advantage of the world. But that no doubt was one of the
defects of the great principle of self-devotion which aimed at
emptying the mind of everything worldly and practical, and fixing it
entirely upon spiritual subjects, thus substituting them for the ruder
obstacles which occupied in common life the ruder forces of nature.
[Illustration: ST. PETER'S, FROM THE PINCIO.]
All things however were now moving swiftly towards one of the great
catastrophes of the ages. Though Christianity was young, the entire
system of the world's government was old and drawing towards its fall.
Rome was dead, or virtually so, and all the old prestige, the old
pride and pretension of her race, were perishing miserably in those
last vulgarities of luxury and display which were all that was left to
her. It is no doubt true that the crumbling of all common ties which
took place within her bosom, under the invasion of the monkish
missionaries from the East, and the influence of Athanasius, Jerome,
and others--had been for some time undermining her unity, and that the
rent between that portion of the aristocracy of Rome which still held
by the crumbling system of Paganism, and those who had adopted the new
faith, was now complete. Rome which had been the seat of empire, the
centre from which law and power had gone out over all the earth, the
very impersonation of the highest forces of humanity, the pride of
life, the eminence of family and blood--now saw her highest names
subjected voluntarily to strange new laws of humiliation, whole
households trooping silently away in the garb of servants to the
desert somewhere, to the Holy Land on pilgrimages, or living a life of
hardship and privation and detachment from all public interests, in
the very palaces which had once been the seats of authority. Her
patricians moved silent about the streets in the rude sandals and
mean robes of the monk: her great ladies drove forth no longer
resplendent as Venus on her car, but stood like penitent Magdalenes
upon the steps of a church; and bridegroom and bride no longer linked
with flowery garlands, but with the knotted cord of monastic rule,
lived like vestals side by side. What was to come to a society so
broken up and undermined, knowing no salvation save in its own
complete undoing, preparing unconsciously for some convulsion at hand?
The interpreter of the dark sayings of prophecy goes on through one
lingering age after another, holding the threats of divine justice as
still and always unfulfilled, and will never be content that it is any
other than the present economy which is marked with the curse and
threatened with the ruin of Apocalyptic denunciations. But no one
could doubt that the wine was red in that cup of the wrath of God
which the city of so many sins held in her hand. The voice that called
"Come out of her, my people," had rung aloud in tones unmistakable,
calling the best of her sons and daughters from her side; her natural
weapons had fallen from her nerveless hands; she had no longer any
heart even to defend herself, she who had once but to lift her hand
and the air had tingled to the very boundaries of the known world as
if a blazing sword had been drawn. It requires but little imagination
to appropriate to the condition of Rome on the eve of the invasion of
Alaric every strophe of the magnificent ode in the eighteenth chapter
of Revelation. There are reminiscences in that great poem of another,
of the rousing of Hell to meet the king of the former Babylon echoing
out of the mists of antiquity from the lips of the Hebrew prophet.
Once more that cry was in the air--once more the thrill of approaching
destruction was like the quiver of heat in the great atmosphere of
celestial blue which encircled the white roofs, the shining temples,
the old forums as yet untouched, and the new basilicas as yet scarce
completed, of Rome. The old order was about to change finally, giving
place to the new.
All becomes confused in the velocity and precipitation of descending
ruin. We can trace the last hours of Paula dying safe and quiet in her
retreat at Bethlehem, and even of the less gentle Melania; but when we
attempt to follow the course of the events which overwhelmed the home
of early faith on the Aventine, the confusion of storm and sack and
horrible sufferings and terror fills the air with blackness. For years
there had existed a constant succession of danger and reprieve, of
threatening hosts (the so-called friends not much better than the
enemies) around the walls of the doomed city, great figures of
conquerors with their armies coming and going, now the barbarian, now
the Roman general upon the height of the wave of battle, the city
escaping by a hair's breadth, then plunged into terror again. And
Marcella's house had suffered with the rest. No doubt much of the
gaiety, the delightful intellectualism of that pleasant refuge, had
departed with the altering time. Age had subdued the liveliness and
brightness of a community still full of the correspondences, the much
letter-writing which women love. Marcella's companions had died away
from her side; life was more quickly exhausted in these days of
agitation, and she herself, the young and brilliant founder of that
community of Souls, must have been sixty or more when the terrible
Alaric, a scourge of God like his predecessor Attila, approached Rome.
What had become of the rest we are not told, or if the relics of the
community, nameless in their age and lessened importance, were still
there: the only one that is mentioned is a young sister called
Principia, her adopted child and attendant. Nothing can be more likely
than that the remainder of the community had fled, seeking safety, or
more likely an unknown death, in less conspicuous quarters of the city
than the great palace of the Aventine with its patrician air of wealth
and possible treasure. In that great house, so far as appears,
remained only its mistress, her soul wound up for any martyrdom, and
the girl who clung to her. If they dared to look forth at all from the
marble terrace where so often they must have gazed over Rome shining
white in the sunshine in all her measured lines and great proportions,
her columns and her domes, what a dread scene must have met their
eyes, clouds of smoke and wild gleams of flame, and the roar of outcry
and slaughter mounting up into the air, soiling the very sky. There
the greatest ladies of Rome had come in their grandeur to enjoy the
piquant contrast and the still more piquant talk, the philosophies
which they loved to penetrate and understand, the learning which went
over their heads. There Jerome, surrounded with soft flatteries and
provocations, had talked his best, giving forth out of his stores the
tales of wonder he had brought from Eastern cells and caves and all
the knowledge of the schools, to dazzle the amateurs of the Roman
gynæceum. What gay, what thrilling, what happy memories!--mingled with
the sweetness of remembrance of gentle Paula who was dead, of Asella
dead, of Fabiola in all her fascinations and caprices, dead too so far
as appears--and no doubt in those thirty years since first Marcella
opened her house to the special service of God, many more; till now
that she was left alone, grey-headed, on that height whither the
fierce Goths were coming, raging, flashing round them fire and flame,
with the girl who would not leave her, the young maiden in her
voiceless meekness whom we see only at this awful moment, she who
might have a sharper agony than death before her, the most appalling
of martyrdoms.
One final triumph however remained for Marcella. By what wonderful
means we know not, by her prayers and tears, by supplication on her
knees, to the rude Goths who after their sort were Christians, and
sometimes spared the helpless victims and sometimes listened to a
woman's prayer, she succeeded in saving her young companion from
outrage, and in dragging her somehow to the shelter of the nearest
church, where they were safe. But she was herself in her age and
weakness, tortured, flogged, and treated with the utmost cruelty, that
she might disclose the hiding-place in which she had put her treasure.
The treasure of the house of the Aventine was not there: it had fed
the poor, and supplied the wants of the sick in all the most miserable
corners of Rome. The kicks and blows of the baffled plunderers could
not bring that long-expended gold and silver together again. But these
sufferings were as nothing in comparison to the holy triumph of saving
young Principia, which was the last and not the least wonderful work
of her life. The very soldiers who had struck and beaten the mistress
of the desolate house were overcome by her patience and valour,
"Christ softened their hard hearts," says Jerome. "The barbarians
conveyed both you and her to the basilica that you might find a place
of safety or at least a tomb." Nothing can be more extraordinary in
the midst of this awful scene of carnage and rapine than to know
that the churches were sanctuaries upon which the rudest assailants
dared not to lift a hand, and that the helpless women, half dead of
fright and one of them bleeding and wounded with the cruel treatment
she had received, were safe as soon as they had been dragged over the
sacred threshold.
[Illustration: TEMPLE OF VESTA.
_To face page 110._]
The church in which Marcella and her young companion found shelter was
the great basilica of St. Paul _fuori le mura_, beyond the Ostian
gate. They were conducted there by their captors themselves, some
compassionate Gaul or Frank, whose rude chivalry of soul had been
touched by the spectacle of the aged lady's struggle for her child.
What a terrible flight through the darkness must that have been "in
the lost battle borne down by the flying" amid the trains of trembling
fugitives all bent on that one spot of safety, the gloom lighted up by
the gleams of the burning city behind, the air full of shrieks and
cries of the helpless, the Tiber rushing swift and strong by the path
to swallow any helpless wayfarer pushed aside by stronger fugitives.
The two ladies reached half-dead the great church on the edge of the
Campagna, the last refuge of the miserable, into which were crowded
the wrecks of Roman society, both Pagan and Christian, patrician and
slave, hustled together in the equality of doom. A few days after, in
the church itself, or some of its dependencies, Marcella died. Her
palace in ruins, her companions dead or fled, she perished along with
the old Rome against whose vices she had protested, but which she had
loved and would not abandon: whose poor she had fed with her
substance, whose society she had attempted to purify, and in which she
had led so honourable and noble--may we not also believe amid all her
austerities, in the brown gown which was almost a scandal, and the
meagre meals that scarcely kept body and soul together?--so happy a
life. There is no trace now of the noble mansion which she devoted to
so high a purpose, and few of the many pilgrims who love to discover
all that is interesting in the relics of Rome, have even heard the
name of Marcella--"Illam mitem, illam suavem, illam omni melle et
dulcedine dulciorem"--whose example "lured to higher worlds and led
the way." But her pleasant memory lingers on the leafy crest of the
Aventine where she lived, and where the church of Sta. Sabina now
stands: and her mild shadow lies on that great church outside the
gates, often destroyed, often restored, the shrine of Paul the
Apostle, where, wounded and broken, but always faithful to her trust,
she died. The history of the first dedicated household, the first
convent, the _ecclesia domestica_, which was so bright a centre of
life in the old Rome, not yet entirely Christian, is thus rounded into
a perfect record. It began in 380 or thereabouts, it ended in 410. Its
story is but an obscure chapter in the troubled chronicles of the
time; but there is none more spotless, and scarcely any so serenely
radiant and bright.
Pammachius also died in the siege, whether among the defenders of the
city or in the general carnage is not known, "with many other brothers
and sisters whose death is announced to us" Jerome says, whom that
dreadful news threw into a stupor of horror and misery, so that it was
some time before he could understand the details or discover who was
saved and who lost. The saved indeed were very few, and the losses
many. Young Paula, the granddaughter of the first, the child of
Toxotius, who also was happily dead before these horrors, had been for
some years in Bethlehem peacefully learning how to take the elder
Paula's place, and shedding sweetness into the life of the old prophet
in his rocky chamber at Bethlehem, and of the grave Eustochium in her
convent. Young Melania, standing in the same relationship to the
heroine of that name, whose fame is less sweet, was out of harm's way
too. They and many humbler members of the community had escaped by
flight, among the agitated crowds which had long been pouring out of
Italy towards the East, some from mere panic, some by the vows of
self-dedication and retirement from the world. Many more as has been
seen escaped in Rome itself, before its agony began, by the still more
effectual way of death. Only Marcella, the first of all, the pupil of
Athanasius, the mother and mistress of so many consecrated souls, fell
on the outraged threshold of her own house, over which she had come
and gone for thirty years, with those feet that are beautiful on the
mountains, the feet of those who bring good tidings, and carry charity
and loving kindness to every door.
[Illustration: PORTA SAN PAOLO.]
BOOK II.
THE POPES WHO MADE THE PAPACY.
[Illustration: THE STEPS OF SAN GREGORIO.]
BOOK II.
THE POPES WHO MADE THE PAPACY.
CHAPTER I.
GREGORY THE GREAT.
When Rome had fallen into the last depths of decadence, luxury,
weakness, and vice, the time of fierce and fiery trial came. The great
city lay like a helpless woman at the mercy of her foes--or rather at
the mercy of every new invader who chose to sack her palaces and throw
down her walls, without even the pretext of any quarrel against the
too wealthy and luxurious city, which had been for her last period at
least nobody's enemy but her own. Alaric, who, not content with the
heaviest ransom, returned to rage through her streets with all those
horrors and cruelties which no advance in civilisation has ever yet
entirely dissociated from the terrible name of siege: Attila, whose
fear of his predecessor's fate and the common report of murders and
portents, St. Peter with a sword of flame guarding his city, and other
signs calculated to melt the hearts of the very Huns in their bosoms,
kept at a distance: passed by without harming the prostrate city. But
Genseric and his Vandals were kept back by no such terrors. The
ancient Rome, with all her magnificent relics of the imperial age,
fell into ruin and was trampled under foot by victor after victor in
the fierce license of barbarous triumph. Her secret stores of
treasure, her gold and silver, her magnificent robes, her treasures of
art fell, like her beautiful buildings, into the rude hands which
respected nothing, neither beauty nor the traditions of a glorious
past. How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people! All the
pathetic and wonderful plaints of the Hebrew prophet over a still
holier and more ancient place, trodden under foot and turned into a
desert, rise to the mind during this passion and agony of imperial
Rome. But the mistress of the world had no such fierce band of
patriots to fight inch by inch for her holy places as had the old
Jerusalem. There were few to shed their blood for her in the way of
defence. The blood that flowed was that of murdered weakness, not that
freely shed of valiant men.
During this terrible period of blood and outrage and passion and
suffering, one institution alone stood firm amid the ruins, wringing
even from the fiercest of the barbarians a certain homage, and
establishing a sanctuary in the midst of sack and siege in which the
miserable could find shelter. As every other public office and potency
fell, the Church raised an undaunted front, and took the place at once
of authority and of succour among the crushed and downtrodden people.
It is common to speak of this as the beginning of that astute and
politic wisdom of Rome which made the city in the middle ages almost a
greater power than in her imperial days, and equally mistress of the
world. But there is very little evidence that any great plan for the
aggrandisement of the Church, or the establishment of her supremacy,
had yet been formed, or that the early Popes had any larger purpose in
their minds than to do their best in the position in which they stood,
to avert disaster, to spread Christianity, and to shield as far as was
possible the people committed to their care. No formal claim of
supremacy over the rest of the Church had been as yet made: it was
indeed formally repudiated by the great Gregory in the end of the
sixth century as an unauthorised claim, attributed to the bishops of
Rome only by their enemies, though still more indignantly to be
denounced when put forth by any other ecclesiastical authority such as
the patriarch of Constantinople. To Peter, he says in one of his
epistles, was committed the charge of the whole Church, but his
successors did not on that account call themselves rulers of the
Church universal--how much less a bishropic of the East who had no
such glorious antecedents!
But if pretension to the primacy had not yet been put forth, there had
arisen the practical situation, which called the bishops of Rome to a
kind of sovereignty of the city. The officials of the empire, a
distant exarch at Ravenna, a feeble prætor at Rome, had no power
either to protect or to rescue. The bishop instinctively, almost
involuntarily, whenever he was a man of strength or note, was put into
the breach. Whatever could be done by negotiation, he, a man of peace,
was naturally called to do. Innocent procured from Alaric the
exemption of the churches from attack even in the first and most
terrible siege; there wounded men and flying women found refuge in the
hottest of the pillage, and Marcella struggling, praying for the
deliverance of her young nun, through the brutal crowd which had
invaded her house, was in safety with her charge, as we have seen, as
soon as they could drag themselves within the sanctuary. This was
already a great thing in that dread conflict of force with
weakness--and it continued to be the case more or less in all the
successive waves of fire and flame which passed over Rome. And when
the terrible tide of devastation was over, one patriot Pope at least
took the sacred vessels of gold and silver, which had been saved along
with the people in their sanctuaries, and melted them down to procure
bread for the remnant, thus doubly delivering the flock committed to
his care. These facts worked silently, and there seems no reason to
believe other than unconsciously at first, towards the formation of
the great power which was once more to make Rome a centre of empire.
The historian is too apt to perceive in every action an early-formed
and long-concealed project tending towards one great end; and it is
common to recognise, even in the missionary expeditions of the Church,
as well as in the immediate protection exercised around her seat, this
astute policy and ever-maturing, ever-growing scheme. But neither Leo
nor Gregory require any such explanation of their motives; their duty
was to protect, to deliver, to work day and night for the welfare of
the people who had no other protectors: as it was their first duty to
spread the Gospel, to teach all nations according to their Master's
commission. It is hard to take from them the credit of those measures
which were at once their natural duty and their delight, in order to
make all their offices of mercy subservient to the establishment of a
universal authority to which neither of them laid any claim.
While Rome still lay helpless in the midst of successive invasions,
now in one conqueror's hands, now in another, towards the middle of
the sixth century a young man of noble race--whose father and mother
were both Christians, the former occupying a high official position,
as was also the case with the son, in his earlier years--became
remarkable among his peers according to the only fashion which a high
purpose and noble meaning seems to have been able to take at that
period. Perhaps such a spirit as that of Gregory could never have been
belligerent; yet it is curious to note that no patriotic saviour of
his country, no defender of Rome, who might have called forth a spirit
in the gilded youth, and raised up the ancient Roman strength for the
deliverance of the city, seems to have been possible in that age of
degeneration. No Maccabæus was to be found among the ashes of the race
which once had ruled the world. Whatever excellence remained in it was
given to the new passion of the cloister, the instinct of sacrifice
and renunciation instead of resistance and defence. It may be said
that the one way led equally with the other to that power which is
always dear to the heart of man: yet it is extraordinary that amid all
the glorious traditions of Rome,--notwithstanding the fame of great
ancestors still hanging about every noble house, and the devotion
which the city itself, then as now, excited among its children, a
sentiment which has made many lesser places invulnerable, so long as
there was a native arm to strike a blow for them, no single bold
attempt was ever made, no individual stand, no popular frenzy of
patriotism ever excited in defence of the old empress of the world.
The populace perhaps was too completely degraded to make any such
attempt possible, but the true hero when he appears does not
calculate, and is able to carry out his glorious effort with sometimes
the worst materials. However, it is needless to attempt to account for
such an extraordinary failure in the very qualities which had made the
Roman name illustrious. Despair must have seized upon the very heart
of the race. That race itself had been vitiated and mingled with baser
elements by ages of conquest, repeated captivities, and overthrows,
and all the dreadful yet monotonous vicissitudes of disaster, one
outrage following another, and the dreadful sense of impotence, which
crushes the very being, growing with each new catastrophe. It must
have appeared to the children of the ancient conquerors that there
was no refuge or hope for them, save in that kingdom not of this
world, which had risen while everything else crumbled under their
feet, which had been growing in silence while the old economy fell
into ashes, and which alone promised a resurrection and renewal worthy
of the highest hopes.
This ideal had been growing throughout the world, and had penetrated
into almost every region of Christendom before the period of Gregory's
birth. Nearly a hundred and fifty unhappy years had passed since
Marcella ended her devout life amid the fire and flame of the first
siege; but the times had so little changed that it was at first under
the same aspect which attracted that Roman lady and so many of her
contemporaries, that the monastic life recommended itself to the young
patrician Gregorius, in the home of his parents, the Roman villa on
the edge of that picturesque and splendid wood of great oak-trees
which gave to the Coelian Hill its first title of Mons Querquetulanus.
It had been from the beginning of his life a devout house, full of the
presence and influence of three saintly women, all afterwards
canonised, his mother Silvia and his father's sisters. That father
himself was at least not uncongenial to his surroundings, though
living the usual life, full of magnificence and display, of the noble
Roman, filling in his turn great offices in the state, or at least the
name and outward pomp of offices which had once been great. Some
relics of ancient temples gleaming through the trees beyond the
gardens of the villa must still have existed among the once sacred
groves; and the vast buildings of the old economy, the Colosseum
behind, the ruined and roofless palaces of the Palatine, would be
visible from the terrace on which the meditative youth wandered,
pondering over Rome at his feet and the great world lying beyond, in
which there were endless marchings and countermarchings of barbarous
armies, one called in to resist the other, Huns and Vandals from one
quarter, irresistible Franks, alien races all given to war, while the
secret and soul of peace lay in that troubled and isolated stronghold
of Him whose kingdom was not of this world. Gregory musing can have
had no thought, such as we should put instinctively into the mind of a
noble young man in such circumstances, of dying upon the breached and
crumbling walls for his country, or leading any forlorn hope; and if
his fancy strayed instead far from those scenes of battle and trouble
to the convent cells and silent brotherhoods, where men disgusted and
sick of heart could enter and pray, it was as yet with no thought or
intention of following their example. He tells us himself that he
resisted as long as he could "the grace of conversion," and as a
matter of fact entered into the public life such as it was, of the
period, following in his father's footsteps, and was himself, like
Gordianus, _prætor urbis_ in his day, when he had attained the early
prime of manhood. The dates of his life are dubious until we come to
his later years, but it is supposed that he was born about 540; and he
was recommended for the Prætorship by the Emperor Julius, which must
have been before 573, at which date he would have attained the age of
thirty-three, that period so significant in the life of man, the
limit, as is believed, of our Lord's existence on earth, and close to
that _mezzo del cammin_ which the poet has celebrated as the
turning-point of life. In his splendid robes, attended by his throng
of servants, he must no doubt have ruffled it with the best among the
officials of a state which had scarcely anything but lavish display
and splendour to justify its pretence of government; but we hear
nothing either of the early piety or early profanity which generally
distinguish, one or the other, the beginning of a predestined saint.
Neither prodigal nor devotee, the son of Gordianus and Silvia did
credit to his upbringing, even if he did not adopt its austerer
habits. But when his father died, the attraction which drew so many
towards the cloister must have begun to operate upon Gregory. When
all the wealth came into his hands, when his devout mother retired to
her nun's cell on the Aventine, close to the old basilica of S. Sabba,
giving up the world, and the young man was left in full possession of
his inheritance and the dwelling of his fathers, he would seem to have
come to a serious pause in his life. Did he give a large slice of his
fortune to endow monasteries in distant Sicily, as far out of the way,
one might say, as possible, by way of compromising with his
conscience, and saving himself from the sweep of the current which had
begun to catch his feet? Perhaps it was some family connection with
Sicily--estates, situated there as some think, which prompted the
appropriation of his gifts to that distant island; but this is mere
speculation, and all that the authorities tell us is that he did
establish and endow six monasteries in Sicily, without giving any
reason for it. This was his first step towards the life to which later
all his wishes and interests were devoted.
It would seem, however, if there is any possible truth in the idea,
that the Sicilian endowments were a sort of ransom for himself and the
personal sacrifice of the world which his growing fervour demanded of
him, that the expedient was not a successful one. He did not resist
the grace of conversion very long; but it is curious to find him, so
long after, adopting the same expedient as that which had formed a
middle ground for his predecessors in an earlier age, by converting
his father's house into a convent. St. Benedict, the first of monastic
founders in Europe, was scarcely born when Marcella first called about
her the few pious maidens and widows who formed her permanent
household in Rome; but by the time of Gregory, the order of Benedict
had become one of the great facts and institutions of the time--and
his villa was soon filled with a regular community of black-robed
monks with their abbot and other leaders. Remaining in the beloved
shelter of his natural home, he became a member of this community. He
did not even retain, as Marcella did, the government of the new
establishment in his own hand, but served humbly, holding no office,
as an undistinguished brother. It was not without difficulty that he
made up his mind to this step. In the letter to Leander which forms
the dedication of his commentary on Job, he gives a brief and vague
account of his own hesitations and doubts. The love of things eternal,
he says, had taken hold upon his mind while yet custom had so wound
its chains round him that he could not make up his mind to change his
outward garb. But the new influence was so strong that he engaged in
the service of the world as it were in semblance only, his purpose and
inclination turning more and more towards the cloister. When the
current of feeling and spiritual excitement carried him beyond all
these reluctances and hesitations, and he at last "sought the haven of
the monastery," having, as he says, "left all that is of the world as
at that time I vainly believed, I came out naked from the shipwreck of
human life." His intention at this crisis was evidently not that of
fitting himself for the great offices of the Church or entering what
was indeed one of the greatest professions of the time, the
priesthood, the one which, next to that of the soldier, was most apt
for advancement. Like Jerome, Gregory's inclination was to be a monk
and not a priest, and he expressly tells us that "the virtue of
obedience was set against my own inclination to make me take the
charge of ministering at the holy altar," which he was obliged to
accept upon the ground that the Church had need of him. This
disinclination to enter the priesthood is all the more remarkable that
Gregory was evidently a preacher born, and seems early in his monastic
life to have developed this gift. The elucidation of so difficult and
mysterious a book as that of Job was asked of him by his brethren at
an early period of his career.
We have no guidance of dates to enable us to know how long a time he
passed in the monastery, which was dedicated to St. Andrew, after he
turned it from a palace-villa into monastic cells and cloisters; but
the legend which comes in more or less to every saintly life here
affords us one or two delightful vignettes to illustrate the history.
His mother Silvia in her nun's cell, surrounded by its little garden,
at S. Sabba, sent daily, the story goes--and there is no reason to
doubt its truth--a mess of vegetables to her son upon the Coelian,
prepared by her own tender hands. One can imagine some shockheaded
Roman of a lay brother, old servant or retainer, tramping alone, day
by day, over the stony ways, across the deep valley between the two
hills, with the simple dish tied in its napkin, which perhaps had some
savour of home and childhood, the mother's provision for her boy.
Another story, less original, relates how having sold everything and
given all his money to the poor, Gregory was beset by a shipwrecked
sailor who came to him again and again in the cell where he sat
writing, and to whom at last, having no money, he gave the only thing
of value he had left, a silver dish given him by his mother--perhaps
the very bowl in which day by day his dinner of herbs was sent to him.
Needless to say that the mysterious sailor assumed afterwards a more
glorious form, and Gregory found that he had given alms, if not as in
most such cases to his Master, at least to a ministering angel. Then,
too, in those quiet years arose other visionary legends, that of the
dove who sat on his shoulder and breathed inspiration into his ear,
and the Madonna who spoke to him as he sat musing--a Madonna painted
by no mortal hands, but coming into being on the wall--a sweet and
consoling vision in the light that never was by sea or shore. These
are the necessary adjuncts of every saintly legend. It is not needful
that we should insist upon them; but they help us to realise the
aspect of the young Roman who had, at last, after some struggles
attained that "grace of conversion" which makes the renunciation of
every worldly advantage possible, but who still dwelt peacefully in
his own house, and occupied the cell he had chosen for himself with
something of the consciousness of the master of the house, although no
superiority of rank among his brethren, finding no doubt a delightful
new spring of life in the composition of his homilies, and the sense
that a higher sphere of work and activity was thus opening before his
feet.
The cell of St. Gregory and his marble chair in which he worked and
rested, are still shown for the admiration of the faithful on the
right side of the church which bears his name: but neither church nor
convent are of his building, though they occupy the sites consecrated
by him to the service of God. "Here was the house of Gregory,
converted by him into a monastery," says the inscription on the
portico. And in one spot at least the steps of the Roman gentleman
turned monk, may still be traced in the evening freshness and among
the morning dews--in the garden, from which the neighbouring summits
of the sun-crowned city still rise before the rapt spectator with all
their memories and their ruins. There were greater ruins in Gregory's
day, ruins still smoking from siege and fire, roofless palaces telling
their stern lesson of the end of one great period of empire, of a
mighty power overthrown, and new rude overwhelming forces, upon which
no man could calculate, come in, in anarchy and bloodshed, to turn the
world upside down. We all make our own somewhat conventional
comparisons and reflections upon that striking scene, and moralise at
our leisure over the Pagan and the Christian, and all that has been
signified to the world in such an overthrow and transformation. But
Gregory's thoughts as he paced his garden terrace must have been very
different from ours. He no doubt felt a thrill of pleasure as he
looked at the desecrated places over which Goth and Vandal had raged,
in the thought that the peaceful roof of his father's house was safe,
a refuge for the chosen souls who had abjured the world; and
self-withdrawn from all those conflicts and miseries, mused in his
heart over the new world which was dawning, under the tender care of
the Church and the ministration of those monks denuded of all things,
whose sole inspiration was to be the love of God and the succour of
the human race. The world could not go on did not every new economy
form to itself some such glorious dream of the final triumph of the
good, the noble, and the true. Great Rome lay wrecked and ended in the
sight of the patrician monk who had schooled himself out of all the
bitterness of the vanquished in that new hope and new life of the
cloister. Did he already see his brethren, the messengers of the
faith, going forth to all the darkest corners of the unknown world
with their gospel, and new skies and new lands turning to meet the
shining of the new day?--or with thoughts more profound in awe, more
sacred in mysterious joy, did he hold his breath to think what all
these ragings of nations and overturning of powers might portend, the
glorious era when all misery should be ended, and the Lord come in the
clouds to judge the earth and vindicate His people? The monks have
failed like the emperors since Gregory's day--the Popes have found no
more certain solution for the problems of earth than did the
philosophers. But it is perhaps more natural on one of those seven
hills of Rome, to think of that last great event which shall fulfil
all things, and finally unravel this mortal coil of human affairs,
than it is on any other spot of earth except the mystic Mount of the
Olives, from which rose the last visible steps of the Son of Man.
We have no knowledge how long this quiet life lasted, or if he was
long left to write his sermons in his cell, and muse in his garden,
and receive his spare meal from his mother's hands, the mess of
lentils, or beans, or artichokes, which would form his only fare; but
it is evident that even in this seclusion he had given assurance of a
man to the authorities of the Church and was looked upon as one of its
hopes. He had no desire, as has been said, to become a priest, but
rather felt an almost superstitious fear of being called upon to
minister at the holy altar, a sentiment very usual in those days among
men of the world converted to a love of the life of prayer and
penitence, but not of the sacerdotal charge or profession. It is
curious indeed how little the sacramental idea had then developed in
the minds of the most pious. The rule of Benedict required the
performance of the mass only on Sundays and festivals, and there is
scarcely any mention of the more solemn offices of worship in the age
of Jerome, who was a priest in spite of himself, and never said but
one mass in his life. It was to "live the life," as in the case of a
recent remarkable convert from earthly occupations to mystical
religionism, that the late prætor, sick of worldly things, devoted
himself: and not to enter into a new caste, against which the
tradition that discredits all priesthoods and the unelevated character
of many of its members, has always kept up a prejudice, which exists
now as it existed then.
But Gregory could not struggle against the fiat of his ecclesiastical
superiors, and was almost compelled to receive the first orders. After
much toiling and sifting of evidence the ever careful Bollandists have
concluded that this event happened in 578 or 579--while Baronius,
perhaps less bigoted in his accuracy, fixes it in 583. Nor was it
without a distinct purpose that this step was taken; there was more to
do in the world for this man than to preach homilies and expound
Scripture in the little Roman churches. Some one was wanted to
represent Pope Benedict the First in Constantinople, some one who knew
the world and would not fear the face of any emperor; and it was
evidently to enable him to hold the post of Apocrisarius or Nuncio,
that Gregory was hastily invested with deacon's orders, and received
the position later known as that of a Cardinal deacon. It is a little
premature, and harmonises ill with the other features of the man, to
describe him as a true mediæval Nuncio, with all the subtle powers and
arrogant assumptions of the Rome of the middle ages. This however is
Gibbon's description of him, a bold anachronism, antedating by several
ages the pretensions which had by no means come to any such
development in the sixth century. He describes the Apocrisarius of
Pope Benedict as one "who boldly assumed in the name of St. Peter a
tone of independent dignity which would have been criminal and
dangerous in the most illustrious layman of the empire."
There is little doubt that Gregory would be an original and remarkable
figure among the sycophants of the imperial court, where the vices of
the East mingled with those of the West, and everything was venal,
corrupt, and debased. Gregory was the representative of a growing
power, full of life and the prospects of a boundless future. There was
neither popedom nor theories of universal primacy as yet, and he was
confronted at Constantinople by ecclesiastical functionaries of as
high pretensions as any he could put forth; but yet the Bishop of Rome
had a unique position, and the care of the interests of the entire
Western Church was not to be held otherwise than with dignity and a
bold front whoever should oppose.
[Illustration: VILLA DE' MEDICI.]
There was however another side to the life of the Nuncio which is
worthy of note and very characteristic of the man. He had been
accompanied on his mission by a little train of monks; for these
coenobites were nothing if not social, and their solitude was always
tempered by the proverbial companion to whom they could say how
delightful it was to be alone. This little private circle formed a
home for the representative of St. Peter, to which he retired with
delight from the wearisome audiences, intrigues, and ceremonies of the
imperial court. Another envoy, Leander, a noble Spaniard, afterwards
Bishop of Seville, and one of the favourite saints of Spain, was in
Constantinople at the same time, charged with some high mission from
Rome "touching the faith of the Visigoths," whose conversion from
Arianism was chiefly the work of this apostolic labourer. And he too
found refuge in the home of Gregory among the friends there gathered
together, probably bringing with him his own little retinue in the
same Benedictine habit. "To their society I fled," says Gregory, "as
to the bosom of the nearest port from the rolling swell and waves of
earthly occupation; and though that office which withdrew me from the
monastery had with the point of its employments stabbed to death my
former tranquillity of life, yet in their society I was reanimated."
They read and prayed together, keeping up the beloved punctilios of
the monastic rule, the brethren with uninterrupted attention, the
Nuncio and the Bishop as much as was possible to them in the intervals
of their public work. And in the cool atrio of some Eastern palace,
with the tinkling fountain in the midst and the marble benches round,
the little company with one breath besought their superior to exercise
for them those gifts of exposition and elucidation of which he had
already proved himself a master. "It was then that it seemed good to
those brethren, you too adding your influence as you will remember, to
oblige me by the importunity of their requests to set forth the book
of the blessed Job--and so far as the Truth should inspire me, to lay
open to them these mysteries." We cannot but think it was a curious
choice for the brethren to make in the midst of that strange
glittering world of Constantinople, where the ecclesiastical news
would all be of persecuting Arians and perverse Eastern bishops, and
where all kinds of subtle heresies, both doctrinal and personal, were
in the air, fine hair-splitting arguments as to how much or how little
of common humanity was in the sacred person of our Lord, as well as
questions as to the precise day on which to keep Easter and other
regulations of equal importance. But to none of these matters did the
monks in exile turn their minds. "They made this too an additional
burden which their petition laid upon me, that I would not only
unravel the words of the history in allegorical senses, but that I
would go on to give to the allegorical sense the turn of a moral
exercise: with the addition of something yet harder, that I would
fortify the different meanings with analogous passages, and that
these, should they chance to be involved, should be disentangled by
the aid of additional explanation."
This abstruse piece of work was the recreation with which his brethren
supplied the active mind of Gregory in the midst of his public
employments and all the distractions of the imperial court. It need
not be said that he did not approach the subject critically or with
any of the lights of that late learning which has so much increased
the difficulty of approaching any subject with simplicity. It is not
supposed even that he had any knowledge of the original, or indeed any
learning at all. The Nuncio and his monks were not disturbed by
questions about that wonderful scene in which Satan stands before God.
They accepted it with a calm which is as little concerned by its
poetic grandeur as troubled by its strange suggestions. That
extraordinary revelation of an antique world, so wonderfully removed
from us, beyond all reach of history, was to them the simplest preface
to a record of spiritual experience, full of instruction to
themselves, lessons of patience and faith, and all the consolations of
God. Nothing is more likely than that there were among the men who
clustered about Gregory in his Eastern palace, some who like Job had
seen everything that was dear to them perish, and had buried health
and wealth and home and children under the ashes of sacked and burning
Rome. We might imagine even that this was the reason why that
mysterious poem with all its wonderful discoursings was chosen as the
subject to be treated in so select an assembly. Few of these men if
any would be peaceful sons of the cloister, bred up in the stillness
of conventual life; neither is it likely that they would be scholars
or divines. They were men rescued from a world more than usually
terrible and destructive of individual happiness, saddened by loss,
humiliated in every sensation either of family or national pride, the
fallen sons of a great race, trying above all things to console
themselves for the destruction of every human hope. And the exposition
of Job is written with this end, with strange new glosses and
interpretations from that New Testament which was not yet six hundred
years old, and little account of any difference between: for were not
both Holy Scripture intended for the consolation and instruction of
mankind? and was not this the supreme object of all--not to raise
antiquarian questions or exercise the mind on metaphysical arguments,
but to gather a little balsam for the wounds, and form a little prop
for the weakness of labouring and heavily laden men? _Moralia_: "The
Book of the Morals of St. Gregory the Pope" is the title of the
book--a collection of lessons how to endure and suffer, how to hope
and believe, how to stand fast--in the certainty of a faith that
overcomes all things, in the very face of fate.
"Whosoever is speaking concerning God," says Gregory, "must be careful
to search out thoroughly whatsoever furnishes moral instruction to his
hearers; and should account that to be the right method of ordering
his discourse which permits him when opportunity for edification
requires it, to turn aside for a useful purpose from that which he had
begun to speak of. He that treats of sacred writ should follow the way
of a river: for if a river as it flows along its channel meets with
open valleys on its side, into these it immediately turns the course
of its current, and when they are copiously supplied presently it
pours itself back into its bed. Thus unquestionably should it be with
every one that treats the Divine word, so that if discussing any
subject he chances to find at hand any occasion of seasonable
edification he should as it were force the streams of discourse
towards the adjacent valley, and when he has poured forth enough upon
its level of instruction fall back into the channel of discourse which
he had proposed to himself."
We do not know what the reader may think of Gregory's geography; but
certainly he carries out his discursive views to the full, and fills
every valley he may chance to come to in his flowing, with pools and
streams--no doubt waters of refreshing to the souls that surrounded
him, ever eager to press him on. A commentary thus called forth by the
necessities of the moment, spoken in the first place to anxious
listeners who had with much pressure demanded it, and who nodded their
heads over it with mingled approbation and criticism as half their
own, has a distinctive character peculiar to itself, and requires
little aid from science or learning. A large portion of it was written
as it fell from his lips, without revision Gregory informs us,
"because the brethren drawing me away to other things, would not leave
time to correct this with any great degree of exactness."
A gleam of humour comes across the picture as he describes his
position among this band of dependent and applauding followers, who
yet were more or less the masters of his leisure and private life.
"Pursuing my object of obeying their instructions, _which I must
confess were sufficiently numerous_, I have completed this work," he
says. The humour is a little rueful, the situation full of force and
nature. The little group of lesser men would no doubt have fully
acknowledged themselves inferior to the eloquent brother, their
founder, their instructor, so much greater a man in every way than
themselves: but yet not able to get on without the hints of Brother
John or Brother Paul, helped so much by that fine suggestion of the
Cellarius, and the questions and sagacious remarks of the others. The
instructions of the brethren! who does not recognise the scene, the
nods aside, the objections, the volunteered information and directions
how to say this or that, which he knew so much better how to say than
any of them! while he sat listening all the time, attending to every
criticism, taking up a hint here and there, with that curious alchemy
of good humour and genius, turning the dull remarks to profit, yet
always with a twinkle in his eye at those advices "sufficiently
numerous" which aimed at teaching him how to teach them, a position
which many an ecclesiastic and many an orator must have realised since
then. Gregory reveals his consciousness of the state of affairs quite
involuntarily, nothing being further from his mind than to betray to
his reverend and saintly brother anything so human and faulty as a
smile; and it is clear that he took the animadversions in good part
with as much good nature as humour. To make out the features of the
same man in Gibbon's picture of an arrogant priest assuming more than
any layman durst assume, is very difficult. The historian evidently
made his study from models a few hundred years further down in the
record.
Gregory seems to have held the place of Apocrisarius twice under two
different Popes--Benedict I. and Pelagius II.; but whether he returned
to Rome between the two is not clear. One part of his commission from
Pelagius was to secure help from the Emperor against the Lombards who
were threatening Rome. The Pope's letter with its lamentable account
of the undefended and helpless condition of the city, and the urgency
with which he entreats his representative to support the pleading of a
special envoy sent for that purpose, is interesting. It is sent to
Gregory by the hands of a certain Sebastian, "our brother and
coadjutor," who has been in Ravenna with the general Decius, and
therefore is able to describe at first hand the terrible state of
affairs to the Emperor. "Such misfortunes and tribulations," says the
Pope, "have been inflicted upon us by the perfidy of the Lombards
contrary to their own oath as no one could describe. Therefore speak
and act so as to relieve us speedily in our danger. For the state is
so hemmed in, that unless God put it into the heart of our most pious
prince to show pity to his servants, and to vouchsafe us a grant of
money, and a commander and leader, we are left in the last extremity,
all the districts round Rome being defenceless, and the Exarch unable
to do anything to help us. Therefore may God persuade the Emperor to
come quickly to our aid before the armies of that most accursed race
have overrun our lands."
What a strange overturn of all things is apparent when such a piteous
appeal is conveyed to the Eastern empire already beginning to totter,
from what was once imperial and triumphant Rome!
It was in 586, four years before the end of the life of Pelagius, that
Gregory returned home. The abbot of his convent, Maximianus, had been
promoted to the see of Syracuse, though whether for independent
reasons or to make room for Gregory in that congenial position we are
not informed; and the Nuncio on his return succeeded naturally to the
vacant place. If it was now or at an earlier period that he bestowed
all his robes, jewels, etc., on the convent it is difficult to decide,
for there seems always to have been some reserve of gifts to come out
on a later occasion, after we have heard of an apparent sacrifice of
all things for the endowment of one charity or another. At all events
Gregory's charities were endless and continued as long as he lived.
No retirement within the shadow of the convent was however possible
now for the man who had taken so conspicuous a position in public
life. He was appointed secretary to the Pope, combining that office
with the duties of head of his convent, and would appear besides to
have been the most popular preacher in Rome, followed from one church
to another by admiring crowds, and moving the people with all the
force of that religious oratory which is more powerful than any other
description of eloquence: though to tell the truth we find but little
trace of this irresistible force in his discourses as they have come
down to us. Popular as he was he does not seem to have had any special
reputation either for learning or for literary style.
One of the best known of historical anecdotes is the story of
Gregory's encounter with the group of English children brought to Rome
as slaves, whom he saw accidentally, as we say, in one of his walks.
It belongs in all probability to this period of his life, and no doubt
formed an episode in his daily progress from St. Andrew's on its hill
to the palace of the Bishop of Rome which was then attached to the
great church of the Lateran gate. In this early home of the head of
the Roman hierarchy there would no doubt be accommodation for pilgrims
and strangers, in addition to the spare court of the primitive Pope,
but probably little anticipation of the splendours of the Vatican, not
yet dreamed of. Gregory was pursuing his musing way, a genial figure
full of cheerful observation and interest in all around him, when he
was suddenly attracted as he crossed some street or square, amid the
crowd of dark heads and swarthy faces by a group, unlike the rest, of
fair Saxon boys, long-limbed and slender, with their rose tints and
golden locks. The great ecclesiastic appears to us here all at once in
a new light, after all we have known of him among his monastic
brethren. He would seem to have been one of those inveterate punsters
who abound among ecclesiastics, as well as a tender-hearted man full
of fatherly instincts. He stopped to look at the poor children so
unlike anything he knew. Who were they? Angles. Nay, more like angels,
he said in his kind tones, with no doubt a smile in return for the
wondering looks suddenly raised upon him. And their country? Deiri.
Ah, a happy sign! _de ira eruti_, destined to rise out of wrath into
blessedness. And their king? the boys themselves might by this time be
moved to answer the kind monk, who looked at them so tenderly.
Ella--Alle, as it is reported in the Latin, softening the narrower
vowel. And was it still all heathen that distant land, and unknown
rude monarch, and the parents of these angelic children? Then might it
soon be, good Lord, that Allelujah should sound wherever the barbarous
Alle reigned! Perhaps he smiled at his own play upon words, as
punsters are apt to do, as he strolled away, not we may be sure
without a touch of benediction upon the shining tawny heads of the
little Saxon lions. But smiling was not all it came to. The thought
dwelt with him as he pursued his way, by the great round of the
half-ruined Colosseum, more ruinous probably then than now, and down
the long street to the Latin gate, where Pelagius and all the work of
his secretaryship awaited him. The Pope was old and wanted cheering,
especially in those dark days when the invader so often raged without,
and Tiber was slowly swelling within, muttering wrath and disaster;
while no force existed, to be brought against one enemy or another but
the prayers of a few old men. Gregory told the story of his encounter,
perhaps making the old Pope laugh at the wit so tempered with
devotion, before he put forth his plea for a band of missionaries to
be sent to those unknown regions to convert that beautiful and
wonderful fair-haired race. Pelagius was very willing to give his
consent; but where were men to be found to risk themselves and their
lives on such a distant expedition among the savages of that unknown
island? When it was found that nobody would undertake such a perilous
mission, Gregory, who would naturally have become more determined in
respect to it after every repulse, offered himself; and somehow
managed to extort a consent from the Pope, of which he instantly took
advantage, setting out at once with a band of faithful brethren, among
whom no doubt must have been some of those who had accompanied him
when he was Nuncio into scenes so different, and pressed him on with
their advice and criticism while he opened to them the mysteries of
Scripture. They might be tyrannical in their suggestions, but no doubt
the impulse of the apostles--"let us die with him"--was strong in
their hearts.
No sooner was it known, however, in Rome that Gregory had left the
city on so distant and perilous a mission than the people rose in a
sudden tumult. They rushed together from all the quarters of the city
in excited bands towards the Lateran, surrounding the Pope with angry
cries and protests, demanding the recall of the preacher, whose
eloquence as well as his great benefactions to the poor had made him
to the masses the foremost figure in the Church. The Pope, frightened
by this tumult, yielded to the demand, and sent off messengers in hot
haste to bring the would-be missionary back. The picture which his
biographers afford us is less known than the previous incidents, yet
full of character and picturesque detail. The little band had got
three days on in their journey--one wonders from what port they meant
to embark, for Ostia, the natural way, was but a few hours from
Rome--when they made their usual halt at noon for refreshment and rest
"in the fields." Gregory had seated himself under the shade of a tree
with a book to beguile the warm and lingering hours. And as he sat
thus reading with all the bustle of the little encampment round him,
men and horses in the outdoor freedom enjoying the pause, the shade,
and needful food--a locust suddenly alighted upon his page, on the
roll of parchment which was then the form of the latest editions. Such
a visitor usually alights for a moment and no more; but Gregory was
too gentle a spectator of all life to dash the insect off, and it
remained there with a steadiness and "mansuetude" unlike the habits of
the creature. The good monk began to be interested, to muse and pun,
and finally to wonder. "Locusta," he said to himself, groping for a
meaning, "loca sta." What could it signify but that in this place he
would be made to stay? He called to his attendants to make ready with
all speed and push on, eager to get beyond the reach of pursuit; but
before the cumbrous train could be got under way again, the Pope's
messengers arrived "bloody with spurring, fiery red with haste," and
the missionaries were compelled to return to Rome. Thus his first
attempt for the conversion of England was to have been made, could he
have carried out his purpose, by himself.
There is a curious story also related of Gregory in his walks through
Rome, the issue of which, could an unbelieving age put faith in it,
would be even more remarkable. One day as he passed by the Forum of
Trajan--then no doubt a spot more wildly ruinous than now, though
still with some of its great galleries and buildings standing among
overthrown monuments and broken pillars--some one told him the story
of Trajan and the widow, which must have greatly affected the mediæval
imagination since Dante has introduced it in his great poem. The
prayer addressed to the Emperor on his way to the wars was the same as
that of the widow in the parable, "Avenge me of mine adversary." "I
will do so when I return," the Emperor replied. "But who will assure
me that you will ever return?" said the importunate widow; upon which
the Emperor, recognising the justice of the objection, stopped his
warlike progress until he had executed the vengeance required, upon
one of his own officials (is it not said by one authority his own
son?) who had wronged her. Gregory was as much impressed by this tale
as Dante. He went on lamenting that such a man, so just, so tolerant
of interruption, so ready to do what was right, should be cut off from
the Divine mercy. He carried this regret with him all the way to the
tomb of the apostles, where he threw himself on his knees and prayed
with all his heart that the good Trajan, the man who did right
according to the light that was in him, at all costs, should be saved.
Some versions of the story add that he offered to bear any penance
that might be put upon him for his presumption, and was ready to incur
any penalty to secure this great boon. It can never be put to proof in
this world whether Gregory's petition was heard or not, but his monks
and biographers were sure of it, and some of them allege that his own
bodily sufferings and weakness were the penalty which he accepted
gladly for the salvation of that great soul. The story proves at least
the intense humanity and yearning over the unhappy, which was in his
heart. Whether he played and punned in tender humour with the objects
of his sympathy, or so flung himself in profoundest compassion into
the abyss of hopelessness with them, that he could wish himself like
Paul accursed for his brethren's sake--Gregory's being was full of
brotherly love and fervent feeling, a love which penetrated even
beyond the limits of visible life.
The four years that elapsed between his return to his convent and his
election to the Popedom (or to speak more justly the bishopric of
Rome) were years of trouble. In addition to the constant danger of
invasion, the misery, even when that was escaped, of the tales brought
to Rome by the fugitives who took refuge there from all the
surrounding country, in every aggravation of poverty and wretchedness,
and the efforts that had to be made for their succour--a great
inundation of the Tiber, familiar yet terrible disaster from which
Rome has not even now been able to secure herself, took place towards
the end of the period, followed by a terrible pestilence, its natural
result. Gregory was expounding the prophet Ezekiel in one of the Roman
churches at the time of this visitation: but as the plague increased
his sorrowful soul could not bear any bondage of words or thoughts
apart from the awful needs of the moment, and closing the book, he
poured forth his heart to the awed and trembling people, exhorting all
to repent, and to fling themselves upon God's mercy that the
pestilence might be stayed. In all such terrible emergencies it is the
impulse of human nature to take refuge in something that can be done,
and the impulse is no doubt itself of use to relieve the crushing
weight of despair, whatever may be the form it takes.
[Illustration: SAN GREGORIO MAGNO, AND ST. JOHN AND ST. PAUL.]
We clean and scrub and whitewash in our day, and believe in these
ways of arresting the demons; but in old Rome the call for help was
more impressive at least, and probably braced the souls of the
sufferers as even whitewash could not do. The manner in which Gregory
essayed to turn the terrible tide was by a direct appeal to Heaven. He
organised a great simultaneous procession from all the quarters of
Rome to meet at "the Church of the Virgin"--we are not informed
which--in one great united outcry to God for mercy. The septiform
litany, as it was called, was chanted through the desolate streets by
gradually approaching lines, the men married and unmarried, the
priests and monks each approaching in a separate band; while
proceeding from other churches came the women in all their
subdivisions, the wives, the widows, the maidens, the dedicated
virgins, Ancillæ Dei, each line converging towards the centre, each
followed no doubt from windows within which the dying lay with tears
and echoes of prayers. Many great sights there have been in old Rome,
but few could have been more melancholy or impressive than this. We
hear of no miraculous picture, no saintly idol as in later
ceremonials, but only the seven processions with their long-drawn
monotones of penitence, the men by themselves, the women by
themselves, the widows in their mourning, the veiled nuns, the younger
generation, boys and girls, most precious of all. That Gregory should
have had the gift to see, or believe that he saw, a shining angel upon
Hadrian's tomb, pausing and sheathing his sword as the long line of
suppliants drew near, is very soothing and human to think of. Fresh
from his studies of Ezekiel or Job, though too sick at heart with
present trouble to continue them, why should he have doubted that the
Hearer of Prayer might thus grant a visible sign of the acceptance
which He had promised? We do not expect such visions nowadays, nor do
we with such intense and united purpose seek them; but the same legend
connects itself with many such periods of national extremity. So late
as the Great Plague of London a similar great figure, radiant in
celestial whiteness, was also reported to be seen as the pestilence
abated, sheathing, in the same imagery, a blazing sword.
The story of the septiform litany relates how here and there in the
streets as they marched the dead and dying fell out of the very ranks
of the suppliants. But yet the angel sheathed his sword. It is hard to
recall the splendid monument of Hadrian with its gleaming marbles and
statues as the pilgrim of to-day approaches the vast but truncated and
heavy round of the Castle of St. Angelo; but it does not require so
great an effort of the mind to recall that scene, when the great angel
standing out against the sky existed but in Gregory's anxious eyes,
and was reflected through the tears of thousands of despairing
spectators, who stood trembling between the Omnipotence which could
save in a moment and the terrible Death which seized and slew while
they were looking on. No human heart can refuse to beat quicker at
such a spectacle--the good man in his rapture of love and earnestness
with his face turned to that radiant Roman sky, and all the dark lines
of people arrested in their march gazing too, the chant dying from
their lips, while the white angel paused for a moment and sheathed the
sword of judgment over their heads.
It was not till many centuries later, when every relic of the glories
of the great Emperor's tomb had been torn from its walls, that the
angel in marble, afterwards succeeded by the present angel in bronze,
was erected on the summit of the Castle of St. Angelo, which derives
from this incident its name--a name now laden with many other
associations and familiar to us all.
Pope Pelagius was one of the victims of this great plague; and it is
evident from all the circumstances recorded that Gregory was already
the most prominent figure in Rome, taking the chief place, not only in
such matters as the public penitence, but in all the steps necessary
to meet so great a calamity. Not only were his powers as an
administrator very great, but he had the faculty of getting at those
sacred hordes of ecclesiastical wealth, the Church's treasures of gold
and silver plate, which a secular ruler could not have touched.
Gregory's own liberality was the best of lessons, and though he had
already sacrificed so much he had yet, it would appear, something of
his own still to dispose of, as we have already found to be the case
in so many instances, no doubt rents or produce of estates which could
not be alienated, though everything they produced was freely given up.
Already the wealth of the Church had been called into requisition to
provide for the fugitives who had taken refuge from the Lombards in
Rome. These riches, however, were now almost exhausted by the wants of
the disorganised commonwealth, where every industry and occupation had
been put out of gear, and nothing but want and misery, enfeebled
bodies, and discouraged hearts remained. It was inevitable that at
such a time Gregory should be the one man to whom every eye turned as
the successor of Pelagius. The clergy, the nobles, and the populace,
all accustomed to take a part in the choice of the bishop, pronounced
for him with one voice. It is a kind of fashion among the saints that
each one in his turn should resist and refuse the honours which it is
wished to thrust upon him; but there was at least sufficient reason in
Gregory's case for resistance. For the apostolical see, which was far
from being a bed of roses at any time, was at that period of distress
and danger one of the most onerous posts in the world.
Pelagius died in January 590, but it was late in that year before his
successor was forced into the vacant place. In the meantime Gregory
had appealed to the Emperor, begging that he would oppose the election
and support him in his resistance. This letter fell into the hands of
the Præfect of Rome, who intercepted it, and wrote in his own name and
that of the people a contrary prayer, begging the Emperor Maurice to
sanction and give authority to their choice. It was only when the
answer was received confirming the election, that Gregory became aware
of the trick played upon him; and all his natural aversion
strengthened by this deceitful proceeding, he withdrew secretly from
the city, hiding himself, it is said, in a cave among the woods.
Whether this means that he had made his way to the hills, and found
this refuge among the ruins of Tusculum, or in some woodland grotto
about Albano, or that some of the herdsmen's huts upon the Campagna
amid the broken arches of the aqueducts received and concealed him, it
is impossible to tell. It is said that the place of his retreat was
made known by a light from heaven which made an illumination about him
in his stony refuge, for the legend is unsparing in the breadth of its
effects and easily appropriates the large miracle which in the Old
Testament attends the passage of a whole nation to the service of an
individual, without any of that sense of proportion which is to be
found in older records. This light suggests somehow the wide breadth
of the Campagna where its distant glow could be seen from afar, from
the battlements of Rome herself, rather than the more distant hills.
And we must hope that this direct betrayal by Heaven of his
hiding-place showed Gregory that the appointment against which he
struggled had in fact the sanction of the higher powers.
He speaks, however, in many of his works of the great repugnance he
felt to take the cares of such an office upon him. He had allowed
himself to be ordained a deacon with reluctance, and only apparently
on an understanding that when the emergency which called for his
services was over he might be permitted to retire again to his
cloister. His letter to Leander already referred to is full of the
complaint that "when the ministry of the altar was so heavy a weight,
the further burden of the pastoral charge was fastened on me, which I
now find so much the more difficulty in bearing as I feel myself
unequal to it, and cannot find consolation in any comfortable
confidence in myself." To another correspondent he remonstrates
against the censure he met with for having endeavoured to escape from
so heavy a charge. These hesitations are not like those with which it
is usual to find the great men of the Church refusing honours, since
it is no profession of humility which moves Gregory, but his
overwhelming sense of the difficulties and danger to which the chief
pastor of the Church would necessarily be exposed. His idea of his
position is indeed very different from that of those who consider him
as one of the first to conceive the great plan of the papacy, and as
working sedulously and with intention at the foundations of an
institution which he expected to last for hundreds of years and to
sway the fortunes of the world. He was on the contrary fully persuaded
that all the signs of the times foretold instead, the end of the
world and final winding up of human history. The apostles had believed
so before him, and every succeeding age had felt the catastrophe to be
only for a little while delayed. Nation was rising against nation
under his very eyes, earthquakes destroying the cities of the earth,
and pestilence their populations. There had been signs in heaven
generally reported and believed, fiery ranks of combatants meeting in
conflict in the very skies, and every token of judgment about to fall.
Little thought was there in his mind of a triumphant and potent
ecclesiastical economy which should dominate all things. "I being
unworthy and weak have taken upon me the care of the old and battered
vessel," he says in one of his epistles written soon after his
election; "the waves make their way in on all sides, and the rotten
planks, shattered by daily and violent storms, threaten imminent
shipwreck." An old and battered vessel, it had borne the strain of six
centuries--a long time to those who knew nothing of the ages to come:
and now struggled on its way beaten by winds and waves, not knowing
when the dreadful moment expected by so many generations might come,
when the sun should be turned into darkness and the moon into
blood--the only signs that were yet wanting of the approach of that
great and terrible day. How different were these anticipations from
any conscious plan of conquest or spiritual empire; and how much more
fully justified by all that was happening around that broken,
suffering, poor, breathless and hopeless capital of the world!
Yet it is evident enough that this one resolute man, toiling in every
possible way for the protection of the people round him, did put a
certain heart in the city which had come through so many convulsions.
Crowded with fugitives, decimated with pestilence, left for many
months without any more able head than the half-hearted prætors and
officials of the state and the distant exarch at Ravenna, with all of
whom, according to Gregory's own witness, the exaction of taxes was
the chief object--a strong and steadfast ruler in the midst of this
distracted people changed in every way the disposition of affairs. For
one thing he seems to have taken upon him from the beginning the care
and nourishment of the poor. It had been the principle of the Church
from her earliest days that almsgiving was one of the first of duties,
and the care of the poor her inalienable right; but such a time of
disaster made something more heroic needful than the usual doles and
charities. A large proportion of the population of Rome came upon
Gregory's hands to be fed and provided for. Lists of the destitute
poor, of their houses and circumstances, were kept with the greatest
care; and we are told that before the Pope sat down to any meal the
tables for the poor outside were first supplied. How dreadful to any
philanthropist now this straightforward and matter-of-fact feeding of
the hungry! but it was the manner of Christianity, most understood and
approved in the early ages, the one with which even the most
enlightened of politicians had no fault to find. This was the first
idea in every evangelical soul, but it was by no means the limit of
Gregory's exertions. He had learned diplomacy as well as charity in
the experiences of his past life, and every resource of his skill and
knowledge were needed for the salvation of the otherwise hopeless
city. In all the dignity of his spiritual office, yet with all the
arts of a statesman, we can see him standing as it were before the
gates of Rome, as Horatius stood on the banks of the Tiber. It is
sometimes to Constantinople, sometimes to the host of the invaders,
that he turns explaining, arguing, pleading on one side and another
for the safety of his city and people. His letters to the Emperor and
to the Empress on one hand, and those to Queen Theodolinda on the
other hand, the wife of the invader--show with what persistency and
earnestness he defended Rome and its people who were his special
charge and flock, and who had neither ruler nor defender save himself.
This was one of his ways of establishing the sway of the papacy, it is
said; it was at the same time, and primarily, the stepping forth of
the only man who could or would put himself at the head of a
disorganised and trembling host without leader or defender. He, only
he, stood fast to strike for them, to intercept destruction hanging
over their heads, and it, would be a curious fact indeed in human
nature if such a man performed his first duty for the sake of an
unformed empire to come after hundreds of years had passed. He
succeeded with the barbarians, preserving Rome from the attacks which
were often threatened but never carried out; but he did little good
with Maurice, who on his side had few troops to send and no general
able to make a successful campaign against the Lombards. The officers
and the armies of the empire were of use in exacting taxes for the
imperial treasury, but not for opposing a vigorous invader or rescuing
a defenceless people.
It is never pretended by any of his biographers or admirers that
Gregory was a man of learning, or even interested very much in the
preservation of letters, or the progress of intellectual life.
Learning and philosophy were the inheritance of the Greek Church,
which was the very presumptuous and arrogant rival of Rome, and the
cradle of most of the heresies and all the difficult and delicate
questions which had troubled the peace of the Church. He is accused,
though without sufficient evidence, of burning a library of Latin
poets, a thing which he might well have done, according to his ideas,
without much sense of guilt. There has never been an age in which
certain books have not been liable to that reformation by fire, and
the principle is quite as strong now as in the sixth century, so we
need not take pains to exonerate Gregory from such an imputation. He
did not, like Jerome, love the literature which was full of
classical images and allusions. Neither Cicero nor Plato would have
tempted him to occupy himself with vain studies. "The same mouth," he
says, "should not pronounce the name of Jupiter and that of Christ;"
yet at the same time he expresses strong regret that letters had died
out of Rome, amid all the tumults through which she had passed. Amid
the jargon of barbarians heard on every side, Greek, he complains, had
fallen almost out of knowledge. There were few men learned enough to
settle a question of doctrine by reference to the original text of
Scripture. "Those we have are good for little but to translate word by
word; they are unable to grasp the sense, and it is with difficulty
that we understand their translations." He does not take any credit
for his own style, which indeed is anything but Ciceronian. He
complains with great simplicity, at the end of his dedication to
Leander of his Moralia, of the "collisions of metacism," a difficulty
about the letter _m_ which would seem to have been as troublesome as
the letter _h_ in our own day; and anticipates criticism by confessing
that he has neglected the "cases of prepositions." "For I account it
far from meet," he says, taking as we should say in Scotland, "the
first word of flyting," and with a high hand, "to submit the words of
the Divine Oracle to the rules of (the grammarian) Donatus." As who
should say Lindley Murray has nothing to do with the language of a
sermon. This was a great deal for a man to say, one of whose early
feats in life had been the conviction and conversion by argument of
Eutychius, whose heresy in respect to the body of the resurrection (a
sufficiently distant and far-off subject to disturb the Church
about--but such twists of impossible doctrine have always affected
some minds) survived himself--but who acknowledged with his dying
breath that he was wrong and Gregory right.
[Illustration: ARCH OF CONSTANTINE.
_To face page 152._]
Doctrine, however, was not the point on which Gregory was most
strong--his Dialogues, written it is said for the edification and
strengthening in the faith of the Empress Theodolinda, are nothing
more than pious discussions and sanctions of the miracles performed by
the saints, which we fear would have a very contrary effect if
published in our day. His works upon the pastoral law and the
discipline of the Church are the most valuable and important of his
productions; though in these also his point of view is extraordinarily
different from ours, and he advises a kind and degree of toleration
which is somewhat appalling to hear of. For instance, in his
instructions to Augustine and his band of missionaries Gregory
instructs them to interfere as little as possible with the customs,
especially in the matter of religious observances, of the people among
whom they were sent. They were not to put down the familiar
accompaniments of their converts' native rites and ceremonies. The old
temples of Woden and Thor were not to be abandoned but turned to a new
and better use; even the system of sacrifice to these gods was not to
be altogether set aside. "Let there be no more victims to demons," he
says with curious casuistry, "but let them kill and eat giving thanks
to God; for you must leave them some material enjoyments that they may
so much more easily enter into the delights of the soul." On the other
hand, his instructions to a bishop of Sardinia bear a curiously
different character. He recommended this prelate to put a pressure
more or less gentle upon the peasants there who still remained pagan,
in the form of an increased rent and taxes until such time as they
should become Christian. "Though, conversion does not come by force,"
he says with sagacious cynicism, "yet the children of these mercenary
converts will receive baptism in their innocence and will be better
Christians than their fathers;" an argument which certainly embodies
much economic truth if not exactly the spirit of the Gospel.
[Illustration: THE PIAZZA DEL POPOLO.]
Strangely different from these worldly-wise suggestions, however, are
the detailed instructions for pastoral work, quoted by Bede, in
Gregory's answer to the questions of Augustine, in which the
artificial conscience of the confessional suddenly appears in full
development, by the side of those strange counsels of a still
semi-pagan age. Nothing can be more remarkable than this contrast,
which exacts a more than Levitical punctilio of observance from the
devout, while leaving open every door for the entrance of the profane.
Though he entered with so much reluctance upon the pastoral care of
the Church, no one has laid down more detailed directions for the cure
of souls. It would seem to have been in reality one of the things
which interested him most. His mind was in some respects that of a
statesman full of the broadest sense of expediency and of the
practicable, and of toleration and compromise carried to a length
which fills us with dismay; while on the other it was that of a parish
legislator, an investigator of personal details, to whom no trifle was
unimportant, and the most fantastic stipulations of ritualistic
purification of as great moment as morality itself.
In contrast however with those letters which recommended what was
little more than a forced conversion, and which have been frequently
cited as examples of the unscrupulousness of the early missionaries,
we must here quote some of Gregory's pastoral instructions in which
the true spirit of a pastor shines forth. "Nothing," he says in one of
his epistles to the bishops with whom he kept up constant
communications, "is so heavy a burden upon a priest as so to bend the
force of his own mind in sympathy, as _to change souls_ (_cum personis
supervenientibus animam mutare_) with each new person who approaches
him; yet this is very necessary." Nothing could be more happy in
expression or fine in sentiment, and it shows how completely the
monk-Pope, in cloister and on throne, understood the essential
character of his great profession. Still more remarkable, as more
involved in personal matters, is his advice to Augustine, who had
consulted him as to the differences in worship between the Gallican
churches and those of Rome.
"You know, my brother, the custom of the Roman Church in
which you were bred up. But it will please me if when you
have found anything, either in the Roman or Gallican or any
other Church, which may be more acceptable to Almighty God,
you will carefully make choice of the same, and sedulously
teach the Church of the English, which as yet is new in the
faith, whatsoever good thing you can gather from the
several Churches. For things are not to be loved for the
sake of places, but places for the sake of good things.
Choose therefore from every Church those things that are
pious, religious and upright, and when you have as it were
made them into one system, let the minds of the English be
accustomed thereto."
This is surely the truest and highest toleration.
The Papacy of Gregory began in trouble and distress; Rome was more
disorganised, more miserable, more confused and helpless than almost
ever before, although she had already passed through many a terrible
crisis; and he had shrunk from the terrible task of setting her right.
But when he had once undertaken that task there was neither weakness
nor hesitation in the manner with which he carried it out. The public
penance and humiliation to which he moved the people, the septiform
litany with its chanting and weeping crowds, the ceaseless prayers and
intercessions in the Church were not all, though no doubt the chief
part to Gregory, of those methods by which he sustained the courage,
or rather put a heart into, the broken-down population, so that for
once a show of resistance was made when the Lombards threatened the
city. And his anxious negotiations never ceased. The Emperor, far off
and indifferent, not to say helpless, in Constantinople, had no rest
from the constant remonstrances and appeals of the ever-watchful
Bishop. Gregory complained and with reason that no efforts, or at
least but fictitious ones, were made for the help of Rome, and that
the indifference or hostility of the Emperor was more dangerous to her
than the arms of the Lombards. On the other hand he addressed himself
to the headquarters of the invaders, taking as his champion--as was
his custom, as it has always been the custom of the Churchman--the
Queen Theodolinda, who had become a Catholic and baptized her son in
that faith, notwithstanding the opposition of her Arian husband, and
was therefore a very fitting and natural intercessor. "What an
overwhelming charge it is!" he cries to one of his correspondents, "to
be at once weighted with the supervision of the bishops and clergy, of
the monasteries and the entire people, and to remain all the time
watchful to every undertaking of the enemy and on my guard against the
robbery and injustice of our rulers." It was indeed a burden under
which few men could have stood.
Gregory appears to have neglected no movement of the foe, to have
noted every exaction and treachery from Constantinople, to have
remembered every bishop in the furthest-off regions, and to have
directed to each in turn his expostulations, his entreaties, his
reproofs. We have been told in our own day of the overwhelming weight
of business (attributed to facilities of post and daily
communications) which almost crushes an English archbishop, although
that dignitary besides the care of the Church has but such an amount
of concern in public matters as a conscientious adviser must have. But
Gregory was responsible for everything, the lives and so far as was
possible the liberties of his city and people, their daily bread,
their safety, their very existence, besides that cure of souls which
was his special occupation. The mass of correspondence, which beside
all his other work he managed to get through, forgetting nothing, is
enough to put any modern writer of hasty notes and curt business
letters to shame. On this point there may be said a word of apology
for the much-harassed Pope in respect to that one moment in his
history, in which his conduct cannot be defended by his warmest
admirer. His prayers and appeals were treated with contempt at
Constantinople, a contempt involving not his own person alone, but
Rome and the Church, for which the Emperor Maurice did not even
pretend to care. And when that Emperor was suddenly swept away, it is
natural enough that a sensation of relief, a touch of hope in the new
man who, notwithstanding the treachery and cruelty of the first step
in his career, might turn out better than his predecessor, should have
gleamed across the mind of a distant, and perhaps at first imperfectly
informed spectator, whose interests were so closely concerned. The
complacency with which Gregory wrote to Phocas, the amazing terms he
used to that murderer and tyrant, will always be the darkest stain on
his reputation. Under Maurice the ministers of the empire had been
more oppressive than the invaders. Perhaps under Phocas better things
might be hoped for. It is all that can be said for this unfortunate
moment of his career; but it is something nevertheless.
It was not till 597, when he had occupied his bishopric for seven
years, that Gregory succeeded in carrying out the long-cherished
scheme of the mission to England, which had been for many years so
near his heart. It is said that he himself had purchased some of the
captive boys who caught his eye in the streets, and trained them in
the Christian doctrine and faith, in order that they might act as
interpreters and commend the missionaries to their people, an
expedient which has been so largely followed (and of course boasted of
as an original thought) in recent missions. These boys would by this
time have attained the age of manhood, and perhaps this determined the
moment at which Augustine and his companions were sent forth. They
were solemnly consecrated in the chapel of the convent on the
Coelian hill, Gregory's beloved home, to which he always returned
with so much affection, and to which they also belonged, monks of the
same house. Their names are inscribed in the porch of the present
church after that of their master, with designations strangely
familiar to our British ears--S. Augustine, Apostle of England; S.
Lawrence, Archbishop of Canterbury; S. Mellitus, of London and
Canterbury; S. Justus, of Rochester; S. Paulinus, of York, appear in
the record, the first teachers and ecclesiastical dignitaries of Saxon
England. The church in which this consecration took place exists no
longer; the present building, its third or fourth successor, dates
only from the eighteenth century, and is dedicated to S. Gregory
himself; but the little piazza now visited by so many pilgrims is
unchanged, and it was from this small square, so minute a point amid
the historic places of Rome, that the missionary party set forth,
Augustine and his brethren kneeling below, while the Pope, standing at
the head of the steps, gave them his parting blessing. No doubt the
young Angles, with their golden locks of childhood matured into russet
tones, who had filled Gregory's mind with so many thoughts, were in
the group, behind the black-robed Benedictine brothers whose guides
and interpreters they were to be.
This is an association full of interest for every Englishman, and has
attracted many pilgrims from the nation whose faith has undergone so
many vicissitudes, and in which the Pope's authority has been as
vehemently decried in one age as strongly upheld in another; but
whatever our opinions on that point may be, there can be nothing here
but affectionate and grateful remembrance of the man of God who had so
long cherished the scheme, which thus at length with fatherly
benedictions and joy at heart, he was able to carry out. He himself
would fain have gone on this mission many years before; but the care
of all the Churches, and the tribulations of a distracted world, had
made that for ever impossible, and he was now growing old, in feeble
health, and with but a few years of work before him. The hearts of the
missionaries were not so strong as that of this great Servant of the
servants of God who sent them away with his blessing. Terrors of the
sea and terrors of the wilds, the long journey and the savage tribes
at the end of it, were in their hearts. When they had got nearly over
their journey and were resting a little to recover their health among
the Gauls,--fierce enough indeed, but still with sanctuaries of peace
and holy brethren among them--before crossing the terrible channel,
Augustine wrote beseeching letters, begging to be recalled. But let us
hope that at the moment of dedication these terrors had scarcely yet
got hold upon them. And to Gregory the occasion was one of unmingled
satisfaction and joy. The Pope did not in those days wear the white
robes which distinguish his dignity now. Gregory was presumably
indifferent to such signs and tokens; for in the portrait of him which
still exists in the description given of it by John the Deacon, he
wears a dress scarcely distinguishable from the ordinary dress of a
layman. But as he stood upon the steps in front of the church,
separated from all the attendants, and raised his hands in blessing,
the scene is one that any painter might covet, and which to many a
visitor from these distant islands of the seas will make the little
Piazza di San Gregorio more interesting in its simplicity than any
other spot in storied Rome.
It would occupy too much time to quote here his long and careful
letters to the bishops of the West generally--from Sicily which always
seems to have been the object of his special care, to those in Gaul
and his missionaries in England. That he assumed an unquestioned
authority over them is clear, an authority which had more or less been
exercised by the Bishop of Rome for many generations before him: and
that he was unfeignedly indignant at the pretensions of John of
Constantinople to be called Universal Bishop is also certain. These
facts however by no means prove that a great scheme of papal authority
was the chief thing in his mind, underlying all his undertakings. When
the historians speak of Gregory as spreading the supremacy of the
Church of Rome by his missions, notably by that mission to England of
which I have just spoken, they forget that the salvation of the souls
lying in darkness is a motive which has moved men in every age to the
greatest sacrifices, and that we have no reason in the world to
believe that it was not the faith of Christ rather than the supremacy
of Rome which was Gregory's object. The Apostles themselves might be
said in the same way to have been spreading their own supremacy when
they obeyed the injunction of their Master to go over the whole world
and preach the Gospel to every creature. The one sovereignty was
actually implied in the other--but it requires a very robust faith in
a preconceived dogma, and a very small understanding of human nature,
to be able to believe that when the meditative monk paused in his
walk, with compassion and interest, to look at the angelic boys, and
punned tenderly with tears in his eyes over their names and nation
and king, the idea immediately sprang up in his mind not that
Allelujah should be sung in the dominions of King Alle, but that this
wild country lost in the midst of the seas should be brought under a
spiritual sceptre not yet designed.
Gregory thought as the Apostles thought, that the days of the world
were numbered, and that his own generation might see its records
closed. That is an idea which never has stopped any worthy man in
undertakings for the good of the world--but it was a belief better
established, and much more according to all the theories and dogmas of
the age, than a plan of universal dominion for the Church such as is
attributed to him. He did his duty most energetically and strenuously
in every direction--never afraid of being supposed to interfere, using
the prestige of the Apostolical See freely for every ecclesiastical
purpose. And he became prince in Rome, an absolute sovereign by stress
of circumstance and because every other rule and authority had failed.
Whether these practical necessities vaguely formed themselves into
visions of spiritual empire before the end of his life it is
impossible to tell: as it is equally impossible to tell what dreams of
happiness or grandeur may enter into any poor man's brain. But so
large and world-embracing a plan seldom springs fully formed into any
mind, and in his words he never claimed, nay, vehemently denied and
repudiated, any pretension of the kind. It is curious how difficult it
is to get the world to believe that a man placed in a position of
great responsibility, at the head of any institution, is first of all
actuated by the desire of doing his work, whatever the ulterior
results may be.
Gregory's activity was boundless, though his health was weak, and his
sufferings many. Fastings in his youth and neglect at all times told
early upon his constitution. The dinner of herbs which his mother sent
him daily, and which is sometimes described as uncooked--salad to wit,
which enters so largely into the sustenance of the Italian poor--is a
kind of fare which does not suit a delicate digestion; but he spared
himself nothing on this account, though he had reached such a pitch of
weakness that he was at last, as he bitterly laments, unable to fast
at all, even on Easter Eve, when even little children abstain from
food. Beside all the labours which I have already noted, there remains
one detail which has done perhaps more to make the common world
familiar with his name than all the rest; and that is the reformation
in music which he accomplished among all his other labours. Church
music is the only branch of the art of which we have any authentic
record which dates so far back, and the Gregorian chant still exists
among us, with that special tone of wailing mingled with its solemn
measures which is characteristic of all primitive music.
"Four scales," says Mr. Helmore in _The Dictionary of
Music_, "traditionally ascribed to St. Ambrose, existed
before the time of St. Gregory. These, known as the
Authentic Modes, and since the thirteenth century named
after the ancient Greek scales from which they were
supposed to be derived, are as follows: 1, Dorian; 2,
Phrygian; 3, Lydian; 4, Mixo-Lydian. To the four Authentic
St. Gregory added four Plagal, _i.e._ collateral or
relative Modes. Each is a fourth below its corresponding
original, and is called by the same name with the prefix
hypo ([Greek: hypo], below), as follows: 5, Hypo-Dorium; 6,
Hypo-Phrygian; 7, Hypo-Lydian; 8, Hypo-Mixo-Lydian....
Handel's 'Hanover' among modern tunes, which ranges from F
to F has its finale on B flat. 'Should auld acquaintance be
forgot' is also a specimen of a tune in a Plagal Mode
descending about a fourth below its final, and rising above
it only six notes, closing upon the final of its tone."
This may be a little too learned for the ordinary reader, but it is
interesting to find how far the influence of the busy old Pope, who
had a finger in every pie, could go. There is a very curious
commentary by John the Deacon, Gregory's later biographer, upon this
new musical system and its adoption throughout Europe, which makes a
good pendant to the scientific description. The Italians seem then as
now to have had a poor opinion of German modes of singing.
"This music was learned easily by the Germans and Gauls,
but they could not retain it because of making additions of
their own, and also because of their barbarous nature.
Their Alpine bodies resounding to their depths with the
thunders of their voices, do not properly give forth the
sweetness of the modulation, the savage roughness of their
bibulous throat when it attempts to give forth a delicate
strain, producing rather harsh sounds with a natural crash,
as of waggons sounding confusedly over the scales."
This is not flattering; but one can imagine something very like it
coming from the lips of an Italian Maestro in our own day. The
tradition goes that Gregory himself instructed the choristers, for
whom he had established schools endowed each with its little property,
one in the precincts of St. Peter's, the other in those of St. John
Lateran, where his own residence was. And a couch is still shown on
which he lay while giving or superintending their lessons, and even
the whip with which he is said to have threatened the singers when
they made false notes. The last is little in accord with the Pope's
character, and we can scarcely imagine the twang through the air of
any whip in Gregory's hand: but it is probably as true as other more
agreeable circumstances of the legend. One can scarcely believe
however that amid his multitudinous occupations he could have had time
for more than a flying visit to the schools, however they might
interest him.
Nor did he limit his exertions on behalf of ritual to the arrangement
of the music. We are told that the Missal of Pope Gelasius then used
in the Church was revised by him, and that he took away much, altered
some things and added a little, among other things a confession of
faith or _Credo_ of his own writing, which is something between the
Athanasian and Nicene Creeds. The Ordinary of the Mass remains now,
another authority tells us, very much as it came from his hands. Thus
his immediate authority and the impress of his mind remain on things
which are still in daily use.
[Illustration: MONTE PINCIO, FROM THE PIAZZA DEL POPOLO.]
And there could be no more familiar or characteristic figure in Rome
than that of this monk-Pope threading everywhere those familiar
streets, in which there were more ruins, and those all fresh and
terrible in their suggestions of life destroyed--than now: the gentle
spectator full of meditation, who lingered among the group of slaves,
and saw and loved and smiled at the Saxon boys: who passed by Trajan's
Forum which we all know so well, that field of broken pillars, not
then railed off and trim in all the orderliness of an outdoor museum,
but wild in the neglect of nature: and heard the story of the Emperor,
and loved him too, and poured out his soul to God for the great
heathen, so that the gates of Hades were rolled back and the soul set
free--strange parable of brotherly kindness as the dominant principle
of heart and life. We can follow him through all the lists of the poor
laid up in his Scrivii, like the catalogues of books enclosed in
caskets, in an old-fashioned library--with careful enumeration of
every half-ruined tenement and degraded palace where the miserable
had found shelter: or passing among the crowds who received their
portions before, not after, the Pope in the precincts of the great
basilica; or "modulating," with a voice broken by age and weakness,
the new tones of his music which the "bibulous throats" of the
barbarian converts turned into thunder, and of which even his own
choristers, careless as is their use, would make discords, till the
whip of the Master trembled in the air, adding the sting of a sharper
sound to the long-drawn notes of the monotone, and compelling every
heedless tenor and frivolous soprano to attention. These are his
simpler aspects, the lower life of the great Benedictine, the picture
of the Pope as he endeared himself to the popular imagination, round
which all manner of tender legends grew. His aspect is less familiar
yet not less true as he sits at the head of affairs, dictating or
writing with his own hand those innumerable letters which treat of
every subject under heaven, from the safety of Rome to the cross which
is to be hung round a royal infant's neck, or the amethyst ring for
the finger of a little princess; from the pretensions of John of
Constantinople, that would-be head of the Church, down to the ass sent
by the blundering intendant from Sicily. Nothing was too great,
nothing too little for his care. He had to manage the mint and cummin
without leaving graver matters undone.
And the reader who has leisure may follow him into the maze of those
Dialogues in which Peter the Deacon serves as questioner, and the Pope
discourses gently, to improve his ignorance, of all the wonderful
things which the saints have done, chiefly in Italy, turning every law
of nature upside down: or follow him through the minute and endless
rules of his book of discipline, and note the fine-drawn scruples with
which he has to deal, the strange cases of conscience for which he
provides, the punctilio of extravagant penitence, so strangely
contrasted with the other rough and ready modes of dealing with the
unconverted, to which he gives the sanction of his recommendation. He
was a man of his time, not of ours: he flattered Phocas while his
hands were still wet with his predecessor's blood--though we may still
hope that at such a distance Gregory did not know all that had
happened or what a ruffian it was whom he thus addressed. He wrote
affectionately and with devotion to Queen Brunhild without inquiring
into that lady's character, which no doubt he knew perfectly. Where
the good of Rome, either the city or the Church, was concerned, he
stopped at nothing. I have no desire to represent him as faultless.
But the men who are faultless, if any are to be found, leave but a
limited record, and there is little more to say of perfection than
that it is perfect. Gregory was not so. He got very angry sometimes,
with bishops in Sicily, with stupid intendants, above all with that
Eastern John--and sometimes, which is worse, he was submissive and
compliant when he ought to have been angry and denounced a criminal.
But on the other hand he was the first of the great ecclesiastical
princes who have made Modern Rome illustrious--he was able, greatest
of miracles, to put a heart into the miserable city which had allowed
herself to be overrun by every savage: and stood between her and all
creation, giving the whole world assurance of a man, and fighting for
her with every weapon that came to his hand. Doing whatsoever he found
to do thoroughly well, he laid the foundations of that great power
which still extends over the whole world. I do not believe that he
acted on any plan or had the supremacy of the Pontificate in his mind,
or had conceived any idea of an ecclesiastical empire which should
grasp the universe. To say, for instance, that the mission to England
which he had cherished so long was undertaken with the idea of
extending the sway of the Papacy seems one of those follies of the
theorist which requires no answer. St. Paul might as well be accused
of intending to spread a spiritual empire when he saw in his dream
that man of Macedonia, and immediately directed his steps thither,
obeying the vision. What Gregory hoped and prayed for was to bring in
a new nation, as he judged a noble and vigorous race, to Christianity.
And he succeeded in doing so: with such secondary consequences as the
developments of time, and the laws of progress, and the course of
Providence brought about.
There is a certain humour in the indignation, which has been several
times referred to, with which he turned against the Patriarch of
Constantinople and his pretensions to a supremacy which naturally was
in the last degree obnoxious to the Bishop of Rome. The Eastern and
Western Churches had already diverged widely from each other, the one
nourished and subdued under the shadow of a Court, in a leisure which
left it open to every refinement and every temptation, whether of
asceticism or heresy--both of which abounded: the other fighting hard
for life amid the rudest and most practical dangers, obliged to work
and fight like Nehemiah on the walls of Jerusalem with the tool in one
hand and the sword in the other. John the Faster, so distinguished
because of the voluntary privations which he imposed upon himself,
forms one of the most startling contrasts of this age with Gregory,
worn by work and warfare, whose spare and simple meal could not be
omitted even on the eve of Easter. That he who, sitting in St. Peter's
seat, with all the care of Church and country upon his shoulders,
obeyed by half the world, yet putting forth in words no such
pretension--should be aggrieved almost beyond endurance by the dignity
conferred on, or assumed by, the other bishop, whose see was not
apostolical but the mere creation of an emperor, and the claim put
forth by him and the Council called by him for universal obedience, is
very natural; yet Gregory's wrath has a fiercely human sense of
injury in it, an aggrieved individuality to which we cannot deny our
sympathy. "There is no doubt," he says with dignity, writing to the
Emperor on the subject, "that the keys of heaven were given to Peter,
the power of binding and loosing, and the care of the whole Church;
and yet he is not called Universal Apostle. Nor does it detract from
the honour of the See that the sins of Gregory are so great that he
ought to suffer; for there are no sins of Peter that he should be
treated thus. The honour of Peter is not to be brought low because of
us who serve him unworthily." "Oh tempora, oh mores!" he exclaims;
"Europe lies prostrate under the power of the barbarians. Its towns
are destroyed, its fortresses thrown down, its provinces depopulated,
the soil has no longer labourers to till it; and yet priests who ought
to humble themselves with tears in the dust strive after vain honours
and glorify themselves with titles new and profane!" To John himself
he writes with more severity, reminding him of the vaunt of Lucifer in
Isaiah, "I will exalt my throne above the stars of heaven." Now
bishops, he says, are the stars of heaven, they shine over men; they
are clouds (the metaphors are mixed) that rain words and are lighted
up by the rays of good works. "What, then," he asks, "is the act of
your paternity, in looking down upon them and pressing them into
subjection, but following the example of the ancient enemy? When I see
this I weep that the holy man, the Lord John, a man so renowned for
self-sacrifice, should so act. Certainly Peter was first in the whole
Church. Andrew, James, and the others were but heads of the people;
yet all made up one body, and none were called Universal."
[Illustration: THE FORUM.
_To face page 170._]
The argument with which Gregory replies to a letter from Eulogius,
Bishop of Alexandria, who had wished him to assume himself a similar
title, is curious. The Apostolical See, he says, consists of three
bishoprics, all held by St. Peter, that of Antioch, that of
Alexandria, and that of Rome, and the honour of the title is shared
between them. "If you give me more than my due," he adds, "you rob
yourself. If I am named Pope, you own yourself to be no pope. Let no
such thing be named between us. My honour is the honour of the
Universal Church. I am honoured in the honour paid to my brethren."
Nothing could be more determined than this oft-repeated refusal. Yet
he never fails to add that it was Peter's right. The Council of
Chalcedon, he says, offered that supreme title to the Church of Rome,
which refused it. How much greater then, was the guilt of John, to
whom it was never offered, but who assumed it, injuring all priests by
setting himself above them, and the Empire itself by a position
superior to it? Such were the sentiments of Gregory, in which the
wrath of a natural heir, thus supplanted by a usurper, gives fervour
to every denunciation. The French historian Villemain points out, what
will naturally occur to the reader, that many of these arguments were
afterwards used with effect by Luther and his followers against the
assumptions of the Church of Rome. It will also be remembered that
Jerome put the case more strongly still, denouncing the Scarlet Woman
with as much fervour as any No-Popery orator.
But while he rejected all such titles and assumed for himself only
that, conceived no doubt in all humility and sincere meaning, but
afterwards worn with pride surpassing that of any earthly monarch, of
Servus Servorum Dei, the servant of the servants of God, Gregory
occupied himself, as has been said, with the care of all the churches
in full exercise of the authority and jurisdiction of an overseer, at
least over the western half of Christendom. Vain titles he would have
none, and we cannot doubt his sincerity in rejecting them; but the
reality of the pastoral supervision, never despotic, but continual,
was clearly his idea of his own rights and duties. It has been seen
what license he left to Augustine in the regulation of the new
English Church. He acted with an equally judicious liberality in
respect to the rich and vigorous Gallican bishops, never demanding too
servile an obedience, but never intermitting his superintendence of
all. But he does not seem to have put forth the smallest pretension to
political independence, even when that was forced upon him by his
isolated and independent position, and he found himself compelled to
make his own terms with the Lombard invaders. At the moment of his
election as Bishop of Rome, he appealed to the Emperor against the
popular appointment, and only when the imperial decision was given
against him allowed himself to be dragged from his solitude. And one
of his accusations against John of Constantinople was that his
assumption injured the very Empire itself in its supreme authority.
Thus we may, and indeed I think must, conclude that Gregory's supposed
theory of the universal papal power was as little real as are most
such elaborate imputations of purpose conceived long before the event.
He had no intention, so far as the evidence goes, of making himself an
arbitrator between kings, and a judge of the world's actions and
movements. He had enough and too much work of his own which it was his
determination to do, as vigorously and with as much effect as
possible--in the doing of which work it was necessary to influence, to
conciliate, to appeal, as well as to command and persuade: to make
terms with barbarians, to remonstrate with emperors, as well as to
answer the most minute questions of the bishops, and lay out before
them the proper course they were to pursue. There is nothing so easy
as to attribute deep-laid plans to the great spirits among men. I do
not think that Gregory had time for any such ambitious projects. He
had to live for the people dependent upon him, who were a multitude,
to defend, feed, guide and teach them. He had never an unoccupied
moment, and he did in each moment work enough for half a dozen men.
That it was his duty to superintend and guide everything that went on,
so far as was wise or practicable, in the Church as well as in his
immediate diocese, was clearly his conviction, and the reader may find
it a little difficult to see why he should have guarded that power so
jealously, yet rejected the name of it: but that is as far as any
reasonable criticism can go.
What would seem an ancient complaint against Gregory appears in the
sketch of his life given by Platina, in his _Lives of the Popes_--who
describes him as having been "censured by a few ignorant men as if the
ancient stately buildings were demolished by his order, lest strangers
coming out of devotion to Rome should less regard the consecrated
places, and spend all their gaze upon triumphal arches and monuments
of antiquity." This curious accusation is answered by the author in
words which I quote from an almost contemporary translation very
striking in its forcible English. "No such reproach," says Platina in
the vigorous version of Sir Paul Rycant, Knight, "can justly be
fastened on this great Bishop, especially considering that he was a
native of the city, and one to whom, next after God, his country was
most dear, even above his life. 'Tis certain that many of those ruined
structures were devoured by time, and many might, as we daily see, be
pulled down to build new houses; and for the rest 'tis probable that,
for the sake of the brass used in the concavity of the arches and the
conjunctures of the marble or other square stones, they might be
battered or defaced not only by the barbarous nations but by the
Romans too, if Epirotes, Dalmatians, Pannonians, and other sorry
people who from all parts of the world resorted hither, may be called
Romans."
This is a specious argument which would not go far toward establishing
Gregory's innocence were he seriously accused: but the accusation,
like that of burning classical manuscripts, has no proof. Little
explanation, however, is necessary to account for the ruins of a city
which has undergone several sieges. That Gregory would have helped
himself freely as everybody did, and has done in all ages, to the
materials lying so conveniently at hand in the ruined palaces which
nobody had any mission to restore, may be believed without doubt; for
he was a man far too busy and preoccupied to concern himself with
questions of Art, or set any great price upon the marble halls of
patrician houses, however interesting might be their associations or
beautiful their structure. But he built few new churches, we are
expressly told, though he was careful every year to look into the
condition of all existing ecclesiastical buildings and have them
repaired. It seems probable that it might be a later Gregory however
against whom this charge was made. In the time of Gregory the First
these ruins were recent, and it was but too likely that at any moment
a new horde of unscrupulous iconoclasts might sweep over them again.
There came however a time when the Pope's suffering and emaciated body
could bear no longer that charge which was so burdensome. He had been
ill for many years, suffering from various ailments and especially
from weakness of digestion, and he seems to have broken down
altogether towards the year 601. Agelulphus thundering at his gates
had completed what early fastings and the constant work of a laborious
life had begun, and at sixty Gregory took to his bed, from which, as
he complains in one of his letters, he was scarcely able to rise for
three hours on the great festivals of the Church in order to celebrate
Mass. He was obliged also to conclude abruptly that commentary on
Ezekiel which had been so often interrupted, leaving the last vision
of the prophet unexpounded, which he regretted the more that it was
one of the most dark and difficult, and stood in great need of
exposition. "But how," he says, "can a mind full of trouble clear up
such dark meanings? The more the mind is engaged with worldly things
the less is it qualified to expound the heavenly." It was from Ezekiel
that Gregory was preaching when the pestilence which swept away his
predecessor Pelagius was raging in Rome, and when, shutting the book
which was no longer enough with its dark sayings to calm the troubles
of the time, he had called out to the people, with a voice which was
as that of their own hearts, to repent. All his life as Pope had been
threaded through with the study of this prophet. He closed the book
again and finally when all Rome believed that another invasion was
imminent, and his courage failed in this last emergency. It is curious
to associate the name of such a man, so full of natural life and
affection, so humorous, so genial, so ready to take interest in
everything that met his eyes, with these two saddest figures in all
the round of sacred history, the tragic patriarch Job, and the exiled
prophet, who was called upon to suffer every sorrow in order to be a
sign to his people and generation. Was it that the very overflowing of
life and sympathy in him made Gregory seek a balance to his own
buoyant spirit in the plaints of those two melancholy voices? or was
it the misfortunes of his time, so distracted and full of miserable
agitation, which directed him at least to the latter, the prophet of a
fallen nation, of disaster and exile and penitence?
Thus he lay after his long activities, suffering sorely, and longing
for the deliverance of death, though he was not more, it is supposed,
than sixty-two when the end came. From his sick bed he wrote to many
of his friends entreating that they would pray for him that his
sufferings might be shortened and his sins forgiven. He died finally
on the 12th of March, ever afterwards consecrated to his name, in the
year 603. This event must have taken place in the palace at the
Lateran, which was then the usual dwelling of the Popes. Here the sick
and dying man could look out upon one of the finest scenes on earth,
the noble line of the Alban Hills rising over the great plains of the
Campagna, with all its broken lines of aqueduct and masses of ruin.
The features of the landscape are the same, though every accessory is
changed, and palace and basilica have both crumbled into the dust of
ages, to be replaced by other and again other buildings, handing down
the thread of historic continuity through all the generations. There
are scarcely any remains of the palace of the Popes itself, save one
famous mosaic, copied from a still earlier one, in which a recent
learned critic sees the conquest of the world by papal Rome already
clearly set forth. But we can scarcely hope that any thought of the
first Gregory will follow the mind of the reader into the precincts of
St. John of the Lateran Gate. His memory abides in another place, in
the spot where stood his father's house, where he changed the lofty
chambers of the Roman noble into Benedictine cells, and lived and
wrote and mused in the humility of an obedient brother. But still more
does it dwell in the little three-cornered piazza before the Church of
St. Gregorio, from whence he sent forth the mission to England with
issues which he could never have divined--for who could have told in
those days that the savage Angles would have overrun the world further
than ever Roman standard was carried? The shadow of the great Pope is
upon those time-worn steps where he stood and blessed his brethren,
with moisture in his eyes and joy in his heart, sending them forth
upon the difficult and dangerous way which he had himself desired to
tread, but from which their spirits shrank. We have all a sacred right
to come back here, to share the blessing of the saint, to remember the
constant affection he bore us, his dedication of himself had it been
permitted, his never-ending thought of his angel boys which has come
to such wonderful issues. He would have been a more attractive apostle
than Augustine had he carried out his first intention; but still we
find his image here, fatherly, full of natural tenderness, interest
and sympathy, smiling back upon us over a dozen centuries which have
changed everything--except the historical record of Pope Gregory's
blessing and his strong desire and hope.
He was buried in St. Peter's with his predecessors, but his tomb, like
so many others, was destroyed at the rebuilding of the great church,
and no memorial remains.
[Illustration: PONTE MOLLE.]
[Illustration: THE PALATINE.]
CHAPTER II.
THE MONK HILDEBRAND.
It is a melancholy thing looking back through the long depths of
history to find how slow the progress is, even if it can be traced at
all, from one age to another, and how, though the dangers and the
evils to which they are liable change in their character from time to
time, their gravity, their hurtfulness, and their rebellion against
all that is best in morals, and most advantageous to humanity,
scarcely diminish, however completely altered the conditions may be.
We might almost doubt whether the vast and as yet undetermined
possibilities of the struggle which has begun in our days between what
is called Capital and Labour, the theories held against all experience
and reason of a rising Socialism, and the mad folly of Anarchism,
which is their immediate climax--are not quite as dangerous to the
peace of nations as were the tumults of an age when every man acted
by the infallible rule that
He should take who had the power
And he should keep who can--
the principle being entirely the same, though the methods may be
different. This strange duration of trouble, equal in intensity though
different in form, is specially manifest in a history such as that
which we take up from one age to another in so remarkable a
development of life and government as Mediæval Rome. We leave the city
relieved of some woes, soothed from some troubles, fed by much
charity, and weeping apparently honest tears over Gregory the first of
the name--although that great man was scarcely dead before the crowd
was taught to believe that he had impoverished the city by feeding
them, and were scarcely prevented from burning his library as a wise
and fit revenge. Still it might have been expected that Rome and her
people would have advanced a step upon the pedestal of such a life as
that of Gregory: and in fact he left many evils redressed, the
commonwealth safer, and the Church more pure.
But when we turn the page and come, four hundred years later, to the
life of another Gregory, upon what a tumultuous world do we open our
eyes: what blood, what fire, what shouts and shrieks of conflict: what
cruelty and shame have reigned between, and still remained, ever
stronger than any influence of good men, or amelioration of knowledge!
Heathenism, save that which is engrained in the heart of man, had
passed away. There were no more struggles with the relics of the
classical past: the barbarians who came down in their hordes to
overturn civilisation had changed into settled nations, with all the
paraphernalia of state and great imperial authority--shifting indeed
from one race to another, but always upholding a central standard. All
the known world was nominally Christian. It was full of monks
dedicated to the service of God, of priests, the administrants of the
sacraments, and of bishops as important as any secular nobles--yet
what a scene is that upon which we look out through endless smoke of
battle and clashing of swords! Rome, at whose gates Alaric and Attila
once thundered, was almost less secure now, and less easily visited
than when Huns and Goths overran the surrounding country. It was
encircled by castles of robber nobles, who infested every road,
sometimes seizing the pilgrims bound for Rome, with their offerings
great and small, sometimes getting possession of these offerings in a
more thorough way by the election of a subject Pope taken from one of
their families, and always ready on every occasion to thrust their
swords into the balance and crush everything like freedom or purity
either in the Church or in the city. In the early part of the eleventh
century there were two if not three Popes in Rome. "Benedict IX.
officiated in the church of St. John Lateran, Sylvester III. in St.
Peter's, and John XX. in the church of St. Mary," says Villemain in
his life of Hildebrand: the name of the last does not appear in the
lists of Platina, but the fact of this profane rivalry is beyond
doubt.
The conflict was brought to an end for the moment by a very curious
transaction. A certain dignified ecclesiastic, Gratiano by name, the
Cardinal-archdeacon of St. John Lateran, who happened to be rich,
horrified by this struggle, and not sufficiently enlightened as to the
folly and sin of doing evil that good might come--always, as all the
chronicles seem to allow, with the best motives--bought out the two
competitors, and procured his own election under the title of Gregory
VI. But this mistaken though well-meant act had but brief success.
For, on the arrival in 1046 of the Emperor Henry III. in Italy, at a
council called together by his desire, Gregory was convicted of the
strange bargain he had made, or according to Baronius of the violent
means taken to enforce it, and was deposed accordingly, along with his
two predecessors. It was this Pope, in his exile and deprivation, who
first brought in sight of a universe which he was born to rule, a
young monk of Cluny, Hildebrand--German by name, but Italian in heart
and race--who had already moved much about the world with the
extraordinary freedom and general access everywhere which we find
common to monks however humble their origin. From his monastic home in
Rome he had crossed the Alps more than once; he had been received and
made himself known at the imperial court, and was on terms of kindness
with many great personages, though himself but a humble brother of his
convent. No youthful cleric in our modern world nowadays would find
such access everywhere, though it is still possible that a young
Jesuit for instance, noted by his superiors for ability or genius,
might be handed on from one authority to another till he reached the
highest circle. But it is surprising to see how free in their
movements, how adventurous in their lives, the young members of a
brotherhood bound under the most austere rule then found it possible
to be.
Hildebrand was, like so many other great Churchmen, a child of the
people. He was the son of a carpenter in a Tuscan village, who,
however, possessed one of those ties with the greater world which a
clergy drawn from the people affords to the humblest, a brother or
other near relation who was the superior of a monastery in Rome. There
the little Tuscan peasant took his way in very early years to study
letters, having already given proof of great intelligence such as
impressed the village and called forth prophecies of the highest
advancement to come. His early education brings us back to the holy
mount of the Aventine, on which we have already seen so many
interesting assemblies. The monastery of St. Mary has endured as
little as the house of Marcella, though it is supposed that in the
church of S. Maria Aventina there may still remain some portion of the
original buildings. But the beautiful garden of the Priorato, so great
a favourite with the lovers of the picturesque, guards for us, in that
fidelity of nature which time cannot discompose, the very spot where
that keen-eyed boy must have played, if he ever played, or at least
must have dreamed the dreams of an ambitious young visionary, and
perhaps, as he looked out musing to where the tombs of the Apostles
gleamed afar on the other side of Tiber, have received the inheritance
of that long hope and vision which had been slowly growing in the
minds of Popes and priests--the hope of making the Church the mistress
and arbiter of the nations, the supreme and active judge among all
tumults of earthly politics and changes of power. He was nourished
from his childhood in the house of St. Peter, says the biographer of
the Acta Sanctorum. It would be more easy to realise the Apostle's
sway, and that of his successors, on that mount of vision, where day
and night, by sun and moon, the great temple of Christendom, the
centre of spiritual life, shone before his eyes, than on any other
spot. That wonderful visionary sovereignty, the great imagination of a
central power raised above all the disturbances of worldly life, and
judging austerely for right and against wrong all the world
over--unbiassed, unaffected by meaner motives, the great tribunal from
which justice and mercy should go forth over the whole earth--could
there be a more splendid ideal to till the brain of an ardent boy? It
is seldom that such an ideal is recognised, or such dreams as these
believed in. We know how little the Papacy has carried it out, and how
the faults and weaknesses even of great men have for many centuries
taken all possibility from it. But it was while that wonderful
institution was still fully possible, the devoutest of imaginations, a
dream such as had never been surpassed in splendour and glory, that
young Hildebrand looked out to Peter's prison on the Janiculum
opposite, and from thence to Peter's tomb, and dreamt of Peter's white
throne of justice dominating the darkness and the self-seeking of an
uneasy world.
The monastery of St. Mary, a Benedictine house, must have been noted
in its time. Among the teachers who instructed its neophytes was that
same Giovanni Gratiano of whom we have just spoken, the arch-priest
who devoted his wealth to the not ignoble purpose of getting rid of
two false and immoral Popes: though perhaps his motives would have
been less misconstrued had he not been elected in their place. And
there was also much fine company at the monastery in those
days--bishops with their suites travelling from south and north,
seeking the culture and piety of Rome after long banishment from
intellectual life--and at least one great abbot, more important than a
bishop, Odilon of Cluny, at the head of one of the greatest of
monastic communities. All of these great men would notice, no doubt,
the young nephew of the superior, the favourite of the cloister, upon
whom many hopes were already beginning to be founded, and in whose
education every one loved to have a hand. One of these bishops was
said afterwards to have taught him magical arts, which proves at least
that they took a share in the training of the child of the convent. At
what age it was that he was transferred to Cluny it is impossible to
tell. Dates do not exist in Hildebrand's history until he becomes
visible in the greater traffic of the world. He was born between 1015
and 1020--this is the nearest that we can approach to accuracy. He
appears in full light of history at the deposition of Gratiano
(Gregory VI.) in 1045. In the meantime he passed through a great many
developments. Probably the youth--eager to see the world, eager too to
fulfil his vocation, to enter upon the mortifications and
self-abasement of a monk's career, and to "subdue the flesh" in true
monkish fashion, as well as by the fatigues of travel and the
acquirement of learning--followed Odilon and his train across _i
monti_, a favourite and familiar, when the abbot returned from Rome to
Cluny. It could not be permitted in the monkish chronicles, even to a
character like that of the austere Hildebrand all brain and spirit,
that he had no flesh to subdue. And we are not informed whether it was
at his early home on the Aventine or in the great French monastery
that he took the vows. The rule of Cluny was specially severe. One
poor half hour a day was all that was permitted to the brothers for
rest and conversation. But this would not matter much, we should
imagine, to young Hildebrand, all on fire for work, and full of a
thousand thoughts.
How a youth of his age got to court, and was heard and praised by the
great Emperor Henry III., the head of Christendom, is not known.
Perhaps he went in attendance on his abbot, perhaps as the humble
clerk of some elder brethren bearing a complaint or an appeal; the
legend goes that he became the tutor and playfellow of the little
prince, Henry's son, until the Emperor had a dream in which he saw the
stranger, with two horns on his head, with one of which he pushed his
playfellow into the mud--significant and alarming vision which was a
reasonable cause for the immediate banishment of Hildebrand. The
dates, however, if nothing else, make this story impossible, for the
fourth Henry was not born within the period named. At all events the
young monk was sufficiently distinguished to be brought under the
Emperor's notice and to preach before him, though we are not informed
elsewhere that Hildebrand had any reputation as a preacher. He was no
doubt full of earnestness and strong conviction, and that heat of
youth which is often so attractive to the minds of sober men. Henry
declared that he had heard no man who preached the word of God with so
much faith: and the imperial opinion must have added much to his
importance among his contemporaries. On the other hand, the great
world of Germany and its conditions must have given the young man many
and strange revelations. Nowhere were the prelates so great and
powerful, nowhere was there so little distinction between the Church
and the world. Many of the clergy were married, and left, sometimes
their cures, often a fortune amassed by fees for spiritual offices, to
their sons: and benefices were bought and sold like houses and lands,
with as little disguise. A youth brought up in Rome would not be
easily astonished by the lawlessness of the nobles and subject princes
of the empire, but the importance of a central authority strong enough
to restrain and influence so vast a sphere, and so many conflicting
powers, must have impressed upon him still more forcibly the supreme
ideal of a spiritual rule more powerful still, which should control
the nations as a great Emperor controlled the electors who were all
but kings. And we know that it was now that he was first moved to that
great indignation, which never died in his mind, against simony and
clerical license, which were universally tolerated, if not
acknowledged as the ordinary rule of the age. It was high time that
some reformer should arise.
It was not, however, till the year 1046, on the occasion of the
deposition of Gregory VI. for simony, that Hildebrand first came into
the full light of day. Curiously enough, the first introduction of
this great reformer of the Church, the sworn enemy of everything
simoniacal, was in the suite of this Pope deposed for that sin. But in
all probability the simony of Gregory VI. was an innocent error, and
resulted rather from a want of perception than evil intention, of
which evidently there was none in his mind. He made up to the rivals
who held Rome in fee, for the dues and tributes and offerings which
were all they cared for, by the sacrifice of his own fortune. If he
had not profited by it himself, if some one else had been elected
Pope, no stain would have been left upon his name: and he seems to
have laid down his dignities without a murmur: but his heart was
broken by the shame and bitter conviction that what he had meant for
good was in reality the very evil he most condemned. Henry proceeded
on his march to Rome after deposing the Pope, apparently taking
Gregory with him: and there without any protest from the silenced and
terrified people, nominated a German bishop of his own to the papal
dignity, from whose hands he himself afterwards received the imperial
crown. He then returned to Germany, sweeping along with him the
deposed and the newly-elected Popes, the former attended in silence
and sorrow by Hildebrand, who never lost faith in him, and to the end
of his life spoke of him as his master.
A stranger journey could scarcely have been. The triumphant German
priests and prelates surrounding the new head of the Church, and the
handful of crestfallen Italians following the fallen fortunes of the
other, must have made a strange and not very peaceful conjunction.
"Hildebrand desired to show reverence to his lord," says one of the
chronicles. Thus his career began in the deepest mortification and
humiliation, the forced subjection of the Church which it was his
highest aim and hope to see triumphant, to the absolute force of the
empire and the powers of this world.
Pope Gregory reached his place of exile on the banks of the Rhine,
with his melancholy train, in deep humility; but that exile was not
destined to be long. He died there within a few months: and his
successor soon followed him to the grave. For a short and disastrous
period Rome seems to have been left out of the calculations
altogether, and the Emperor named another German bishop, whom he sent
to Rome under charge of the Marquis, or Margrave, or Duke of
Tuscany--for he is called by all these titles. This Pope, however, was
still more short-lived, and died in three weeks after his
proclamation, by poison it was supposed. It is not to be wondered at
if the bishops of Germany began to be frightened of this magnificent
nomination. Whether it was the judgment of God which was most to be
feared, or the poison of the subtle and scheming Romans, the prospect
was not encouraging. The third choice of Henry fell upon Bruno, the
bishop of Toul, a relative of his own, and a saintly person of
commanding presence and noble manners. Bruno, as was natural, shrank
from the office, but after days of prayer and fasting yielded, and was
presented to the ambassadors from Rome as their new Pope. Thus the
head of the Church was for the third time appointed by the Emperor,
and the ancient privilege of his election by the Roman clergy and
people swept away.
But Henry was not now to meet with complete submission and compliance,
as he had done before. The young Hildebrand had shown no rebellious
feeling when his master was set aside: he must have, like Gregory,
felt the decision to be just. And after faithful service till the
death of the exile, he had retired to Cluny, to his convent, pondering
many things. We are not told what it was that brought him back to
Germany at this crisis of affairs, whether he were sent to watch the
proceedings, or upon some humbler mission, or by the mere restlessness
of an able young man thirsting to be employed, and the instinct of
knowing when and where he was wanted. He reappeared, however, suddenly
at the imperial court during these proceedings; and no doubt watched
the summary appointment of the new Pope with indignation, injured in
his patriotism and in his churchmanship alike, by an election in which
Rome had no hand, though otherwise not dissatisfied with the Teutonic
bishop, who was renowned both for piety and learning. The chronicler
pauses to describe Hildebrand in this his sudden reintroduction to the
great world. "He was a youth of noble disposition, clear mind, and a
holy monk," we are told. It was while Bishop Bruno was still full of
perplexities and doubts that this unexpected counsellor appeared, a
man, though young, already well known, who had been trained in Rome,
and was an authority upon the customs and precedents of the Holy See.
He had been one of the closest attendants upon a Pope, and knew
everything about that high office--there could be no better adviser.
The anxious bishop sent for the young monk, and Hildebrand so
impressed him with his clear mind and high conception of the papal
duties, that Bruno begged him to accompany him to Rome.
He answered boldly, "I cannot go with you." "Why?" said the Teuton
prelate with amazement. "Because without canonical institution," said
the daring monk, "by the sole power of the emperor, you are about to
seize the Church of Rome."
Bruno was greatly startled by this bold speech. It is possible that
he, in his distant provincial bishopric, had no very clear knowledge
of the canonical modes of appointing a Pope. There were many
conferences between the monk and the Pope-elect, the young man who was
not born to hesitate but saw clear before him what to do, and his
elder and superior, who was neither so well informed nor so gifted.
Bruno, however, if less able and resolute, must have been a man of a
generous and candid mind, anxious to do his duty, and ready to accept
instruction as to the best method of doing so, which was at the same
time the noblest way of getting over his difficulties. He appeared
before the great diet or council assembled in Worms, and announced his
acceptance of the pontificate, but only if he were elected to it
according to their ancient privileges by the clergy and people of
Rome. It does not appear whether there was any resistance to this
condition, but it cannot have been of a serious character, for shortly
after, having taken farewell of his own episcopate and chapter, he set
out for Rome.
This is the account of the incident given by Hildebrand himself when
he was the great Pope Gregory, towards the end of his career. It was
his habit to tell his attendants the story of his life in all its
varied scenes, during the troubled leisure of its end, as old men so
often love to do. "Part I myself heard, and part of it was reported to
me by many others," says one of the chroniclers. There is another
account which has no such absolute authority, but is not unreasonable
or unlikely, of the same episode, in which we are told that Bishop
Bruno on his way to Rome turned aside to visit Cluny, of which
Hildebrand was prior, and that the monk boldly assailed the Pope,
upbraiding him with having accepted from the hand of a layman so great
an office, and thus violently intruded into the government of the
Church. In any case Hildebrand was the chief actor and inspirer of a
course of conduct on the part of Bruno which was at once pious and
politic. The papal robes which he had assumed at Worms on his first
appointment were taken off, the humble dress of a pilgrim assumed, and
with a reduced retinue and in modest guise the Pope-elect took his way
to Rome. His episcopal council acquiesced in this change of demeanour,
says another chronicler, which shows how general an impression
Hildebrand's eloquence and the fervour of his convictions must have
made. It was a slow journey across the mountains lasting nearly two
months, with many lingerings on the way at hospitable monasteries, and
towns where the Emperor's cousin could not but be a welcome guest.
Hildebrand, who must have felt the great responsibility of the act
which he had counselled, sent letter after letter, whenever they
paused on their way, to Rome, describing, no doubt with all the skill
at his command, how different was this German bishop from the others,
how scrupulous he was that his election should be made freely if at
all, in what humility he, a personage of so high a rank, and so many
endowments, was approaching Rome, and how important it was that a
proper reception should be given to a candidate so good, so learned,
and so fit in every way for the papal throne. Meanwhile Bishop Bruno,
anxious chiefly to conduct himself worthily, and to prepare for his
great charge, beguiled the way with prayers and pious meditations, not
without a certain timidity as it would appear about his reception. But
this timidity turned out to be quite uncalled for. His humble aspect,
joined to his high prestige as the kinsman of the emperor, and the
anxious letters of Hildebrand had prepared everything for Bruno's
reception. The population came out on all sides to greet his passage.
Some of the Germans were perhaps a little indignant with this
unnecessary humility, but the keen Benedictine pervaded and directed
everything while the new Pope, as was befitting on the eve of assuming
so great a responsibility, was absorbed in holy thought and prayer.
The party had to wait on the further bank of the Tiber, which was in
flood, for some days, a moment of anxious suspense in which the
pilgrims watched the walls and towers of the great city in which lay
their fate with impatience and not without alarm. But as soon as the
water fell, which it did with miraculous rapidity, the whole town,
with the clergy at its head, came out to meet the new-comers, and Leo
IX., one of the finest names in the papal lists, entering barefooted
and in all humility by the great doors of St. Peter's, was at once
elected unanimously, and received the genuine homage of all Rome. One
can imagine with what high satisfaction, yet with eyes ever turned to
the future, content with no present achievement, Hildebrand must have
watched the complete success of his plan.
This event took place, Villemain tells us (the early chroniclers, as
has been said, are most sparing of dates), in 1046, a year full of
events. Muratori in his annals gives it as two years later. Hildebrand
could not yet have attained his thirtieth year in either case. He was
so high in favour with the new Pope, to whom he had been so wise a
guide, that he was appointed at once to the office of Economico, a
sort of Chancellor of the Exchequer to the Court of Rome, and at the
same time was created Cardinal-archdeacon, and abbot of St. Paul's,
the great monastery outside the walls. Platina tells us that he
received this charge as if the Pope had "divided with him the care of
the keys, the one ruling the church of St. Peter and the other that of
St. Paul."
That great church, though but a modern building now, after the fire
which destroyed it seventy years ago, and standing on the edge of the
desolate Campagna, is still a shrine universally visited. The Campagna
was not desolate in Hildebrand's days, and the church was of the
highest distinction, not only as built upon the spot of St. Paul's
martyrdom, but for its own splendour and beauty. It is imposing still,
though so modern, and with so few relics of the past. But the pilgrim
of to-day, who may perhaps recollect that over its threshold Marcella
dragged herself, already half dead, into that peace of God which the
sanctuary afforded amid the sack and the tortures of Rome, may add
another association if he is so minded in the thought of the great
ecclesiastic who ruled here for many years, arriving, full of zeal and
eager desire for universal reform, into the midst of an idle crew of
depraved monks, who had allowed their noble church to fall into the
state of a stable, while they themselves--a mysterious and awful
description, yet not perhaps so alarming to us as to them--"were
served in the refectory by women," the first and perhaps the only,
instance of female servants in a monastery. Hildebrand made short work
of these ministrants. He had a dream--which no doubt would have much
effect on the monks, always overawed by spiritual intervention,
however material they might be in mind or habits--in which St. Paul
appeared to him, working hard to clear out and purify his desecrated
church. The young abbot immediately set about the work indicated by
the Apostle, "eliminating all uncleanness," says his chronicler: "and
supplying a sufficient amount of temperate food, he gathered round him
a multitude of honest monks faithful to their rule."
Hildebrand's great business powers, as we should say, enabled him very
soon to put the affairs of the convent in order. The position of the
monastery outside the city gates and defences, and its thoroughly
disordered condition, had left it open to all the raids and attacks of
neighbouring nobles, who had found the corrupt and undisciplined monks
an easy prey; but they soon discovered that they had in the new abbot
a very different antagonist. In these occupations Hildebrand passed
several years, establishing his monastery on the strongest foundations
of discipline, purity, and faith. Reform was what the Church demanded
in almost every detail of its work. Amid the agitation and constant
disturbance outside, it had not been possible to keep order within,
nor was an abbot who had bought his post likely to attempt it: and a
great proportion of the abbots, bishops, and great functionaries of
the Church had bought their posts. In the previous generation it had
been the rule. It had become natural, and disturbed apparently no
man's conscience. A conviction, however, had evidently arisen in the
Church, working by what influences we know not, but springing into
flame by the action of Hildebrand, and by his Pope Leo, that this
state of affairs was monstrous and must come to an end. The same
awakening has taken place again and again in the Church as the
necessity has unfortunately arisen: and never had it been more
necessary than now. Every kind of immorality had been concealed under
the austere folds of the monk's robe; the parish priests, especially
in Germany, lived with their wives in a calm contempt of all the
Church's laws in that respect. This, which to us seems the least of
their offences, was not so in the eyes of the new race of Church
reformers. They thought it worse than ordinary immoral relations, as
counterfeiting and claiming the title of a lawful union; and to the
remedy of this great declension from the rule of the Church, and of
the still greater scandal of simony, the new Pope's utmost energies
were now directed.
[Illustration: PYRAMID OF CAIUS CESTIUS.]
A very remarkable raid of reformation, which really seems the most
appropriate term which could be used, took place accordingly in the
first year of Leo IX.'s reign. We do not find Hildebrand mentioned as
accompanying him in his travels--probably he was already too deeply
occupied with the cleansing out of St. Paul's physically and morally,
to leave Rome, of which, besides, he had the care, in all its external
as well as spiritual interests, during the Pope's absence: but no
doubt he was the chief inspiration of the scheme, and had helped to
organise all its details. Something even of the subtle snare in which
his own patron Gregory had been caught was in the plan with which
Hildebrand, thus gleaning wisdom from suffering, sent forth his Pope.
After holding various smaller councils in Italy, Leo crossed the
mountains to France, where against the wish of the Emperor, he held a
great assembly at Rheims. The nominal occasion of the visit was the
consecration of that church of St. Remy, then newly built, which is
still one of the glories of a city so rich in architectural wealth.
The body of St. Remy was carried, with many wonderful processions,
from the monastery where it lay, going round and round the walls of
the mediæval town and through its streets with chants and psalms, with
banner and cross, until at last it was deposited solemnly on an altar
in the new building, now so old and venerable. Half of France had
poured into Rheims for this great festival, and followed the steps of
the Pope and hampered his progress--for he was again and again unable
to proceed from the great throngs that blocked every street. This,
however, though a splendid ceremony, and one which evidently made much
impression on the multitude, was but the preliminary chapter. After
the consecration came a wholly unexpected visitation, the council of
Rheims, which was not concerned like most other councils with
questions of doctrine, but of justice and discipline. The throne for
the Pope was erected in the middle of the nave of the cathedral--not,
it need scarcely be said, the late but splendid cathedral now
existing--and surrounded in a circle by the seats of the bishops and
archbishops. When all were assembled the object of the council was
stated--the abolition of simony, and of the usurpation of the
priesthood and the altar by laymen, and the various immoral practices
which had crept into the shadow of the Church and been tolerated or
authorised there. The Pope in his opening address adjured his
assembled counsellors to help him to root out those tares which choked
the divine grain, and implored them, if any among them had been
guilty of the sin of simony, either by sale or purchase of benefices,
that he should make a public confession of his sin.
Terrible moment for the bishops and other prelates, immersed in all
the affairs of their times and no better than other men! The reader
after all these centuries can scarcely fail to feel the thrill of
alarm, or shame, or abject terror that must have run through that
awful sitting as men looked into each other's faces and grew pale. The
archbishop of Trèves got up first and declared his hands to be clean,
so did the archbishop of Lyons and Besançon. Well for them! But he of
Rheims in his own cathedral, he who must have been in the front of
everything for these few triumphant days of festival, faltered when
his turn came. He begged that the discussion might be adjourned till
next day, and that he might be allowed to see the Pope in private
before making his explanations. It must have been with a kind of grim
benignancy, and awful toleration, that the delay was granted and the
inquisition went on, while that great personage, one of the first
magnates of the assembly, sat silent, pondering all there was against
him and how little he had to say in his defence. The council became
more lively after this with accusations and counter-accusations. The
bishop of Langres procured the deposition of an abbot in his diocese
for immoral conduct; but next day was assailed himself of simony,
adultery, and the application of torture in order to extort money.
After a day or two of discussion this prelate fled, and was finally
excommunicated. Pope Leo was not a man to be trifled with. And so the
long line of prelates was gone through with many disastrous
consequences as the days ran on.
It is less satisfactory to find him easily excommunicating rebels and
opponents of the Emperor, whose arms were too successful or their
antagonism too important. Even the best of priests and Popes err
sometimes--and to have such a weapon as excommunication at hand like
a thunderbolt must have been very tempting. Leo at the same time
excommunicated also the people of Benevento, who had rebelled against
the Emperor, and the archbishop of Ravenna, who was in rebellion
against himself.
The travels and activity of this Pope on his round of examination and
punishment were extraordinary. He appears in one part of Italy after
another: in the far south, in the midland plains, holding councils
everywhere, deposing bishops, scourging the Church clean. Again he is
over the hills in his own country, meeting the Emperor, as active as
himself, and almost as earnest in his desire to cleanse the Church of
simony--moving here and there, performing all kinds of sacred
functions from the celebration of a feast to the excommunication of a
city. His last, and as it proved fatal enterprise was an expedition
against the Normans, who had got possession of a great part of
Southern Italy, and against whom the Pope went, most inappropriately,
at the head of an army, made up of the most heterogeneous elements,
and which collapsed in face of the enemy. Leo himself either was made
prisoner or took refuge in the town of Benevento, which had recently,
by a bargain with the Emperor, become the property of the Holy See.
Here he was detained for nearly a year, more or less voluntarily, and
when, at length, he set out for Rome, with a strong escort of the
Normans and every mark of honour, it was with broken health and
failing strength. He died shortly after reaching his destination, in
his own great church, having caused himself to be carried there as he
grew worse; and nothing could be more imposing than the scene of his
death, in St. Peter's, which was all hung with black and illuminated
with thousands of funeral lights for this great and solemn event. All
Rome witnessed his last hours and saw him die. He was one of the great
Popes, though he did not fully succeed even in his own appropriate
work of Church reform, and failed altogether when he took,
unfortunately, sword in hand. Not a word, however, could be said
against the purity of his life and motives, and these were universally
acknowledged, especially among the Normans against whom he led his
unfortunate army, and who worshipped, while probably holding captive,
their rash invader.
During the eight years of Leo's popedom Hildebrand had been at the
head of affairs in Rome, where erring priests and simoniacal bishops
had been not less severely brought to book than in other places. He
does not seem to have accompanied the Pope on any of his many
expeditions; but with the aid of a new brother-in-arms, scarcely less
powerful and able than himself, Peter Damian, then abbot of
Fontavellona and afterwards bishop of Ostia, did his best under Leo to
sweep clean the ecclesiastical world in general as he had swept clean
his own church of St. Paul. When Leo died, Hildebrand was one of the
three legates sent to consult the Emperor as to the choice of another
Pope. This was a long and difficult business, since the
susceptibilities of the Romans, anxious to preserve their own real or
apparent privilege of election, had to be reconciled with the claims
of Henry, who had no idea of yielding them in any way, and who had the
power on his side. The selection seems to have been finally made by
Hildebrand rather than Henry, and was that of Gebehard, bishop of
Aichstadt, another wealthy German prelate, also related to the
Emperor. Why he should have consented to accept this mission, however,
he who had so strongly declined to follow Leo as the nominee of the
Emperor, and made it a condition of his service that the new Pope
should go humbly to Rome as a pilgrim to be elected there, is
unexplained by any of the historians.
It was in the spring of 1055 that after long delays and much waiting,
the Roman conclave came back, bringing their Pope with them. But
Victor II. was like so many of his German predecessors, short-lived.
His reign only lasted two years, the half of which he seems to have
spent in Germany. "He was not one who loved the monks," and probably
Hildebrand found that he would do but little with one whose heart
would seem to have remained on the other side of _i monti_--as the
Alps are continually called. No second ambassador was sent to the
Imperial Court for a successor: for in the fateful year 1056 the
Emperor also died, preceding Victor to the grave by a few months.
Without pausing to consult the German Court, with a haste which proves
their great anxiety to reassert themselves, the Roman clergy and
people elected Frederick, abbot of Monte Cassino and brother of the
existing prince of Tuscany--Gottfried of Lorraine, the second husband
of Beatrice of Tuscany and step-father of Matilda the actual heir to
that powerful duchy. Perhaps a certain desire to cling to the only
power in Italy which could at all protect them against an irritated
Imperial Court mingled with this choice: but it was a perfectly
natural and worthy one. Frederick, unfortunately, lived but a few
months, disappointing many hopes. He had sent Hildebrand to the
Imperial Court to explain and justify his election, but when he found
his health beginning to give way, a sort of panic seems to have seized
him, and collecting round him all the representatives of priests and
people who could be gathered together, he made them swear on pain of
excommunication to elect no successor until the return of Hildebrand.
He died at Florence shortly after.
There is something monotonous in these brief records: a great turmoil
almost reaching the length of a convulsion for the choice, and then a
short and agitated span, a year or two, sometimes only a month or two,
and all is over and the new Pope goes to rejoin the long line of his
predecessors. It was not, either, that these were old men, such as
have so often been chosen in later days, venerable fathers of the
Church whose age brought them nearer to the grave than the
throne:--they were all men in the flower of their age, likely
according to all human probability to live long. It was not wonderful
if the German bishops were afraid of that dangerous elevation which
seemed to carry with it an unfailing fate.
Hildebrand was at the German Court when this sad news reached him. He
was in the position, fascinating to most men--and he was not superior
to others in this respect--of confidant and counsellor to a princess
in the interesting position of a young widow, with a child, upon whose
head future empire had already thrown its shadow. The position of the
Empress Agnes was, no doubt, one of the most difficult which a woman
could be called on to occupy, surrounded by powerful princes scarcely
to be kept in subjection by the Emperor, who was so little more than
their equal, though their sovereign--and altogether indisposed to
accept the supremacy of a woman. There is nothing in which women have
done so well in the world as in the great art of government, but the
Empress Agnes was not one of that kind. She had to fall back upon the
support of the clergy in the midst of the rude circle of potentates
with whom she had to contend, and the visit of Hildebrand with his
lofty views, his great hopes, his impetuous determination to vanquish
evil with good, though not perhaps in the way recommended by the
Apostles, was no doubt a wonderful refreshment and interest to her in
the midst of all her struggles. But it was like a thunderbolt bursting
at their feet to hear of the death of Frederick--(among the Popes
Stephen IX.): and the swiftly following outburst in Rome when, in a
moment, in the absence of any spirit strong enough to control them,
the old methods were put into operation, and certain of the Roman
nobles ever ready to take advantage of an opportunity--with such
supporters within the city as terror or bribes could secure them,
taking the people by surprise--procured the hurried election of a Pope
without any qualifications for the office. Nothing could be more
dramatic than the entire episode. A young Count of Tusculum, a
stronghold seated amid the ruins of the old Roman city, above
Frascati, one of a family who then seem to have occupied the position
afterwards held by the Orsinis and Colonnas, was the leader of this
conspiracy and the candidate was a certain Mincio, Bishop of Velletri,
a member of the same family. The description in Muratori's _Annals_
though brief is very characteristic.
"Gregorio, son of Albanio Count Tusculano, of Frascati,
along with some other powerful Romans, having gained by
bribes a good part of the clergy and people, rushed by
night, with a party of armed followers, into the Church of
St. Peter, and there, with much tumult, elected Pope,
Giovanni, Bishop of Velletri, afterwards called Mincio (a
word perhaps drawn from the French _Mince_ and which
probably was the original of the phrase now used _Minciono,
Minchione_), who assumed the name of Benedict X. He was a
man entirely devoid of letters."
The sudden raid in the night, all Rome silent and asleep, except the
disturbed and hastily awakened streets by which the party had entered
from across the Campagna and their robber fortress among the ruins of
the classic Tusculum, makes a most curious and dramatic picture. The
conspirators had among them certain so-called representatives of the
people, with a few abbots who felt their seats insecure under a
reforming Pope, and a few priests very desirous of shutting out all
new and disturbing authority. They gathered hastily in the church
which suddenly shone out into the darkness with flare of torch and
twinkle of taper, while the intruder, _Mincio_, a lean and fantastic
bishop, with affectations of pose and attitude such as his nickname
implies, was hurried to the altar by his rude patrons and attendants.
He was consecrated by the terrified archpriest of Ostia, upon whom the
Frascati party had somewhere laid violent hands, and who faltered
through the office half stupefied by fear. It was the privilege of
the Bishop of Ostia to be the officiating prelate at the great
solemnity of a Pope's consecration. When he could not be had the
careless and profane barons no doubt thought his subordinate would do
very well instead.
The news was received, however, though with horror, yet with a
dignified self-restraint by the Imperial Court. Hildebrand set out at
once for Florence to consult with the Sovereigns there, a royal family
of great importance in the history of Italy, consisting of the widowed
duchess Beatrice, her second husband Gottfried of Lorraine, and her
young daughter Matilda, the actual heiress of the principality, all
staunch supporters of the Church and friends of Hildebrand. That he
should take the command of affairs at this sudden crisis seems to have
been taken for granted on all sides. A council of many bishops "both
German and Italian" was called together in Sienna, where it was met by
a deputation from Rome, begging that fit steps might be taken to meet
the emergency, and a legitimate Pope elected. The choice of this Council
fell upon the Bishop of Florence, "who for wisdom and a good life was
worthy of such a sublime dignity;" and the new Pope was escorted to
Rome by a strong band of Tuscan soldiers powerful enough to put down
all tumult or rebellion in the city. The expedition paused at Sutri, a
little town, just within the bounds of the papal possessions, which
had already on that account been the scene of the confusing and
painful council which dethroned Gregory VI. to destroy the strongholds
of the Counts of Tusculum near that spot, and make an end of their
power. Mincio, however, poor fantastic shadow, had no heart to confront
a duly elected Pope, or the keen eye of Hildebrand, and abdicated at
once his ill-gotten power. His vague figure so sarcastically indicated
has a certain half-comic, half-rueful effect, appearing amid all these
more important forms and things, first in the dazzle of the midnight
office, and afterwards in a hazy twilight of obscurity, stealing off,
to be seen no more, except by the keen country folk and townsmen of
his remote bishopric who, _burlando_--jesting as one is glad to hear
they were able to do amid all their tumults and troubles--gave him his
nickname, and thus sent down to posterity the fantastic vision of the
momentary Pope with his mincing ways--no bad anti-pope though as
Benedict X. he holds a faint footing in the papal roll--but a
historical _burla_, a mediæval joke, not without its power to relieve
the grave chronicle of the time.
The tumultuous public of Rome, which did not care very much either
way, yet felt this election of the Pope to be its one remaining claim
to importance, murmured and grumbled its best about the interference
of Tuscany, a neighbour more insulting, when taking upon herself airs
of mastery, than a distant and vaguely magnificent Emperor; and there
was an outcry against Hildebrand, who had erected "a new idol" in
concert with Beatrice and without the consent of the Romans. But it
was in reality Hildebrand himself who now came to reign under the
shadow of another insignificant and short-lived Pope. Nicolas II. and
Alexander II. who followed were but the formal possessors of power;
the true sway was henceforth in the hands of the ever-watchful monk,
Cardinal-archdeacon, deputy and representative of the Holy See. It is
one of the few instances to be found in the records of the world of
that elevation of the man who _can_--so strongly preached by
Carlyle--to the position which is his natural right. While Hildebrand
had been scouring the world, an adventurous young monk, passing _i
monti_ recklessly as the young adventurer now crosses the Atlantic,
more times than could be counted--while he was, with all the zeal of
his first practical essay in reform, cleaning out his stable at St.
Paul's, making his presence to be felt in the expenditure and
revenues of Rome--there had been, as we have seen, Pope after Pope in
the seat of the Apostle, most of them worthy enough, one at least, Leo
IX., heroic in effort and devotion--but none of them born to guide the
Church through a great crisis. The hour and the man had now come.
It was not long before the presence of a new and great legislator
became clearly visible. One of the first acts of Hildebrand, acting
under Nicolas, was to hold a council in Rome in 1059, at which many
things of importance were decided. The reader will want no argument
to prove that there was urgent need of an established and certain rule
for the election of the Popes, a necessity constantly recurring and
giving rise to a continual struggle. It had been the privilege of the
Roman clergy and people; it had become a prerogative of the Emperors;
it was exercised by both together, the one satisfying itself with a
fictitious co-operation and assent to what the other did, but neither
contented, and every vacancy the cause of a bitter and often
disgraceful struggle. The nominal election by the clergy and people
was a rule impossible, and meant only the temporary triumph of the
party which was strongest or wealthiest for the moment, and could best
pay for the most sweet voices of the crowd, or best overawe and cow
their opponents. On the other hand, the action of the secular power,
the selection or at least nomination of a Pope--with armies behind, if
necessary, to carry out his choice--by the Emperor across the Alps,
was a transaction subject to those ordinary secular laws, which induce
a superior in whatever region of affairs to choose the man who is
likely to be most serviceable to himself and his interests--interests
which were very different from those which are the objects of the
Church. No man had seen the dangers and difficulties of this divided
and inconsistent authority more than Hildebrand, and his determination
to establish a steadfast and final method for the choice and election
of the first great official of the Church was both wise and
reasonable. Perhaps it was not without thought of the expediency of
breaking away from all precedents, and thus preparing the way for a
new method, that he had, apparently on his own authority, transferred
in a manner, what we may call the patronage of the Holy See, to
Tuscany. The moment was propitious for such a change, for there was no
Emperor, the heir of Henry III. being still a child and his mother not
powerful enough to interfere.
[Illustration: TRINITA DE MONTI.]
The new law introduced by Hildebrand and passed by the council was
much the same in its general regulations as that which still exists.
There was no solemn mysterious Conclave, and the details were more
simple; but the rules of election were virtually the same. The
Cardinal-bishops made their choice first, which they then submitted to
the other Cardinals of lower rank. If both were agreed the name of the
Pope-elect was submitted to the final judgment of the people, no doubt
a mere formula. This, we believe, is nominally still the last step of
the procedure. The name is submitted, _i.e._, announced to the eager
crowd in St. Peter's who applaud, which is all that is required of
them: and all is done. This decree was passed _salvo debito honore et
reverentia delecti filii nostri Henrici_, a condition skilfully
guarded by the promise to award the same honour (that is, of having a
voice in the election) to those of his successors to whom the Holy See
shall have personally accorded the same right. It was thus the Holy
See which honoured the Emperors by according them a privilege, not the
Emperors who had any right to nominate, much less elect, to the Holy
See.
Other measures of great importance for the purification and internal
discipline of the Church were made law by this council, which was held
in April 1059, the year of the accession of Nicolas II.; but none of
such fundamental importance as this, or so bold in their claim of
spiritual independence. Hildebrand must by this time have been in the
very height of life, a man of forty or so, already matured by much
experience and beginning to systematise and regulate the dreams and
plans of his youth. He must have known by this time fully what he
wanted and what was, or at least ought to be, his mission in the
world. It is very doubtful, however, we think, whether that mission
appeared to him what it has appeared to all the historians since--a
deep-laid and all-overwhelming plan for the establishment of the
Papacy on such a pinnacle as never crowned head had attained. His
purposes as understood by himself were first the cleansing of the
Church--the clearing out of all the fleshly filth which had
accumulated in it, as in his own noble Basilica, rendering it useless,
hiding its beauty: and second the destruction of that system of buying
and selling which went on in the Holy Temple--worse than
money-changing and selling of doves, the sale of the very altars to
any unworthy person who could pay for them. These were his first and
greatest purposes--to make the Church pure and to make her free, as
perhaps she never has been, as perhaps, alas, she never will wholly
be: but yet the highest aim for every true churchman to pursue.
[Illustration: ARCH OF TITUS.
_To face page 208._]
These purposes were elevated and enlarged in his mind by the noble and
beautiful thought of thus preparing and developing the one great
disinterested power in the world, with nothing to gain, which should
arbitrate in every quarrel, and adjust contending claims and bring
peace on earth, instead of the clashing of swords; the true work of
the successor of Peter, Christ's Vicar in the world. This was not a
dream of Hildebrand alone. Three hundred years later the great soul of
Dante still dreamt of that Papa Angelico, the hope of ages, who might
one day arise and set all things right. Hildebrand was not of the
Angelical type. He was not that high priest made of benign charity,
and love for all men--of whom the mediæval sages mused. But who will
say that his dream, too, was not of the noblest or his ideal less
magnanimous and great? Such an arbiter was wanted--what words could
say how much?--in all those troubled and tumultuous kingdoms which
were struggling against each other, overcoming and being overcome,
always in disorder, carrying out their human fate with a constant
accompaniment of human groans and sufferings and tears--one who would
set all things right, who would judge the cause of the poor and
friendless, who would have power to pull down a tyrant and erect with
blessing and honour a new throne of justice in his dishonoured place.
Have we less need of a Papa Angelico now? But unfortunately,[1] we
have lost faith in the possibility of him, which is a fate which
befalls so many high ideals from age to age.
Did Hildebrand, a proud man and strong, a man full of ambition, full
of the consciousness of great powers--did he long to grasp the reins
of the universe in his own hand? to drive the chariots of the sun, to
direct everything, to rule everything, to be more than a king, and
hold Emperors trembling before him? It is very possible: in every
great spirit, until fully disenchanted, something of this desire must
exist. But that it was not a plan of ambition only, but a great ideal
which it seemed to him well worth a man's life to carry out, there
can, we think, be no reasonable doubt.
Thus he began his reign, in reality, though not by title, in Rome. The
cloisters were cleansed and the integrity of the Church vindicated,
though not by any permanent process, but one that had to be repeated
again and again in every chapter of her history. The Popes were
elected after a few stormy experiments in the manner he had decreed,
and the liberty of election established and protected--even to some
extent and by moments, his Papacy, that wonderful institution answered
to his ideal, and promised to fulfil his dream: until the time came
common to all men, when hope became failure, and he had to face the
dust and mire of purpose overthrown. But in the meantime no such
thoughts were in his mind as he laboured with all the exhilaration of
capacity, and with immense zeal and pains, at his own affairs, which
meant in those days to the Archdeacon of Rome the care of all the
Churches. The letters of the Pope in Council which carried the
addition of the name of that humblest of his sons and servants,
Hildebrand, bore the commands of such a sovereign as Hildebrand dreamt
of, to bishops and archbishops over all the world. Here is one of
these epistles.
Although several unfavourable reports have reached the
Apostolic See in respect to your Fraternity which cannot be
rejected without inquiry--as, for example, that you have
favoured our enemies, and have neglected pontifical
ordinances: yet as you have defended yourself from these
accusations by the testimony of a witness of weight and
have professed fidelity to St. Peter, we are disposed to
pass over these reports and to hope that the testimony in
your favour is true. Therefore take care in future so to
live, that your enemies shall have no occasion to sadden us
on your account. Exert yourself to fulfil the hopes which
the Apostolical See has formed of you: reprimand, entreat
and warn your glorious king that he may not be corrupted by
the counsels of the wicked, who hope under cover of our own
troubles to elude Apostolic condemnation. Let him take care
how he resists the sacred canons, or rather St. Peter
himself, thereby rousing our wrath against him, who rather
desire to love him as the apple of our eye.
These were high words to be said to a dubious, not well-assured
archbishop, occupying a very high place in the Church and powerful for
good or for evil: but Hildebrand did not mince matters, whatever he
might have to say.
Meanwhile the good Pope, Nicolas, went on with his charities while his
Cardinal Archdeacon thundered in his name. He went, in the end of his
life, with his court on a visit to the Normans, who had now, for some
time--since they defeated Pope Leo before the gates of Benevento and
came under the charm of papal influence, though in the person of their
prisoner--become the most devout and generous servants of the Papacy:
which indeed granted them titles to the sovereignty of any chance
principality they might pick up--which was a good equivalent. When
the troops of Guiscard escorted his Holiness back to Rome they were so
obliging as to destroy a castle or two of those robber nobles who
infested all the roads and robbed the pilgrims, and were, in the midst
of all greater affairs, like a nest of venomous wasps about the ears
of the Roman statesmen and legislators--especially those of the ever
turbulent family of Tusculum, the Counts of Frascati, who kept watch
afar upon the northern gates and every pilgrim path. This Pope died
soon after in 1061 in Florence, his former episcopal see, which he
often revisited and loved.
And now came the opportunity for Hildebrand to carry out his own bold
law, and elect at once, by the now legal methods, a new head to the
Church. But his coadjutors probably had not his own courage: and
though bold enough under his inspiration to pass that law, hesitated
to carry it out. It is said, too, that in Rome itself there was the
strong opposition of a German party really attached to the imperial
order, or convinced that without the strong backing of the empire the
Church could not stand. Reluctantly Hildebrand consented to send a
messenger to consult the imperial court, where strong remonstrances
and appeals were at once presented by the Germans and Lombards who
were as little desirous of having an Italian Pope over them as the
Romans were of a Teutonic one. The Empress Agnes had been alarmed
probably by rumours in the air of her removal from the regency. She
had been alienated from Hildebrand by the reports of his enemies, and
no doubt made to believe that the rights of her son must suffer if any
innovation was permitted. She forgot her usual piety in her panic, and
would not so much as receive Hildebrand's messenger, who, alone of all
the many deputations arriving on the same errand, was left five days
(or seven) waiting at the gates of the Palace--"For seven days he
waited in the antechamber of the king," says Muratori--while the
others were admitted and listened to. This was too much for
Hildebrand, to whom his envoy, Cardinal Stefano, returned full of
exasperation, as was natural. The Cardinals with timidity, but
sustained by Hildebrand's high courage and determination, then
proceeded to the election, which was duly confirmed by the people
assembled in St. Peter's, and therefore perfectly legal according to
the latest law. We are told much, however, of the excited state of
Rome during the election, and of the dislike of the people to the
horde of monks, many of them mendicant, and even more or less
vagabond, who were let loose upon the city, electioneering agents of
the most violent kind, filling the streets and churches with clamour.
This wild army, obnoxious to the citizens, was at Hildebrand's
devotion, and prejudiced more than they promoted, his views among the
crowd.
"Here returned to the Romans," says Muratori, whose right to speak on
such a subject will not be doubted, "complete freedom in the election
of the Popes, with the addition of not even awaiting the consent of
the Emperors for their consecration; an independence ever maintained
since, down to our own days." This daring act made a wonderful
revolution in the politics of Rome: it was the first erection of her
standard of independence. The Church had neither troops nor vassals
upon whom she could rely, and to defy thus openly the forces of the
Empire was a tremendous step to take. Nor was it only from Germany
that danger threatened. Lombardy and all the north of Italy was, with
the exception of Tuscany, in arms against the audacious monk. Only
those chivalrous savages of Normans, who, however, were as good
soldiers as any Germans, could be calculated on as faithful to the
Holy See: and Godfried of Tuscany stood between Rome and her enemies
_fidelissimo_, ready to ward off any blow.
The election passed over quietly, and Alexander II. (Anselm the Bishop
of Lucca) took his place, every particular of his assumption of the
new dignity being carefully carried through as though in times of
deepest peace. In Germany, however, the news produced a great
sensation and tumult. A Diet was held at Bâle, for the coronation in
the first place of the young king Henry, now twelve years old--but
still more for the immediate settlement of this unheard-of revolt.
When that ceremonial was over the court proceeded to the choice of a
Pope with a contemptuous indifference to the proceedings in Rome. This
anti-pope has no respect from history. He is said by one authority to
have been chosen because his evil life made him safe against any such
fury of reform as that which made careless prelate and priest fall
under the rod of Hildebrand on every side. Muratori, whose concise
little sentences are always so refreshing after the redundancy of the
monkish chronicles, is very contemptuous of this pretender, whose name
was Cadalous or Cadulo, an undistinguished and ill-sounding name. "The
anti-pope Cadaloo or Cadalo occupied himself all the winter of this
year" (says Muratori) "in collecting troops and money, in order to
proceed to Rome to drive out the legitimate successor of St. Peter and
to have himself consecrated there. Some suppose that he had already
been ordained Pope, and had assumed the name of Honorius II., but
there is no proof of this. And if he did not change his name it is a
sign that he had never been consecrated." Other authorities boldly
give him the title of Honorius II.: but he is generally called the
anti-pope Cadalous in history.
A conflict immediately arose between the two parties. Cadalous, at the
head of an army appeared before Rome, but not till after Hildebrand
had placed his Pope, who was for the moment less strong than the
Emperor's Pope, in Tuscany under the protection of Beatrice and her
husband Godfried. Then followed a stormy time of marches and
countermarches round and about the city, in which sometimes the
invaders were successful and sometimes the defenders. At length the
Tuscans came to the rescue with the two Countesses in their midst who
were always so faithful in their devotion to Hildebrand, Beatrice in
the maturity of her beauty and influence, and the young Matilda, the
real sovereign of the Tuscan states, fifteen years old, radiant in
hope and enthusiasm and stirring up the spirits of the Florentines and
Tuscan men at arms. Cadalous withdrew from that encounter making such
terms as he could with Godfried, with many prayers and large presents,
so that he was allowed to escape to Parma his bishopric, _testa
bassa_. Yet the records are not very clear on these points, Muratori
tells us. Doubts are thrown on the loyalty of Duke Godfried. He is
said to have invited the Normans to come to the help of the Pope, and
then invaded their territories, which was not a very knightly
proceeding: but there is no appearance at this particular moment of
the Normans, or any force but that of the Tuscan army with young
Countess Matilda and her mother flashing light and courage into the
ranks.
The anti-pope, if he deserved that title, did not trouble the
legitimate authorities long. He was suddenly dropped by the Germans in
the excitement of a revolution, originating in the theft of little
Henry the boy-monarch, whom the Bishop of Cologne stole from his
mother Agnes, as it became long afterwards a pleasant device of state
to carry off from their mothers the young fatherless Jameses of Scots
history. Young Henry was run away with in the same way, and Agnes
humiliated and cast off by the Teutonic nobility, who forgot all about
such a trifle as a Pope in the heat of their own affairs. It was only
when this matter was settled that a council was held in Cologne by the
archbishop who had been the chief agent in the abduction of Henry, and
was now first in power. Of this council there seems no authoritative
record. It is only by the answer to its deliberations published by
Peter Damian in which, as is natural, that able controversialist has
an easy victory over the other side--that anything is known of it.
Whether Cadalous was formerly deposed by this council is not known:
but he was dropped by the authorities of the Empire which had a
similar result.
Notwithstanding, this rash pretender made one other vain attempt to
seize the papal throne, being encouraged by various partisans in Rome
itself, by whose means he got possession of St. Peter's, where the
unfortunate man remained for one troubled night, making such appeals
to God and to his supporters as may be imagined, and furtively
performing the various offices of the nocturnal service, perhaps not
without a sense of profanation in the minds of those who had stolen
into the great darkness and silence of the Basilica to meet him, with
a political rather than a devotional intention. Next day all Rome
heard the news, and rising seized its arms and drove his handful of
defenders out of the city. Cadalous was taken by one of his
supporters, Cencio or Vincencio "son of the præfect" to St. Angelo,
where he held out against the Romans for the space of two years,
suffering many privations; and thence escaping on pain of his life
after other adventures, disappears into the darkness to be seen no
more.
This first distinct conflict between Rome and the Empire was the
beginning of the long-continued struggle which tore Italy asunder for
generations--the strife of the two parties called Guelfs and
Ghibellines, the one for the Empire, the other for the Church, with
all the ramifications of that great question.
The year in which Cadalous first appeared in Rome, which was the year
1062, was also distinguished by a very different visitor. The Empress
Agnes deprived of her son, shorn of her power, had nothing more to do
among the subject princes who had turned against her. She determined,
as dethroned monarchs are apt to do, to cast off the world which had
rejected her, and came to Rome, to beg pardon of the Pope and find a
refuge for herself out of the noise and tumult. She had been in Rome
once before, a young wife in all the pomp and pride of empire,
conducted through its streets in the midst of a splendid procession,
with her husband to be crowned. The strongest contrasts pleased the
fancy of these days. She entered Rome the second time as a penitent in
a black robe, and mounted upon the sorriest horse--"it was not to call
a horse, but like a beast of burden, a donkey, no bigger than an ass."
It is a curious sign of humiliation and accompanying elevation of
mind, but this is not the first time that we have heard of a pilgrim
entering Rome on a miserable hack, as if that were the highest sign of
humility. She was received with enthusiasm, notwithstanding her late
actions of hostility, and soon the walls of many churches were radiant
with the spoils of her imperial toilettes, brocades of gold and silver
encrusted with jewels, and wonders of rich stuffs which even Peter
Damian with his accomplished pen finds it difficult to describe. "She
laid down everything, destroyed everything, in order to become, in her
deprivation yet freedom, the bride of Christ." We are not told if
Agnes entered a convent or only lived the life of a religious person
in her own house; but she had the frequent company of Hildebrand and
Peter Damian, and of the Bishop of Como, who seems to have been
devoted to her service; and perhaps like other penitents was not so
badly off in her humility, thus delivered out of all the tumults
against which she had so vainly attempted to make head for years.
[Illustration: THE VILLA BORGHESE.]
While these smaller affairs--for even the anti-pope never seems to
have been really dangerous to Rome notwithstanding his many efforts to
disturb the peace of the Church--the world of Christendom which
surrounded that one steady though constantly contested throne of the
papacy, was in commotion everywhere. It seems strange to speak in one
breath of Hildebrand's great and noble ideal of a throne always
standing for righteousness, and of a sacred monarch supreme and high
above all worldly motives, dispensing justice and peace: and in the
next to confess his perfect acquiescence in, and indeed encouragement
of, the undertaking of William the Conqueror, so manifest an act of
tyranny and robbery, and interference with the rights of an
independent nation, an undertaking only different from those of the
brigands from Tusculum and other robber castles who swept the roads to
Rome, by the fact of its much higher importance and its complete
success. The Popes had sanctioned the raids of the Normans in Italy,
and confirmed to them by legal title the possessions which they had
taken by the strong hand: with perhaps a conviction that one strong
rule was better than the perpetual bloodshed of the frays between the
existing races--the duke here, the marquis there, all seeking their
own, and no man thinking of his neighbour's or his people's advantage.
But the internal discords of England were too far off to secure the
observation of the Pope, and the mere fact of Harold's renunciation in
favour of William, though it seems so specious a pretence to us, was
to the eyes of the priests by far the most important incident in the
matter, a vow taken at the altar and which therefore the servants of
the altar were bound to see carried out. These two reasons however
were precisely such as show the disadvantage of that grand papal ideal
which was burning in Hildebrand's brain; for a Pope, with a sacred
authority to set up and pull down, should never be too far off to
understand the full rights of any question were it in the remotest
parts of the earth: and should be far above the possibility of having
his judgment confused by a foregone ecclesiastical prejudice in favour
of an unjust vow.
Hildebrand however not only gave William, in his great stroke for an
empire, the tremendous support of the Pope's authority but backed him
up in many of his most high-handed and arbitrary proceedings against
the Saxon prelates and rich abbeys which the Conqueror spoiled at his
pleasure. It must not be forgotten, in respect to these latter
spoliations, that the internal war which was raging in the Church all
over the world, between the new race of reformers and the mass of
ordinary clergy--who had committed many ecclesiastical crimes, who
sometimes even had married and were comfortable in the enjoyment of a
sluggish toleration, or formed connections that were winked at by a
contemptuously sympathetic world; or who had bought their benefices
great and small, through an entangled system of gifts, graces, and
indulgences, as well as by the boldest simony--made every kind of
revolution within the Church possible, and produced endless
depositions and substitutions on every side. When, as we have seen,
the bishop of a great continental see in the centre of civilisation
could be turned out remorselessly from his bishopric on conviction of
any of these common crimes and forced into the Cloister to amend his
ways and end his life, it is scarcely likely that more consideration
would be shown for an unknown prelate far away across the Northern
seas, though it would seem to be insubordination rather than any
ecclesiastical vice with which the Saxon clergy were chiefly charged.
This first instance however of the papal right to sanction revolution,
and substitute one claimant for another as the selection of Heaven, is
perhaps the strongest proof that could be found of the impossibility
of that ideal, and of the tribunal thus set up over human thrones and
human rights. The papal see was thus drawn in to approve and uphold
one of the most bloody invasions and one of the most cruel conquests
ever known--and did so with a confidence and certainty, in an
ignorance, and with a bias, which makes an end of all those lofty
pretensions to perfect impartiality and a judgment beyond all
influences of passion which alone could justify its existence.
A great change had come over the firmament since the days when Leo IX.
cleansed the Church at Rheims, and held that wonderful Council which
set down so many of the mighty from their seats. Henry III., the
enemy of simony, was dead, and the world had changed. As we shall
often have occasion to remark, the papal rule of justice and purity
was strong and succeeded--so long as the forces of the secular powers
agreed with it. But when, as time went on, the Church found itself in
conflict with these secular powers, a very different state of affairs
ensued.
The action of Rome in opposition to the young Henry IV., was as
legitimate as had been its general agreement with, and approval of,
his predecessor. The youth of this monarch had developed into ways
very different from those of his father, and under his long minority
all the evils which Henry III. had honestly set his face against,
reappeared in full force. Whether it was his removal from the natural
and at least pure government of his mother, or from his native
disposition which no authority or training had a chance in such
circumstances of repressing, the young Henry grew up dissolute and
vicious, and his court was the centre of a wild and disorganised
society. Married at twenty, it was not very long before he tried by
the most disreputable means to get rid of his young wife, and failing
in that, called, or procured to be called by a complaisant archbishop,
a council, in order to rid him of her. Rome lost no time in sending
off to this council as legate, Peter Damian whose gift of speech was
so unquestionable that he could even on occasion make the worse appear
the better cause. But his cause in the present case was excellent, and
his eloquence no less so, and he had all that was prudent as well as
all that was wise and good in Germany on his side, notwithstanding the
complaisance of the priests. The legate remonstrated, exhorted,
threatened. The thing Henry desired was a thing unworthy of a
Christian, it was a fatal example to the world; finally no power on
earth would induce the Pope, whose hands alone could confer that
consecration, to crown as Roman Emperor a man who had sinned so
flagrantly against the laws of God. The great German nobles added
practical arguments not less urgent in their way; and Henry surrounded
on all sides with warnings was forced to give way. But this downfall
for the moment had little effect on the behaviour of the young
potentate, and his vices were such that his immediate vassals in his
own country were on the point of universal rebellion, no man's castle
or goods or wife or daughter being safe. The Church, which his father
had given so much care and pains to cleanse and purify, sank again
into the rankest simony, every stall in a cathedral, and cure in a
bishopric selling like articles of merchandise. It was time in the
natural course of affairs when the young monarch attained the full age
of manhood that he should be promoted to the final dignity of emperor,
and consecrated as such--a rite which only the Pope could perform: and
no doubt it was with a full consciousness of the power thus resting
with the Holy See, as well as in consequence of numerous informal but
eager appeals to the Pope against the ever-increasing evils of his
sway that Hildebrand proceeded to take such a step as had never been
ventured on before by the boldest of Churchmen. He summoned Henry
formally to appear before the papal court and defend himself against
the accusations brought against him. "For the heresy of simony," says
the papal letter, this being the great ecclesiastical crime which came
immediately under the cognizance of the Pope.
This citation addressed to the greatest monarch then existing, and by
a power but barely escaped from his authority and still owing to him a
certain allegiance, was enough to thrill the world from end to end.
Such a thing had never happened in the knowledge of man. But before we
begin so much as to hear of the effect produced, the Pope who had,
nominally at least, issued the summons, the good and saintly Alexander
II., after holding the papacy for twelve years, died on the 21st of
April, 1073. His reign for that time had been to a great degree the
reign of Hildebrand, the ever watchful, ever laborious archdeacon,
who, let the Pope travel as he liked--and his expeditions through
Italy were many--was always vigilant at his post, always in the centre
of affairs, with eyes and ears open to everything, and a mind always
intent on its purpose. Hildebrand's great idea of the position and
duties of the Holy See had developed much in those twelve years. It
had begun to appear a fact, in the eyes of those especially who had
need of its support. The Normans everywhere believed and trusted in
it, with good secular reason for so doing, and they were at the moment
a great power in the earth, especially in Italy. If it had not already
acquired an importance and force in the thoughts of men, more subtle
and less easy to obtain than external power, it would have been
impossible for the boldest to launch forth a summons to the greatest
king of Christendom the future Emperor. Already the first step towards
that great visionary sway, of which poets and sages, as well as
ecclesiastics, so long had dreamed, had been made.
Hildebrand had been virtually at the head of affairs since the year
1055, when he had brought across the Alps Victor II. chosen by
himself, whose acts and policy were his. He might have attained the
papacy in his own right on more than one occasion had he been so
minded, but had persistently held back from the rank while keeping the
power. But now humility would have been cowardice, and in the face of
the tremendous contest which he had invited no other course was
possible to him save to assume the full responsibility. Even before
the ceremonies of the funeral of the Pope were completed, while
Alexander lay in state, there was a rush of the people and priests to
the church of the Lateran, where Hildebrand was watching by the bier,
shouting "Hildebrand! The blessed St. Peter has elected Hildebrand."
A strange scene of mingled enthusiasm and excitement broke the
funereal silence in the great solemn church, amid its forest of
columns all hung with black, and glittering with the silver ornaments
which are appropriate to mourning, while still the catafalque upon
which the dead Pope lay rose imposing before the altar. Hildebrand,
startled, was about to ascend the pulpit to address the people, but
was forestalled by an eager bishop who hurried into it before him, to
make solemn announcement of the event. "The Archdeacon is the man who,
since the time of the holy Pope Leo, has by his wisdom and experience
contributed most to the exaltation of the Church, and has delivered
this town from great danger," he cried. The people responded by shouts
of "St. Peter has chosen Hildebrand!" We all know how entirely
fallacious is this manner of testing the sentiment of a people; but
yet it was the ancient way, the method adopted in those earlier times
when every Christian was a tried and tested man, having himself gone
through many sufferings for the faith.
It appears that Hildebrand hesitated, which seems strange in such a
man; one who, if ever man there was, had the courage of his opinions
and was not likely to shrink from the position he himself had created;
and it is almost incredible that he should have sent a sort of appeal,
as Muratori states, to Henry himself--the very person whom he had so
boldly summoned before the tribunal of the Church--requesting him to
withhold his sanction from the election. Muratori considers the
evidence dubious, we are glad to see, for this strange statement. At
all events, after a momentary hesitation Hildebrand yielded to the
entreaties of the people. The decree in which his election is recorded
is absolutely simple in its narrative.
"The day of the burial of our lord, the Pope Alexander II. (22nd
April, 1073), we being assembled in the Basilica of San Pietro in
Vincoli,[2] members of the holy Roman Church catholic and apostolic,
cardinals, bishops, clerks, acolytes, sub-deacons, deacons,
priests--in presence of the venerable bishops and abbots, by consent
of the monks, and accompanied by the acclamations of a numerous crowd
of both sexes and of divers orders, we elect as pastor and sovereign
pontiff a man of religion, strong in the double knowledge of things
human and divine, the love of justice and equity, brave in misfortune,
moderate in good fortune, and following the words of the apostle, a
good man, chaste, modest, temperate, hospitable, ruling well his own
house, nobly trained and instructed from his childhood in the bosom of
the Church, promoted by the merit of his life to the highest rank in
the Church, the Archdeacon Hildebrand, whom, for the future and for
ever, we choose; and we name him Gregory, Pope. Will you have him?
Yes, we will have him. Do you approve our act? Yes, we approve."
Nothing can be more graphic than this straightforward document, and
nothing could give a clearer or more picturesque view of the primitive
popular election. The wide-reaching crowd behind, women as well as
men, a most remarkable detail, filled to its very doors the long
length of the Basilica. The little group of cardinals and their
followers made a glow of colour in the midst: the mass of clergy in
the centre of the great nave lighted up by bishops and abbots in their
distinctive dresses and darkening into the surrounding background of
almost innumerable monks: while the whole assembly listened
breathless to this simple yet stately declaration, few understanding
the words, though all knew the meaning, the large Latin phrases
rolling over their heads: until it came to that well-known name of
Hildebrand--Ildebrando--which woke a sudden storm of shouts and
outcries. Will you have this man? Yes, we will have him! Do you
approve? _Approviamo! Approviamo!_ shouted and shrieked the crowd. So
were the elections made in Venice long years after, under the dim
arches of St. Marco; but Venice was still a straggling village,
fringing a lagoon, when this great scene took place.
[Illustration: WHERE THE GHETTO STOOD.]
Hildebrand was at this time a man between fifty and sixty, having
spent the last eighteen years of his life in the control and
management of the affairs of Rome. He was a small, spare man of the
most abstemious habits, allowing himself as few indulgences in the
halls of the Lateran as in a monastic cell. His fare was vegetables,
although he was no vegetarian in our modern sense of the word, but ate
that food to mortify the flesh and for no better reason. Not long
before he made the rueful, and to us comic, confession that he had
"ended by giving up leeks and onions, having scruples on account of
their flavour, which was agreeable to him." Scruple could scarcely go
further in respect to the delights of this world. We are glad however
that he who was now the great Pope Gregory denied himself that onion.
It was a dignified act and sacrifice to the necessities of his great
position.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] It is touching and pathetic to divine, in the present Pope,
something of that visionary and disinterested ambition, that longing
to bless and help the universe, which was in those dreams of the
mediæval mind, prompted by a great pity, and a love that is half
divine. Leo XIII. is too wise a man to dream of temporal power
restored, though he is a martyr to the theory of it: but there would
seem to be in his old age which makes it impossible if nothing else
did, a trembling consciousness of capacity to be in himself a Papa
Angelico, and gather us all under his wings.
[2] It is supposed by some from this that the election took place in
this church and not in the Lateran; but that is contradicted by
Gregory himself, who says it took place in Ecclesia S. Salvatoris, a
name frequently used for the Lateran. Bowden suggests that "at the
close of the tumultuous proceedings in the Lateran the cardinal
clergy" may have "adjourned to St. Peter ad Vincula formally to ratify
and register the election."
[Illustration: FROM SAN GREGORIO MAGNO.]
CHAPTER III.
THE POPE GREGORY VII.
The career of Hildebrand up to the moment in which he ascended the
papal throne could scarcely be called other than a successful one. He
had attained many of his aims. He had awakened the better part of the
Church to a sense of the vices that had grown up in her midst,
purified in many quarters the lives of her priests, and elevated the
mind and ideal of Christendom. But bad as the vices of the clergy
were, the ruling curse of simony was worse, to a man whose prevailing
dream and hope was that of a great power holding up over all the world
the standards of truth and righteousness in the midst of the wrongs
and contentions of men. A poor German priest holding fast in his
distant corner by the humble wife or half-permitted female companion
at whose presence law and charity winked, was indeed a dreadful
thought, meaning dishonour and sacrilege to the austere monk; but the
bishops and archbishops over him who were so little different from the
fierce barons, their kin and compeers, who had procured their
benefices by the same intrigues, the same tributes and subserviences,
the same violence, by which these barons in many cases held their
fiefs, how was it possible that such men could hold the balance of
justice, and promote peace and purity and the reign of God over the
world? That they should help in any way in that great mission which
the new Pope felt himself to have received from the Head of the Church
was almost beyond hope. They vexed his soul wherever he turned, men
with no motive, no inspiration beyond that of their fellows, ready to
scheme and struggle for the aggrandisement of the Church, if you
will--for the increase of their own greatness and power and those of
the corporations subject to them: but as little conscious of that
other and holier ambition, that hope and dream of a reign of
righteousness, as were their fellows and brethren, the dukes and
counts, the fighting men, the ambitious princes of Germany and
Lombardy. Until the order of chiefs and princes of the Church could be
purified, Hildebrand had known, and Gregory felt to the bottom of his
heart, that nothing effectual could be done.
The Cardinal Archdeacon of Rome, under Popes less inspired than
himself--who were, however, if not strong enough to originate, at
least acquiescent, and willing to adopt and sanction what he did--had
carried on a holy war against simony wherever found. He had condemned
it by means of repeated councils, he had poured forth every kind of
appeal to men's consciences, and exhortations to repentance, without
making very much impression. The greatest offices were still sold in
spite of him. They were given to tonsured ruffians and debauchees who
had no claim but their wealth to ascend into the high places of the
Church, and who, in short, were but secular nobles with a difference,
and the fatal addition of a cynicism almost beyond belief, though
singularly mingled at times with superstitious terrors. Hildebrand
had struggled against these men and their influence desperately, by
every means in his power: and Pope Gregory, with stronger methods at
command, was bound, if possible, to extirpate the evil. This had
raised him up a phalanx of enemies on every side, wherever there was a
dignitary of the Church whose title was not clear, or a prince who
derived a portion of his revenue from the traffic in ecclesiastical
appointments. The degenerate young King not yet Emperor, who supported
his every scheme of rapine and conquest by the gold of the ambitious
priests whom he made into prelates at his will, was naturally the
first of these enemies: Guibert of Ravenna, more near and readily
offensive, one of the most powerful ecclesiastical nobles in Italy,
sat watchful if he might catch the new Pope tripping, or find any
opportunity of accusing him: Robert Guiscard, the greatest of the
Normans, who had been so much the servant and partisan of the late
Popes, remained sullen and apart, giving no allegiance to this: Rome
itself was surrounded by a fierce and audacious nobility, who had
always been the natural enemies of the Pope, unless when he happened
to be their nominee, and more objectionable than themselves. Thus the
world was full of dark and scowling faces. A circle of hostility both
at his gates and in the distance frowned unkindly about him, when the
age of Hildebrand was over, and that of Gregory began. All his great
troubles and sufferings were in this latter part of his life. Nothing
in the shape of failure had befallen him up to this point. He had met
with great respect and honour, his merit and power had been recognised
almost from his earliest years. Great princes and great men--Henry
himself, the father of the present degenerate Henry, a noble Emperor,
honouring the Church and eager for its purification--had felt
themselves honoured by the friendship of the monk who had neither
family nor wealth to recommend him. But when Pope Gregory issued from
his long probation and took into his hand the papal sceptre, all
these things had changed. Whether he was aware by any premonition of
the darker days upon which he had now fallen who can say? It is
certain that confronting them he bated no jot of heart or hope.
He appears to us at first as very cautious, very desirous of giving
the adversary no occasion to blaspheme. The summons issued in the name
of the late Pope to Henry requiring him to appear and answer in Rome
the charges made against him, seems to have been dropped at
Alexander's death: and when his messengers came over the Alps
demanding by what right a Pope had been consecrated without his
consent, Gregory made mild reply that he was not consecrated, but was
awaiting not the nomination but the consent of the Emperor, and that
not till that had been received would he carry out the final rites.
These were eventually performed with some sort of acquiescence from
Henry, given through his wise and prudent ambassador, on the Feast of
St. Peter, the 29th June, 1073. Gregory did what he could, as appears,
to continue this mild treatment of Henry with all regard to his great
position and power. He attempted to call together a very intimate
council to discuss the state of affairs between the King and himself:
a council of singular construction, which, but that the questions as
to the influence and place of women are questions as old as history,
and have been decided by every age according to no formal law but the
character of the individuals before them, might be taken for an
example of enlightenment before his time in Gregory's mind. He invited
Duke Rudolf of Suabia, one of Henry's greatest subjects, a man of
religious character and much reverence for the Holy See, to come to
Rome, and in common with himself, the Empress Agnes, the two
Countesses of Tuscany, the Bishop of Como (who was the confessor of
Agnes), and other God-fearing persons, to consider the crisis at which
the Church had arrived, and to hear and give advice upon the Pope's
intentions and projects. The French historian Villemain throws
discredit upon this projected consultation of "an ambitious vassal of
the King of Germany and three women, one of whom had once been a
prisoner in the camp of Henry III., the other had been brought up from
infancy in the hate of the empire and the love of the Church, and the
last was a fallen empress who was more the penitent of Rome than the
mother of Henry." This seems, however, a futile enumeration. There
could surely be no better defender found for a son accused than his
mother, who we have no reason to suppose was ever estranged from him
personally, and who shortly after went upon an embassy to him, and was
received with every honour. Beatrice, on the other hand, had been the
prisoner of his father the great Emperor, and not of young Henry of
whom she was the relative and friend, and between whom and the Pope,
as all good statesmen must have seen, it was of the greatest
importance to Europe that there should be peace; while any strong
personal feeling which might exist would be modified by Gregory
himself, by Raymond of Como, and the wisest heads of Rome.
But this board of advice and conciliation never sat, so we need not
comment upon its possible concomitants. In every act of his first
year, however, Gregory showed a desire to conciliate Henry rather than
to defy him. The young king had his hands very full, and his great
struggle with the Saxon nobles and people was not at the moment
turning in his favour. And he had various natural defenders and
partisans about the Roman Court. The Abbot Hugo of Cluny, who was one
of Gregory's dearest friends, had been the young king's preceptor, and
bore him a strong affection. We have no reason to believe that the
influence of Agnes was not all on the side of her son, if not to
support his acts, at least to palliate and excuse them. With one of
these in his most intimate council, and one an anxious watcher
outside, both in command of his ear and attention, it would have been
strange if Gregory had been unwilling to hear anything that was in
Henry's favour.
And in fact something almost more than a full reconciliation seems to
have been effected between the new Pope and the young king, so
desirous of winning the imperial crown, and conscious that Gregory's
help was of the utmost importance to him. Henry on his side wrote a
letter to his "most loving lord and father," his "most desired lord,"
breathing such an exemplary mind, so much penitence and submission,
that Gregory describes it as "full of sweetness and obedience:" while
the Pope, if not altogether removing the sword that hung suspended
over Henry's head, at least received his communications graciously,
and gave him full time and encouragement to change his mind and become
the most trusted lieutenant of the Holy See. The King was accordingly
left free to pursue his own affairs and his great struggle with the
Saxons without any further question of ecclesiastical interference:
while Gregory spent the whole ensuing year in a visitation of Italy,
and much correspondence and conference on the subject of simony and
other abuses in the Church. When he returned to Rome he endeavoured,
but in vain, to act as peacemaker between Henry and the Saxons. And it
was not till June in the year 1074, when he called together the first
of the Lateran Councils, an assembly afterwards renewed yearly, a sort
of potential Convocation, that further steps were taken. With this the
first note of the great warfare to follow was struck. The seriousness
of the letters by which he summoned its members sufficiently shows the
importance attached to it.
"The princes and governors of this world, seeking their own
interest and not that of Jesus Christ, trample under foot
all the veneration they owe to the Church, and oppress her
like a slave. The priests and those charged with the
conduct of the Church sacrifice, the law of God, renounce
their obligations towards God and their flocks, seeking in
ecclesiastical dignities only the glory of this world, and
consuming in pomp and pride what ought to serve for the
salvation of many. The people, without prelates or sage
counsellors to lead them in the way of virtue, and who are
instructed by the example of their chiefs in all pernicious
things, go astray into every evil way, and bear the name of
Christian without its works, without even preserving the
principle of the faith. For these reasons, confident in the
mercies of God, we have resolved to assemble a Synod in
order to seek with the aid of our brethren for a remedy to
these evils, and that we may not see in our time the
irreparable ruin and destruction of the Church. Wherefore
we pray you as a brother, and warn you in the name of the
blessed Peter, prince of apostles, to appear at the day
fixed, convoking by this letter, and by your own, your
suffragan bishops; for we can vindicate the freedom of
religion and of ecclesiastical authority with much more
surety and strength according as we find ourselves
surrounded by the counsels of your prudence, and by the
presence of our brethren."
A few Italian princes, Gisulfo of Salerno, Azzo d'Este, Beatrice and
Matilda of Tuscany, were convoked to the council and held seats in it.
The measures passed were very explicit and clear. They condemned the
simoniacal clergy in every rank, deposing them from their positions
and commanding them to withdraw from the ministrations of the altar.
The same judgment was passed upon those who lived with wives or
concubines. Both classes were put beyond the pale of the Church, and
the people were forbidden, on pain of sharing their doom, to receive
the sacraments from them, or to yield them obedience. Nothing more
thorough and far-reaching could be. Hitherto the Popes had proceeded
by courts of investigation, by examination of individuals, in which
the alternative of repentance and renunciation was always open to the
prelate who had perhaps inadvertently fallen into these crimes. But
such gentle dealings had been but very partially successful. Here and
there an archbishop or great abbot had been convicted by his peers,
and made to descend from his high estate--here and there a great
personage had risen in his place and made confession. Some had retired
to the cloister, putting all their pomps and glories aside, and made a
good end. But as is usual after every religious revival, life had
risen up again and gone upon its usual course, and the bishoprics
thus vacated had probably been sold to the highest bidder or yielded
to the most violent assailant, as if no such reformation had ever
been.
The matter had gone too far now for any such occasional alleviations;
and Gregory struck at the whole body of proud prelates, lords of
secular as well as ecclesiastical greatness, men whose position was as
powerful in politics and the affairs of the empire as was that of the
princes and margraves who were their kin, and whom they naturally
supported--as the others had supported them by money and influence in
their rise to power: but who had very little time for the affairs of
the Church, and less still for the preservation of peace and the
redress of wrong.
The other measures passed at this council were more searching still;
they were aimed against the disorders into which the clergy had
fallen, and chiefly what was to Gregory and his followers the great
criminality, of married priests, who abounded in the Church. In this
the lower orders of the clergy were chiefly assailed, for the more
important members of the hierarchy did not marry though they might be
vicious otherwise. But the rural priests, the little-educated and but
little-esteemed clerks who abounded in every town and village, were
very generally affected by the vice--if vice it was--of marriage,
which was half legal and widely tolerated: and their determination not
to abandon it was furious. Meetings of the clergy to oppose this
condemnation were held in all quarters, and often ended in riot, the
priests declaring that none of the good things of the Church fell to
their lot, but that rather than give up their wives, their sole
compensation, they would die. This was not likely to make Gregory's
proceedings less determined: but it may easily be imagined what a
prodigious convulsion such an edict was likely to make in the
ecclesiastical world.
It is said by the later historians that the Empress Agnes was made use
of, with her attendant bishop and confessor, to carry these decrees
to Henry's court: though this does not seem to be sanctioned by the
elder authorities, who place the mission of Agnes in the previous
year, and reckon it altogether one of peace and conciliation. But
Henry still continued in a conciliatory frame of mind. His own affairs
were not going well, and he was anxious to retain the Pope's support
in the midst of his conflicts with his subjects. Neither do the great
dignitaries appear to have made any public protest or resistance: it
was the poor priests upon whom individually this edict pressed
heavily, who were roused almost to the point of insurrection.
One of the most curious effects of the decree was the spirit roused
among the laity thus encouraged to judge and even to refuse the
ministrations of an unworthy priest. Not only was their immediate
conduct affected to acts of spiritual insubordination, but a
fundamental change seems to have taken place in their conception of
the priest's character. No doubt Gregory's legislation must have
originated that determined though illogical opposition to a married
priesthood, and disgust with the idea, which has had so singular a
sway in Catholic countries ever since, and which would at the present
moment we believe make any change in the celibate character of the
priesthood impossible even were all other difficulties overcome. We
are not aware that it had existed in any force before. The thing had
been almost too common for remark: and there seems to have been no
fierce opposition to the principle. It arose now gradually yet with a
force beyond control: there were many cases of laymen baptizing their
children themselves, rather then give them into the hands of a
polluted priest--until there arose almost a risk of general
indifference to this sacrament because of the rising conviction that
the hands which administered it were unworthy: and other religious
observances were neglected in the same way, an effect which must have
been the reverse of anything intended by the Pope. To this hour in
all Catholic countries an inexpressible disgust with the thought,
mingles even with the theory that perhaps society might be improved
were the priest a married man, and so far forced to content himself
with the affairs of his own house. Probably it was Gregory's strong
denunciation, and his charge to the people not to reverence, not to
obey men so soiled: as well as the conviction long cultivated by the
Church, and by this time become a dogma, that the ascetic life was in
all cases the holiest--which originated this powerful general
sentiment, more potent in deciding the fact of a celibate clergy than
all the ecclesiastical decrees in the world.
In the second Lateran Council held in the next year, at the beginning
of Lent, along with the reiteration of the laws in respect to simony
and the priesthood, a solemn decree against lay investiture was passed
by the Church. This law transferred the struggle to a higher ground.
It was no longer bishops and prelates of all classes, no longer simple
priests, but the greatest sovereigns, all of whom had as a matter of
course given ecclesiastical benefices as they gave feudals fiefs, who
were now involved. The law was as follows:
"Whosoever shall receive from the hands of a layman a bishopric, or an
abbey, shall not be counted among the bishops and abbots, nor share
their privileges. We interdict him from entrance into the Church and
from the grace of St. Peter until he shall have resigned the dignity
thus acquired by ambition and disobedience, which are equal to
idolatry. Also, if any emperor, duke, marquis, count, or other secular
authority shall presume to give investiture of a bishopric or other
dignity of the Church, let him understand that the same penalty shall
be exacted from him."
The position of affairs between Pope and Emperor was thus
fundamentally altered. The father of Henry, a much more faithful son
of the Church, had almost without opposition made Popes by his own
will where now his son was interdicted from appointing a single
bishop. The evil was great enough perhaps for this great remedy, and
Gregory, who had gone so far, was restrained now by no prudent
precautions from proceeding to the utmost length possible. The day of
prudence was over; he had entered upon a path in which there was no
drawing back. That it was not done lightly or without profound and
painful thought, and a deep sense of danger and impending trouble, is
apparent from the following letter in which the Pope unbosoms himself
to the head of his former convent, the great Hugo of Cluny, his own
warm friend, and at the same time Henry's tutor and constant defender.
"I am overwhelmed (he writes) with great sorrow and
trouble. Wherever I look, south, north, or west, I see not
a single bishop whose promotion and conduct are legal, and
who governs the Christian people for the love of Christ,
and not by temporal ambition. As for secular princes, there
is not one who prefers the glory of God to his own, or
justice to interest. Those among whom I live--the Romans,
the Lombards, the Normans--are, as I tell them to their
faces, worse than Jews and Pagans. And when I return within
myself, I am so overwhelmed by the weight of life that I
feel no longer hope in anything but the mercy of Christ."
Notwithstanding the supreme importance of this question, and Gregory's
deep sense of the tremendous character of the struggle on which he had
thus engaged, matters of public morality in other ways were not
sacrificed to these great proceedings for the honour of the Church. He
not only himself assumed, but pressed upon all spiritual authorities
under him, the duty and need of prompt interference in the cause of
justice and public honesty. The letters which follow were called forth
by a remarkable breach of these laws of honesty and the protection due
to strangers and travellers which are fundamental rules of society.
This was the spoliation of certain merchants robbed in their passage
through France, and from whom the Pope accuses the young King Philip
I. to have taken, "like a brigand, an immense sum of money." Gregory
addresses himself to the bishops of France in warning and entreaty as
follows:
"As it is not possible that such crimes should escape the
sentence of the Supreme Judge, we pray you and we warn you
with true charity to be careful and not to draw upon
yourself the prophet's curse: 'Woe to him who turns back
his sword from blood'--that is to say, as you well
understand, who does not use the sword of the Word for the
correction of worldly men; for you are in fault, my
brethren, you who, instead of opposing these vile
proceedings with all the rigour of the priesthood,
encourage wickedness by your silence. It is useless to
speak of fear. United and armed to defend the just, your
force will be such that you will be able to quench evil
passions in penitence. And even if there were danger, that
is no reason for giving up the freedom of your priesthood.
We pray you, then, and we warn you by the authority of the
Apostles, to unite in the interest of your country, of your
glory and salvation, in a common and unanimous counsel. Go
to the king, tell him of his shame, of his danger and that
of his kingdom. Show him to his face how criminal are his
acts and motives, endeavour to move him by every inducement
that he may undo the harm which he has done.
"But if he will not listen to you, and if, scorning the
wrath of God, and indifferent to his own royal dignity, to
his own salvation and that of his people, he is obstinate
in the hardness of his heart, let him hear as from our
mouth that he cannot escape much longer the sword of
apostolic punishment."
These are not such words as Peter was ever commissioned in Holy Writ
to give forth; but granting all the pretensions of Peter's successors,
as so many good Christians do, it is no ignoble voice which thus
raises itself in warning, which thus denounces the vengeance of the
Church against the evil-doer, be he bishop, clown, or king. Gregory
had neither armies nor great wealth to support his interference with
the course of the world--he had only right and justice, and a profound
faith in his mission. He risked everything--his life (so small a
matter!), his position, even the safety of the Church itself, which
these potentates could have crushed under their mailed shoes; but that
there should be one voice which would not lie, one champion who would
not be turned aside, one witness for good, always and everywhere,
against evil, was surely as noble a pretension as ever was lifted
under heaven. It was to extend the power of Rome, all the historians
say; which no doubt he wished to do. But whether to extend the power
of Rome was his first object, or to pursue guilt and cruelty and
falsehood out of the very boundaries of the world if one man could
drive them forth, God only can judge. When there are two evident
motives, however, it is not always wise to believe that the worst is
the one to choose.
In most curious contrast to these great and daring utterances is the
incident, quite temporary and of no real importance, in his life,
which occurred to Pope Gregory at the very moment when he was thus
threatening a world lying in wickedness with the thunderbolts of Rome.
The city which had gone through so many convulsions, and was now the
centre of the pilgrimages of the world, was still in its form and
construction the ancient Rome, and more or less a city of ruins. The
vast open spaces, forums, circuses, great squares, and amphitheatres,
which made old Rome so spacious and magnificent, still existed as they
still to a certain extent exist. But no great builder had as yet
arisen among the Popes, no one wealthy enough or with leisure enough
to order the city upon new lines, to give it a modern shape, or reduce
it to the dimensions necessary for its limited population. It was
still a great quarry for the world, full of treasures that could be
carried away, a reservoir and storehouse of relics to which every man
might help himself. Professor Lanciani, the accomplished and learned
savant to whom we owe so much information concerning the ancient city,
has shown us how much mediæval covetousness in this way had to do with
the actual disappearance of ancient buildings, stone by stone. But
this was not the only offence committed against the monuments of the
past. The great edifices of the classic age were often turned, not
without advantage in the sense of the picturesque, into strongholds of
the nobles, sometimes almost as much isolated amid the great gaps of
ruins as in the Campagna outside. The only buildings belonging to the
time were monasteries, generally surrounded by strong walls, capable
of affording protection to a powerful community, and in which the
humble and poor could find refuge in time of trouble. These
establishments, and the mediæval fortresses and towers built into the
midst of the ruins, occupied with many wild spaces between, where the
luxuriant herbage buried fallen pillars and broken foundations, the
wastes of desolation which filled up half the area of the town. The
population seems to have clustered about the eastern end of the city;
all the life of which one reads, except an occasional tumult around
St. Peter's and north of St. Angelo, seems to have passed on the
slopes or under the shadow of the Aventine and Coelian hills, from
thence to the Latin gate, and the Pope's palace there, the centre of
government and state--and on the hill of the Capitol, where still the
people gathered when there was a motive for a popular assembly. The
ordinary populace must have swarmed in whatsoever half-ruined barracks
of old palaces, or squalid huts of new erection hanging on to their
skirts, might be attainable in these quarters, clustering together for
warmth and safety, while the rest of the city lay waste, sprinkled
with ruins and desolate paths, with great houses here and there in
which the strangely mixed race bearing the names, often
self-appropriated, of ancient Roman patrician families, lived and
robbed and made petty war, and besieged each other within their strong
walls.
One of these fortified houses or towers, built at or on the bridge of
St. Angelo--in which the noble owner sat like a spider, drawing in
flies to his web, taking toll of every stranger who entered Rome by
that way--belonged to a certain Cencio[3] or Cencius of the family of
Tusculum, the son of the Præfect of Rome. The Præfect, unlike his
family, was one of the most devoted adherents of the Popes; he is,
indeed, in the curious glimpse afforded to us by history, one of the
most singular figures that occur in that crowded foreground. A
mediæval noble and high official, he was at the same time a
lay-preacher, delighted to exercise his gift when the more legitimate
sermon failed from any cause, and only too proud, it would appear, of
hearing his own voice in the pulpit. That his son should be of a very
different disposition was perhaps not to be wondered at. Cencius was
as turbulent as his father was pious; but he must have been a soldier
of some note, as he held the post of Captain of St. Angelo, and in
that capacity had maintained during a long siege the anti-pope
Cadalous, or Honorius II., from whom, brigand as he was, he exacted a
heavy ransom before permitting the unfortunate and too ambitious
prelate to steal away like a thief in the night when his chance was
evidently over. Cencius would seem to have lost his post in St.
Angelo, but he maintained his robber's tower on the other end of the
bridge, and was one of the most dangerous and turbulent of these
internal enemies of Rome. During an interval of banishment, following
a more than usually cruel murder, he had visited Germany, and had met
at young Henry's court with many people to whom Pope Gregory was
obnoxious, from Gottfried the Hunchback, the husband of the Countess
Matilda, to the young king himself. Whether what followed was the
result of any conspiracy, however, or if it was an outburst of mad
vengeance on the part of Cencius himself, or the mere calculating
impulse of a freebooter to secure a good ransom, is not known. A
conspiracy, with Godfrey at the head of it, not without support from
Henry, and the knowledge at least of the Archbishop of Ravenna and
Robert Guiscard, all deeply irritated by the Pope's recent
proceedings, was of course the favourite idea at the time. But no
clear explanation of motives has ever been attained, and only the
facts are known.
On Christmas-eve it was the habit of the Popes to celebrate a midnight
mass in the great basilica of Sta. Maria Maggiore in what was then a
lonely and dangerous neighbourhood, though not very far from the
Lateran Church and palace. It was usually the occasion of a great
concourse from all parts of the city, attracted by the always popular
midnight celebration. But on Christmas-eve of the year 1076 (Muratori
says 1075) a great storm burst over the city as the hour approached
for the ceremony. Torrents of rain, almost tropical in violence, as
rain so often is in Rome, poured down from the blackness of the skies,
extinguishing even the torches by which the Pope and his diminished
procession made their way to the great church, blazing out cheerfully
with all its lighted windows into the night. Besides the priests only
a very small number of the people followed, and there was no such
murmur and rustle of sympathy and warmth of heart as such an assembly
generally calls forth. But the great altar was decorated for
Christmas, and the Pope attired in his robes, and everything shining
with light and brightness within, though the storm raged without. The
mass was almost over, Gregory and the priests had communicated, the
faithful company assembled were receiving their humbler share of the
sacred feast, and in a few minutes the office would have been
completed, when suddenly the church was filled with noise and clamour
and armed men. There was no one to defend the priests at the altar,
even had it been possible in the suddenness of the assault to do so.
Cencius's band was composed of ruffians from every region, united only
in their lawlessness and crime; they seized the Pope at the altar, one
of them wounding him slightly in the forehead. It is said that he
neither asked for mercy nor uttered a complaint, nor even an
expostulation, but permitted himself without a word to be dragged out
of the church, stripped of his robes, placed on a horse behind one of
the troopers, and carried off into the night not knowing where.
All this happened before the terrified priests and people--many of the
latter probably poor women from the hovels round about--recovered
their surprise. The wild band, with the Pope in the midst, galloped
out into the blackness and the rain, passing under garden walls and
the towers of silent monasteries, where the monks, too much accustomed
to such sounds to take much notice, would hear the rush of the horses
and the rude voices in the night with thankfulness that no thundering
at the convent gates called upon them to give the free lances shelter.
It appears that it was not to Cencius's stronghold on the bridge but
to the house of one of his retainers that this great prize was
conveyed. Here Gregory, in the cassock which he had worn under his
gorgeous papal dress, wet and bleeding from the wound in his forehead,
was flung without ceremony into an empty room. The story is that some
devout man in the crowd and a Roman lady, by some chance witnessing
the arrival of the band, stole in with them, and found their way to
the place in which the Pope lay, covering him with their own furs and
mantles and attending to his wound. And thus passed the Christmas
morning in the misery of that cruel cold which, though rare, is
nowhere more bitter than in Rome.
[Illustration: SANTA MARIA MAGGIORE.
_To face page 246._]
In the meantime the terrified congregation in Sta. Maria Maggiore had
recovered its senses, and messengers hurried out in all directions to
trace the way by which the freebooters had gone, and to spread the
news of the Pope's abduction. The storm had by this time passed over,
and the people were easily roused on the eve of the great festival.
Torches began to gleam by all the darkling ways, and the population
poured forth in the excitement of a great event. It would seem that in
all the tumultuous and factious city there was but one thought of
horror at the sacrilege, and determination to save the Pope if it
were still possible. Gregory was not, like his great predecessor the
first of that name, the idol of his people. He had not the wealth with
which many great ecclesiastics had secured the homage of the often
famished crowd; and a stern man, with no special geniality of nature,
and views that went so far beyond the local interests of Rome, he does
not seem the kind of ruler to have secured popular favour. Yet the
city had never been more unanimous, more determined in its resolution.
The tocsin was sounded in all the quarters of Rome during that night
of excitement; every soldier was called forth, guards were set at all
the gates, lest the Pope should be conveyed out of the city; and the
agitated crowd flocked to the Capitol, the only one of the seven hills
of Rome where some kind of repair and restoration had been attempted,
to consult, rich and poor together, people and nobles, what was to be
done. To this spot came the scouts sent out in search of information,
to report their discoveries. They had found that the Pope was still in
Rome, and where he was--a prisoner, but as yet unharmed.
With one impulse the people of Rome, forming themselves into an
undignified but enthusiastic army, rushed down from their place of
meeting towards the robber's castle. We hear of engines of war, and
all the cumbrous adjuncts of a siege and means of breaching the walls,
as if those articles had been all ready in preparation for any
emergency. The palace, though strong, could not stand the assault of
the whole population, and soon it was necessary to bring the Pope from
his prison and show him at a window to pacify the assailants. Cencius
did all that a ruffian in such circumstances would naturally do. He
first tried to extract money and lands from the Pope's terrors, and
then flung himself on his knees before Gregory, imploring forgiveness
and protection. The first attempt was useless, for Gregory was not
afraid; the second was more successful, for remorseless to the
criminals whose evil acts or example injured the Church, the Pope was
merciful enough to ordinary sinners, and had never condemned any man
to death. "What you have done to me I pardon you as a father; but what
you have done against God and the Church must be atoned for," said
Gregory, still at the mercy of any rude companion in that band of
ruffians: and he commanded his captor to make a pilgrimage to
Jerusalem, to cleanse himself from this sin. The Pope was conveyed out
of his prison by the excited and enthusiastic crowd, shouting and
weeping, half for joy, and half at sight of the still bleeding scar on
his forehead. But weak and exhausted as he was, without food, after a
night and almost a day of such excitement, in which he had not known
from one hour to another what might happen, helpless in the hands of
his enemies, Gregory had but one thought--to conclude his mass which
he had not finished when he was interrupted at the altar. He went back
in his cassock, covered by the stranger's furred cloak, along the same
wild way over which he had been hurried in the darkness; and followed
by the entire population, which swarmed into every corner and blocked
every entrance, returned to the great basilica, where he once more
ascended the altar steps, completed the mass, offered his
thanksgivings to God, and blessed and thanked his deliverers, before
he sought in the quick falling twilight of the winter day the rest of
his own house.
It is common to increase the effect of this most picturesque scene by
describing Gregory as an aged man, old and worn out, in the midst of
his fierce foes; but he was barely sixty and still in the fulness of
his strength, though spare and shrunken by many fasts and still more
anxieties. That he had lost nothing of his vigour is evident, and in
fact the incident, though never forgotten as a dramatic and telling
episode by the historians, was a mere incident of no importance
whatever in his life.
In the meantime the Emperor Henry, who had been disposed to humility
and penitence by the efforts of his mother, and by the distresses of
his own position during a doubtful and dangerous intestine war, in
which all at the time seemed to be going against him, had subdued the
Saxons and recovered the upper hand: and, thus victorious in his own
country, was no longer disposed to bow his neck under any spiritual
yoke. He had paid no attention to Gregory's commands in respect to
simony nor to the ordinance against lay investiture which had
proceeded from the Council of 1075; but had, on the contrary, filled
up several bishoprics in the old way, continued to receive the
excommunicated nobles, and treated Gregory's decrees as if they had
never been. His indignation at the Pope's interference--that
indignation which every secular prince has always shown when
interfered with by the Holy See, and which so easily translates the
august titles of the successor of St. Peter, the Vicar of Christ, into
a fierce denunciation of the "Italian priest" whom mediæval princes
feared and hated--was only intensified by his supreme pretensions as
Emperor, and grew in virulence as Gregory's undaunted front and
continued exercise, so far as anathemas would do it, of the weapons of
church discipline, stood steadily before him. It is very possible that
the complete discomfiture of Cencius's attempt upon the Pope's liberty
or life, to which Henry is believed to have been accessory, and the
disgrace and ridicule of that failure, irritated and exasperated the
young monarch, and that he felt henceforward that no terms could be
kept with the man whom he had failed to destroy.
Gregory, on the other hand, finding all his efforts unsuccessful to
gain the submission of Henry, had again taken the strong step of
summoning him to appear before the yearly council held in Rome at the
beginning of Lent, there to answer for his indifference to its
previous decisions. The following letter sent to Henry a short time
after the attempt of Cencius, but in which not a word of that attempt
is said, is a remarkable example of Gregory's dignified and unyielding
attitude:
"Gregory, servant of the servants of God.
"To Henry, king, salutation and the blessing of the
apostles, if he obeys the apostolic see, as becomes a
Christian king.
"Considering with anxiety, within ourselves, to what
tribunal we have to give an account of the dispensation of
the ministry which has been extended to us by the Prince of
the apostles, we send you with doubt our apostolic
blessing, since we are assured that you live in close union
with men excommunicated by the judgment of the Apostolic
See and the censure of the synod. If this is true, you will
yourself perceive that you cannot receive the grace of
blessing either divine or apostolic, until you have
dismissed from your society these excommunicated persons,
or in forcing them to express their repentance have
yourself obtained absolution by penitence and expiation. We
counsel your highness, if you are guilty in this respect,
to have recourse, without delay, to the advice of some
pious bishop, who, under our authority, will direct you
what to do, and absolve you, informing us with your consent
of your penitence."
The Pope goes on to point out, recalling to Henry's mind the promises
he had made, and the assurances given--how different his conduct has
been from his professions.
"In respect to the church of Milan, how you have kept the
engagements made with your mother, and with the bishops our
colleagues, and with what intention you made these
promises, the event itself shows. And now to add wound to
wound, you have disposed of the churches of Spoleto and of
Fermo. Is it possible that a man dares to transfer or give
a church to persons unknown to us, while the imposition of
hands is not permitted, except on those who are well known
and approved? Your own dignity demands, since you call
yourself the son of the Church, that you should honour him
who is at her head, that is the blessed Peter, the prince
of the apostles, to whom, if you are of the flock of the
Lord, you have been formally confided by the voice and
authority of the Lord--him to whom Christ said 'Feed my
sheep.' So long as we, sinful and unworthy as we are, hold
his place in his seat and apostolical government, it is he
who receives all that you address to us either by writing
or speech; and while we read your letters or listen to your
words, it is he who beholds with a penetrating eye what
manner of heart it is from which they come."
In this dignified and serious remonstrance there is not a word of the
personal insult and injury which the Pope himself had suffered. He
passes over Cencius and his foiled villainy as if it had never been;
but while Gregory could forget, Henry could not: and historians have
traced to the failure of this desperate attempt to subdue or
extinguish the too daring, too steadfast Pontiff, the new spirit--the
impulse of equally desperate rage and vengeance--which took possession
of the monarch, finding, after all his victories, that here was one
opponent whom he could not overcome, whose voice could reach over all
Christendom, and who bore penalties in his unarmed hand at which no
crowned head could afford to smile. To crush the audacious priest to
the earth, if not by the base ministry of Roman bravos, then by the
scarcely more clean hands of German barons and excommunicated bishops,
was the impulse which now filled Henry's mind. He invoked a council in
Worms, a month after the failure in Rome, which was attended by a
large number, not only of the German nobility, but of the great
ecclesiastics who nowhere had greater power, wealth, and influence
than in Teutonic countries. Half of them had been condemned by Gregory
for simony or other vices, many of them were aware that they were
liable to similar penalties. The reformer Pope, who after the many
tentatives and half-measures of his predecessors, was now supreme, and
would shrink from nothing in his great mission of purifying the
Church, was a constant danger and fear to these great mediæval nobles
varnished over with the names of churchmen. One stroke had failed: but
another was quite possible which great Henry the king, triumphant over
all his enemies, might surely with their help and sanction bring to
pass.
The peers spiritual and temporal, the princes who scorned the
interference of a priest, and the priests who feared the loss of all
their honours and the disgrace and humiliation with which the Pope
threatened them, came together in crowds to pull down their enemy from
his throne. Nothing so bold had ever been attempted since Christendom
had grown into the comity of nations it now was. Cencius had pulled
the Pope from the altar steps in the night and dark: Henry and his
court assembled in broad day, with every circumstance of pomp and
publicity, to drag him from his spiritual throne. It would be
difficult to say whether the palm of fierceness and brutality should
be given to the brigand of the Tusculan hills, or to the great king,
princes, archbishops, and bishops of the Teutonic empire. Cencius
swore in his beard, unheard of after generations; the others, less
fortunate, have left on record what were the manner of words they
said. This is the solemn act signed by all the members of the
assembly, by which the Pope was to learn his doom. It is a long and
furious scold from beginning to end.
"Hildebrand, taking the name of Gregory, is the first who,
without our knowledge, against the will of the emperor
chosen by God, contrary to the habit of our ancestors,
contrary to the laws, has, by his ambition alone, invaded
the papacy. He does whatever pleases him, right or wrong,
good or evil. An apostate monk, he degrades theology by new
doctrines and false interpretations, alters the holy books
to suit his personal interests, mixes the sacred and
profane, opens his ears to demons and to calumny, and makes
himself at once judge, witness, accuser, and defender. He
separates husbands from wives, prefers immodest women to
chaste wives, and adulterous and debauched and incestuous
connections to legitimate unions; he raises the people
against their bishops and priests. He recognises those only
as legally ordained who have begged the priesthood from his
hands, or who have bought it from the instruments of his
extortions; he deceives the vulgar by a feigned religion,
fabricated in a womanish senate: it is there that he
discusses the sacred mysteries of religion, ruins the
papacy, and attacks at once the holy see and the empire. He
is guilty of _lèse-majesté_ both divine and human, desiring
to deprive of life and rank our consecrated emperor and
gracious sovereign.
"For these reasons, the emperor, the bishops, the senate,
and the Christian people declare him deposed, and will no
longer leave the sheep of Christ to the keeping of this
devouring wolf."
Among the papers sent to Rome this insolent act is repeated at greater
length, accompanied by various addresses to the bishops and people,
and two letters to the Pope himself, from one of which, the least
insolent, we quote a few sentences.
"Henry, king by the grace of God, to Hildebrand.
"While I expected from you the treatment of a father, and
deferred to you in everything, to the great indignation of
my faithful subjects, I have experienced on your part in
return the treatment which I might have looked for from the
most pernicious enemy of my life and kingdom.
"First having robbed me by an insolent procedure of the
hereditary dignity which was my right in Rome, you have
gone further--you have attempted by detestable artifices to
alienate from me the kingdom of Italy. Not content with
this, you have put forth your hand on venerable bishops who
are united to me as the most precious members of my body,
and have worn them out with affronts and injustice against
all laws human and divine. Judging that this unheard-of
insolence ought to be met by acts, not by words, I have
called together a general assembly of all the greatest in
my kingdom, at their own request, and when there had been
publicly produced before them things hidden up to that
moment, from fear or respect, their declarations have made
manifest the impossibility of retaining you in the Holy
See. Therefore adhering to their sentence, which seems to
me just and praiseworthy before God and men, I forbid to
you the jurisdiction of Pope which you have exercised, and
I command you to come down from the Apostolic See of Rome,
the superiority of which belongs to me by the gift of God,
and the assent and oath of the Romans."
The other letter ends with the following adjuration, which the king
prefaces by quoting the words of St. Paul: "If an angel from heaven
preach any other doctrine to you than that we have preached unto you,
let him be accursed":
"You who are struck by this curse and condemned by the
judgment of the bishops and by our own, come down, leave
the apostolic chair; let another assume the throne of St.
Peter, not to cover violence with the mantle of religion,
but to teach the doctrine of the blessed apostle. I, Henry,
king by the grace of God, and all my bishops, we command
you, come down, come down!"
These letters were sent to Rome by Count Eberhard, the same who had
come to inquire into the election of Gregory two years before, and had
confirmed and consented to it in the name of his master. He was
himself one of the excommunicated barons whom Gregory had struck for
simoniacal grants of benefices; but he had not the courage to carry
fire and flame into the very household of the Pope. He did, however,
all the harm he could, publishing the contents of the letters he
carried in the great Italian cities, where every guilty priest
rejoiced to think that he had thus escaped the hands of the terrible
Gregory. But when he came within reach of Rome the great German baron
lost heart. He found a substitute in a priest of Parma, a hot-headed
partisan, one of those instruments of malice who are insensible to the
peril of burning fuse or sudden explosion. The conspirators calculated
with a sense of the dramatic which could scarcely have been expected
from their nationality, and which looks more like the inspiration of
the Italian himself--that he should arrive in Rome on the eve of the
yearly council held in the Lateran at the beginning of Lent. This
yearly synod was a more than usually important one; for already the
news of the decision at Worms was known in Italy, and a great number
of the clergy, both small and great, had crowded to Rome. A hundred
and ten prelates are reckoned as present, besides many other
dignitaries. Among them sat, as usual on such occasions, Beatrice and
Matilda of Tuscany, the only secular protectors of Gregory, the
greatest and nearest of Italian sovereigns. It was their presence that
was aimed at in the strangely abusive edict of Worms as making the
Council a womanish senate: and it was also Matilda's case which was
referred to in the accusation that the Pope separated husbands from
their wives. The excitement of expectation was in the air as all the
strangers in Rome, and the people, ever stirred like the Athenians by
the desire to hear some new thing, thronged the corridors and
ante-chapels of the Lateran, the great portico and square which were
for the moment the centre of Rome. Again the vast basilica, the
rustling mediæval crowd in all its glow of colour and picturesqueness
of grouping, rises before us. Few scenes more startling and dramatic
have ever occurred even in that place of many histories.
The Pope had seated himself in the chair of St. Peter, the long
half-circular line of the great prelates extending down the long
basilica on either side, the princes in a tribune apart with their
attendants, and the crowd of priests filling up every corner and
crevice: the _Veni Creator_ had been sung: and the proceedings were
about to begin--when Roland of Parma was introduced, no doubt with
much courtesy and ceremony, as the bearer of letters from the Emperor.
When these letters were taken from him, however, the envoy, instead of
withdrawing, as became him, stood still at the foot of the Pope's
chair, and to the consternation, as may be supposed, of the assembly,
addressed Gregory. "The king, my master," he cried, "and all the
bishops, foreign and Italian, command you to quit instantly the Church
of Rome, and the chair of Peter." Then turning quickly to the
astonished assembly, "My brethren," he cried, "you are hereby warned
to appear at Pentecost in the presence of the king to receive your
Pope from him; for this is no Pope but a devouring wolf."
The intensity of the surprise alone can account for the possibility of
the most rapid speaker delivering himself of so many words before the
assembly rose upon him to shut his insolent mouth. The Bishop of Porto
was the first to spring up, to cry "Seize him!" but no doubt a hundred
hands were at his throat before the Prætorian guard, with their naked
swords making a keen line of steel through the shadows of the crowded
basilica, now full of shouts and tumult, came in from the gates. The
wretch threw himself at the feet of the Pope whom he had that moment
insulted, and who seems to have come down hurriedly to rescue him from
the fury of the crowd: and was with difficulty placed under the
protection of the soldiers. It is not difficult to imagine the supreme
excitement which must have filled the church as they disappeared with
their prisoner, and the agitated assembly turned again towards their
head, the insulted pontiff. Gregory was not the man to fail in such an
emergency. He entreated the assembly to retain its composure and calm.
"My children," he said, "let not the peace of the Church be broken by
you. Perilous times, the gospel itself tells us, shall come: times in
which men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters,
disobedient to parents. It must needs be that offences come, and the
Lord has sent us as sheep into the midst of wolves. We have long lived
in peace, but it may be that God would now water his growing corn with
the blood of martyrs. We behold the devil's force at length displaying
itself against us in the open field. Now, therefore, as it behoves the
disciples of Christ with hands trained to the war, let us meet him and
bravely contend with him until the holy faith which through his
practices appears to be throughout the world abandoned and despised
shall, the Lord fighting through us, be restored."
It seems a strange descent from the dignity of this address, that the
Pope should have gone on to comment upon a marvellous egg which it was
said had been found near the church of St. Peter, with a strange
design raised upon its surface--a buckler with the figure of a serpent
underneath, struggling with bent head and wriggling body to get free.
This had seemed, however, a wonderful portent to all Rome, and though
his modern historians censure Gregory for having no doubt prepared the
prodigy and taken a despicable advantage of it, there does not seem
the slightest reason to suppose either that Gregory was guilty of
this, or that he was so little a man of his time as not to be himself
as much impressed by it as any one else there. Appearances of the
kind, which an age on the lookout for portents can define, and make
others see, are not wanting in any period. The crowd responded with
cries that it was he, the father of the Church, who was supreme, and
that the blasphemer should be cut off from the Church and from his
throne.
The sensation was not lessened when the full text[4] of Henry's
letters, parts of which we have already quoted, was read out to the
reassembled council next day. The words which named their Pope--their
head who had been the providence and the guide of Rome for so many
years--with contemptuous abuse as "the monk Hildebrand," must have
stirred that assembly to its depths. The council with one voice
demanded from Gregory the excommunication of the Emperor, and of the
impious bishops, false to every vow, who had ventured to launch an
anathema against the lawful head of the Church. The solemn sentence of
excommunication was accordingly pronounced against Henry: his subjects
were freed from their oath of allegiance, and his soul cut off from
the Church which he had attempted to rend in twain. Excommunications
had become so common in these days that the awe of the extraordinary
ceremonial was much lessened: but it was no mere spiritual
deprivation, as all were aware, but the most tremendous sentence which
could be launched against a man not yet assured in his victories over
his own rebellious tributaries, and whose throne depended upon the
fidelity of powerful vassals, many of whom were much more impressed by
the attitude of the Pope than by that of the king.
Thus after so many preliminaries, treaties of peace and declarations
of war, the great conflict between Pope and Emperor, between the
Church and the State, began. The long feud which ran into every local
channel, and rent every mediæval town asunder with the struggles of
Guelfs and Ghibellines, thus originated amid events that shook the
world. The Synod of Worms and the Council of Rome, with their sudden
and extraordinary climax in the conference of Canossa, formed the
first act in a drama played upon a larger stage and with more
remarkable accompaniments than almost any other in the world.
The effect of Henry's excommunication was extraordinary. The world of
Christendom, looking on beyond the sphere of Henry's immediate
surroundings and partisans, evidently felt with an impulse almost
unanimous that the anathema launched by a partly lay assembly and a
secular King against a reigning Pope unassailable in virtue, a man of
power and genius equal to his position, was a sort of grim jest, the
issue of which was to be watched for with much excitement, but not
much doubt as to the result, the horror of the profanity being the
gravest point in the matter. But no one doubted the power of Gregory
on his part, amid his lawful council, to excommunicate and cut off
from the Church the offending king. Already, before the facts were
known, many bishops and other ecclesiastics in Germany had sent timid
protests against the act to which in some cases they had been forced
to append their names: and the public opinion of the world, if such an
expression can be used, was undoubtedly on Gregory's side. Henry's
triumphant career came to a pause. Not only the judgment of the Church
and the opinion of his peers, but the powers of Heaven seemed to be
against him. One of his greatest allies and supporters, Gottfried,
surnamed Il Gobbo, the son of that Gottfried of Lorraine who married
Beatrice of Tuscany, and who had imposed his hunchback son as her
husband upon the young Matilda, the daughter of Beatrice--was murdered
immediately after. The Bishop of Utrecht, who had been one of the
king's chief advisers and confidants in his war with Gregory, died in
misery and despair, declaring with his last breath that he saw his bed
surrounded by demons, and that it was useless to offer prayers for
him. On the other hand, the great Dukes of Suabia, Bavaria, and
Carinthia, all faithful to the Church, abandoned the excommunicated
king. Some of the greater bishops, trembling before the just ire of
the Pope whom they had bearded, took the same part. The half-assuaged
rebellion of the Saxon provinces broke forth with greater force than
ever. Henry had neither arms nor supporters left to secure further
victories, and the very air of the empire was full of the letters of
Gregory, in which all his attempts to win the young king to better
ways, and all the insults which that king had poured forth against the
Holy See, were set forth. The punishment, as it appeared on all sides,
was prompt as thunderbolts from heaven to follow the offence.
While Henry hesitated in dismay and alarm, not knowing what step to
take, seeing his friends, both lay and clerical, abandon him on every
side, consequences more decisive still followed. The great princes met
together in an assembly of their own in Ulm without any reference to
Henry, whom they named in their proceedings the ex-king, and decided
upon another more formal meeting later to choose a new sovereign.
These potentates became doubly religious, doubly Catholic, in their
sudden revulsion. They surrounded Gregory's legates with reverence,
they avoided all communion with simoniacal prelates, and
even--carrying the Pope's new influence to the furthest extent--with
the married priests against whom he had long fulminated in vain. A
reformation of all evils seemed to be about to follow. They formally
condemned the excommunicated Henry on every point moral and political,
and though they hesitated over the great step of the threatened
election of a king in his place, they announced to him that unless he
could clear himself of the interdict before the beginning of the
following year, when they had decided to call a diet in Augsburg to
settle the question, his fall would be complete and without remedy. At
the same time they formally and solemnly invited the presence of the
Pope at Augsburg to preside over and confirm their conclusions. This
invitation Gregory accepted at once, and Henry, with no alternative
before him, consented also to appear before the tribunal of his
subjects, and to receive from their hands, and those of the Pope whom
he had so insulted and outraged, the sentence of his fate. His
humiliation was complete.
The assembly which was to make this tremendous decision was convoked
for the 2nd February, 1077, the feast of the Purification, at
Augsburg. Gregory had accepted the invitation of the German potentates
without fear; but there was much alarm in Rome at the thought of such
a journey--of the passage through rebellious Lombardy, of the terrible
Alps and their dangers, and at the end of all the fierce German
princes, who did not always keep faith, and whose minds before this
time might have turned again towards their native prince. The Pope set
out, however, under the guard of Matilda of Tuscany and her army, to
meet the escort promised him from beyond the Alps. On the other hand,
Henry was surrounded by dangers on every side. He had been compelled
to give up his own special friends, excommunicated like himself; he
had no arms, no troops, no money; the term which had been allowed him
to make his peace with the Pope was fast passing, and the dreadful
moment when it would be his fate to stand before his revolted subjects
and learn their decision, appeared before him in all its humiliation
and dishonour. Already various offenders had stolen across the
mountains privately, to make their submission to Gregory. It seemed
the only course for the desperate king to take. At length, after much
wavering, he made up his mind, and escaping like a fugitive from the
town of Spires to which he had retired, he made his way in the midst
of a rigorous winter, and with incredible difficulty, across the Alps,
with the help and under the guardianship of Adelaide of Susa, his
mother-in-law, who, however, it is said, made him pay a high price for
her help. He had begged of the Pope to give him audience at Rome, but
this was refused: and in partial despair and confusion he set out to
accomplish his hated mission somehow, he did not know where or by what
means. A gleam of comfort, however, came to Henry on his travels. He
was received with open arms in Lombardy where the revolted bishops
eagerly welcomed him as their deliverer from Gregory and his
austerities: but there was too much at stake for such an easy solution
of the matter as this.
In the meantime Gregory travelled northwards surrounded by all the
strength of Tuscany, accompanied by the brilliant and devoted Matilda,
a daughter in love and in years, the pupil and youthful friend, no
doubt the favourite and beloved companion, of a man whose age and
profession and character alike would seem to have made any other idea
impossible even to the slanderers of the middle ages. Matilda of
Tuscany has had a great fate: not only was she the idol of her own
people and the admired of her own age--such an impossible and absurd
piece of slander as that which linked the name of a beautiful young
woman with that of the austere and aged Gregory being apparently the
only one which had ever been breathed against her:--but the great
poets of her country have placed her, one in the sweeter aspect of a
ministering angel of heaven, the other in that of the most heroic of
feminine warriors, on the heights of poetic fame. Matilda on the banks
of that sacred river of Lethe where all that is unhappy is forgotten,
who is but one degree less sacred to Dante than his own Beatrice in
Paradise: and Clorinda, the warrior maiden of Tasso, have carried the
image of this noble princess to the hearts of many an after age. The
hunchback husband imposed upon her in her extreme youth, the close
union between her and her mother Beatrice, the independent court held
by these two ladies, their prominent place among all the great minds
of their time--and not least the faithful friendship of both with the
great Gregory, combine to make this young princess one of the most
interesting figures of her day. The usual solaces of life had been cut
off from her at the beginning by her loveless marriage. She had no
children. She was at this period of her career alone in the world, her
mother having recently died, following Il Gobbo very closely to the
grave. Henceforward Matilda had more to do in the field and council
chamber than with the ordinary delights of life.
The Pope had left Rome with many anxieties on his mind, fully
appreciating the dangers of the journey before him, and not knowing if
he might ever see the beloved city again. While he was on the way the
news reached him that Henry, whom he had refused to receive in Rome,
was on his way across the Alps, and as probably the details of that
painful journey were unknown, and the first idea would be that the
king was coming with an army in full force--still greater anxieties,
if not alarms, must have been awakened among the Pope's supporters. It
was still more alarming to find that the German escort which was to
have met him at Mantua had not been sent, the hearts of the princes
having failed them, and their plans having fallen into confusion at
the news of the king's escape. Henry had been received with enthusiasm
in Lombardy, always rebellious, and might make his appearance any day
to overpower the chivalry of Tuscany, and put the lives of both Pope
and Princess in danger. They were on the road to Mantua when this news
reached them, and in the anxious council of war immediately held, it
was resolved that the strong castle of Canossa, supposed to be
impregnable, should be, for the moment at least, the Pope's shelter
and resting-place. One of the great strongholds of Italy, built like
so many on a formidable point of rock, of itself almost inaccessible,
and surrounded by three lines of fortified walls, among which no doubt
clustered the rude little dwellings of a host of retainers--the
situation of this formidable place was one which promised complete
protection: and the name of the Tuscan castle has since become one of
the best-known names in history, as the incident which followed
contains some of the most picturesque and remarkable scenes on record.
The castle had already a romantic story; it had sheltered many a
fugitive; forlorn princesses had taken refuge within its walls from
the pursuit of suitors or of enemies, the one as dangerous as the
other. Painfully carried up in his litter by those steep and dangerous
ways, from one narrow platform of the cliff to another, with the great
stretch of the landscape ever widening as he gained a higher point,
and the vast vault of heaven rounding to a vaster horizon, the Pope
gained this eyrie of safety, this eagle's nest among the clouds.
We hear of no luxuries, not even those of intellectual and spiritual
discourse, which to many an ascetic have represented, and represented
well, the happiness of life, in this retreat of Gregory with his
beautiful hostess, amid his and her friends. By his side, indeed, was
Hugo, Abbot of Cluny, one of his most cherished and life-long
companions; but the Pope spent his days of seclusion in prayer and
anxious thought. The great plain that lay at his feet, should it be
deluged with Christian blood once more, should brother stand against
brother in arms, and Italy be crushed under the remorseless foot which
even the more patient Teuton had not been able to bear? Many
melancholy thoughts were no doubt in Gregory's mind in that great
fastness surrounded by all the ramparts of nature and of art. He had
dreamed--before the name of Crusade had yet been heard or thought
of--of an expedition to Jerusalem at the head of all who loved the
Lord, himself in his age and weakness the leader of an army composed
of valiant and generous hearts from every quarter of the world, to
redeem the Sepulchre of the Lord, and crush the rising power of the
Saracens. This had been the favourite imagination of his mind--though
as yet it called forth little sympathy from those about him--for some
years past. Instead of that noble expedition was it possible that,
perhaps partly by his fault, Christians were about to fly at each
other's throats and the world to be again torn asunder by intestine
warfare? But such thoughts as these were not the thoughts of the
eleventh century. Gregory might shed tears before his God at the
thought of bloodshed: but that his position in the presence of the
Highest was the only right one, and his opponent's that of the most
dangerous wrong, was no doubt his assured conviction. He awaited the
progress of events, knowing as little as the humblest man-at-arms what
was going to happen, with a troubled heart.
Nevertheless the retirement of these first days was broken by many
hurried arrivals which were more or less of good omen. One by one the
proud German bishops specially designated in Gregory's acts of
excommunication, and nobles more haughty still, under the same burden,
climbed the steep paths of Canossa, and penetrated from gate to gate,
barefooted pilgrims denuding themselves of every vestige of power.
"Cursed be he who turns back his sword from the blood," that is, who
weakly pauses in the execution of a divine sentence--was one of
Gregory's maxims. He received these successive suppliants with more
sternness than sweetness. "Mercy," he said, "can never be refused to
those who acknowledge and deplore their sins; but long disobedience,
like rust on a sword, can be burned out only by the fire of a long
repentance;" and he sent them one by one to solitary chambers in
which, with the sparest of nourishment, they might reflect upon their
sins. After a sufficient seclusion, however, they were liberated and
sent away, reprimanded yet blessed--at least the laymen among them. It
remained now to see what Henry would do.
[Illustration: ARCH OF DRUSUS (1860).
_To face page 266._]
Henry was no longer at the lowest ebb of his fortunes. The princes of
Germany had come to a pause: they had not sent the promised escort for
the Pope; they were irresolute, not knowing what step to take next:
and all Lombardy had risen to welcome the king; he had the support of
every schismatic bishop, every censured priest, and of the excited
people who were hostile to the pretensions of Rome, or rather to the
severe purity of Gregory which was so uncompromising and determined.
But by some unaccountable check upon his high spirit Henry, for the
moment, was not moved to further rebellion either by the support of a
Lombard army at his back, or by the hopes of his reviving followers at
home. He was accompanied by his wife and by her mother, Adelaide of
Susa, and perhaps the veneration of the women for the authority of the
Church and dread of its penalties, affected him, although he had no
love for the wife of whom he had tried so hard to get rid. Whatever
was the explanation it is very evident, at least, that his spirit was
cowed and that he saw nothing before him but submission. He went on
probably to Parma, with a small and unarmed retinue, leaving his
turbulent Lombard followers behind. On the way he sent various
messengers before him, asking for an interview with Matilda, who was
supposed likely to move the Pope in his favour. We are not told where
the meeting took place, but probably it was in some wondering village
at the foot of the hill, where the princely train from the castle, the
great Contessa, the still greater abbot, Hugo of Cluny, and "many of
the principal Italian princes," met the wandering pilgrim party,
without sign or evidence of royalty--Henry and his Queen, the Marchesa
Adelaide of Este, her son Amadeo, and other great persons in the same
disguise of humility. The ladies on either side were related to each
other, and all belonged to that close circle of the reigning class, in
which every man calls his neighbour brother or cousin. Hugo of Cluny
was the godfather of the king and loved him, and Adelaide, though on
the side of her son-in-law, and now his eager champion, was a true and
faithful daughter of the Church. Henry declared on the other side to
his anxious friends that the accusations of the Germans were not true,
that he was not as they had painted him: and implored their
intercession with the Pope, not for any temporal advantage, but solely
to be delivered from the anathema which weighed upon his soul. And
Matilda and the others were but too anxious to make peace and put
faith in all he said.
It is very likely that Gregory believed none of these protestations,
but now or never, certainly he was bound to fulfil his own maxim, and
not to turn back his sword from the blood. All the arguments of
Henry's friends could not induce him to grant an easy absolution at
the king's first word. Finally he consented to receive him as a
penitent, but in no other character. Probably it was while the prayers
and entreaties of Matilda and of Abbot Hugo were still going on in the
castle that Henry came day by day, barefooted, in a humble tunic of
woollen cloth, and waited at the gates to know the result. It was "an
atrocious winter," such as had never been seen before, with continual
snowstorms, and the rugged paths and stairs up the cliff, never easy,
were coated with frost. Twice over the king climbed with naked feet as
far as the second circle of the walls, but only to be turned away. It
seems little short of a miracle that such a man, in such
circumstances, should have so persevered. On the third day the
pleaders within had been successful, and Henry was admitted, on the
generous guarantee of Matilda, who took upon her to answer for him
that his repentance was genuine. At last the culprit was led into the
Pope's presence. He was made to give various promises of amendment,
which were accepted, not on his oath, a last and supreme humiliation,
but on the undertaking of various of his friends who swore, rashly one
cannot but think, on the relics of the saints that the king would keep
his promises. This is the document to which these generous friends set
their seals.
"I, Henry, King, in respect to the complaints of the
archbishops, bishops, dukes, counts and other princes of
the Teutonic kingdom, and of all those who follow them,
within the time fixed by the Lord Pope will do justice
according to his sentence, or make peace according to his
advice if no unavoidable hindrance occurs; and in that
case, the moment the hindrance is taken away I will be
ready to fulfil my promise. In addition, if the Lord Pope
Gregory desires to cross the Alps, or go into other
countries, he shall be held safe on my part, and on the
part of those whom I command, from all danger of death,
mutilation, or captivity, himself and those who form his
escort, both during the journey, as long as he remains, and
on the return; nothing shall be done by me contrary to his
dignity, and if anything is done by others, I will lend him
my help in good faith according to my power."
This does not seem a very large bond.
Next day, the 25th January, 1077, Henry came again in the same
penitential dress, but this time according to formal appointment. He
came into the room where the Pope awaited him, followed by all the
excommunicated princes in his train, barefooted and half frozen with
the painful climb up the rocky paths; and throwing himself on the
floor before Gregory, asked his pardon, which Gregory gave, shedding
many tears over the penitents. They were then received back into the
Church with all the due ceremonials, the Pope in his vestments, the
penitents naked to the waist, despoiled of all ornaments and
dignities. In the castle church, of which now nothing but the
foundations remain, Gregory solemnly absolved the miserable party, and
offered them the Communion. At this act a very strange scene took
place. The Pope, the great assailant of Simony, had himself been
accused of it, ridiculous as was the accusation in a case like his, of
which every circumstance was so perfectly known, and formally by Henry
himself in the insolent command already quoted to abandon the papal
see. At the moment of communion, in the most solemn part of the
service, the Pope turned to Henry, standing before the altar, with the
host in his hands. He appealed to God in the most impressive manner
according to the usage of the time.
"You have long and often accused me," said the Pope, "of having
usurped the Apostolical chair by Simony.... I now hold the body of the
Saviour in my hands, which I am about to take. Let Him be the witness
of my innocence: let God Himself all powerful absolve me to-day of the
crime imputed to me if I am innocent, or strike me with sudden death
if I am guilty." Then after a solemn pause he added: "My son, do as I
have done: if you are certain of your innocence, if your reputation is
falsely attacked by the lies of your rivals, deliver the Church of God
from a scandal and yourself from suspicion; take the body of Our Lord,
that your innocence may have God for witness, that the mouth of your
enemies may be stopped, and that I--henceforward, your advocate and
the most faithful defender of your cause--may reconcile you with your
nobles, give you back your kingdom, and that the tempest of civil war
which has so long afflicted the State may henceforth be laid at rest."
Would a guilty king in these unbelieving days venture upon such a
pledge? Henry at least was incapable of it. He dared not call God to
witness against the truth, and refused, trembling, murmuring confused
excuses to take this supreme test. The mass was accomplished without
the communion of the king; but not the less he was absolved and the
anathema taken from his head.
In a letter written immediately after, Gregory informed the German
princes of what he had done, adding that he still desired to cross the
Alps and assist them in the settlement of the great question
remaining, Henry having been avowedly received by him as a penitent,
but not in any way as a restored king.
This great historical event, which has been the subject of so much
commentary and discussion, and has been supposed to mark so great a
step in the power and pretensions of the Popes, was in fact without
any immediate effect in history. Henry went forth wroth and sore,
humiliated but not humbled, and thinking of nothing so much as how to
return to Gregory the shame he had himself suffered. And Gregory
remained in his stronghold as little convinced of any advantage
attained, as he had been of Henry's repentance. He is said to have
answered the Saxon envoys who reproached him with his leniency, by a
grim reassurance which is almost cynical. "He goes back worse than he
came," said the Pope. It was indeed impossible that the eye of a man
so conversant with men as Gregory should not have perceived how
entirely his penitent's action was diplomatic and assumed for a
purpose, and what a solemn farce Henry was playing as he stood
barefooted in the snow, to obtain the absolution which was his only
chance for Germany. It is perfectly permissible to believe that not
only the determination not "to turn back his sword from the blood" or
to fail in exacting every punctilio of penance, but a natural impulse
of scorn for the histrionic exhibition made for the benefit of the
great audience across the Alps, induced the Pope to keep the king
dangling at those icy gates. That there should have been in Gregory's
mind, along with this conviction, momentary relentings of hope that
the penitent's heart might really be touched, was equally natural, and
that it was one of these sudden impulses which moved him to the
startling and solemn appeal to God over the sacramental host which
formed so remarkable an incident in the ceremonial, may be taken for
granted. In that age miracles were more than common, they were looked
for and expected; and in all ages the miracle which we call
conversion, the sudden and inexplainable movement of a heart, touched
and turned in an instant from evil to good, has been known and proved.
That a priest at the altar should hope that it might be his, by some
burning word or act, to convey that inexpressible touch was a very
human and natural hope: and yet Gregory knew well in his after survey
of what had passed that the false penitent went away worse than he
came. He wrote, however, an account of the matter to the German
princes, who looked on trembling for the consequences, and probably
blaming the Pope for an action that might destroy all their
combinations--in which he described to them Henry's penitence and
promise, without implying a doubt of the sincerity of either, but with
a full statement of the fact that the absolution awarded to the man
made no difference in respect to the king.
"Things being thus arranged [writes the Pope] in order to
secure, by the help of God, the peace of the Church and the
union of the Kingdom, which we have so long desired, we are
anxious to pursue our journey into your countries on the
first occasion possible; for we desire you to know, as you
may perceive from the written engagements, that everything
is still in suspense, so that our arrival among you and the
unanimity of your council is absolutely necessary to settle
matters. Therefore be very attentive to continue as you
have begun in faith and the love of justice, and understand
that we have done nothing for the king, except to tell him
that he might trust to us to help him in such things as may
touch his salvation and his honour, with justice and with
mercy, without putting our soul and his in peril."
In the meantime Henry had enough to do in winning back again to his
side the rebellious Lombards, who considered his submission to the
Pope, however artificial, a desertion of their cause, and shut upon
him the gates of their cities, which before his visit to Canossa had
been thrown wide open. He had apparently, though only for a moment,
lost them, while he had not regained the sympathies of Germany. There
was nothing for it but a new apostasy, throwing over of his promises,
and reassumption of the leadership of the schismatic party, which made
the position of Gregory, surrounded by that angry sea of Lombard
rebellion which beat against the base of his rocky stronghold, a very
dangerous one. Through the whole spring of 1077 the Pope was more or
less confined to the Castle of Canossa or other similar fortresses,
under the vigilant care of Matilda; and it was from these strong
places that he wrote a succession of remarkable letters to the nobles
of Germany, who, strongly set upon the Diet in which the affairs of
the kingdom were to be placed on a permanent footing, were proceeding
to carry out their intention without waiting either for the presence
of Gregory which they had invited, or Henry whose interests were at
stake. Gregory did everything that was possible to delay the Diet
until he could be present at it. He was anxious also to delay whatever
great step might be in contemplation until the mind of the country was
a little less anxious and disturbed: and he desired to be present, not
only in the position of Arbitrator, but also to moderate with his
counsels the excited spirits, and prevent if possible any great
catastrophe.
We may allow, as it is one of the conventionalities of history to
assert, that Gregory's intention was to establish in such matters the
jurisdiction of the Popes and make it apparent to the world that
thrones and principalities were at the disposition of the Church. But
at the same time Gregory was, like all men, chiefly moved by the
immediate question before him, and he was a man sincerely occupied
with what was best for both Church and State, fearing the rashness of
an angry and excited assembly, and remembering his promise to do what
he could for his most unworthy penitent; and we see no reason to
believe that his purposes were not, according to his perception of his
duty, honest and noble. He retained his hope of proceeding to Germany
as long as that was possible, asking again and again for the guide and
escort promised, even asking from Henry a safe conduct through the
territory now held by him. Even after the election at Forchheim of
Rudolf of Suabia as king in the place of Henry, he continued to urge
upon the legates whom he had sent to that assembly the necessity for
his presence. And he undoubtedly did this on the highest ground
possible, putting forth his right to judge in the matter in the very
clearest words. He bids his messengers in the name of St. Peter to
summon the heads of both parties, Henry and Rudolf, to make his
journey possible.
"With the advice of the clergy and laymen fearing God, we
desire to judge between the two kings, by the grace of God,
and point out which of the two parties is most justly to be
entrusted with the government of the State. You are aware
that it is our duty, and that it appertains to the
providential wisdom of the Apostolic See, to judge the
governments of the great Christian kingdoms and to regulate
them under the inspiration of justice. The question between
these two princes is so grave, and the consequences may be
so dangerous, that if it was for any reason neglected by
us, it would bring not only upon us and upon them, but on
the Church entire, great and lamentable misfortune.
Therefore, if one or other of these kings refuses to yield
to our decision and conform to our counsels, and if,
lighting the torch of pride and human covetousness against
the honour of God, he aspires in his fury to the desolation
of the Roman Empire, resist him in every way, by every
means, to the death if necessary, in our name and by the
authority of the blessed Peter."
The Pope in another letter makes his appeal no longer to the ruling
class but to the entire people. He informs "all the faithful of Christ
in the Teutonic empire" that he has sent his legates to both kings to
demand of them both "either in their own persons or by sufficient
messengers" to open the way for his journey to Germany in order with
the help of God to judge the question between them.
"Our heart is full of sadness and sorrow to think that for
the pride of one man so many thousands of Christians may be
delivered over to death both temporal and eternal, the
Christian religion shaken to its foundations, and the Roman
Empire precipitated into ruin. Both of these kings seek aid
from us, or rather from the Apostolic See, which we occupy,
though unworthy; and we, trusting in the mercy of Almighty
God, and the help of the blessed Peter, with the aid of
your advice, you who fear God and love the Church, are
ready to examine with care the right on either side and to
help him whom justice notoriously calls to the
administration of the kingdom....
"You know, dear brethren, that since our departure from
Rome we have lived in the midst of dangers among the
enemies of the faith; but neither from fear nor from love
have we promised any help, but justice to one or other of
these kings. We prefer to die, if necessary, rather than to
consent by our own will that the Church of God should be
put from her place; for we know that we have been ordained
and set upon the apostolic chair in order to seek in our
life not our own interests but those of Christ, and to
follow through a thousand labours in the steps of the
fathers to the future and eternal repose, by the mercy of
God."
The reader must remember that Gregory had very good reason for all
that he said, and that irrespective of the claims of the Church a
wise and impartial umpire at such a moment might have been of the last
importance to Germany; also that his services had been asked for in
this capacity, and that therefore he had a right to insist upon being
heard. The position which he claimed had been offered to him; and he
was entitled to ask that such an important matter should not be
settled in his absence.
The remonstrances which the Pope continued to make by his own voice
and those of his legates as long as any remonstrance was possible,
were however regarded by neither party. Neither the authority of Rome
nor the visible wisdom of settling a question which must convulse the
world and tear Germany in pieces, peacefully and on the foundation of
justice if that were possible, as urged by Gregory--could prevail, nor
ever has prevailed on any similar occasion against the passions and
ambitions of men. It was a devout imagination, appealing to certain
minds here and there by the highest motives, and naturally by very
different ones to all the interested souls likely to be advantaged by
it, which always form the reverse of the medal; but men with arms in
their hands and all the excitements of faction and party, of imperial
loss and gain around them, were little like to await a severe and
impartial judgment. The German bishops made a curious remonstrance in
their turn against the reception by Gregory of Henry's professions of
penitence, and on either side there was a band of ecclesiastics,
presumably not all good or all bad perplexing every judgment.
We have fortunately nothing to do with the bloody struggles of Rudolf
and Henry. When the latter made his way again over the Alps, to defend
his rights, carrying with him the Iron Crown which Gregory's refusal
had prevented him from assuming--he carried it away however, though he
did not dare to put it on, a curious mixture of timidity and furtive
daring--the Pope, up to that moment virtually confined within the
circle of the mountain strongholds of Tuscany, returned to Rome: where
he continued to be assailed by constant and repeated entreaties to
take up one or the other side, his own council of the Lateran
inclining towards Henry. But nothing moved him from his determination
that this question should be decided by a Diet under his own
presidence, and by that alone. This question runs through the entire
story of the period from year to year. No council--and in addition to
the usual yearly council held always in the beginning of Lent, at the
Lateran, there seem to have been various others between whiles, made
compulsory by the agitation of the time--could take place without the
arrival of the two bands of German ambassadors, one from Henry and the
other from Rudolf, to plead the cause of their respective masters,
both professing all obedience, and inviting a decision in their favour
by every argument: but neither taking a single step to bring about the
one thing which the Pope demanded--a lawful assembly to settle the
question.
There is no pretence that Gregory treated them with anything but the
severest impartiality, or that he at any time departed from the
condition he had proposed from the first--the only preference given to
one above the other being that he is said to have sent his apostolical
blessing to Rudolf, a virtuous prince and his friend, and not to Henry
the apostate and false penitent, which is scarcely wonderful. But it
is easy to understand the agitation in which the constant arrival of
these ambassadors must have kept Rome, a city so prone to agitation,
and with so many parties within its own walls, seditious nobles and
undisciplined priests, and the ever-restless, ever-factious populace,
struggling continually for some new thing. The envoys of Henry would
seem to have had more or less the popular favour: they were probably a
more showy band than the heavier Saxons: and Henry's name and the
prestige of his great father, and all those royal shows which must
still have been remembered in the city, the coronation of the former
Henry in St. Peter's, and all its attendant ceremonials and expenses,
must have attached a certain interest to his name. Agnes too, the
empress, who had died so recently in the odour of sanctity among them,
must have left behind her, whether she loved him or not, a certain
prepossession in favour of her son. And the crowd took sides no doubt,
and in its crushing and pressing to see the strangers, in the great
Lateran square or by the gates of their lodging, formed itself into
parties attracted by a glance or a smile, made into enemies by a hasty
word, and preparing for the greater troubles and conflicts which were
about to come.
In the midst of these continual arrivals and departures and while the
trumpets of the Saxon or the German party were still tingling in the
air, and the velvet and jewels of the ambassadors had scarcely ceased
to gleam among the dark robes of the clergy, there came up other
matters of a nature more suitable to the sacred courts and the
interests of the Church. Berengarius of Tours, a mild and speculative
thinker, as often convincing himself that he was wrong as proving
himself to be right, appeared before the council of 1079 to answer for
certain heresies respecting the Eucharist, of which there had often
already been question. His opinions were those of Luther, of whom he
is constantly called the precursor: but there was little of Luther's
strength in this gentle heretic, who had already recanted publicly,
and then resumed his peculiar teachings, with a simplicity that for a
time disarmed criticism. Gregory had always been his friend and
protector, tolerating if not sharing his opinions, which were not such
as moved or interested deeply the Church at the moment: for the age
was not heretical, and the example of such a candid offender, who did
not attempt to resist the arguments brought against him, was rather
edifying than otherwise. At least there were no theological arguments
of fire and sword, no rack or stake for the heretic in Gregory's day.
The pressure of theological judgment, however, became too strong for
the Pope to resist, preoccupied as he was with other matters, and
Berengarius was once more compelled to recant, which he did cordially,
with the same result as before.
It was a more congenial occupation for the vigilant head of the Church
to watch over the extension of the faith than to promote the internal
discipline of the fold of Christ by prosecutions for heresy. His gaze
penetrated the mists of the far north, and we find Gregory
forestalling (as indeed his great predecessor the first Gregory had
done before him) the missionaries of our own day in the expedient of
training young natives to preach the faith among their countrymen,
over which there was much modern rejoicing when it was first adopted
in recent days, as an entirely new and altogether wise thing. Gregory
the Great had already practised it with his Anglo-Saxon boys: and
Gregory VII. recommended it to Olaf, king of Norway, to whom he wrote
that he would fain have sent a sufficient number of priests to his
distant country: "But as this is very difficult because of the great
distance and difference of language, we pray you, as we have also
asked from the king of Denmark, to send to our apostolical court some
young nobles of your country in order that being nourished with care
in divine knowledge under the wings of St. Peter and St. Paul, they
may carry back to you the counsels of the Apostolical See, arriving
among you, not as men unknown, but as brothers--and preaching to you
the duties of Christianity, not as strangers and ignorant, but as men
whose language is yours, and who are yet trained and powerful in
knowledge and morals." Thus, while the toils were gathering round his
feet at home, and the most ancient centre of Christianity was ready to
cast him out as a fugitive, the great Pope was extending the invisible
links of Christian fealty to the ends of the earth.
It was in the year 1080, three years after the events of Canossa, that
the next step was taken by Gregory. In that long interval he had never
ceased to insist upon the only lawful mode of settling the quarrel,
_i.e._, the assembly in Germany of all the persons most concerned, to
take the whole matter into solemn consideration and come to a
permanent conclusion upon grounds more solid than the appeal to arms
which ravaged the empire, and which, constantly fluctuating, gave the
temporary victory now to one side, now to the other. The age was far
from being ripe for any such expedient as arbitration, and the ordeal
of arms was its most natural method: yet the proposal had proceeded in
the first place from the Teutonic princes themselves, and it was
entirely in accordance with German laws and primitive procedure. And
except the Pope, or some other great churchman, there was no possible
president of such a Diet, or any one who could have had even a
pretence of impartiality. He was the only man who could maintain the
balance and see justice done, even in theory: for the awe of his
presence and of his spiritual powers might have restrained these
fierce princes and barons and made some sort of reasonable discussion
possible. For all these reasons, and also no doubt to assert
practically the claim he had made for himself and his successors to be
the judges of the earth and settle all such disputes as
representatives of God, he was very unwilling to give up the project.
It had come to be evident, however, in the spring of 1080 when Lent
began and the usual Council of the Lateran assembled, that Henry would
never consent to this Diet, the very reason for which was the
discussion of claims which he held as divine and infallible. Rudolf,
his rival, was, or professed to be, as anxious for it as the Pope,
though he never had taken any step to make Gregory's journey across
the Alps possible. But at last it would seem that all parties gave up
the thought of any such means of making peace. The state of affairs
in Germany was daily becoming more serious, and when the envoys of
Rudolf, after many fruitless visits to Rome, appeared at last with a
sort of ultimatum, demanding that some decisive step should be taken
to put an end to the suspense, there was no longer any possibility of
further delay. Henry also sent ambassadors on the same occasion: but
they came late, and were not received. The Council of the Lateran met,
no doubt with many searchings of heart and a great excitement
pervading the assembly where matters of such importance were about to
be settled, and such a decision as had never been asked from any Pope
before, was about to be given from the chair of St. Peter to a
half-believing, half-rebellious world. Whether any one really believed
that a question involving the succession to the empire could be solved
in this way, it is impossible to tell: but the envoys of Rudolf, whose
arms had been for the moment victorious, and who had just driven Henry
a fugitive before him, made their appeal to the Pope with a vehemence
almost tragic, as to one whose power and responsibility in the matter
were beyond doubt. The statement of their case before the Council was
as follows:
"We delegates of our lord the King, Rudolf, and of the
princes, we complain before God, and before St. Peter to
you our father and this holy Council, that Henry, set aside
by your Apostolic authority from the kingdom, has
notwithstanding your prohibition invaded the said kingdom,
and has devastated everything around by sword and fire and
pillage; he has with impious cruelty, driven bishops and
archbishops out of their sees, and has distributed their
dignities as fiefs among his partisans. Werner of holy
memory, archbishop of Magdeburg, has perished by his
tyranny; Aldebert, bishop of Worms, is still held in prison
contrary to the Apostolic order; many thousands of men have
been slaughtered by his faction, many churches pillaged,
burned and destroyed. The assaults of Henry upon our
princes because they withdrew their obedience from him
according to the command of the Apostolic See, are
numberless. And the assembly which you have desired to call
together, Holy Father, for the establishment of the truth
and of peace, has not been held, solely by the fault of
Henry and his adherents. For these reasons we supplicate
your clemency in our own name and that of the Holy Church
of God to do justice upon the sacrilegious violator of the
Church."
It will be remarked that the whole blame of the struggle is here
thrown upon the Church:--as in the remonstrance of the Saxon bishops,
who say not a word of their national grievances against Henry, which
nevertheless were many and great, and the real foundation of the
war--but entirely attribute it to the action of Gregory in
excommunicating and authorising them to withdraw their homage from the
king. Nobody, we think, can read the chaotic and perplexing history of
the time without perceiving how mere a pretext this was, and how
little in reality the grievances of the Church had to do with the
internecine struggle. The curious thing however, is that Gregory,
either in policy or self-deception, accepts the whole responsibility
and is willing to be considered the cause and maker of these deadly
wars, as if the struggle had been one between the Church and the King
alone. A sense of responsibility was evidently strong in his mind as
he rose from his presiding chair on this great occasion, in the
breathless silence that followed the complaint and appeal of Rudolf's
emissaries. Not a voice in defence of Henry had been raised in the
Council, which, as many voices were in his favour in preceding
assemblies, shows the consciousness of the conclave that another and
more desperate phase of the quarrel had been reached.
Gregory himself had sat silent for a moment, overwhelmed with the awe
of the great crisis. When he rose it was with a breaking voice and
tears in his eyes: and the form of the deliverance was as remarkable
as its tenor. Gregory addressed--not the Council: but, with an
extraordinary outburst of emotion, the Apostle in whose name he
pronounced judgment and in whose chair he sat. Nothing could have been
more impressive than this sudden and evidently spontaneous change from
the speech expected from him by the awed and excited assembly, to the
personal statement and explanation given forth in trembling accents
but with uplifted head and eyes raised to the unseen, to the great
potentate in heavenly places whose representative he believed himself
to be. However vague might be the image of the apostle in other eyes,
to Gregory St. Peter was his living captain, the superior officer of
the Church, to whom his second in command had to render an account of
his procedure in face of the enemy. The amazement of that great
assembly, the awe suddenly imposed even on the great body of priests,
too familiar perhaps with holy things to be easily impressed--much
more on the startled laymen, Rudolf's envoys and their attendants, by
this abstract address, suddenly rising out of the midst of the rapt
assembly to a listener unseen, must have been extraordinary. It
marked, as nothing else could have done, the realisation in Gregory's
mind of a situation of extraordinary importance, such an emergency as
since the Church came into being had seldom or never occurred in her
history before. He stood before the trembling world, himself a
solitary man shaken to the depths, calling upon his great predecessor
to remember that it was not with his own will that he had ascended
that throne or accepted that responsibility--that it was Peter, or
rather the two great leaders of the Church together, Peter the Prince
of the Apostles, Paul the Doctor and instructor of the nations, who
had chosen him, not he who had thrust himself into their place. To
these august listeners he recounted everything, the whole story of the
struggle, the sins of Henry, his submission and absolution, his
renewed rebellion, always against the Church, against the Apostles,
against the Ecclesiastical authority: while the breathless assembly
around, left out in this solemn colloquy, sat eager, drinking in every
word, overcome by the wonder of the situation, the strange attitude of
the shining figure in the midst, who was not even praying, but
reporting, explaining every detail to his unseen general above. Henry
had been a bad king, a cruel oppressor, an invader of every right:
and it would have been the best policy of the Churchman to put forth
these effective arguments for his overthrow. But of this there is not
a word. He was a rebel against the Church, and by the hand of the
Church it was just and right that he should fall.
One cannot but feel a descent from this high and visionary ground in
the diction of the sentence that followed, a sentence not now heard
for the first time, and which perhaps no one there felt, tremendous as
its utterance was, to be the last word in this great quarrel.
"Therefore trusting to the judgment and to the mercy of
God, and of the Holy Mother of God, and armed with your
authority, I place under excommunication and I bind with
the chains of anathema, Henry called King, and all his
fellow sinners; and on the part of Almighty God, and of
You, shutting him out henceforward from the kingdoms of
Germany and of Italy, I take from him all royal power and
dignity; I forbid any Christian to obey him as king; and I
absolve from their sworn promises all those who have made,
or may make, oaths of allegiance to him. May this Henry
with his fellow sinners have no force in fight and obtain
no victory in life!"
Having with like solemnity bestowed upon Rudolf the kingdom of Germany
(Italy is not named) with all royal rights, the Pope thus concludes
his address to the spiritual Heads in heaven of the Church on earth:
"Holy Fathers and Lords! let the whole world now know and
understand that as you can bind and loose in heaven, you
can also upon earth give and take away from each according
to his merits, empires, kingdoms, principalities, duchies,
marquisates, counties, and all possessions. You have often
already taken from the perverse and the unworthy,
patriarchal sees, primacies, archbishoprics, and
bishoprics, in order to bestow them upon religious men. If
you thus judge in things spiritual, with how much more
power ought you not to do so in things secular! And if you
judge the angels who are the masters of the proudest
princes, what may you not do with the princes, their
slaves! Let the kings and great ones of the earth know
to-day how great you are, and what your power is; let them
fear to neglect the ordinances of the Church! Accomplish
quickly your judgment on Henry so that to the eyes of all
it may be apparent that it falls upon him not by chance but
by your power. Yet may his confusion turn to repentance,
that his soul may be saved in the day of the Lord."
Whether the ecstasy of his own rapt and abstract communion with the
unseen, that subtle inspiration of an Invisible too clearly conceived
for human weakness to sustain, had gone to Gregory's head and drawn
him into fuller expression of this extraordinary assertion and claim
beyond all reason: or whether the long-determined theory of his life
thus found complete development it is difficult to tell. These
assumptions were, indeed, the simple and practical outcome of claims
already made and responsibilities assumed: claims which had been
already put feebly into operation by other Popes before. But they had
never before been put into words so living or so solemn. Gregory
himself had, hitherto, claimed only the right to judge, to arbitrate
at the head of a National Diet. He had not himself, so far as we can
see, assumed up to this moment the supposed rights of Peter, alone and
uncontrolled. He had given England to William, but only on the warrant
of the bond of Harold solemnly sworn before the altar. He had made
legitimate the claims already established by conquest of Robert
Guiscard and others of the Norman conquerors. But the standard set up
in the Lateran Council of 1080 was of a far more imperative kind, and
asserted finally through Peter and Paul, his holy fathers and lords,
an authority absolute and uncompromising such as made the brain reel.
This extraordinary address must have sent a multitude, many of them no
doubt ordinary men with no lofty ideal like his own, back to their
bishoprics and charges, swelling with a sense of spiritual grandeur
and power such as no promotion could give, an inspiration which if it
made here and there a high spirit thrill to the necessities of a great
position, was at least as likely to make petty tyrants and oppressors
of meaner men. The only saving clause in a charge so full of the
elements of mischief, is that to the majority of ordinary minds it
would contain very little personal meaning at all.
[Illustration: ISLAND ON TIBER.
_To face page 286._]
From this time nothing was possible but war to the death between
Gregory and Henry, the deposed king, who was as little disposed to
accept his deposition as any anathema was able to enforce it. We have
already remarked on various occasions, and it is a dreadful coming
down from the height of so striking a scene, and so many great words,
to be obliged to repeat it: yet it is very evident that
notwithstanding the terrible pictures we have had of the force of
these anathemas, they made very little difference in the life of the
world. There were always schismatic or rebellious priests enough to
carry on, in defiance of the Pope, those visible ceremonies and
offices of religion which are indispensable to the common order of
life. There were, no doubt, great individual sufferings among the
faithful, but the habits of ordinary existence could only have been
interfered with had every bishop and every priest been loyal to the
Pope, which was far from being the case.
It was at the conclusion of this Council that Gregory is said to have
sent to Rudolf the famous imperial crown bearing the inscription
_Petra dedit Petro, Petrus diadema Rodolpho_,
of which Villemain makes the shabby remark that, "After having held
the balance as uncertain, and denied the share he had in the election
of Rudolf, now that it was confirmed by success Gregory VII. claimed
it for himself and the Church."--a conclusion neither in consonance
with the facts nor with the character of the man.
That Henry should receive this decision meekly was of course
impossible. Once more he attempted to make reprisals in an assembly
held at Brixen in the following June, when by means of the small
number of thirty bishops, chiefly excommunicated persons, and, of
course, in any case without any right to judge their superior, Gregory
himself was once more deposed, excommunicated, and cut off from the
communion of these ecclesiastics and their followings. In the sentence
given by this paltry company, Gregory is accused of following the
heresy of Berengarius, whose recantation had the year before been
received at the Lateran: and also of being a necromancer and magician,
and possessed by an evil spirit. These exquisite reasons are the chief
of the allegations against him, and the principal ground upon which
his deposition was justified. Guibert of Ravenna, long his enemy, and
one of the excommunicated, was elected by the same incompetent
tribunal as Pope in his place, naturally without any of the canonical
requirements for such an election; though we are told that Henry laid
violent hands on the bishop of Ostia whose privilege it was to
officiate at the consecration of the Popes, and who was then in
foreign parts acting as legate, in order to give some show of legality
to the election. Guibert however, less scrupulous than the former
intruder Cadalous, took at once the title of Clement III. The great
advantage of such a step, beside the sweetness of revenge, no doubt
was that it practically annulled the papal interdict so far as the
knowledge of the vulgar was concerned: for so long as there were
priests to officiate, a bishop to preside, and a Pope to bless and to
curse, how should the uninstructed people know that their country was
under any fatal ban? To make such a universal excommunication possible
the whole priesthood must have been subject and faithful to the one
sole authority in the Church.
Unfortunately for the prestige of Gregory, Henry was much more
successful in the following year in all his enterprises, and it was
Rudolf, the friend and elected of the Pope, and not his adversary, who
died after a battle which was not otherwise decisive. This event must
have been a great blow and disappointment as well as an immediate and
imminent danger. For some time, however, the ordinary course of life
went on in Rome, and Gregory, by means of various negotiations, and
also no doubt by reason of his own consciousness of the pressing need
for a champion and supporter, made friends again with Robert Guiscard,
exerting himself to settle the quarrels between him and his
neighbours, and to win him thus by good offices to the papal side. To
complete this renewal of friendship Gregory, though ailing, and amid
all these tumults beginning to feel the weight of years, made a
journey to Benevento, which belonged to the Holy See, and there met
his former penitent and adversary, the brave and wily Norman. The
interview between them took place in sight of a great crowd of the
followers of both and the inhabitants of the whole region, assembled
in mingled curiosity and reverence, to see so great a scene. The
Norman, relieved of the excommunications under which he had lain for
past offences, and endowed with the Pope's approval and blessing,
swore fealty and obedience to Gregory, promising henceforward to be
the champion of Holy Church, protecting her property and her servants,
keeping her counsel and acknowledging her authority.
"From this hour and for the future I will be faithful to the Holy
Roman Church, and to the Apostolic See, and to you, my lord Gregory,
the universal Pope. I will be your defender, and that of the Roman
Church, aiding you according to my power to maintain, to occupy, and
to defend the domains of St. Peter and his possessions, against all
comers, reserving only the March of Fermo, of Salerno, and of Amalfi,
concerning which no definite arrangement has yet been made."
These last, and especially the town of Salerno, one of the cities _la
piu bella e piu deliziosa_ of Italy, says old Muratori, had been
recently taken by Guiscard from their Prince Gisolfo, a _protégé_ and
friend of the Pope, who excepts them in the same cautious manner from
the sanction given to Robert's other conquests. Gregory's act of
investiture is altogether a very cautious document:
I Gregory, Pope, invest you Duke Robert, with all the lands
given you by my predecessors of holy memory, Nicolas and
Alexander. As for the lands of Salerno, Amalfi and a
portion of the March of Fermo, held by you unjustly, I
suffer it patiently for the present, having confidence in
God and in your honesty, and that you will conduct yourself
in future for the honour of God and St. Peter in such a
manner as becomes you, and as I may tolerate, without
risking your soul or mine.
It is not likely that Gregory hoped so much from Guiscard's probity as
that he would give up that _citta deliziosa_, won by his bow and his
spear. Nor was he then aware how his own name and all its associations
would remain in Salerno, its chief distinction throughout all the ages
to come.
The life of Gregory had never been one of peace or tranquillity. He
had been a fighting man all his days, but during a great part of them
a successful one: the years which remained to him, however, were one
long course of agitations, of turmoil, and of revolution. In 1081
Henry, scarcely successful by arms, but confident in the great
discouragement of the rival party through the death of Rudolf, crossed
the Alps again, and after defeating Matilda, ravaging her duchy and
driving her to the shelter of Canossa, marched upon Rome. Guibert of
Ravenna, the Anti-Pope, accompanied him with many bishops and priests
of his party. On his first appearance before Rome, the energy of
Gregory, and his expectation of some such event, had for once inspired
the city to resistance, so that the royal army got no further than the
"fields of Nero," outside the walls of the Leonine city to the north
of St. Peter's, by which side they had approached Rome. Henry had
himself crowned emperor by his anti-pope in his tent, an act performed
by the advice of his schismatic bishops, and to the great wonder,
excitement, and interest of the surrounding people, overawed by that
great title which he had not as yet ventured to assume. This futile
coronation was indeed an act with which he amused himself
periodically during the following years from time to time. But the
heats of summer and the fever of Rome soon drove the invaders back. In
1082 Henry returned to the attack, but still in vain. In 1083 he was
more successful, and seized that portion of Rome called the Leonine
city, which included St. Peter's and the tombs of the Apostles, the
great shrine which gave sanctity to the whole. The Pope, up to this
time free, though continually threatened by his enemies, and still
carrying on as best he could the universal affairs of the Church, was
now forced to retire to St. Angelo. He was at this moment without
defender or champion on any side. The brave Matilda, ever faithful,
was shut up in impregnable Canossa. Guiscard, after having secured all
that he wanted from Gregory, had gone off upon his own concerns, and
was now struggling to make for himself a footing in Greece,
indifferent to the Pope's danger. The Romans, after the brief interval
of inspiration which gave them courage to make a stand for the Pope
and the integrity of their city, had fallen back into their usual
weakness, dazzled by Henry's title of Emperor, and cowed by the
presence of his Germans at their gates. They had never had any spirit
of resistance, and it was scarcely to be expected of a corrupt and
fickle population, accustomed for ages to be the toys of circumstance,
that they should begin a nobler career now. And there the Pope
remained, shut up in that lonely stronghold, overlooking the noisy and
busy streets which overflowed with foreign soldiers and the noise of
arms, while in the Church of St. Peter close by, Guibert the mock Pope
assembled a mock council to absolve the new Emperor from all the
anathemas that had followed one another upon his head.
There was much discussion and debate in that strange assembly, in
which every second man at least must have had in his secret heart a
sense of sacrilege, over this subject. They did not apparently deny
the legal weight of these anathemas, which they recognised as the
root and origin of all the misfortunes that had followed; but they
maintained a feeble contention that the proceedings of Gregory had
been irregular, seeing that Henry had never had the opportunity of
defending himself. Another of the pretensions attributed to the Roman
Church by her enemies, and this time with truth, as it has indeed
become part of her code--was, as appears, set up on this occasion for
the first time, and by the schismatics. Gregory had forbidden the
people to accept the sacraments from the hands of vicious or
simoniacal priests. Guibert, called Clement III., and his fictitious
council declared with many learned quotations that the sacraments in
themselves were all in all, and the administrators nothing; and that
though given by a drunkard, an adulterer, or a murderer, the rites of
the Church were equally effectual. It was however still more strange
that in this assembly, made up of schismatics, many of them guilty of
these very practices, a timid remonstrance should have been made
against the very sins which had separated them from the rest of the
Church and which Gregory had spent his life in combating. The Pope had
not been successful either in abolishing simony or in maintaining
celibacy and continence among the clergy, but he had roused a
universal public opinion, a sentiment stronger than himself, which
found a place even in the mind of his antagonist and rival in arms.
Thus the usurper timidly attacked with arguments either insignificant
or morally dangerous the acts of the Pope--yet timidly echoed his
doctrine: with the air throughout all of a pretender alarmed by the
mere vicinity of an unfortunate but rightful monarch. Guibert had been
bold enough before; he had the air now of a furtive intruder trembling
lest in every chance sound he might hear the step of the true master
returning to his desecrated house.
The next event in this curious struggle is more extraordinary still.
Henry himself, it is evident, must have been struck with the feeble
character of this unauthorised assembly, notwithstanding that the new
Pope was of his own making and the council held under his auspices; or
perhaps he hoped to gain something by an appearance of candour and
impartiality though so late in the day. At all events he proposed,
immediately after the close of the fictitious council, to the citizens
and officials who still held the other portions of the city, in the
name of Gregory--to withdraw his troops, to leave all roads to Rome
free, and to submit his cause to another council presided over by
Gregory and to which, as in ordinary cases, all the higher ranks of
the clergy should be invited. It is impossible to conceive a more
extraordinary contradiction of all that had gone before. The proposal,
however, strange as it seems, was accepted and carried out. In
November, 1083, this assembly was called together. Henry withdrew with
his army towards Lombardy, the peaceful roads were all reopened, and
bishops and abbots from all parts of Christendom hastened, no doubt
trembling, yet excited, to Rome. Henry, notwithstanding his liberality
of kind offers, exercised a considerable supervision over these
travellers, for we hear that he stopped the deputies whom the German
princes had sent to represent them, and also many distinguished
prelates, two of whom had been specially attached to his mother Agnes,
along with one of the legates of the Pope. The attempt to pack the
assembly, or at least to weed it of its most remarkable members in
this way was not, however, successful, and a large number of
ecclesiastics were got together notwithstanding all the perils of the
journey.
The meeting was a melancholy one, overshadowed by the hopelessness of
a position in which all the right was on one side and all the power on
the other. After three days' deliberation, which came to nothing, the
Pope addressed--it was for the last time in Rome--his faithful
counsellors. "He spoke with the tongue of an angel rather than of a
man," bidding them to be firm and patient, to hold fast to the faith,
and to quit themselves like men, however dark might be the days on
which they had fallen. The entire convocation broke forth into tears
as the old man concluded.
But Gregory would not be moved to any clemency towards his persecutor.
He yielded so far as not to repeat his anathema against him,
excommunicating only those who by force or stratagem had turned back
and detained any who were on their way to the Council. But he would
not consent to crown Henry as emperor, which--notwithstanding his
previous coronation in his tent by Guibert, and a still earlier one,
it is said, at Brixen immediately after the appointment of the
anti-pope--was what the rebellious monarch still desired; nor would he
yield to the apparent compulsion of circumstances and make peace,
without repentance on the part of Henry. No circumstances could coerce
such a man. The fruitless council lasted but three days, and separated
without making any change in the situation. The Romans, roused again
perhaps by the brief snatch of freedom they had thus seemed to have,
rose against Henry's garrison and regained possession of the Leonine
city which he had held: and thus every particular of the struggle was
begun and repeated over again.
This extraordinary attempt, after all that had happened--after the
council in which Henry had deposed Gregory, the council in St. Peter's
itself, held by the anti-pope, and all the abuse he had poured upon
"the monk Hildebrand," as he had again and again styled the Pope--by
permitting an assembly in which the insulted pontiff should be
restored to all his authority and honours, to move Gregory to accept
and crown him, is one of the most wonderful things in history. But the
attempt was the last he ever made, as it was the most futile. After
the one flash of energy with which Rome renewed the struggle, and
another period of renewed attacks and withdrawals, Henry became
master of the city, though never of the castle of St. Angelo where
Gregory sat indomitable, relaxing not a jot of his determination and
strong as ever in his refusal to withdraw, unless after full
repentance, his curse from Henry. Various castles and fortified places
continued to be held in the name of the Pope, both within and without
the walls of the city: which fact throws a curious light upon its
existing aspect: but these remnants of defence had little power to
restrain the conqueror and his great army.
And then again Rome saw one of those sights which from age to age had
become familiar to her, the triumph of arms and overwhelming force
under the very eyes of the imprisoned ruler of the city. The Lateran
Palace, so long deserted, awoke to receive a royal guest. The sober
courts of the papal house blazed with splendid costumes and resounded
with all the tumult of rejoicing and triumph. The first of the great
ceremonies was the coronation of the Archbishop Guibert as Clement
III., which took place in Passion Week in the year 1084. Four months
before Gregory had descended from his stronghold to hold the council
in which Henry had still hoped to persuade or force him to
complaisance, flinging Guibert lightly away; but the king's hopes had
failed and Guibert was again the temporary symbol of that spiritual
power without which he could not maintain himself. On Easter Sunday
following, three great processions again streamed over the bridge of
St. Angelo under the eyes, it may be, of Gregory high on the
battlements of his fortress, or at least penetrating to his seclusion
with the shouts and cheers that marked their progress--the procession
of the false Pope, that of the king, that of Bertha the king's wife,
whom it had required all the efforts of Gregory and his faithful
bishops to preserve from a cruel divorce: she who had set her maids
with baton and staff to beat the life half out of that false spouse
and caitiff knight in his attempt to betray her. The world had
triumphed over the Church, the powers of darkness over those of light,
a false and treacherous despot, whose word even his own followers held
as nothing, over the steadfast, pure, and high-minded priest, who,
whatever we may think of his motives--and no judgment upon Gregory can
ever be unanimous--had devoted his life to one high purpose and held
by it through triumph and humiliation, unmoved and immovable. Gregory
was as certain of his great position now, the Vicar of Christ
commissioned to bind and to loose, to judge with impartiality and
justice all men's claims, to hold the balance of right and wrong all
over the world, as he watched the gay processions pass, and heard the
heralds sounding their trumpets and the anti-pope, the creature of
Henry's will, passing by to give his master (for the third time) the
much-longed-for imperial crown, as when he himself stood master within
the battlements of Canossa and raised that suppliant king to the
possibilities of empire from his feet.
It is a curious detail adding a touch to the irony which mingles with
so many human triumphs and downfalls, that the actual imperial crown
seems at one time at least to have been in Gregory's keeping. During
the abortive council, for which, for three days he had returned to the
Lateran, he offered, though he refused to place it on his head, to
give it up to Henry's hands, letting it down with a cord from a window
of St. Angelo. This offer, which could scarcely be other than
ironical, seems to have been refused; but whether Gregory retained it
in St. Angelo, or left it to be found in the Lateran treasury by the
returning king, there is no information. If it was a fictitious crown
which was placed upon Henry's head by the fictitious Pope, the curious
travesty would be complete. And history does not say even why the
ceremony performed before by the same hands on the banks of the Tiber,
should have dropped out of recollection as a thing that had not been.
During all this time nothing had been heard of Robert Guiscard who had
so solemnly taken upon him the office of champion of the Holy See and
knight of St. Peter. He had been about his own business, pursuing his
conquests, eager to carve out new kingdoms for himself and his sons:
but at last the Pope's appeals became too strong to be resisted.
Henry, whose armies had doubtless not improved in force during the
desultory warfare which must have affected more or less the
consciences of many, and the hot summers, unwholesome for northerners,
did not await the coming of this new and formidable foe. Matilda's
Tuscans were more easily overcome than Guiscard's veterans of northern
race. He called in his men from all the petty sieges which were
wearing them out, and from that wall which he had forced the Romans
with their own pitiful hands to build as a base of attacks against St.
Angelo, and withdrew in haste, leaving the terrified citizens whom he
had won over to his party, as little apt to arms as their forefathers
had been, and in the midst of a half-ruined city--the strong positions
in which were still held by the friends of the Pope--to do what they
could against the most dreaded troops of Christendom. The catastrophe
was certain before it occurred. The resistance of the Romans to Robert
Guiscard was little more than nominal, only enough to inflame the
Normans and give the dreadful freedom of besiegers to their armed
hordes. They delivered the Pontiff, but sacked the town which lay
helpless in its ruins at their feet; not even the churches were
spared, nor their right of sanctuary acknowledged as six hundred years
before Attila had acknowledged it. And all the fault of the Pope, as
who could wonder if the sufferers cried? It was he who had brought
these savages upon them, as it was he who had exposed them before to
the hostility of Henry. Gregory had scarcely come forth from his
citadel and returned to his palace when Rome was filled with scenes of
blood and carnage, such as recalled the invasions of Huns and
Vandals. The flames of the burning city lighted up the skies as he
came forth in sorrow, delivered from his bondage, but a sad and
burdened man. The chroniclers tell us that he flung himself at the
feet of Guiscard to beg him to spare the city, crying out that he was
Pope for edification and not for ruin. And though his prayer was to
some extent granted, there is little doubt that here at the last the
heart of Gregory and his courage were broken, and that though his
resolution was never shaken, his strength could bear little more. This
was the greatest, as it was the most uncalled for, misfortune of his
life.
He held a strange council in desolate Rome in the few days that
followed, in which he repeated his anathema against Henry, Guibert,
and all the clergy who were living in rebellion or in sin. But it
would seem that even at such a moment the council was not unanimous
and that the spirit of his followers was broken and cowed, and few
could follow him in the steadfastness of his own unchangeable mind.
And when this tremulous and disturbed assembly was over, held in such
extraordinary circumstances, fierce Normans, wild Saracens forming the
guard of the Pontiff, fire and ruin, and the shrieks of victims still
disturbing the once peaceful air--Gregory, sick at heart, turned his
back upon the beloved city which he had laboured so hard to make once
more mistress of the world. Perhaps he was not aware that he left Rome
for ever; but the conditions of that last restoration had broken his
heart. He to bring bloodshed and rapine! he who was Pope to build up
and not to destroy! It was more than the man who had borne all things
else could endure. No doubt it was a crowning triumph for Guiscard to
lead away with him the rescued Pontiff, and pose before all the world
as Gregory's deliverer. The journey itself, however, was not without
perils. The Campagna and all the wilder country beyond, about the
Pontine marshes, was full of freebooting bands, Henry's partisans, or
calling themselves so, who harassed the march with guerilla attacks.
In one such flying combat a monk of Gregory's own retinue was killed,
and the Pope had to ride like the men-at-arms, now starting at
daybreak, now travelling deep into the night. At Monte Cassino, in the
great convent where his friend Desiderius, who was to be his successor
reigned, there was a welcome pause, and he had time to refresh himself
among his old friends, the true brethren and companions of his soul.
The legends of the monks--or was it the pity of the ages beginning
already to awaken and rising to a great height of human compunction by
the time the early historians began to write his story?--accord to him
here that compensation of divine acknowledgment which the heart
recognises as the only healing for such wounds. Some one among the
monks of Monte Cassino saw a dove hovering over his head as he said
mass. Perhaps this was merely a confusion with the legend of Gregory
the Great, his predecessor, to whom that attribute belongs; perhaps
some gentle brother whose heart ached with sympathy for the suffering
Pope had glamour in his eyes and saw.
Gregory continued his journey, drawn along in the army of Robert
Guiscard as in a chariot, which began now to be, as he reached the
south Italian shores, a chariot of triumph. All the towns and villages
on the way came out to greet the Pope, to ask his blessing. The bishop
of Salerno, with his clergy, came forth in solemn procession with
shining robes and sacred standards to meet him. Neither Pope nor
prince could have found a more exquisite retreat from the troubles of
an evil world. The beautiful little city, half Saracenic, in all the
glory of its cathedral still new and white and blooming with colour
like a flower, sat on the edge of that loveliest coast, the sea like
sapphire surging up in many lines of foam, the waves clapping their
hands as in the Psalms, and above, the olive-mantled hills rising
soft towards the bluest sky, with on every point a white village, a
little church tower, the convent walls shining in the sun. It is still
a region as near Paradise as human imagination can grasp, more fair
than any scene we know. One wonders if the Pope's heart had sufficient
spring left in it to take some faint delight in that wonderful
conjunction of earth and sea and sky. But such delights were not much
thought of in his day, and it is very possible he might have felt it
something like a sin to suffer his heart to go forth in any such
carnal pleasure.
But at least something of his old energy came back when he was settled
in this wonderful place of exile. He sent out his legates to the
world, charged with letters to the faithful everywhere, to explain the
position of affairs and to assert, as if now with his last breath,
that it was because of his determination to purify the Church that all
these conspiracies had risen against him--which was indeed,
notwithstanding all the developments taken by the question, the
absolute truth. For it was Gregory's strongly conceived and faithfully
held resolution to cleanse the Church from simony, to have its
ministers and officers chosen for their worth and virtue, and power to
guide and influence their flocks for good, and not because they had
wealth to pay for their dignity and to maintain it, which was the
beginning of the conflict. Henry who refused obedience and made a
traffic of the holiest offices, and those degenerate and rebellious
priests who continued to buy themselves into rich bishoprics and
abbacies in defiance of every ecclesiastical law and penalty, were the
original offenders, and ought before posterity at least to bear the
brunt.
It is perhaps indiscreet to speak of an event largely affecting modern
life in such words, but there is a whimsical resemblance which is apt
to call forth a smile between the action of a large portion of the
Church of Scotland fifty years ago, and the life struggle of Gregory.
In the former case it was the putting in of ministers to
ecclesiastical benefices by lay authority, however veiled by supposed
popular assent, which was believed to be an infringement of the divine
rights of the Church, and of the headship of Christ, by a religious
body perhaps more scornful and condemnatory than any other of
everything connected with a Pope. It was not supposed in Scotland that
the humble candidates for poor Scotch livings bought their
advancement; but the principle was the same.
In the case of Gregory the positions thus bought and sold were of very
great secular importance, carrying with them much wealth, power, and
outward importance, which was not the case in the other; but in
neither case were the candidates chosen canonically or for their
suitableness to the charge, but from extraneous motives and in spite
of the decisions of the Church. This was to destroy the headship of
Peter, the authority of his representative, the rights of the sacred
Spouse of Christ. Both claims were perfectly honest and true. But
Gregory, as in opposition to a far greater grievance, and one which
overspread all Christendom, was by far the more distinguished
confessor, as he was the greater martyr of the Holy Cause.
For this was undoubtedly the first cause of all the sufferings of the
Pontiff, the insults showered upon him, the wrongs he had to bear, the
exile in which he died. The question has been settled against him, we
believe, in every country, even the most deeply Christian. Scotland
indeed has prevailed in having her own way, but that is because she
has no important benefices, involving secular rank and privilege. No
voice in England has ever been raised in defence of simony, but the
_congé d'élire_ would have been as great an offence to Pope Gregory,
and as much of a sin to Dr. Chalmers, as the purchase of an
archbishopric in one case, or the placing of an unpopular preacher in
another. The Pope's claim of authority over both Church and world,
though originally and fundamentally based upon his rights as the
successor of Peter, developed out of this as the fruit out of the
flower. From a religious point of view, and if we could secure that
all Popes, candidates for ecclesiastical offices, and electors to the
same, should be wise and good men, the position would be unassailable;
but as it is not so, the question seems scarcely worth risking a man's
living for, much less his life. But perhaps no man since, if it were
not his successors in the popedom, had such strenuous reasons to spend
his life for it as Gregory, as none has ever had a severer struggle.
This smaller question, however, though it is the fundamental one, has
been almost forgotten in the struggle between the Pope and the
Emperor--the sacred and the secular powers--which developed out of it.
The claim to decide not only who was to be archbishop but who was to
be king, rose into an importance which dwarfed every other. This was
not originated by Gregory, but it was by his means that it became the
great question of the age, and rent the world in twain. The two great
institutions of the Papacy and the Empire had been or seemed to be an
ideal method of governing the world, the one at the head of all
spiritual concerns, the other commanding every secular power and all
the progress of Christendom. Circumstances indeed, and the growth of
independence and power in other nations, had circumscribed the sphere
of the Empire, while the Papacy had grown in influence by the same
means. But still the Empire was the head of the Christian world of
nations, as the Pope was the head of those spiritual princedoms which
had developed into so much importance. When the interests were so
curiously mingled, it was certain that a collision must occur one time
or another. There had been frequent jars, in days when the power of
the Empire was too great for anything but a momentary resistance on
the part of the Pope. But when the decisive moment came and the
struggle became inevitable, Gregory--a man fully equal to the
occasion--was there to meet it. His success, such as it was, was for
later generations. To himself personally it brought the crown of
tragedy only, without even any consciousness of victory gained.
The Pope lived not quite a year in Salerno. He died in that world of
delight in the sweetness of the May, when all is doubly sweet by those
flowery hills and along that radiant shore. Among his last words were
these:--"My brethren, I make no account of my good works: my only
confidence is that I have always loved justice and hated
iniquity:--and for that I die in exile," he added before his end. In
the silence and the gathering gloom one of his attendants cried out,
"How can you say in exile, my lord, you who, the Vicar of Christ and
of the apostles, have received all the nations for your inheritance,
and the world for your domain?" With these words in his ears the Pope
departed to that country which is the hope of every soul, where
iniquity is not and justice reigns.
He died on the 25th May, 1085, not having yet attained his seventieth
year. He had been Pope for twelve years only, and during that time had
lived in continual danger, fighting always for the Church against the
world. A suffering and a melancholy man, his life had none of those
solaces which are given to the commonest and the poorest. His dearest
friends were far from him: the hope of his life was lost: he thought
no doubt that his standard fell with him, and that the labours of his
life were lost also, and had come to nothing. But it was not so;
Gregory VII. is still after these centuries one of the greatest Popes
of Rome: and though time has wrought havoc with that great ideal of
the Arbiter and universal Judge which never could have been made into
practical reality, unless the world and the Church had been assured of
a succession of the wisest and holiest of men--he yet secured for a
time something like that tremendous position for a number of his
successors, and created an opinion and sentiment throughout
Christendom that the reforms on which he insisted ought to be, which
is almost the nearest that humanity can come to universal reformation.
The Church which he left seemed shattered into a hundred fragments,
and he died exiled and powerless; but yet he opened the greatest era
of her existence to what has always been one of the wisest, and still
remains one of the strongest institutions in the world, against which,
in spite of many errors and much tribulations, it has never been in
the power of the gates of hell to prevail.
[Illustration: IN THE VILLA BORGHESE.]
FOOTNOTES:
[3] This personage is always called Cencio in the Italian records. He
is supposed by some to have been of the family of the Crescenzi, of
which name, as well as of Vincenzo, this is the diminutive.
[4] On this subject the records differ, some asserting these letters
to have been read at once on Roland's removal, some that the sitting
was adjourned after that wonderful incident.
[Illustration: THE FOUNTAIN OF THE TORTOISE.]
CHAPTER IV.
INNOCENT III.
It is not our object, the reader is aware, to give here a history of
Rome, or of its pontiffs, or of the tumultuous world of the Middle
Ages in which a few figures of Popes and Princes stand out upon the
ever-crowded, ever-changing background, helping us to hear among the
wild confusion of clanging swords and shattering lances, of war cries
and shouts of rage and triumph--and to see amidst the mist and smoke,
the fire and flame, the dust of breached walls and falling houses. Our
intention is solely to indicate those among the chiefs of the Church
who are of the most importance to the great city, which, ever
rebelling against them, ever carrying on a scarcely broken line of
opposition and resistance, was still passive in their hands so far as
posterity is concerned, dragged into light, or left lying in
darkness, according as its rulers were. It is usual to say that the
great time of the Church, the age of its utmost ascendency, was during
the period between Gregory VII. and Innocent III., the first of whom
put forth its claim as Universal Arbiter and Judge as no one had ever
done before, while the second carried that claim to its climax in his
remarkable reign--a reign all-influencing, almost all-potent,
something more like a universal supremacy and rule over the whole
earth than has ever been known either before or since. The reader has
seen what was the effect upon his world of the great Hildebrand: how
he laboured, how he proclaimed his great mission, with what
overwhelming faith he believed in it, and, it must be added, with how
little success he was permitted to carry it out. This great Pope,
asserting his right as the successor of Peter to something very like a
universal dominion and the power of setting down and raising up all
manner of thrones, principalities, and powers, lived fighting for the
very ground he stood on, in an incessant struggle not only with the
empire, but with every illiterate and ignoble petty court of his
neighbourhood, with the robber barons of the surrounding hills, with
the citizens in his streets, with the villagers on his land--and,
after having had more than once his independent realm restricted to
the strong walls of St. Angelo, had at last to abandon his city for
mere safety's sake, and die in exile far from the Rome he loved.
The life of the other we have now to trace, as far as it is possible
to keep the thread of it amid the tremendous disorders, disastrous
wars and commotions of his time, in all of which his name is so
mingled that in order to distinguish his story the student must be
prepared to struggle through what is really the history of the world,
there being scarcely a corner of that world--none at least with which
history was then acquainted--which was not pervaded by Innocent,
although few we think in which his influence had any such power as is
generally believed.
This Pope was not like Hildebrand a man of the people. He had a
surname and already a distinguished one. Lothario Conti, son of
Trasimondo, lord of Ferentino, of the family of the Dukes of Spoleto,
was born in the year 1161 in the little town of Anagni, where his
family resided, a place always dear to him, and to which in the days
of his greatness he loved to retire, to take refuge from the summer
heats of Rome or other more tangible dangers. He was thus a member of
the very nobility with which afterwards he had so much trouble, the
unruly neighbours who made every road to Rome dangerous, and the
suzerainty of the Pope in many cases a simple fiction. The young
Lothario had three uncles in the Church in high places, all of them
eventually Cardinals, and was destined to the ecclesiastical
profession, in which he was so certain of advancement, from his birth;
he was educated partly at Rome, at the school of St. John Lateran,
specially destined for the training of the clergy, and therefore spent
his boyhood under the shadow of the palace which was to be his home in
later years. From Rome he went to the University of Paris, one of the
greatest of existing schools, and studied canon law so as to make
himself an authority on that subject, then one of the most engrossing
and important branches of learning. He loved the "beneficial tasks,"
and perhaps also the freedom and freshness of university life, where
probably the bonds of the clerical condition were less felt than in
other places, though Innocent never seems to have required indulgence
in that respect. Besides his readings in canon law, he studied with
great devotion the Scriptures, and their interpretation, after the
elaborate and highly artificial fashion of the day, dividing each text
into a myriad of heads, and building up the most recondite argument on
a single phrase with meanings spiritual, temporal, scholastic, and
imaginary. There he made several warm friends, among others Robert
Curzon, an Englishman who served him afterwards in various high
offices, not so much to the credit of their honour in later times as
of the faithfulness of their friendship.
Young Conti proceeded afterwards to Bologna, then growing into great
reputation as a centre of instruction. He had, in short, the best
education that his age was acquainted with, and returned to his
ecclesiastical home at Rome and the protection of his Cardinal-uncles
a perfectly well-trained and able young man, learned in all the
learning of his day, acquainted more or less with the world, and ready
for any service which the Church to which he was wholly devoted might
require of him. He was a young man certain of promotion in any case.
He had no sooner taken the first orders than he was made a canon of
St. Peter's, of itself an important position, and his name very soon
appears as acting in various causes brought on appeal to Rome--claims
of convents, complaints among others of the monks of Canterbury in
some forgotten question, where he was the champion of the complainants
who were afterwards to bring him into so much trouble. These appeals
were constantly occurring, and occupied a great deal of the time and
thoughts of that learned and busy court of Rome, the Consistory, which
became afterwards, under Innocent himself, the one great court of
appeal for the world.
About a hundred years had passed between the death of the great Pope
Gregory, the monk Hildebrand, and the entrance of Lothario Conti upon
public life; but when the reader surveys the condition of that surging
sea of society--the crowded, struggling, fighting, unresting world,
which gives an impression of being more crowded, more teeming with
wild life and force, with constant movement and turmoil, than in our
calmer days, though no doubt the facts are quite the reverse--he will
find but little change apparent in the tremendous scene. As Gregory
left the nations in endless war and fighting, so his great successor
found them--king warring against king, prince against prince, count
against count, city against city, nay, village against village, with a
wide margin of personal struggle around, and a general war with the
Church maintained by all. A panorama of the kingdoms of the world and
the glory of them, could it have been furnished to any onlooker, would
have showed its minutest lines of division by illuminations of
devastating fire and flame, by the clangour of armies in collision, by
wild freebooters in roaming bands, and little feudal wars in every
district: every man in pursuit of something that was his neighbour's,
perhaps only his life, a small affair--perhaps his wife, perhaps his
lands, possibly the mere satisfaction of a feud which was always on
hand to fill up the crevices of more important fighting.
With more desperate hostility still the cities in pairs set themselves
against each other, all flourishing, busy places, full of industry,
full of invention, but fuller still of rage against the brother close
by, of the same tongue and race, Milan against Parma, Pisa against
Genoa, Florence against all comers. Bigger wars devastated other
regions, Germany in particular in all its many subdivisions, where it
seems impossible to believe there could ever be a loaf of bread or a
cup of wine of native growth, so perpetually was every dukedom ravaged
and every principality brought to ruin. Two Emperors claiming the
allegiance of that vast impossible holy Empire which extended from the
northern sea to the soft Sicilian shores, two Popes calling themselves
heads of the Church, were matters of every day. The Emperors had
generally each a show of right; but the anti-popes, though they had
each a party, were altogether false functionaries with no show of law
in their favour, generally mere creatures of the empire, though often
triumphant for a moment. In Gregory's day Henry IV. and Rudolf were
the contending Emperors. In those of Innocent they were Philip and
Otho. There were no doubt different principles involved, but the
effect was the same; in both cases the Popes were deeply concerned,
each asserting a prerogative, a right to choose between the contending
candidates and terminate the strife. That prerogative had been boldly
claimed and asserted by Gregory; in the century that followed every
Pope had reasserted and attempted with all his might to enforce it;
but though Innocent is universally set forth as the greatest and most
powerful of all who did so, and as in part responsible for almost
every evil thing that resulted, I do not myself see that his
interference was much more potential than that of Gregory, of which
also so much is said, but which was so constantly baulked, thwarted,
and contradicted in his day. So far as the Empire was concerned the
Popes certainly possessed a right and privilege which gave a certain
countenance to their claim, for until crowned by the ruling Pontiff no
Emperor had full possession of his crown: but this did not affect the
other Christian kingdoms over which Innocent claimed and attempted to
exercise the same prerogative. The state of things, however, to the
spectator is very much the same in the one century as the other. The
age of storm and stress for the world of Christendom extended from one
to another; no doubt progress was being made, foundations laid, and
possibilities slowly coming into operation, of which the beginnings
may be detected even among all the noise and dust of the wars; but
outwardly the state of Europe was very much the same under Innocent as
under Gregory: they had the same difficulties to encounter and the
same ordeals to go through.
Several short-lived Popes succeeded each other on the papal throne
after Innocent began to ascend the steps of ecclesiastical dignity,
which were so easy to the nephew of three Cardinals. He became a canon
of St. Peter's while little more than twenty-one. Pope Lucius III.
employed him about his court, Pope Gregory VIII. made him a
sub-deacon of Rome. Pope Clement III. was his uncle Octavian, and made
him Cardinal of "St. Sergius and St. Bacchus," a curious combination,
and one which would better have become a more jovial priest. Then
there came a faint and momentary chill over the prospects of the most
rising and prosperous young ecclesiastic in Rome. His uncle was
succeeded in the papal chair by a certain Cardinal, old and pious but
little known to history, a member of the Orsini family and hostile to
the Conti, so that our young Cardinal relapsed a little into the cold
shade. It is supposed to be during this period that he turned his
thoughts to literature, and wrote his first book, a singular one for
his age and position--and yet perhaps not so unlike the utterance of
triumphant youth under its first check as might be supposed--_De
contemptu mundi, sive de miseriis humanæ conditionis_, is its title.
It was indeed the view of the world which every superior mind was
supposed to take in his time, as it has again become the last juvenile
fashion in our own; but the young Cardinal Conti had greater
justification than our young prophets of evil. His work is full, as it
always continues to be in his matured years, of the artificial
constructions which Paris and Bologna taught, and which characterise
the age of the schoolmen: and it is not to be supposed that he had
much that was new to say of that everlasting topic which was as
hackneyed in the twelfth century as it is in the nineteenth. After he
has explained that "every male child on his birth cries A and every
female E; and when you say A with E it makes Eva, and what is Eva if
not heu! ha!--alas!"--he adds a description of the troubles of life
which is not quite so fanciful.
"We enter life amid pains and cries, presenting no
agreeable aspect, lower even than plants and vegetables,
which give forth at least a pleasant odour. The duration of
life becomes shorter every day; few men reach their
fortieth year, a very small number attain the sixtieth....
And how painful is life! Death threatens us constantly,
dreams frighten us, apparitions disturb us, we tremble for
our friends, for our relations; before we are prepared for
it misfortune has come: sickness surprises us, death cuts
the thread of our life. All the centuries have not been
enough to teach even to the science of medicine the
different kind of sufferings to which man's fragility
exposes him. Human nature is more corrupt from day to day;
the world and our bodies grow old. Often the guilty is
acquitted and the innocent is punished.... Every thought,
every act, all the arts and devices are employed for no
other end but to secure the glory and favour of men. To
gain honour he uses flattery, he prays, he promises, he
tries every underground way if he cannot get what he wants
by direct measures; or he takes it by force if he can
depend on the support of friends or of relations. And what
a burden are those high dignities! When the ambitious man
has attained the height of his desires his pride knows no
bounds, his arrogance is without restraint; he believes
himself so much a better man as he is more elevated in
position; he disdains his friends, recognises no one,
despises his oldest connections, walking proudly with his
head high, insolent in words, the enemy of his superiors
and the tyrant of his dependents."
The young Cardinal spares no class in his animadversions, but the rich
are held up as warnings rather than the poor, and the vainglory of the
miserable sons of Adam is what disgusts him most. Here is a passage
which carries us into the inner life of that much devastated, often
ruined Rome, which nevertheless at its most distracted moment was
never quite devoid of the splendours and luxuries it loved.
"Has not the prophet declared his anathema against luxury
in dress? Yet the face is coloured with artificial colours
as if the art of man could improve the work of God. What
can be more vain than to curl the hair, to paint the
cheeks, to perfume the person? And what need is there for a
table ornamented with a rich cover, and laid with knives
mounted in ivory, and vases of gold and silver? What more
vain again than to paint the rooms, to cover the doors with
fine carvings, to lay down carpets in the ante-chambers, to
repose one's self on a bed of down, covered with silken
stuffs and surrounded with curtains?"
Some historical commentators take exception to this picture as
imaginary, and too luxurious for the age; but after all a man of the
time must have known better than even Muratori our invaluable guide:
and we find again and again in the descriptions of booty taken in the
wars, accounts of the furniture of the tents of the conquered, silver
and gold vases, and costly ornaments of the table which if carried
about to embellish the wandering and brief life of a campaign would
surely be more likely still to appear among the riches of a settled
dwelling-place. Cardinal Lothario however did not confine himself
altogether to things he had intimate knowledge of, for one of his
illustrations is that of a discontented wife, a character of which he
could have no personal experience: the picture is whimsically correct
to conventional precedent; it is the established piece which we are so
well acquainted with in every age.
"She desires fine jewels and dresses, and beautiful
furniture without regard to the means of her husband; if
she does not get them she complains, she weeps, she
grumbles and murmurs all night through. Then she says,
'So-and-so is much more expensive than I am, and everybody
respects her; while I, because I am poor, they look at me
disdainfully over their shoulders.' Nobody must be praised
or loved but herself; if any other is beloved she thinks
herself hated; if any one is praised she thinks herself
injured. She insists that everybody should love what she
loves, and hate what she hates; she will submit to nothing
but dominates all; everything ought to be permitted to her,
and nothing forbidden. And after all (adds the future pope)
whatever she may be, ugly, sick, mad, imperious,
ill-tempered, whatever may be her faults, she must be kept
if she is not unchaste; and even then though the man may
separate from her, he may not take another."
This sounds as if the young Cardinal would have been less severe on
the question of divorce than his clerical successors. The book however
is quite conventional, and gives us little insight into the manner of
man he was. Nevertheless there are some actual thoughts in the
perennial and often repeated argument, as when he maintains the sombre
doctrine of eternal punishment with the words: "Deliverance will not
be possible in hell, for sin will remain as an inclination even when
it cannot be carried out." He also wrote a book upon the Mass in the
quiet of these early days; and was diligent in performing his duties
and visiting the poor, to whom he was always full of charity.
When the old Pope died, however, there seems not to have been a
moment's doubt as to who should succeed him. The Cardinal Lothario
was but thirty-seven, his ability and learning were known indeed, but
had as yet produced no great result: his family was distinguished but
not of force enough to overawe the Conclave, and nothing but the
impression produced upon the minds of his contemporaries by his
character and acquirements could account for his early advancement.
Pope Celestine in dying had recommended with great insistence the
Cardinal John Colonna as his successor; but this seems scarcely to
have been taken into consideration by the electors, who now, according
to Hildebrand's institution, somewhat modified by succeeding Popes,
performed their office without any pretence of consulting either
priests or people, and still less with any reference to the Emperor.
The election was held, not in the usual place, but in a church now
untraceable, "Ad Septa Solis," situated somewhere near the Colosseum.
The object of the Cardinals in making the election there, was safety,
the German troops of the Emperor being at the time in possession of
the entire surrounding country up to the very gates of Rome, and quite
capable of making a raid upon the Lateran to stop any proceedings
which might be disagreeable to their master; for the imperial
authorities on their part had never ceased to assert their right to be
consulted in the election of a Pope. Lothario made the orthodox
resistance without which perhaps no early Pope ever ascended the papal
throne, protesting his own incapacity for so great an office; but the
Cardinals insisted, not granting him even a day's delay to think over
it. The first of the Cardinal-deacons, Gratiano, an old man, invested
him with the pluvial and greeted him as Innocent, apparently leaving
him no choice even as to his name. Thus the grave young man, so
learned and so austere, in the fulness of his manhood ascended St.
Peter's chair. There is no need to suppose that there was any
hypocrisy in his momentary resistance; the papal crown was very far
from being one of roses, and a young man, even if he had looked
forward to that position and knew himself qualified for it, might well
have a moment's hesitation when it was about to be placed on his head.
[Illustration: THE CAPITOL.
_To face page 316._]
When the announcement of the election was made to the crowd outside,
it was received with cries of joy: and the entire throng--consisting
no doubt in a large degree of the clergy, mingled with the
ever-abundant masses of the common people,--accompanied the Cardinals
and the Pope-elect to the Lateran, though that church, one would
suppose, must still have been occupied by the old Pope on his bier,
and hung with the emblems of mourning: for it was on the very day of
Celestine's death that the election took place. Muratori suggests a
mistake of dates. "Either Pope Celestine must have died a day sooner,
or Innocent have been elected a day later," he says. After the
account, more full than usual, of the ceremonies of the election, the
brilliant procession, and the rejoicing crowd, sweep away into the
silence, and no more is heard of them for six weeks, during which time
Lothario waited for the Rogation days, the proper time for
ordinations; for though he had already risen so high in the Church, he
was not yet a priest, but only in deacon's orders, which seems to have
been the case in so many instances. The two ordinations took place on
two successive days, the 22nd and 23rd of February, 1198.
When he had received the final consecration, and had been invested
with all the symbols of his high office--the highest in the world to
his own profound consciousness, and to the belief of all who
surrounded him--Pope Innocent III. rose from the papal chair, of which
he had just taken possession, and addressed the immense assembly.
Whether it had become the custom to do so we are not informed.
Innocent, so far as can be made out from his writings, was no
heaven-born preacher, yet he would seem to have been very ready to
exercise his gift, such as it was; it appears to have been his habit
to explain himself in all the most important steps in life, and there
could be no greater occasion than this. He stood on the steps of his
throne in all the glory of his shining robes, over the dark and eager
crowd, and there addressed to them a discourse in which the highest
pretensions, yet the most humble faith, are conjoined, and which shows
very clearly with what intentions and ideas he took upon himself the
charge of Christendom, and supreme authority not only in the Church
but in the world. He had been deeply agitated during the ceremonies of
his consecration, shedding many tears; but now he had recovered his
composure and calm.
There are four sermons existing among his works which bear the title
_In consecratione Romani Pontificis_. Whether they were all written
for this occasion, in repeated essays before he satisfied himself with
what he had to say, is unknown. Perhaps some of them were used on the
occasion of the consecration of other great dignitaries of the Church;
but this is merely conjecture. We have at all events under his own
hand the thoughts which arose in the mind of such a man at the moment
of such an elevation: the conception of his new and great dignity
which he had formed and held with the faith of absolute conviction:
and the purposes with which he began his work. His text, if text was
necessary for so personal a discourse, was the words of our Lord: "Who
then is that faithful and wise steward whom his lord shall make ruler
over his household, to give them their portion of meat in due season?"
We quote of course from our own authorised version: the words of the
Vulgate, used by Innocent, do not put this sentence in the form of a
question. His examination of the meaning of the word "house" is the
first portion of the argument.
"He has constituted in the fulness of his power the
pre-eminence of the Holy See that no one may be so bold as
to resist the order which He has established, as He has
Himself said: 'Thou art Peter, and upon this stone I will
build my Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail
against it.' For as it is He who has laid the foundations
of the Church, and is himself that foundation, the gates of
hell could in nothing prevail against it. And this
foundation is immovable: as says the Apostle, no man can
lay another foundation than that which is laid, which is
Jesus Christ.... This is the building set upon a rock of
which eternal truth has said: 'The rain fell and the wind
blew and beat upon that house; but it stood fast, for it
was built upon a rock,' that is to say, upon the rock of
which the Apostle said: 'And this Rock was Christ.' It is
evident that the Holy See, far from being weakened by
adversity, is fortified by the divine promise, saying with
the prophet: 'Thou hast led me by the way of affliction.'
It throws itself with confidence on that promise which the
Lord has made to the Apostles: 'Behold I am with you
always, even unto the end of the world.' Yes, God is with
us, who then can be against us? for this house is not of
man but of God, and still more of God made man: the heretic
and the dissident, the evil-minded wolf endeavours in vain
to waste the vineyard, to tear the robe, to smother the
lamp, to extinguish the light. But as was said by Gamaliel:
'If the work is of man it will come to naught; if it is of
God ye cannot overthrow it: lest haply ye should find that
you are fighting against God.' The Lord is my trust. I fear
nothing that men can do to me. I am the servant whom God
has placed over His house; may I be prudent and faithful so
as to give the meat in due season!"
He then goes on to describe the position of the faithful steward.
"I am placed over this house. God grant that I were as
eminent by my merit as by my position. But it is all the
more to the honour of the mighty Lord when He fulfils His
will by a feeble servant; for then all is to His glory, not
by human strength but by force divine. Who am I, and what
is my father's house, that I should be set over kings, that
I should occupy the seat of honour? for it is of me that
the prophet has said, 'I have set thee over people and
kingdoms, to tear and to destroy, to build and to plant.'
It is of me that the Apostle has said, 'I have given thee
the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatsoever thou bindest
on earth is bound in heaven.' And again it is to me (though
it is said by the Lord to all the Apostles in common), 'The
sins which you remit on earth shall be remitted; and those
you retain shall be retained.' But speaking to Peter alone
He said: 'That which thou bindest on earth shall be bound
in heaven.' Peter may bind others but he cannot be bound
himself.
"You see now who is the servant placed over the house; it
is no other than the Vicar of Jesus Christ, the Successor
of Peter. He is the intermediary between God and men,
beneath God, yet above men, much lower than God but more
than men; he judges all but is judged by none as the
Apostle says: 'It is God who is my judge.' But he who is
raised to the highest degree of consideration is brought
down again by the functions of a servant that the humble
may be raised up and greatness may be humiliated--for God
resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. O greatest
of wise counsels--the greater you are the more profoundly
must you humble yourself before them all! You are there as
a light on a candlestick that all in the house may see;
when that light becomes dark, how thick then is the
darkness? You are the salt of the earth: when that salt
becomes without savour, with what will you be seasoned? It
is good for nothing but to be thrown out and trodden under
foot of men. For this reason much is demanded from him to
whom much is given."
Thus Innocent began his career, solemnly conscious of the greatness of
his position. But the reader will perceive that nothing could be more
evangelical than his doctrine. Exalting as he does the high claims of
Peter, he never falls into the error of supposing him to be the Rock
on which the foundations of the Church are laid. On the other hand his
idea of the Pope as beneath God but above men, lower than God but
greater than men, is startling. The angel who stopped St. John in his
act of worship proclaiming himself one of the Apostles' brethren the
prophets, made no such pretension. But Innocent was strong in the
consciousness that he himself, the arbiter on earth of all reward and
punishment, was the judge of angels as well as men, and held a higher
position than any of them in the hierarchy of heaven.
The first act of Innocent's papacy was the very legitimate attempt to
establish his own authority and independence at home. The long
subsistence of the idea that only a Pope-king with enough of secure
temporal ascendency to keep him free at least from the influence of
other sovereigns, could be safe in the exercise of his spiritual
functions--is curious when we think of the always doubtful position of
the Popes, who up to this time and indeed for long after retained the
most unsteady footing in their own metropolis, the city which derived
all its importance from them. The Roman citizens took many centuries
to learn--if they were ever taught--that the seat of a great
institution like the Church, the court of a monarch who claimed
authority in every quarter of the world, was a much more important
thing than a mere Italian city, however distinguished by the memories
and relics of the past. We doubt much whether the great Innocent, the
most powerful of the Popes, had more real control over the home and
centre of his supposed dominions at the outset of his career than Pope
Leo XIII., dispossessed and self-imprisoned, has now, or might have if
he chose. No one can doubt that Innocent chose--and that with all the
strength and will of an unusually powerful character--to be master in
his own house: and he succeeded by times in the effort; but, like
other Popes, he was at no time more than temporarily successful. Twice
or oftener he was driven by the necessity of circumstances, if not by
actual violence, out of the city: and though he never altogether lost
his hold upon it, as several of his predecessors had done, it was at
the cost of much trouble and exertion, and at the point of the sword,
that he kept his place in Rome.
He was, however, in the first flush of his power, almost triumphant.
He succeeded in changing the fluctuating constitution of the Roman
commonwealth, which had been hitherto presided over by a Præfect,
responsible to the Emperor and bound to his service, along with a
vague body of senators, sometimes larger, sometimes smaller in number,
and swayed by every popular demonstration or riot--the very best
machinery possible for the series of small revolutions and changes of
policy in which Rome delighted. It was in every way the best thing for
the interests of the city that it should have learnt to accept the
distinction, all others having perished, of being the seat of the
Church. For Rome was by this time, as may be said, the general court
of appeal for Europe; every kind of cause was tried over again before
the Consistory or its delegates; and a crowd of appellants, persons of
all classes and countries, were always in Rome, many of them
completely without acquaintance in the place, and dependent only upon
such help and guidance as money could procure, money which has always
been the great object of desire to most communities, the means of
grandeur and greatness, if also of much degradation. It must not be
supposed, however, that the Pope took advantage of any such mean
motive to bind the city to himself. He guarded against the dangers of
such a situation indeed by a strenuous endeavour to clear his court,
his palace, his surroundings, of all that was superfluous in the way
of luxury, all that was merely ostentatious in point of attendants and
services, and all that was mercenary among the officials. When he
succeeded in transferring the allegiance of the Præfect from the
Emperor to himself, he made at the same time the most stringent laws
against the reception of any present or fee by that Præfect and his
subordinate officers, thus securing, so far as was possible, the
integrity of the city and its rulers as well as their obedience. And
whether in the surprise of the community to be so summarily dealt
with, or in its satisfaction with the amount of the present, which
Innocent, like all the other Popes, bestowed on the city on his
consecration, he succeeded in carrying out these changes without
opposition, and so secured before he went further a certain shelter
and security within the walls of Rome.
He then turned his eyes to the States of the Church, the famous
patrimony of St. Peter, which at that period of history St. Peter was
very far from possessing. Certain German adventurers, to whom the
Emperor had granted the fiefs which Innocent claimed as belonging to
the Holy See, were first summoned to do homage to the Pope as their
suzerain, then threatened with excommunication, then laid under
anathema: and finally--Markwald and the rest remaining unconvinced and
unsubdued--were driven out of their ill-gotten lands by force of arms,
which proved the most effectual way. The existence of these German
lords was the strongest argument in favour of the Papal sway, and was
efficacious everywhere. The towns little and great, scattered over the
March of Ancona, the duchy of Spoleto, and the wealthy district of
Umbria, received the Pope and his envoys as their deliverers. The
Tedeschi were as fiercely hated in Italy in the twelfth century as
they were in recent times; and with greater reason, for their cruelty
and exactions were indescribable. And the civic spirit which in the
absence of any larger patriotism kept the Italian race in energetic
life, and produced in every little centre of existence a longing for
at least municipal liberty and independence, hailed with acclamations
the advent of the head of the Church, a suzerain at least more
honourable and more splendid than the rude Teuton nobles who despised
the race over which they ruled.
That spirit had already risen very high in the more important cities
of Northern Italy. The Lombard league had been already in existence
for a number of years, and a similar league was now formed by the
Tuscan towns which Innocent also claimed, in right of the legacy made
to the Church more than a hundred years before by the great Countess
Matilda, the friend of Hildebrand, but which had never yet been
secured to the Holy See. The Tuscans had not been very obedient
vassals to Matilda herself in her day; and they were not likely
perhaps to have afforded much support to the Popes had the Church ever
entered into full enjoyment of Matilda's splendid legacy. But in the
common spirit of hatred against the Tedeschi, the cruel and fierce
German chiefs to whom the Emperor had freely disposed of the great
estates and castles and rich towns of that wonderful country, the
supremacy of the Church was accepted joyfully for the moment, and all
kinds of oaths taken and promises made of fidelity and support to the
new Pope. When Innocent appeared, as in the duchy of Spoleto, in
Perugia, and other great towns, he was received with joy as the
saviour of the people. We are not told whether he visited Assisi,
where at this period Francis of that city was drawing crowds of
followers to his side, and the idea of a great monastic order was
rising out of the little church, the Portiuncula, at the bottom of the
hill: but wherever he went he was received with joy. At Perugia, when
the papal procession streamed through the crowded gates, and reached
the old palazzo appropriated for its lodging, there suddenly sprang up
a well which had been greatly wanted in the place, a spring of fresh
water henceforward and for ever known as the Fontana di Papa. These
cities all joined the Tuscan league against the Germans with the
exception of Pisa, always arrogant and self-willed, which stood for
those same Germans perhaps because their rivals on every side were
against them. It was at this period, some say, and that excellent
authority Muratori among them, that the titles of Guelf and Ghibelline
first came into common use, the party of the Pope being Guelf, and
that of the empire Ghibelline--the one derived from the house of Este,
which was descended from the old Teutonic race of Guelf on the female
side, the other, Waiblingen, from that of Hohenstaufen, also descended
by the female side from a traditionary German hero. It is curious that
these distant ancestors should have been chosen as godfathers of a
struggle with which they had nothing to do, and which arose so long
after their time.
[Illustration: PORTA MAGGIORE.
_To face page 326._]
Innocent, however, was not so good a Guelf as his party, for the Pope
was the guardian and chief defender, during his troubled royal childhood,
of Frederic of Sicily, afterwards the Emperor Frederic II., but at the
beginning of Pope Innocent's reign a very helpless baby prince,
fatherless, and soon, also, motherless, and surrounded by rapacious
Germans, each man fighting for a scheme of his own, by which to
transfer the insecure crown to his own head, or at least to rob it of
both power and revenue. The Pope stood by his helpless ward with much
steadfastness through the very brief years of his minority--for
Frederic seems to have been a married man and ambitious autocrat at an
age when ordinary boys are but beginning their studies--and had a
large share eventually in his elevation to the imperial throne:
notwithstanding that he belonged to the great house which had steadily
opposed the claims of the Papacy for generations. It must be added,
however, that the great enterprises of Innocent's first years could
not have been taken up, or at least could not have been carried to so
easy and summary a conclusion--whole countries recovered, the
Emperor's nominees cast out, the cities leagued against their constant
invaders and oppressors--had there been a fierce Emperor across _i
monti_ ready to descend upon the always struggling, yet continually
conquered, Italy. Henry VI., the son of Barbarossa, had died in the
preceding year, 1198, in the flower of his age, leaving only the
infant Frederic, heir to the kingdom of Sicily in right of his mother,
behind him to succeed to his vast possessions. But the crown of
Germany was, at least nominally, elective not hereditary; and
notwithstanding that the Emperor had procured from his princes a
delusive oath of allegiance to his child, that was a thing which in
those days no one so much as thought of keeping. The inactivity of the
forces of the Empire was thus accounted for; the holders of imperial
fiefs in Italy were left to fight their own battles, and thus the Pope
with very moderate forces, and the cities of Tuscany and Umbria, each
for its own hand, were able to assert themselves, and drive out the
oppressors. And there was a period of hopefulness and comparative
peace.
Innocent, however, who had the affairs of the world on his hands, and
could not long confine himself to those of St. Peter's patrimony, was
soon plunged into the midst of those ever-recurring struggles in
Germany, too important in every way not to call for his closest
attention. The situation was very much, the same as that in which
Gregory VII. had found himself involved: with this great difference,
however, that both competitors for the German crown were new men, and
had neither any burden of crime against the Church nor previous
excommunications on their head. Philip of Suabia, the brother of Henry
VI., had been by him entrusted--with that curious confidence in the
possibility of self-devotion on the part of others, which dying men,
though never capable of it themselves, so often show--with the care
and guardianship of his child and its interests, and the impossible
task of establishing Frederic, as yet scarcely able to speak, upon a
throne so important and so difficult. Philip did, it is said, his best
to fulfil his trust and hurried from Sicily to the heart of Germany as
soon as his brother was dead, with that object; but the princes of his
party feared an infant monarch, and he was himself elected in the year
1199 to the vacant seat. There seems no criminality in this in the
circumstances, for the little Frederic was in any case impossible; but
Philip had inherited a hatred which he had not done anything
personally to deserve. "So exasperated were the Italians against the
Germans by the barbarous government of Frederic I. and Henry VI. his
son, that wherever Philip passed, whether through Tuscany or any other
district, he was ill-used and in danger of his life, and many of his
companions were killed," says Muratori. He had thus a strong feeling
against him in Italy independent of any demerit of his own.
It is a little difficult, however, to understand why Pope Innocent, so
careful of the interests of the little king in Sicily, should have so
strongly and persistently opposed his uncle. Philip had been granted
possession of the duchy of Tuscany, which the Pope claimed as his own,
and some offence on this account, as well as the shadow of an anathema
launched against him for the same reason by one of Innocent's
predecessors, may have prepossessed the Pope against him; but it is
scarcely possible to accept this as reason enough for his determined
opposition.
The rival emperor Otho, elected by the Guelf party, was the son of
Henry the Lion, the nephew of Richard Plantagenet of England the
Coeur de Lion of our national story, and of a family always devoted
to the Church. The two men were both young and full of promise,
equally noble and of great descent, related to each other in a distant
degree, trained in a similar manner, each of them quite fit for the
place which they were called to occupy. It seems to the spectator now
as if there was scarcely a pin to choose between them. Nor was it any
conflict of personal ambition which set them up against each other.
They were the choice of their respective parties, and the question was
as clearly one of faction against faction as in an Irish village
fight.
These were circumstances, above all others, in which the arbitration
of such an impartial judge as a Pope might have been of the greatest
advantage to the world. There never was perhaps such an ideal
opportunity for testing the advantage and the possibility of the power
claimed by the Papacy. Otho was a young gallant at Richard's court
expecting nothing of the kind, open to all kinds of other promotions,
Earl of Yorkshire, Count of Poitou--the first not successful because
he could not conciliate the Yorkshiremen, perhaps difficult in that
way then as now: but without, so far as appears, any thought of the
empire in his mind. And Philip had the right of possession, and was
the choice of the majority, and had done no harm in accepting his
election, even if he had no right to it. The case was quite different
from that of the similar struggle in which Gregory VII. took part. At
the earlier period the whole world, that was not crushed under his
iron foot, had risen against Henry IV. His falsehood, his cruelty, his
vices, had alienated every one, and nobody believed his word or put
the smallest faith even in his most solemn vows. The struggle between
such an Emperor and the head of the Church was naturally a struggle to
death. One might almost say they were the impersonations of good and
evil, notwithstanding that the good might be often alloyed, and the
evil perhaps by times showed gleams of better meaning. But the case of
Philip and Otho was completely different. Neither of them were bad men
nor gave any augury of evil. The one perhaps by training and
inclination was slightly a better Churchman than the other at the
beginning of his career; but, on the other hand, Philip had various
practical advantages over Otho which could not be gainsaid.
Had Pope Innocent been the wholly wise man and inspired judge he
claimed by right of his office to be, without prejudice or bias, nobly
impartial, holding the balance in a steady hand, was not this the very
case to test his powers? Had he helped the establishment of Philip in
the empire and deprecated the introduction of a rival, a great deal of
bloodshed might have been avoided, and a satisfactory result, without
any injustice, if not an ideal selection, might have been obtained.
All this was problematical, and depended upon his power of getting
himself obeyed, which, as it turned out, he did not possess. But in
this way, in all human probability, he might have promoted peace and
secured a peaceful decision; for Philip's election was a _fait
accompli_, while Otho was not as yet more than a candidate. The men
were so equal otherwise, and there was so little exclusive right on
one side or the other, that such facts as these would naturally have
been taken into the most serious consideration by the great,
impartial, and unbiassed mind which alone could have justified the
interference of the Pope, or qualified him to assume the part of
arbitrator in such a quarrel. He did not attempt this, however, but
took his place with his own faction as if he had been no heaven-sent
arbiter at all, but a man like any other. He has himself set forth the
motives and reasons for his interference, with the fulness of
explanation which he loved. The bull in which he begins by setting
aside the claims of his own infant ward, Frederic, to whom his father
Henry had caused the German princes to swear fealty, as
inadmissible--the said princes being freed of their oath by the death
of the Emperor, a curious conclusion--is in great part an indictment
of Philip, couched in the strongest and most energetic terms. In this
document it is stated in the first place that Philip had been
excommunicated by the previous Pope, as having occupied by violence
the patrimony of St. Peter, an excommunication taken off by the
legate, but not effectually; again he was involved in the
excommunication of Markwald and the other invaders of Sicily whom he
had upheld; in the next place he had been false to the little
Frederic, whose right he had vowed to defend, and was thus perjured,
though the princes who had sworn allegiance to the child were not so.
Then follows a tremendous description of Philip's family and
predecessors, of their dreadful acts against the Popes and Church, of
the feuds of Barbarossa with the Holy See, of the insults and injuries
of which all had been equally guilty. A persecutor himself and the son
of persecutors, how could the Pope support the cause of Philip? The
argument is full of force and strengthened by many illustrations, but
it proves above all things that Innocent was no impartial judge, but a
man holding almost with passion to his own side.
The pleas in favour of Otho are much weaker. It is true, the Pope
admits, that he had been elected by a minority, but then the number of
notable and important electors were as great on his side as on
Philip's: his house had a purer record than that of Philip: and
finally he was weaker than Philip and more in need of support;
therefore the Holy See threw all its influence upon his side. Nothing
could be feebler than this conclusion after the force of the hostile
judgments. We fear it must be allowed that Innocent being merely a man
(which is the one unsurmountable argument against papal infallibility)
went the way his prepossessions and inclinations--and also, we have no
doubt, his conviction of what was best--led him, and was no more
certain to be right in doing so than any other man.
Having come to this conclusion, Innocent took his stand with all the
power and influence he possessed upon Otho's side--a support which
probably kept that prince afloat and made the long struggle possible,
but was quite inadequate to set him effectually on the throne, or
injure his rival in any serious way. In this partisan warfare,
excommunication was the readiest of weapons; but excommunications, as
we have already said, were very ineffectual in the greater number of
cases; for Germany especially was full of great prelates as great as
the princes, in most cases of as high race and as much territorial
power, and they by no means always agreed with the Pope, and made no
pretence of obeying him; and how was the people to find out that they
lay under anathema when they saw the offices of the Church carried on
with all the splendour of the highest ritual, its services unbroken,
however the Pope might thunder behind? Some of these prelates--such as
Leopold of Mainz, appointed by the Emperor, to whom Innocent refused
his sanction, electing on his own part another archbishop, Siegfried,
in his stead, who was not for many years permitted even to enter the
diocese of which he was the titular head--maintained with Rome a
struggle as obstinate as any secular prince. They were as powerful as
the princes among whom they sat and reigned, and elected emperors.
Most of the German bishops, we are told, were on Philip's side
notwithstanding the decision of the Pope against him. In such
circumstances the anathema was little more than a farce. The
Archbishop of Mainz was excommunicated as much as the emperor, but
being all the same in full possession of his see and its privileges,
naturally acted as though nothing had happened, and found plenty of
clergy to support him, who carried on the services of the Church as
usual and administered the sacraments to Philip as much as if he had
been in the full sunshine of Papal favour.
Such a chance had surely never been foreseen when the expedient of
excommunication was first thought of, for it is apt to turn every
claim of authority into foolishness--threats which cannot be carried
out being by their nature the most derogatory things possible to the
person from whom they proceed. The great prelates of Germany were in
their way as important as the Pope, their position was more steadily
powerful than his, they had vassals and armies to defend them, and a
strong and settled seat, from which it was as difficult, or indeed
even dangerous, to displace them as to overthrow a throne. And what
could the Pontiff do when they disobeyed and defied him? Nothing but
excommunicate, excommunicate, for which they cared not a straw--or
depose, which was equally unimportant, when, as happened in the case
of Mainz, the burghers of the cathedral city vowed that the
substituted bishop should never enter their gates.
Thus the ten years' struggle produced nothing but humiliation for
Innocent. The Pope did not relax in his determined opposition, nor
cease to threaten penalties which he could not inflict until nearly
the end of the struggle; and then when the logic of events began, it
would appear, to have a little effect upon his mind, and he extended
with reluctance a sort of feeble olive-branch towards the
all-victorious Philip--a larger fate came in, and changed everything
with the sweeping fulness of irresistible power. It is not said
anywhere, so far as we know, that the overtures of Innocent brought
the Emperor ill-luck; but it would certainly have been so said had
such an accident occurred under Pio Nono, for example, who, it is
well known, had the evil eye. For no sooner had Innocent taken this
step than Philip's life came to a disastrous end. The Count Palatine
of Wittelsbach, a great potentate of Germany, who had some personal
grievance to avenge, demanded a private audience and murdered him in
his temporary dwelling, in the moment of his highest prosperity. Thus
in the twinkling of an eye everything was changed. The House of
Hohenstaufen went down in a moment without an attempt made to prop it
up. And Otho, who was at hand, already a crowned king, and demanding
no further trouble, at once took the vacant place. This occurred in
the year 1208--ten years after the beginning of the struggle. But in
this extraordinary and sudden transformation of affairs Innocent
counted for nothing; he had not done it nor even contributed to the
doing of it: though he had kept the air thunderous with anathemas, and
the roads dusty with the coming and going of his legates for all these
unhappy years.
Otho, however, did not at first forget the devotion which the Pope had
shown him in his evil days, when triumph so unexpected and accidental
(as it seemed) came to him. After taking full possession of the
position which now there was no one to contest with him, he made a
triumphal progress across the Alps, and was crowned Emperor at Rome,
the last and crowning dignity which Philip had never been able to
attain: where he behaved himself with much show of affection and
humility to Innocent, whose stirrup he held like the most devoted son
of the Church as he professed to be. There was much swearing of oaths
at the same time. Otho vowed to preserve all the rights of the Church,
and, with reservations, to restore the Tuscan fiefs of Matilda, and
all the presents with which from time to time the former Emperors had
endowed the Holy See, to the Pope's undisturbed possession. Rome was a
scene of the utmost display and splendour during this imperial visit.
Otho had come at the head of his army, and lay encamped at the foot of
Monte Mario, where now the little group of pines stand up against the
sky in the west, dark against the setting sun. It was October when all
the summer glow and heat is mellowed by autumnal airs, and the white
tents shone outside the city gates with every kind of splendid
cognisance of princes and noble houses, and magnificence of mediæval
luxury. The ancient St. Peter's, near the camp, was then planted, we
are told, in the midst of a great number of convents, churches, and
chapels, "Like a majestic mother surrounded by beautiful
daughters"--though there was no Vatican as yet to add to its
greatness: but the line of the walls on the opposite side of the river
and the ancient splendour of Rome, more square and massive in its
lingering classicism than the mediæval towns to which the German
forces were more accustomed, shone in the mid-day sun: while towards
the left the great round of St. Angelo dominated the bridge and the
river, and all the crowds which poured forth towards the great church
and shrine of the Apostles. There was, however, one shadow in this
brilliant picture, and that was the fact that Rome within her gates
lay not much unlike a couching lion, half terrified, half excited by
the army outside, and not sure that the abhorred Tedeschi might not at
any moment steal a march upon her, and show underneath those splendid
velvet gloves, all heavy with embroideries of gold, the claws of that
northern wolf which Italy had so often felt at her very heart. It is a
curious sign of this state of agitated feeling that Otho published in
Rome before his coronation a solemn engagement in his own name and
that of his army that no harm should be done to the city, to the Pope
and Cardinals, or to the people and their property, while he remained
there. He had strong guards of honour at all the adjacent gates as a
precautionary measure while the great ceremonies of his consecration
went on.
It was not the present St. Peter's, it need not be said, which, hung
with splendid tapestries and lit with innumerable candles, glistening
with precious marbles and gilding, and decorated with all the
splendour of the church in silver and gold, received this great German
potentate for that final act which was to make his authority sacred,
and establish him beyond all question Emperor of the Holy Roman
Empire, a dignity which only the Pope could complete, which was
nothing, bringing no additional dominion with it, yet of the utmost
importance in the estimation of the world. It cannot but have been
that a sense of elation, perhaps chequered with doubt, but certainly
sanctioned by many noble feelings--convictions that God had favoured
his side in the long run, and that a better age was about to
begin--must have been in Innocent's mind as he went through the
various ceremonies of the imposing ritual, and received the vows of
the monarch and placed the imperial crown on his head. We are not
told, however, whether there was any alarm in the air as the two
gorgeous processions conjoined, sweeping forth from the gates of St.
Peter's, and across the bridge and by all the crowded ways, to the
other side of the city, to the Lateran palace, where the great banquet
was held. Otho with his crown on his head held the stirrup of the Pope
at the great steps of St. Peter's as Innocent mounted; and the two
greatest potentates of earth, the head of the secular and the head of
the spiritual, dividing, with the most confusing elasticity of
boundary between them, the sway of the world, rode alone together,
followed by all that was most magnificent in Germany and Italy, the
great princes, the great prelates vying with each other in pomp and
splendour. The air was full of the ringing of bells and the chanting
of the priests; and as they went along through the dark masses of the
people on every side, the officers of Otho scattered largesse through
all the crowded streets, and everything was festivity and general
joy.
But when the great people disappeared into the papal palace, and the
banquet was spread, the German men-at-arms began to swagger about the
streets as if they were masters of all they surveyed. There is no
difference of opinion as to the brutality and insolence of the German
soldiers in those days, and the Romans were excited and in no humour
to accept any insult at such a moment. How they came to blows at last
was never discovered, but after the great spectacle was over, most
probably when night was coming on, and the excitement of the day had
risen to irritability and ready passion, a fray arose in the streets
no one knowing how. The strangers had the worst of it, Muratori says.
"Many of the Teutons were killed," says one of the older chronicles,
"and eleven hundred horses;" which would seem to imply that the dregs
of the procession had been vapouring about Rome on their charges,
riding the inhabitants down. Nor was it only men-at-arms: for a number
of Otho's more distinguished followers were killed in the streets. How
long it was before it came to the ears of the Emperor we are not
informed, nor whether the banquet was interrupted. Probably Otho had
returned to his tent (Muratori says he did so at once, leaving out all
mention of any banquet) before the "calda baruffa" broke out: but at
all events it was a startling change of scene. The Emperor struck his
tents next morning, and departed from the neighbourhood of Rome in
great rage and indignation:--and this, so far as Pope Innocent was
concerned, was the last good that was ever heard of Otho. He broke all
his vows one by one, took back the Tuscan States, seized the duchy of
Spoleto and every city he passed on his way, and defied the Pope, to
whom he had been so servile, having now got all from him that Innocent
could give.
The plea by which Otho defended himself for his seizure of the States
of Tuscany was worthy of that scholastic age. He had vowed, he said,
it was true, to preserve St. Peter's patrimony and all the
ecclesiastical possessions: but he had vowed at the same time to
preserve and to recover all imperial rights and possessions, and it
was in discharge of this obligation that he robbed the Pope. Thus
ended Innocent's long and faithful support of Otho; he had pledged the
faith of heaven for his success, which was assured only by accident
and crime; but no sooner had that success been secured, than the
Emperor deserted and betrayed the Pope who had so firmly stood by him.
It is said that Innocent redoubled from that moment his care of the
young Frederic, the King of Sicily, the head of the Hohenstaufen house
and party, and prepared him to revenge Otho's broken oaths by a
downfall as complete as his elevation had been; but this is an
assumption which has no more proof than any other uncharitable
judgment of motives unrevealed. At all events it is very apparent that
in this long conflict, which occupied so much of his life, the Pope
played no powerful or triumphant part.
In France the action of Innocent was more successful. The story of
Philip Augustus and his wives, which is full of romantic incidents, is
better known to the general reader than the tragedy of the Emperors.
Philip Augustus had married a wife, a Danish princess, who did not
please him. Her story, in its first chapter at least, is like that of
Anne of Cleves, the fortunate princess who had the good luck not to
please Henry VIII. (or perhaps still more completely resembles a
comparatively recent catastrophe in our own royal house, the relations
of George IV. and his unlucky wife). But the French king did not treat
Ingelburga with the same politeness which Henry Tudor exhibited,
neither had she the discretion to hold her tongue like the lady of
Flanders. The complaints of the injured queen filled the world, and
she made a direct appeal to the Pope, who was not slow to reply. When
Philip procured a divorce from his wife from the complacent bishops of
his own kingdom on one of those absurd allegations of too close
relationship (it might be that of third or fourth cousin), which were
of so much use to discontented husbands of sufficient rank, and
married the beautiful Agnes of Meran, with whom he was in love,
Innocent at once interfered. He began by commands, by entreaties, by
attempts at settling the question by legal measures, commissioning his
legates to hold a solemn inquiry into the matter, examining into
Ingelburga's complaints, and using every endeavour to bring the king
back to a sense of his duty. There could be no doubt on which side
justice lay, and the legates were not, as in the case of Henry and
Catherine, on the side of the monarch. It was the rejected queen who
had the Pope's protection and not her powerful husband.
Philip Augustus, however, was summoned in vain to obey. The litigation
and the appeals went on for a long time, and several years elapsed
before Innocent, after much preparation and many warnings, determined
not merely as on former occasions to excommunicate the offender, but
to pronounce an interdict upon the kingdom. Perhaps Innocent had
learned the lesson which had been taught him on such a great scale,
that excommunication was not a fortunate weapon, and that only the
perfect subordination of the higher clergy could make it successful at
all. The interdict was a much greater and more dreadful thing; it was
dependent not upon the obedience of a great prelate, but upon every
priest who had taken the sacred vows. Had he excommunicated the king
as on former occasions, no doubt there would always have been some
lawless bishop in France who would have enabled his sovereign to laugh
at the Pope and his sentence. But an interdict could not thus be
evaded, the mass of the clergy being obedient to the Pope whatever
important individual exceptions there might be. The interdict was
proclaimed accordingly with all the accessories of ritualistic
solemnity. After a Council which had lasted seven days, and which was
attended by a great number of the clergy, the bells of the
cathedral--it was that of Dijon--began to toll as for a dying man: and
all the great bishops with their trains, and the legate at their head,
went solemnly from their council chamber to the church. It was
midnight, and the long procession went through the streets and into
the great cathedral by the wavering and gloomy light of torches. For
the last time divine service was celebrated, and the canons sang the
_Kyrie Eleison_ amid the silence, faintly broken by sobs and sounds of
weeping, of the immense crowds who had followed them. The images of
Christ and the saints were covered with crape, the relics of the
saints, worshipped in those days with such strange devotion, were
solemnly taken away out of the shrines and consecrated places to
vaults and crypts underground where they were deposited until better
times; the remains of the consecrated bread which had sustained the
miracle of transubstantiation were burned upon the altar. All these
details of the awful act of cutting off France from the community of
the faithful were performed before a trembling and dismayed crowd,
which looked on with a sense of the seriousness of the proceedings
which was overwhelming.
"Then the legate, dressed in a violet stole, as on the day
of the passion of our Lord, advanced to the altar steps,
and in the name of Jesus Christ pronounced the interdict
upon all the realm of France. Sobs and groans echoed
through the great aisles of the cathedral; it was as if the
day of judgment had come."
Once more after this tremendous scene there was a breathing space, a
place of repentance left for the royal sinner, and then through all
the churches of France the midnight ceremonial was repeated. The voice
of prayer was silenced in the land, no more was psalm sung or mass
said; a few convents were permitted by special grace, in the night,
with closed doors and whispering voices, to celebrate the holy
mysteries. For all besides the public worship of God and all the
consolations of religion were cut off. We have seen how lightly
personal excommunication was treated in Germany; but before so
terrible a chastisement as this no king could hold out. Neither was
the cause one of disobedience to the Holy See, or usurpation of the
Church's lands, or any other offence against ecclesiastical supremacy:
it was one into which every peasant, every clown could enter, and
which revolted the moral sense of the nation. Matrimonial infidelities
of all kinds have always been winked at in a monarch, but the strong
step of putting away a guiltless queen and setting another in her
place is a different matter. The nation was on the side of the Church:
the clergy, except in very rare cases, were unanimous: and for once
Innocent in his severity and supremacy was successful. After seven
months of this terrible _régime_ the king yielded. It had been a time
of threatening rebellion, of feuds and dissensions of all kinds, of
diminished revenues and failing prosperity. Philip Augustus could not
stand against these consequences. He sent away the fictitious wife
whom he loved--and who died, as the world, and even history at its
sternest, loves to believe, of a broken heart, the one victim whom no
one could save, a short time after--and the interdict was removed. One
is almost glad to hear that even then the king would have none of
Ingelburga, the woman who had filled the world with her cries and
complaints, and brought this tremendous anathema on France. She
continued to cry and appeal to the Pope that her captivity was
unchanged or even made harder than ever, but Innocent was too wise to
risk his great expedient a second time. He piously advised her to have
recourse to prayer and to have confidence in God, and promised not to
abandon her. But the poor lady gained little by all the misery that
had been inflicted to right her wrongs. Many years after, when no one
thought any more of Ingelburga, the king suddenly took her out of her
prison and restored her to her share, such as it was, of the throne,
for what reason no man can tell.
This, however, was the only great success of Innocent in the exercise
of his papal power. It was an honourable and a just employment of that
power, very different from the claim to decide between contending
Emperors, or to nominate to the imperial crown; but it was in reality,
as we think, the only triumphant achievement of the Pope, in whom all
the power and all the pretensions of the papacy are said to have
culminated. He had his hand in every broil, and interfered with
everything that was going on in every quarter. Space fails us to tell
of his endless negotiations, censures, recommendations and commands,
sent by legates continually in motion or by letters of endless
frequency and force, to regions in which Christianity itself was as
yet scarcely established. Every little kingdom from the utmost limits
of the north to the east were under this constant supervision and
interference: and no doubt there were instances, especially among the
more recent converts of the Church, and in respect to ecclesiastical
matters, in which it was highly important; but so far as concerned the
general tenor of the world's history, it can never be said to have had
any important result.
In England, Innocent had the evil fortune to have to do with the worst
of the Plantagenet kings, the false and cowardly John, who got himself
a little miserable reputation for a time by the temporary
determination of his resolve that "no Italian priest, should tithe or
toll in our dominions," and who struggled fiercely against Innocent on
the question of the Archbishopric of Canterbury and other great
ecclesiastical offices, as well as in matters more personal, such as
the dower of Berengaria, the widow of Coeur de Lion, which the Pope
had called upon him to pay. John drove the greater part of the clergy
out of England in his fury at the interdict which Innocent pronounced,
and took possession, glad of an occasion of acquiring so much wealth,
of the estates and properties of the Church throughout the realm. But
the interdict which had been so efficacious in France failed
altogether of its effect in England. It was too early for any
Protestant sentiment, and it is extraordinary that a people by no
means without piety should have shown so singular an indifference to
the judgment of the Church. Perhaps the fact that so many of the
superior clergy were of the conquering Norman race, and, therefore,
still sullenly resisted by the passive obstinacy of the humiliated
Saxons, had something to do with it: while at the same time the
banishment of many prelates would probably leave a large portion of
the humbler priests in comparative ignorance of the Pope's decree.
But whatever were the operative causes this is plain, that whereas in
France the effect of the interdict was tremendous in England it
produced scarcely any result at all. The banished bishops and
archbishops, and at their head Stephen Langton, the patriotic
Englishman of whom the Pope had made wise choice for the Archbishopric
of Canterbury, stood on the opposite shore in consternation, and
watched the contempt of their flocks for this greatest exercise of the
power of Rome; and with still greater amazement perceived the success
that followed the king in his enterprises, and the obedience of the
people, with whom he had never been so popular before.
We are not told what Innocent felt at the sight of this unexpected
failure. He proceeded to strike King John with special excommunication,
going from the greater to the smaller curse, in a reversal of the
usual method; but this being still ineffectual, Innocent turned to
practical measures. He proceeded to free King John's subjects from
their oath of allegiance and to depose the rebellious monarch; and not
only so, for these ordinances would probably have been as little
regarded as the other--but he gave permission and authority to the
King of France, the ever-watchful enemy of the Plantagenets, to invade
England and to place his son Louis upon the vacant throne. Great
preparations were made in France for this congenial Crusade--for it
was in their quality as Crusaders that the Pope authorised the
invasion. Then and not till then John paused in his career. He had
laughed at spiritual dangers, but he no longer laughed when the French
king gathered his forces at Boulogne, and the banished and robbed
bishops prepared to return, not penitent and humiliated, but
surrounded by French spears.
Then at last the terrified king submitted to the authority of the
Pope; he received the legates of Innocent in a changed spirit, with
the servility of a coward. He vowed with his hand on the Gospels to
redress all ecclesiastical wrongs, to restore the bishops, and to
submit in every way to the judgment of the Church. Then in his craven
terror, without, it is said, any demand of the kind on the part of the
ecclesiastical ambassadors, John took a step unparalleled in the
annals of the nations.
"In order to obtain the mercy of God for the sins we have
done against His holy Church, and having nothing more
precious to offer than our person and our kingdom, and in
order to humiliate ourself before Him who humbled Himself
for us even to death: by an inspiration of the Holy Spirit,
neither formed by violence nor by fear, but in virtue of
our own good and free will we give, with the consent of our
barons, to God, to His holy apostles, Peter and Paul, to
our mother the Holy Roman Church, to our Lord the Pope
Innocent and to his Catholic successors, in expiation of
our sins and those of our family, living and dead, our
kingdoms of England and Ireland with all their
accompaniments and rights, in order that we may receive
them again in the quality of vassal of God and of Holy
Church: in faith of which we take the oath of vassal, in
the presence of Pandulphus, putting ourselves at the
disposition of the Pope and his successors, as if we were
actually in the presence of the Pope; and our heirs and
successors shall be obliged to take the same oath."
[Illustration: IN THE CAMPAGNA (1860)
_To face page 346._]
So John swore, but not because of the thunders and curses of
Innocent--because of Philip Augustus of France hurrying on his
preparations on the other side of the Channel, while angry barons and
a people worn out with constant exactions gave him promise of but poor
support at home. The Pope became now the only hope of the
humiliated monarch. He had flouted the sentences and disdained the
curses of the Holy See; but if there was any power in the world which
could restore the fealty of his vassals, and stop the invader on his
way, it was Innocent: or so at least in this last emergency it might
be possible to hope.
Innocent on his part did not despise the unworthy bargain.
Notwithstanding his powerful intellect and just mind, and the
perception he must have had of the miserable motives underneath, he
did not hesitate. He received the oath, though he must have well known
that it would be so much waste paper if John had ever power to cast it
off. Of all men Innocent must have been most clearly aware what was
the worth of the oaths of kings. He accepted it, however, apparently
with a faith in the possibility of establishing the suzerainty thus
bestowed upon him, which is as curious as any other of the facts of
the case, whether flattered by this apparent triumph after his long
unsuccess, or believing against all evidence--as men, even Popes, can
always believe what they wish--that so shameful a surrender was
genuine, and that here at last was a just acknowledgment of the rights
of the Holy See. Henceforward the Pope put himself on John's side. He
risked the alienation of the French king by forbidding the enterprise
which had been undertaken at his command: he rejected the appeal of
the barons, disapproved Magna Charta, transferred the excommunication
to its authors with an ease which surely must have helped these
unlikely penitents to despise both the anathema and its source. It is
impossible either to explain or excuse this strange conduct. The
easiest solution is that he did not fully understand either the facts
or the characters of those with whom he had to deal: but how then
could he be considered fit to judge and arbitrate between them?
The death of John liberated the Pope from what might have been a
deliberate breach of his recommendations on the part of France. And
altogether in this part of his conduct the imaginary success of
Innocent was worse than a defeat. It was a failure from the high
dignity he claimed, more conspicuous even than that failure in Germany
which had already proved the inefficacy of spiritual weapons to affect
the business of the world: for not only had all his efforts failed of
success, until the rude logic of a threatened invasion came in to
convince the mind of John--but the Pope himself was led into unworthy
acts by a bargain which was in every way ignoble and unworthy. If the
Church was to be the high and generous umpire, the impartial judge of
all imperial affairs which she claimed to be--and who can say that had
mortal powers been able to carry it out, this was not a noble and
splendid ideal?--it was not surely by becoming the last resort against
just punishment of a traitor and caitiff, whose oath made one day was
as easily revoked the next, as the putting on or pulling off of a
glove. It is almost inconceivable that a man like Innocent should have
received with joy and with a semblance of faith such a submission on
the part of such a man as John. But it is evident that he did so, and
that probably the Roman court and community took it as a great event
and overwhelming proof of the progress of the authority of the Church.
But perhaps an Italian and a Churchman in these days was the last
person in the world to form a just idea of what we call patriotism, or
to understand the principle of independence which made a nation, even
when divided within itself, unite in fierce opposition to interference
from without. Italy was not a country, but a number of constantly
warring states and cities, and to Innocent the Church was the one sole
institution in the world qualified and entitled to legislate for
others. He accepted the gift of England almost with elation,
notwithstanding all he had learned of that distant and strange country
which cared not for an interdict, and if it could in any circumstances
have loved its unworthy king, would have done so on account of his
resistance to the Pope. And it would appear that the Pontiff believed
in something serious coming of that suzerainty, all traditions and
evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. Thus Innocent's part in the
bloody and terrible drama that was then being played in England was
neither noble nor dignified, but a poor part unworthy of his character
and genius. His interference counted for nothing until France
interfered with practical armies which had to be reckoned with--when
the hand which had launched so many ineffectual thunderbolts was
gripped at by an expedient of cowardly despair which in reality meant
and produced nothing. Both sides were in their turn excommunicated,
given over to every religious penalty; but unconcerned fought the
matter out their own way and so settled it, unanimous only in
resisting the jurisdiction of Rome. The vehement letters of the Pope
as the struggle grew more and more bitter sound through the clang of
arms like the impotent scoldings of a woman:
"Let women ... war with words,
With curses priests, but men with swords."
Let Pope or prelate do what they might, the cold steel carried the
day.
Not less complete in failure, though with a flattering promise in it
of prosperity and advantage, was the great crusade of Innocent's
day--that which is called the Venetian Crusade, the immense expedition
which seemed likely to produce such splendid results but ended so
disastrously, and never set foot at all in the Holy Land which was its
object. The Crusades were, of all other things, the dearest object to
the hearts of the Popes, small and great. The first conception of them
had risen, as the reader will remember, in the mind of Gregory VII.,
who would fain have set out himself at the head of the first, to
recover out of the hands of the infidel the sacred soil which
enshrined so many memories. The idea had been pursued by every worthy
Pope between Hildebrand and Innocent, with fluctuations of success and
failure--at first in noble and pious triumph, but latterly with all
the dissensions, jealousies, and internal struggles, which armies,
made up of many differing and antagonistic nationalities, could with
difficulty avoid. Before Innocent's accession to the papacy there had
been a great and terrible reverse, which was supposed to have broken
the heart of the old Pope under whom it occurred, and which filled
Christendom with horror, woe, and shame. The sacred territory for
which so much blood had been shed fell again entirely into the hands
of the Saracens. In consequence of this, one of the first acts of
Innocent was to send out letters over all the world, calling for a new
Crusade, exhorting princes and priests alike to use every means for
the raising of a sufficient expedition, and promising every kind of
spiritual advantage, indulgence, and remission to those who took the
cross.
The first result of these impassioned appeals was to fire the spirits
of certain priests in France to preach the Crusade, with all the fiery
enthusiasm which had first roused Christendom: and a very large
expedition was got together, chiefly from France, whose preliminary
negotiations with the doge and government of Venice to convey them to
Palestine furnishes one of the most picturesque scenes in the history
of that great and astute republic. It was in the beginning of the
thirteenth century, the opening of the year 1201, when the bargain,
which was a very hard one, was made: and in the following July the
expedition was to set sail. But when the pilgrims assembled at Venice
it was found that with all their exertions they had not more than half
the sum agreed upon as passage money. Perhaps the Venetians had
anticipated this and taken their measures accordingly. At all events,
after much wrangling and many delays, they agreed to convey the
Crusaders on condition only of obtaining their assistance to take the
town of Zara on the Dalmatian coast, which had once been under
Venetian rule, but which now belonged to the King of Hungary, and was
a nest of pirates hampering the trade of Venice and holding her
merchants and seamen in perpetual agitation. Whether Innocent had
surmised that some such design was possible we are not told, but if
not his instructions to the Crusaders were strangely prophetic. He
besought them on no account whatever to go to war with any Christian
people. If their passage were opposed by any, they were permitted to
force their way through that like any other obstacle, but even in such
a case were only to act with the sanction of the legate who
accompanied them. The Pope added a word of sorrowful comment upon the
"very different aims" which so often mingled in the minds of the
Crusaders with that great and only one, the deliverance of the Holy
Land, which was the true object of their expedition; and complained
sadly that if the heads of the Christian Church had possessed as much
power as they had goodwill, the power of Mahomet would have been long
since broken, and much Christian blood remained unshed.
He could not have spoken with more truth had he been prophetically
aware of the issues to which that expedition was to come. The
Crusaders set out, in 1202, covering the sea with their sails,
dazzling every fishing boat and curious merchantman with reflections
from their shining bucklers and shields, and met with such a course of
adventure as never had befallen any pilgrims of the Cross before. The
story is told in the most picturesque and dramatic pages of Gibbon;
and many a historian more has repeated the tale. They took Zara, and
embroiled themselves, as the Pope had feared, with the Hungarians,
themselves a chivalrous nation full of enthusiasm for the Cross, but
not likely to allow themselves to be invaded with impunity; then,
professedly in the cause of the young Alexis, the boy-king of the
Greek Empire, went to Constantinople--which they took after a
wonderful siege, and in which they found such booty as turned the
heads of the great penniless lords who had mortgaged every acre and
spent every coin for the hire of the Venetian ships, and of the rude
soldiers who followed them, who had never possessed a gold piece
probably in their lives, and there found wealth undreamt of to be had
for the taking. There is no need for us to enter into that
extraordinary chapter in the history of the Greek Empire, of which
these hordes of northern invaders, all Christian as they were, and
with so different an object to start with, possessed themselves--with
no less cruelty and as great rapacity as was shown by the barbarians
of an elder age in the sack and destruction of Rome.
Meantime the Pope did not cease to protest against this turning aside
of the expedition from its lawful object. The legate had forbidden the
assault of Zara, but in vain; the Pope forbade the attack upon
Constantinople also in vain, and vainly pressed upon the Crusaders, by
every argument, the necessity of proceeding to the Holy Land without
delay. Innocent, it is true, did not refuse his share of the splendid
stuffs and ornaments which fell into their hands, for ecclesiastical
uses: and he was silenced by the fictitious submission of the Greek
Church, and the supposed healing of the schism which had rent the East
and the West from each other. Nevertheless he looked on upon the
progress of affairs in Constantinople with unquiet eyes. But what
could the Pope do in his distant seat, armed with those spiritual
powers alone which even at home these fierce warriors held so lightly,
against the rage of acquisition, the excitement of conquest, even the
sweep and current of affairs, which carried the chiefs of the armies
in the East so much further and in so changed a direction from that
which even they themselves desired? He entreated, he commanded, he
threatened: but when all was said he was but the Pope, far off and
powerless, who could excommunicate indeed, but do no more. The only
thing possible for Innocent was to look on, sometimes with a gleam of
high hope as when the Greek Church came over to him, as appeared, to
be received again into full communion with the rest of Christendom:
sometimes with a half unwilling pleasure as when Baldwin's presents
arrived, cloth of gold and wonderful embroideries to decorate the
great arches of St. Peter's and the Lateran: and again with a more
substantial confidence when Constantinople itself had become a Latin
empire under the same Baldwin--that it might henceforward become a
basis of operations in the holy war against the Saracens and promote
the objects of the Crusade more effectually than could be done from a
distance. Amid all his disappointments and the impatient sense of
futility and helplessness which must have many a time invaded his
soul, it is comfortable to know that Innocent died in this last
belief, and never found out how equally futile it was.
There was, however, one other great undertaking of his time in which
it would seem that the Pontiff was more directly influential, even
though, for any reader who respects the character and ideal of
Innocent, it is sickening to the heart to realise what it was. It was
that other Crusade, so miserable and so bloody, against the
Albigenses, which was the only successful enterprise which with any
show of justice could be set down to the account of the Church. Nobody
seems even now to know very well what the heresies were, against
which, in the failure of other schemes, the arms of the defenders of
religion were directed. They were, as Dissent generally is, manifold,
while the Church regarded them as one. Among them were humble little
sects who desired only to lead a purer and truer life than the rude
religionists among whom they dwelt; while there were also others who
held in various strange formulas all kinds of wild doctrine: but
between the Poor Men of Lyons, the Scripture-Readers whose aim was to
serve God in humility, apart from all pomps of religion and splendour
of hierarchies--and the strange Manichean sects with their elaborate
and confused philosophical doctrine--the thirteenth century knew no
difference. It ranked them all under the same name of heretic, and
attributed to all of them the errors of the worst and smallest
section. Even so late as the eighteenth century, Muratori, a scholar
without prejudice, makes one sweeping assertion that they were
Manicheans, without a doubt or question. It is needless to say that
whatever they were, fire and sword was not the way to mend them of
their errors; for that also was an idea wholly beyond the
understanding of the time.
When Innocent came first to the Papacy his keen perception of the many
vices of the Church was increased by a conviction that error of
doctrine accompanied in certain portions of Christendom the general
corruption of life. In some of his letters he comments severely,
always with a reference to the special evils against which he
struggled, on the causes and widening propagation of heresy. "If the
shepherd is a hireling," he says, "and thinks not of the flock, but
solely of himself: if he cares only for the wool and the milk, without
defending them from the wolves that attack them, or making himself a
wall of defence against their enemies: and if he takes flight at the
first sound of danger: the ruin and loss must be laid to his charge.
The keeper of the sheep must not be like a dumb dog that cannot bark.
When the priesthood show that they do not know how to separate holy
things from common, they resemble those vile wine-sellers who mingle
water with their wine. The name of God is blasphemed because of those
who love money, who seek presents, who justify the wicked by allowing
themselves to be corrupted by them. The vigilance of the ministers of
religion can do much to arrest the progress of evil. The league of
heretics should be dissolved by faithful instruction: for the Lord
desires not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should be
converted and live."
It may be curious also to quote here the cautious utterance of
Innocent upon the pretension of the more pious sectarians to found
everything on Scripture and to make the study of the Bible their chief
distinction. The same arguments are still used in the Catholic Church,
sometimes even in the same terms.
"The desire to know the Holy Scriptures and to profit by
their teaching is praiseworthy, but this desire must not be
satisfied in secret, nor should it degenerate into the wish
to preach, or to despise the ministers of religion. It is
not the will of God that His word should be proclaimed in
secret places as is done by these heretics, but publicly in
the Church. The mysteries of the faith cannot be explained
by every comer, for not every intellect is capable of
understanding them. The Holy Scriptures are so profound
that not only the simple and ignorant but even intelligent
and learned men are unqualified to interpret them."
At no time however, though he spoke so mildly and so candidly,
acknowledging that the best way to overcome the heretics was to
convert and to convince them, did Innocent conceal his intention and
desire to carry proceedings against them to the sternest of
conclusions. If it were possible by any exertions to bring them back
to the bosom of the Church, he charged all ecclesiastical authorities,
all preachers, priests, and monastic establishments to do everything
that was possible to accomplish this great work; but failing that, he
called upon all princes, lords, and civil rulers to take stringent
measures and cut them off from the land--recommendations that ended in
the tremendous and appalling expedient of a new Crusade, a Crusade
with no double motive, no object of restoration and deliverance
combined with that of destruction, but bound to the sole agency of
sheer massacre, bloodshed, and ruin, an internecine warfare of the
most horrible kind.
It must be added, however, that the preachers who at Innocent's
command set out, more or less in state, high officials, ecclesiastics
of name and rank, to convince the heretics, by their preaching and
teaching, took the first part in the conflict. According to his lights
he spared no pains to give the doomed sects the opportunity of
conversion, though with very little success. Among his envoys were two
Spaniards, one a bishop, one that great Dominic, the founder of the
Dominican order, who filled so great a part in the history of his
time. Amid the ineffectual legates these two were missionaries born:
they represented to the other preachers that demonstrations against
heresy in the cathedrals was no way of reaching the people, but that
the true evangelists must go forth into the country, humble and poor
as were the adversaries whom they had to overcome. They themselves set
out on their mission barefoot, without scrip or purse, after the
manner of the Apostles. Strange to think that it was in Provence, the
country of the Troubadours, the land of song, where poetry and love
were supreme according to all and every tradition of history, that the
grimmest heresy abounded, and that this stern pair carried on their
mission! but so it was. Toulouse, where Courts of Love sate yearly,
and the trouvères held their tournaments of song, was the centre of
the tragedy. But not even those devoted preachers, nor the crowd of
eager priests and monks who followed in their steps, succeeded in
their mission. The priesthood and the religion it taught had fallen
very low in Provence, and no one heeded the new missionaries, neither
the heretics nor the heedless population around.
No doubt the Pope, the man of so many disappointments, had set his
heart on this as a thing in which for once he must not fail, and
watched with a sore and angry heart the unsuccess of all these
legitimate efforts. But it was not until one of the legates, a man
most trusted and honoured, Pierre de Castelnau, was treacherously
killed in the midst of his mission, that Innocent was fully roused.
Heretofore he had rained excommunications over all the world, and his
curses had come back to him without avail. But on this occasion at
least he had a sure weapon in hand. The Pope proclaimed a Crusade
against the heretics. He proclaimed throughout Europe that whoever
undertook this holy enterprise it should be counted to him as if he
had fought for Jerusalem: all the indulgences, blessings, hopes for
heaven and exemptions for earth, which had been promised to those who
were to deliver the Holy Sepulchre, were equally bestowed on those who
went no further than the south of France, one of the richest districts
in Christendom, where fair lands and noble castles were to be had for
the conquest without risking a stormy voyage or a dangerous climate.
The goods of unrepentant heretics were confiscated, and every one was
free to help himself as if they had been Turks and infidels. In none
of his undertakings was the Pope so hotly in earnest. There is
something of the shrillness of a man who has found himself impotent in
many undertakings in the passion which Innocent throws into this.
"Rise, soldier of Christ!" he cries to the king of France; "up, most
Christian prince! The groans of the Church rise to your ears, the
blood of the just cries out: up, then, and judge my cause: gird on
your sword; think of the unity of the cross and the altar, that unity
taught us by Moses, by Peter, by all the fathers. Let not the bark of
the Church make shipwreck. Up, for her help! Strike strongly against
the heretics, who are more dangerous than the Saracens!"
The appeal came to a host of eager ears. Many good and true men were
no doubt among the army which gathered upon the gentle hill of Hyères
in the blazing midsummer of the year 1209, cross on breast and sword
in hand, sworn to exterminate heresy, and bring back the country to
the sway of the true religion; but an overwhelming number besides, who
were hungry for booty however obtained, and eager to win advancement
for themselves, filled up the ranks. Such motives were not absent
even from the bosom of Simon de Montfort, their general, otherwise a
good man and true. The sovereignty of Toulouse glimmered before him
over seas of blood, which was as the blood of the Saracen, no better,
though it flowed in the veins of Frenchmen; but the Provençaux could
scarcely be called Frenchmen in those early days. They were no more
beloved of their northern neighbours than the English were by the
Scots, and the expedition against them was as much justified by
distinctions of race as was the conflict of Bannockburn.
The chapter of history that followed we would fain on all sides
obliterate, if we could, from the records of humanity, and we doubt
not that the strictest Catholic as much as the most indignant
Protestant would share this wish; but that, alas, cannot be done. And
no such feeling was in any mind of the time. The remedy was not
thought to be too terrible for the disease, for centuries after: and
the most Christian souls rejoiced in the victories of the Crusade, the
towns destroyed, the nests of heretics broken up. The very heretics
themselves, who suffered fiercely and made reprisals when they could,
had no doctrine of toleration among themselves, and would have
extirpated a wicked hierarchy, and put down the mass with a high hand,
as four hundred years later their more enlightened successors did,
when the power came to them. There are many shuddering spectators who
now try to represent to themselves that Innocent so far off was but
half, or not at all, acquainted with the atrocities committed in his
name; that his legates over-stepped their authority, as frequently
happened, and were carried away by the excitement of carnage and the
terrible impulse of destruction common to wild beasts and men when
that fatal passion is aroused; and that his generals soon converted
their Crusade, as Crusades more or less were converted everywhere,
into a raid of fierce acquisition, a war for booty and personal
enrichment. And all this is true for as much as it is worth in
reducing the guilt of Innocent; but that is not much, for he was a man
very well acquainted with human nature, and knew that such things must
be.
As for Simon de Montfort and his noble companions, they were not, much
less were the men-at-arms under their orders, superior to all that
noble chivalry of France which had started from Venice with so fine a
purpose, but had been drawn aside to crush and rob Constantinople on
their way, only some seven years before. Baldwin of Flanders became
Emperor of the great eastern city in 1204. Simon de Montfort named
himself Count de Toulouse in 1215. Both had been sent forth with the
Pope's blessing on quite a different mission, both had succumbed to
the temptation of their own aggrandisement. But of the two, at the end
Simon was the more faithful. If he committed or permitted to be
committed the most abominable cruelties, he nevertheless did stamp out
heresy. Provence regained her gaiety, her courts of love, her gift of
song. Innocent, for once in his life, with all the dreadful drawbacks
accompanying it, was successful in the object for which he had
striven.
It is a dreadful thing to have to say of the most powerful of Popes,
in whose time the Papacy, we are told, reached its highest climax of
power in the affairs of men: he was successful once: in devastating a
country and slaughtering by thousands its inhabitants in the name of
God and the Church. All his attempts to set right the affairs of the
world failed. He neither nominated an emperor, nor saved a servile
king from ruin, nor struck a generous blow for that object of the
enthusiasm of his age, the deliverance of Jerusalem. All of these he
attempted with the utmost strain and effort of his powers, and many
more, but failed. Impossible to say that it was not truth and justice
which he set before him at all times; he was an honest man and loved
not bloodshed; he had a great intelligence, and there is no proof
that his heart was cold or his sympathies dull. But his career, which
is so often quoted as an example of the supremacy of the Papacy, seems
to us the greatest and most perfect demonstration that such a
supremacy was impossible. Could it have been done, Innocent would have
done it; but it could not be done, and in the plenitude of his power
he failed over and over again. What credit he might have had in
promoting Otho to the empire fades away when we find that it was the
accident of Philip's death and not the support of the Pope that did
it. In England his assumed suzerainty was a farce, and all his efforts
ineffectual to move one way or the other the destinies of the nation.
At Constantinople his prayers and commands and entreaties had about as
much power as the outcries of a woman upon his own special envoys and
soldiers. In France he had one brief triumph indeed, and broke a poor
woman's heart, a thing which is accomplished every day by much easier
methods; though his action then was the only moral triumph of his
reign, being at least in the cause of the weak against the strong. And
he filled Provence with blood and misery, and if he crushed heresy,
crushed along with it that noble and beautiful country, and its royal
house, and its liberties. Did he ever feel the contrast between his
attempts and his successes? Was he sore at heart with the long and
terrible failure of his efforts? or was he comforted by such small
consolations as fell to him, the final vindication of Ingelburga, the
fictitious submission of the Greek Church, the murderous extinction of
heresy? Was it worth while for a great man to have endured and
struggled, to have lived sleepless, restless, ever vigilant, watching
every corner of the earth, keeping up a thousand espionages and secret
intelligences all for this, and nothing more?
He was the greatest of the Popes and attained the climax of papal
power. He carried out the principles which Hildebrand had
established, and asserted to their fullest all the claims which that
great Pontiff, also a deeply disappointed man, had made. Gregory and
Innocent are the two most prominent names in the lists of the Papacy;
they are the greatest generals of that army which, in its way, is an
army invincible, against which the gates of hell cannot prevail. Let
us hope that the merciful illusions which keep human nature going
prevented them from seeing how little all their great claims had come
to. Gregory indeed, dying sad and in exile, felt it more or less, but
was able to set it down to the wickedness of the world in which truth
and justice did not reign. And there is a profound sadness in the last
discourse of Innocent; but perhaps they were neither of them aware
what a deep stamp of failure remains, visible for all the world to
see, upon those great undertakings of theirs which were not for the
Church but for the world. God had not made them judges and dividers
among men, though they believed so to the bottom of their hearts.
It is perhaps overbold in a writer without authority to set forth an
individual opinion in the face of much more powerful judgments. But
this book pretends to nothing except, so far as it is possible to form
it, a glance of individual opinion and impression in respect to
matters which are otherwise too great for any but the most learned and
weighty historian. The statement of Dean Milman that "He (Innocent)
succeeded in imposing an Emperor on Germany" appears to us quite
inconsistent with the facts of the case. But we would not for a moment
pretend that Milman does not know a hundred times better than the
present writer, whose rapid glance at the exterior aspects of history
will naturally go for what it is worth and no more. The aspect of a
pageant however to one who watches it go by from a window, is
sometimes an entertaining variety upon its fullest authoritative
description.
It will be understood that we have no idea of representing the reign
of these great Popes as without power in many other matters. They
strengthened greatly the authority and control exercised by the Holy
See over its special and legitimate empire, the Church. They drew to
the court of Rome so many appeals and references of disputed cases in
law and in morals as to shed an increased influence over the world
like an unseen irrigation swelling through all the roots and veins of
Christendom. They even gave so much additional prestige and importance
to Church dignitaries as to increase the power which the great
Prelates often exercised against themselves. But the highest
pretensions of the Successors of Peter, the Vicars of God, to be
judges and arbiters of the world, setters up and pullers down of
thrones, came to no fulfilment. The Popes were flattered by appeals,
by mock submissions on the weaker side, even by petitions for the ever
ready interference which they seem to have attempted in good faith,
always believing in their own authority. But in the end their
decisions and decrees in Imperial questions were swept away like chaff
before the strong wind of secular power and policy, and history cannot
point to one important revolution[5] in the affairs of the world or
any separate kingdom made by their unaided power.
The last great act of Innocent's life was the council held in the year
1215 in Rome, known as the fourth Lateran Council. It was perhaps the
greatest council that had ever been held there, not only because of
the large number of ecclesiastics present, but because for the first
time East and West sat together, the Patriarch of Constantinople (or
rather two patriarchs, for the election was contested) taking their
place in it, in subordination to the Pope, as if the great schism had
never been. From all the corners of the earth came the bishops and
archbishops, the not less important abbots, prelates who were nobles
as well as priests, counting among them the greatest lords in their
respective districts as well as the greatest ecclesiastics. Innocent
himself was a man of fifty-five, of most temperate life, vigorous in
mind and body, likely to survive for years, and to do better than he
had ever yet done--and he was so far triumphant for the moment that
all the kings of Christendom had envoys at this council, and
everything united to make it magnificent and important. Why he should
have taken for his text the ominous words he chose when addressing
that great and splendid assembly in his own special church and temple,
surrounded with all the emblems of power and supremacy, it is
impossible to tell; and one can imagine the thrill of strange awe and
astonishment which must have run through that vast synod, when the
Pope rose, and from his regal chair pronounced these words, first
uttered in the depths of the mysterious passion and anguish of the
greatest sufferer on earth. "With desire I have desired to eat this
passover with you before I suffer." What was it that Innocent
anticipated or feared? There was no suffering before him that any one
knew, no trouble that could reach the chief of Christendom,
heavy-hearted and depressed, amid all his guards, spiritual and
temporal, as he may have been. What could they think, all those great
prelates looking, no doubt, often askance at each other, brethren in
the church, but enemies at home? Nor were the first words of his
discourse less solemn.
"As to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain, I should
not refuse to drink the cup of suffering, were it presented
to me, for the defence of the Catholic Church, for the
deliverance of the Holy Land, or for the freedom of the
Church, even although my desire had been to live in the
flesh until the work that has been begun should be
accomplished. Notwithstanding not my will, but the will of
God be done! This is why I say, 'With desire I have desired
to eat this passover with you before I suffer.'"
These words sound in our ears as if the preacher who uttered them was
on the verge, if not of martyrdom, at least of death and the premature
end of his work. And so he was: although there was as yet no sign in
heaven or earth, or so far as appears in his own consciousness, that
this end was near.
The discourse which followed was remarkable in its way, the way of the
schoolmen and dialecticians so far as its form went. He began by
explaining the word Passover, which in Hebrew he said meant
passage--in which sense of the word he declared himself to desire to
celebrate a triple Passover, corporal, spiritual, and eternal, with
the Church around him.
"A corporal Passover, the passage from one place to another to deliver
Jerusalem oppressed: a spiritual Passover, a passage from one
situation to another for the sanctification of the universal Church;
an eternal Passover, a passage from one life to another, to eternal
glory." For the first, the deliverance of the Holy Land and the Holy
Sepulchre, after a solemn description of the miseries of Jerusalem
enslaved, he declares that he places himself in the hands of the
brethren.
"There can be no doubt that it ought to be the first object
of the Church. What ought we now to do, dear brethren? I
place myself in your hands. I open my heart entirely to
you, I desire your advice. I am ready, if it seems good to
you, to go forth on a personal mission to all the kings,
princes, and peoples, or even to the Holy Land--and if I
can to awaken them all with a strong voice that they may
arise to fight the battle of the Lord, to avenge the insult
done to Jesus Christ, who has been expelled by reason of
our sins from the country and dwelling which He bought with
His blood, and in which He accomplished all things
necessary for our salvation. We, the priests of the Lord,
ought to attach a special importance to the redemption of
the Holy Land by our blood and our wealth; no one should
draw back from such a great work. In former times the Lord
seeing a similar humiliation of Israel saved it by means of
the priests; for he delivered Jerusalem and the Temple from
the infidels by Matthias the son of the priest Maccabæus."
[Illustration: ST. PETER'S AND THE CASTLE OF ST. ANGELO.
_To face page 366._]
He goes on to describe the spiritual passage by the singular emblem to
be found in the prophecies of Ezekiel, of the man clothed in white
linen who inscribed a _Tau_ upon the foreheads of all those who
mourned over the iniquities committed around them, the profanations of
the temple and the universal idol worship--while the executors of
God's will went after him, to slay the rest. There could be no doubt
of the application of this image. It had already been seen in full
fulfilment in the streets of Beziers, Carcassone, and Toulouse, and
many of those present had taken part in the carnage. It is true that
the rumour went that the men marked with a mark had not even been
looked for, and one of the wonderful sayings which seem to spring up
somehow in the air, at great moments, had been fathered upon a
legate--_Tuez les tous_. _Dieu reconnaîtra les siens_--a phrase which,
like the "Up, Guards, and at them!" of Waterloo, is said to have no
historical foundation whatever. Innocent was, however, clear not only
that every good Catholic should be marked with the _Tau_--but that the
armed men whom he identifies with the priests, his own great army,
seated there round him, men who had already seen the blood flow and
the flames arise, should strike and spare not.
"You are commanded then to go through the city; obey him
who is your supreme Pontiff, as your guide and your
master--and strike by interdict, by suspension, by
excommunication, by deprivation, according to the weight of
the fault. But do no harm to those who bear the mark, for
the Lord says: 'Hurt not the earth, neither the sea,
neither the trees till we have sealed on their foreheads
the servants of God.' It is said in other places, 'Let your
eye spare no man, and let there be no acceptance of persons
among you,' and in another passage, 'Strike in order to
heal, kill in order to give life.'"
These were the Pope's sentiments, and they were those of his age; how
many centuries it took to modify them we are all aware; four hundred
years at least, to moderate the practical ardour of persecution--for
the theory never dies. But there is at the same time something savage
in the fervour of such an address to all these men of peace. It is
perhaps a slight modification that like Ezekiel it is the priests
themselves, the dwellers in the Temple, who fill it with false gods
and abominations, that he specially threatens. There were, however, so
far as appears, few priests among the slaughtered townsfolk of those
unhappy cities of Provence.
The Council responded to the uncompromising directions of their head
by placing among the laws of the Church many stringent ordinances
against heretics; their goods were to be confiscated, they were to be
turned out of their houses and possessions; every prince who refused
to act against them was to be excommunicated, his people freed from
their vow of allegiance. If any one ventured to preach without the
permission of the Pope he also was subject to excommunication. A great
many laws for the better regulation of the Church itself followed, for
Innocent had always acknowledged the fact that the worldliness of the
Church, and the failure of the clergy to maintain a high ideal of
Christian life, was the great cause of heresy. The Council was also
very distinct in refusing temporal authority to the priests. The
clergy had their sphere and laymen theirs; those spheres were
separate, they were inviolable each by the other. It is true that this
principle was established chiefly with the intention of freeing the
clergy from the necessity of answering before civil tribunals; but
logically it cuts both ways. The Jews, to whom Innocent had been just
and even merciful, were also dealt with and placed under new and
stringent disabilities, chiefly on account, it seems, of the
extortions they practised on needy Crusaders, eager at any price to
procure advances for their equipment. Various doctrinal points were
also decided, as well as many questions of rank and precedence in the
hierarchy, and the establishment of the two new monastic orders of St.
Francis and of St. Dominic. It is needless to add a list of who was
excommunicated and who censured throughout the world. Among the former
were the barons of Magna Charta and Louis of France, the son of
Philip Augustus, who had gone to England on their call and to their
relief, a movement set on foot by Innocent himself before the
submission of King John. As usual, neither of them took any notice of
the anathema, though other combinations shortly arose which broke
their alliance.
The great event of the Council, however, was the appeal of the
forfeited lords of Provence against the leaders of the late Crusade.
Raymond of Toulouse, accompanied by the Counts of Foix and of
Comminges, appeared before the Pontiff and the high court of the
Church to make their plaint against Simon de Montfort, who had
deprived all three of their lands and sovereignties. A great
recrimination arose between the two sides, both so strongly
represented. The dethroned princes accused their conquerors with all
the vehemence of men wronged and robbed; and such a bloodstained
prelate as Bishop Fulk of Toulouse was put forth as the advocate on
the other side. "You are the cause of the death of a multitude of
Catholic soldiers," cried the bishop, "six thousand of whom were
killed at Montjoye alone." "Nay, rather," replied the Comte de Foix,
"it is by your fault that Toulouse was sacked and 10,000 of the
inhabitants slain." Such pleas are strange in any court of justice;
they were altogether new in a Council of the Church. The princes
themselves, who thus laid their wrongs before the Pope, were not
proved to be heretics, or if they had ever wavered in the faith were
now quite ready to obey; and Innocent himself was forced to allow
that: "Since the Counts and their companions have promised at all
times to submit to the Church, they cannot without injustice be
despoiled of their principalities." But the utterance, it may well be
understood, was weak, and choked by the impossibility of denouncing
Simon de Montfort, the leader of a Crusade set on foot by the Church,
the Captain of the Christian army. It might be that he had exceeded
his commission, that the legates had misunderstood their instructions,
and that all the leaders, both secular and spiritual, had been carried
away by the horrible excitement and passion of bloodshed: but yet it
was impossible to disown the Captain who had taken up this enterprise
as a true son of the Church, although he had ended in the spirit (not
unusual among sons of the Church) of an insatiable raider and
conqueror. The love of gain had warped the noble aims even of the
first Crusade: what wonder that it became a fiery thirst in the
invaders of lands so rich and tempting as those of the fertile and
sunny Provence. And the Pope could not pronounce against his own
champion. He would fain have preserved Raymond of Toulouse and Simon
de Montfort too--but that was impossible. And the Council decreed by a
great majority that Raymond had been justly deprived of his lands, and
that Simon, the new Count, was their rightful possessor. The defender
of Innocent can only say that the Pope yielded to and sanctioned this
judgment in order that the bishops of France might not be alienated
and rendered indifferent to the great Crusade upon which his heart was
set, which he would fain have led himself had Providence permitted it
so to be.
There is a most curious postscript to this bloody and terrible
history. Young Raymond of Toulouse, whose fate seemed a sad one even
to the members of the Council who finally confirmed his deprivation,
attracted the special regard--it is not said how, probably by some
youthful grace of simplicity or gallant mien--of Innocent, who bade
him take heart, and promised to give him certain lands that he might
still live as a prince. "If another council should be held," said the
Pope with a curious casuistry, "the pleas against Montfort may be
listened to." "Holy Father," said the youth, "bear me no malice if I
can win back again my principalities from the Count de Montfort, or
from those others who hold them." "Whatever thou dost," said the Pope
piously, "may God give thee grace to begin it well, and to finish it
still better." Innocent is scarcely a man to tolerate a smile. We dare
not even imagine a touch of humour in that austere countenance; but
the pious hope that this fair youth might perhaps overcome his
conqueror, who was the very champion and captain of the army of the
Lord as directed by the Pope, is remarkable indeed.
The great event of the Council was over, the rumour of the new Crusade
which the Pope desired to head himself, and for which in the meantime
he was moving heaven and earth, began to stir Europe. If, perhaps, he
had accomplished little hitherto of all that he had hoped, here
remained a great thing which Innocent might still accomplish. He set
out on a tour through the great Italian towns to rouse their
enthusiasm, and, if possible, induce them, in the first place, to
sacrifice their mutual animosities, and then to supply the necessary
ships, and help with the necessary money for the great undertaking.
The first check was received from Pisa, which would do whatever the
Pope wished except forego its hatred against Genoa or give up its
revenge. Innocent was in Perugia, on his way towards the north, when
this news arrived to vex him: but it was not unexpected, nor was there
anything in it to overwhelm his spirit. It was July, and he was safer
and better on that hillside than he would have been in his house at
the Lateran in the heats of summer: and an attack of fever at that
season is a simple matter, which the ordinary Roman anticipates
without any particular alarm. He had, we are told, a great love for
oranges, and continued to eat them, notwithstanding his illness,
though it is difficult to imagine what harm the oranges could do.
However, the hour was come which Innocent had perhaps dimly foreseen
when he rose up among all his bishops and princes in the great Lateran
church, and, knowing nothing, gave forth from his high presiding
chair the dying words of our Lord, "With desire I have desired to eat
this passover with you before I suffer." One wonders if his text came
back to him, if he asked himself in his heart why his lips should have
uttered those fateful words unawares, and if the bitterness of that
withdrawal, while still full of force and life, from all the hopes and
projects to which he had set his hand, was heavy upon him? He had
proclaimed them in the hush and breathless silence of that splendid
crowd in the ruddy days of the late autumn, St. Martin's festival at
Rome: and the year had not gone its round when, in the summer weather
at Perugia, he "suffered"--as he had--yet had not, perhaps foreseen.
Thus ended a life of great effort and power, a life of disappointment
and failure, full of toil, full of ambition, the highest aims, and the
most consistent purpose--but ending in nothing, fulfilling no lofty
aim, and, except in the horrible episode of bloodshed and destruction
from which his name can never be dissociated, accomplishing no change
in the world which he had attempted, in every quarter, to transform or
to renew. Never was so much attempted with so little result. He
claimed the power to bind and loose, to set up and to pull down, to
decide every disputed cause and settle every controversy. But he
succeeded in doing only one good deed, which was to force the king of
France to retain an unloved wife, and one ill one, to print the name
of Holy Church in blood across a ruined province, to the profit of
many bloody partisans, but never to his own, nor to any cause which
could be considered that of justice or truth. This, people say, was
the age of history in which the power of the Church was highest, and
Innocent was its strongest ruler; but this was all which, with his
great powers, his unyielding character and all the forces at his
command, he was able to achieve. He was in his way a great man, and
his purpose was never ignoble; but this was all: and history does not
contain a sadder page than that which records one of the greatest of
all the pontificates, and the strongest Pope that history has known.
During the whole of Innocent's Popedom he had been more or less at war
with his citizens notwithstanding his success at first. Rome murmured
round him never content, occasionally bursting out into fits of rage,
which, if not absolute revolt, were so near it as to suggest the
withdrawal of the Pope to his native place Anagni, or some other quiet
residence, till the tumult calmed down. The greatest of these
commotions occurred on the acquisition of certain properties in Rome,
by the unpopular way of foreclosure on mortgages, by the Pope's
brother Richard, against whom no doubt some story of usury or
oppression was brought forth, either real or invented, to awaken the
popular emotion: and in this case Innocent's withdrawal had very much
the character of an escape. The Papa-Re was certainly not a popular
institution in the thirteenth century. This same brother Richard had
many gifts bestowed upon him to the great anger and suspicion of the
people, and it was he who built, with money given him, it is said,
from "the treasury of the Church," the great Torre dei Conti, which
for many generations stood strong and sullen near the Baths of Titus,
and within easy reach of the Lateran, "for the defence of the family,"
a defence for which it was not always adequate. Innocent afterwards
granted a valuable fief in the Romagna to his brother, and he was
generally far from unmindful of his kindred. All that his warmest
defenders can say for him indeed in this respect is that he made up
for his devotion to the interests of the Conti by great liberality
towards Rome. On one occasion of distress and famine he fed eight
thousand people daily, and at all times the poor had a right to the
remnants left from his own table--which however was not perhaps any
great thing as his living was of the simplest.
What was still more important, he built or perhaps rather rebuilt and
enlarged, the great hospital, still one of the greatest charitable
institutions of the world, of the Santo Spirito, which had been first
founded several centuries before by the English king Ina for the
pilgrims of his country. The Ecclesia in Saxia, probably forsaken in
these days when England had become Norman, formed the germ of the
great building, afterwards enlarged by various succeeding Popes. It is
said now to have 1,600 beds, and to be capable, on an emergency, of
accommodating almost double that number of patients, and is, or was, a
sort of providence for the poor population of Rome. It was Innocent
also who began the construction, or rather reconstruction, for in that
case too there was an ancient building, of the Vatican, now the seat
and title of the papal court--thinking it expedient that there should
be a house capable of receiving the Popes near the church of St. Peter
and St. Paul the tomb and shrine of the Apostles. It is not supposed
that the present building retains any of the work of that early time,
but Innocent must have superintended both these great edifices, and in
this way, as also by many churches which he built or rebuilt, and some
which he decorated with paintings and architectural ornament, he had
his part in the reconstruction and embellishment of that mediæval Rome
which after long decay and much neglect, and the wholesale robbery of
the very stones of the older city, was already beginning to lift up
its head out of the ashes of antiquity.
[Illustration: ALL THAT IS LEFT OF THE GHETTO.]
Thus if he took with one hand--not dishonestly, in the interest of his
family, appropriating fiefs and favours which probably could not have
been better bestowed, for the safety at least of the reigning Pope--he
gave liberally and intelligently with the other, consulting the needs
of the people, and studying their best interests. Yet he would not
seem ever to have been popular. His spirit probably lacked the
bonhomie which conciliates the crowd: though we are told that he
loved public celebrations, and did not frown upon private gaiety. His
heart, it is evident, was touched for young Raymond of Toulouse, whom
he was instrumental in despoiling of his lands, but whom he blessed in
his effort to despoil in his turn the orthodox and righteous spoiler.
He was neither unkind, nor niggardly, nor luxurious. "The glory of his
actions filled the great city and the whole world," said his epitaph.
At least he had the credit of being the greatest of all the Popes, and
the one under whom, as is universally allowed, the papal power
attained its climax. The reader must judge how far this climax of
power justified what has been said.
FOOTNOTE:
[5] The Vice-Provost of Eton who has kindly read these pages in the
gentle criticism which can say no harsh word, here remarks: "If
success is measured less by immediate results than by guiding the way
in which men think, I should say that Innocent was successful. 'What
will the Pope say?' was the question asked in every corner of the
world--though he was not always obeyed."
BOOK III.
LO POPOLO: AND THE TRIBUNE OF THE PEOPLE.
[Illustration: ON THE TIBER.]
BOOK III.
LO POPOLO: AND THE TRIBUNE OF THE PEOPLE.
CHAPTER I.
ROME IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
When the Papal Seat was transferred to Avignon, and Rome was left to
its own devices and that fluctuating popular government which meant
little beyond a wavering balance of power between two great families,
the state of the ancient imperial city became more disorderly,
tumultuous and anarchical than that of almost any other town in Italy,
which is saying much. All the others had at least the traditions of an
established government, or a sturdy tyranny: Rome alone had never been
at peace and scarcely knew how to compose herself under any sway. She
had fought her Popes, sometimes desperately, sometimes only captiously
with the half-subdued rebelliousness of ill-temper, almost from the
beginning of their power; and her sons had long been divided into a
multiplicity of parties, each holding by one of the nobles who built
their fortresses among the classic ruins, and defied the world from
within the indestructible remnants of walls built by the Cæsars. One
great family after another entrenched itself within those monuments of
the ancient ages. The Colosseum was at one time the stronghold of the
great Colonna: Stefano, the head of that name, inhabited the great
building known as the Theatre of Marcellus at another period, and
filled with his retainers an entire quarter. The castle of St. Angelo,
with various flanking towers, was the home of the Orsini; and these
two houses more or less divided the power between them, the other
nobles adhering to one or the other party. Even amid the tumults of
Florence there was always a shadow of a principle, a supposed or real
cause in the name of which one party drove another _fuori_, out of the
city. But in Rome even the great quarrel of Guelf and Ghibelline took
an almost entirely personal character to increase the perpetual
tumult. The vassals of the Pope were not on the Pope's side nor were
they against him,
non furon rebelli
Nè fur fedeli a Dio, mà per sé foro.
The community was distracted by mere personal quarrels, by the feuds
of the great houses who were their lords but only tore asunder, and
neither protected nor promoted the prosperity of that greatest of
Italian cities, which in its miserable incompetence and tumult was for
a long time the least among them.
The anonymous historian who has left to us the story of Cola di Rienzi
affords us the most lively picture of the city in which, in his terse
and vivid record, there is the perpetual sound of a rushing,
half-armed crowd, of blows that seem to fall at random, and trumpets
that sound, and bells that ring, calling out the People--a word so
much misused--upon a hundred trifling occasions, with little bloodshed
one would imagine but a continual rushing to and fro and disturbance
of all the ordinary habits of life. We need not enter into any
discussion of who this anonymous writer was. He is the only
contemporary historian of Rienzi, and his narrative has every
appearance of truth. He narrates the things he saw with a
straightforwardness and simplicity which are very convincing. "I will
begin," he says, "with the time when these two barons (the heads of
the houses of Colonna and Orsini) were made knights by the people of
Rome. Yet," he adds, with an afterthought, "I will not begin with an
account of that, because I was then at too tender an age to have had
clear knowledge of it." Thus our historian is nothing if not an
eye-witness, very keenly aware of every incident, and viewing the
events, and the streams of people as they pass, with the never-failing
interest of a true chronicler. We may quote the incident with which he
does begin as an example of his method: his language is the Italian of
Rome, a local version, yet scarcely to be called a _patois_: it
presents little difficulty after the first moment to the moderately
instructed reader, who however, I trust, will kindly understand that
the eccentricities are the chronicler's and not errors of the press.
"With what new thing shall I begin? I will begin with the
time of Jacopo di Saviello. Being made Senator solely by
the authority of King Robert, he was driven out of the
Capitol by the Syndics, who were Stefano de la Colonna,
Lord of Palestrina, and Poncello, and Messer Orso, lord of
the Castle of St. Angelo. These two went to the Aracoeli,
and ringing the bell collected the people, half cavalry and
half on foot. All Rome was under arms. I recollect it well
as in a dream. I was in Sta. Maria del Popolo (di lo
Piubbico). And I saw the line of horsemen passing, going
towards the Capitol: strongly they went and proudly. Half
of them were well mounted, half were on foot. The last of
them (If I recollect rightly) wore a tunic of red silk, and
a cap of yellow silk on his head, and carried a bunch of
keys in his hand. They passed along the road by the well
where dwell the Ferrari, at the corner of the house of
Paolo Jovenale. The line was long. The bell was ringing and
the people arming themselves. I was in Santa Maria di lo
Piubbico. To these things I put my seal (as witness).
Jacopo di Saviello, Senator, was in the Capitol. He was
surrounded on all sides with fortifications: but it did him
no good to entrench himself, for Stefano, his uncle, went
up, and Poncello the Syndic of Rome, and took him gently by
the hand and set him on his horse that there might be no
risk to his person. There was one who thought and said,
'Stefano, how can you bring your nephew thus to shame?' The
proud answer of Stefano was: 'For two pennyworth of wax I
will set him free,--but the two pence were not
forthcoming."
Jacopo di Saviello, thus described as a nominee of the King of Naples,
is a person without much importance, touching whose individuality it
would take too much space to inquire. He appears afterwards as the
right hand man of his cousin, Sciarra Colonna, and the incident has no
doubt some connection with the story that follows: but we quote it
merely as an illustration of the condition of Rome at the beginning of
the fourteenth century. In the month of September in the year 1327
there occurred an episode in the history of the city which affords
many notable scenes. The city of Rome had in one of its many caprices
taken the part of Louis of Bavaria, who had been elected Emperor to
the great displeasure of John XXII., the Pope then reigning in
Avignon. According to the chronicler, though the fact is not mentioned
in other histories, the Pope sent his legate to Rome, accompanied by
the "Principe de la Morea" and a considerable army, in order to
prevent the reception there of Il Bavaro as he is called, who was then
making his way through Italy with much success and triumph. By this
time there would seem to have been a complete revolution in the
opinions of Rome, and the day when two-pennyworth of wax could not be
got for the ransom of Saviello was forgotten under the temporary rule
of Sciarra Colonna, the only one of his family who was a Ghibelline,
and who held strongly for Louis of Bavaria, rejecting all the
traditions of his house. Our chronicler, who is very impartial, and
gives us no clue to his own opinions, by no means despised the party
of the Pope. There arrived before Rome, he tells us, "seven hundred
horsemen and foot soldiers without end. All the barons of the house of
Orsini," and many other notable persons: and the whole army was _molto
bella e bene acconcia_, well equipped and beautiful to behold. This
force gained possession of the Leonine city, entering not by the gates
which were guarded, but by the ruined wall: and occupied the space
between that point and St. Peter's, making _granne festa_, and filling
the air with the sound of their trumpets and all kinds of music.
"But when Sciarra the bold captain (_franco Capitano_)
heard of it, it troubled him not at all. Immediately he
armed himself and caused the bell to be rung. It was
midnight and men were in their first sleep. A messenger
with a trumpet was sent through the town, proclaiming that
every one should arm himself, that the enemy had entered
the gates (_in Puortica_) and that all must assemble on the
Capitol. The people who slept, quickly awakened, each took
up his arms. Cossia was the name of the crier. The bell was
ringing violently (_terribilmente_). The people went to the
Capitol, both the barons and the populace: and the good
Capitano addressed them and said that the enemy had come to
outrage the women of Rome. The people were much excited.
They were then divided into parties, of one of which he was
captain himself. Jacopo Saviello was at the head of the
other which was sent to the gate of San Giovanni, then
called Puorta Maggiore. And this was done because they knew
that the enemy was divided in two parties. But it did not
happen so. When Jacopo reached the gate he found no one. On
the other hand Sciarra rode with his barons. Great was the
company of horsemen. Seven Rioni had risen to arms and
innumerable were the people. They reached the gate of San
Pietro. I remember that on that night a Roman knight who
had ridden to the bridge heard a trumpet of the enemy, and
desiring to fly jumped from his horse, and leaving it came
on on foot. I know that there was no lack of fear (_non
habe carestia di paura_). When the people reached the
bridge it was already day, the dawn had come. Then Sciarra
commanded that the gate should be opened. The crowd was
great, and the enemy were much troubled to see on the
bridge the number of pennons, for they knew that with each
pennon there were twenty-five men. Then the gate was
opened. The Rione of li Monti went first: the people filled
the Piazza of the Castello: they were all ranged in order,
both soldiers and people.
"Now were seen the rushing of the horses, one on the top of
another. One gave, another took (_che dao, che tolle_),
great was the noise, great was the encounter. Trumpets
sounded on this side and that. One gave, and another took.
Sciarra and Messer Andrea di Campo di Fiore confronted each
other and abused each other loudly. Then they broke their
lances upon each other: then struck with their swords:
neither would have less than the life of the other.
Presently they separated and came back each to his people.
There was great striking of swords and lances and some
fell. It could be seen that it was a cruel fight. The
people of Rome wavered back and forward like waves of the
sea. But it was the enemy that gave way, the people gained
the middle of the Piazza. Then was done a strange thing.
One whose name was Giovanni Manno, of the Colonna, carried
the banner of the people of Rome. When he came to the great
well, which is in that Piazza, in front of the Incarcerate,
where was the broken wall, he took the banner and threw it
into the well. And this he did to discourage the people of
Rome. The traitor well deserved to lose his life. The
Romans however did not lose courage, and already the Prince
of the Morea began to give way. He had either to fly or to
be killed. Then Sciarra de la Colonna, like a good mother
with her son, comforted the people and made everything go
well, such great sense did he show. Also another novel
thing was done. A great man of Rome (Cola de Madonna
Martorni de li Anniballi was his name) was a very bold
person and young. He was seized with desire to take
prisoner the Prince himself. He spurred his horse, and
breaking through the band of strong men who encircled the
Prince put out his hand to take him. So he had hoped to do
at least, but was not successful, for the Prince with an
iron club wounded his horse. The strength of the Prince's
charger was such that Cola was driven back: but the horse
of Cola had not sufficient space to move, and its hind feet
slipping, it fell into the ditch which is in front of the
gate of the Hospital of Santo Spirito, to defend the
garden. In the ditch both his horse and he, trying to
escape, fell, pressed by the soldiers of the Prince: and
there was he killed. Great was the mourning which Rome made
over so distinguished a baron--and all the people were
fired with indignation.
"The Prince now retired, his troops yielded. They began to
fly. The flight was great. Greater was the slaughter. They
were killed like sheep. Much resistance was made, many
people were killed, and the Romans gained much prey. Among
those taken was Bertollo the chief of the Orsini, Captain
of the army of the Church, and of the Guelf party: and if
it had not been that Sciarra caught him up on the croup of
his horse, he would have been murdered by the people."
Then follows a horrible account of the number of dead who lay
mutilated and naked on every roadside, and even among the vineyards:
and the story ends with Sciarra's return to the Capitol with great
triumph, and of a beautiful pallium which was sent to the Church of
Sant'Angelo in Pescheria, along with a chalice, "in honour of this
Roman victory."
[Illustration: APPROACH TO THE CAPITOL (1860).
_To face page 386._]
Curiously enough our chronicler takes no notice of the episode of
which this attack and repulse evidently form part, the reception of Il
Bavaro in Rome, which is one of the unique incidents in Roman history.
It took place in May of the following year, and afforded a very
striking scene to the eager townsfolk, never quite sure that they
could tolerate the Tedeschi, though pleased with them for a novelty
and willing enough to fight their legitimate lord the Pope on behalf
of the strangers. It was in January 1328 that Louis of Bavaria made
his entrance into Rome--Sciarra Colonna above named being still
Senator, head of the Ghibelline party, and the friend of the new-made
Emperor. After being met at Viterbo by the Roman officials and
questioned as to his intentions, Louis marched with his men into the
Leonine city and established himself for some days in what is called
the palace of St. Peter, the beginning of the Vatican, where, though
there was still a party not much disposed to receive him, he was
hailed with acclamations by the people, always eager for a new event,
and not unmindful of the liberal largesse which an Emperor on his
promotion, and especially when about to receive the much coveted
coronation in St. Peter's, scattered around him. Louis proposed to
restore the city to its ancient grandeur, and to promote its interests
in every way, and flattered the people by receiving their vote of
approval on the Capitol. "Going up to the Capitol," says Muratori, "he
caused an oration to be made to the Roman people with many expressions
of gratitude and praise, and with promises that Rome should be raised
up to the stars." These honeyed words so pleased the people that he
was declared Senator and Captain of Rome, and in a few days was
crowned Emperor with every appearance of solemnity and grandeur.
This would seem to be the first practical revival of the strange
principle that Rome, as a city, not by its Emperor nor by its Pope,
but in its own right, was the fountain of honour, the arbiter of the
world--everything in short which in classical times its government
was, and in the mediæval ages, the Papacy wished to be. It is curious
to account for such an article of belief; for the populace of Rome had
never in modern times possessed any of the characteristics of a great
people, and was a mixed and debased race according to all authorities.
This theory, however, was now for a time to affect the whole story of
the city, and put a spasmodic life into her worn-out veins. It was the
only thing which could have made such a story as that of Rienzi
possible, and it was strongly upheld by Petrarch and other eager and
philosophic observers. The Bavarian Louis was, however, the first who
frankly sought the confirmation of his election from the hands of the
Roman people. One cannot, however, but find certain features of a
farce in this solemn ceremony.
The coronation processions which passed through the streets from Sta.
Maria Maggiore, according to Sismondi, to St. Peter's, were splendid,
the barons and counsellors, or _buon-homini_ of Rome leading the
_cortège_, and clothed in cloth of gold. "Behind the monarch marched
four thousand men whom he had brought with him; all the streets which
he traversed were hung with rich tapestries." He was accompanied by a
lawyer eminent in his profession, to watch over the perfect legality
of every point in the ceremonial. The well-known Castruccio
Castracani, who had followed him to Rome, was appointed by the Emperor
to be his deputy as Senator, and to watch over the city; and in this
capacity he took his place in the procession in a tunic of crimson
silk, embroidered with the words in gold on the breast, "He is what
God wills"; on the back, "He will be what God pleases." There was no
Pope, it need not be said, to consecrate the new Emperor. The Pope was
in Avignon, and his bitter enemy. There was not even a Bishop of Ostia
to present the great monarch before St. Peter and the powers of
heaven. Nevertheless the Church was not left out, though it was placed
in a secondary position. Some kind of ceremony was gone through by the
Bishop of Venice, or rather of Castello, the old name of that restless
diocese, and the Bishop of Alecia, both of them deposed and under
excommunication at the moment: but it was Sciarra Colonna who put the
crown on Louis's head. The whole ceremonial was secular, almost pagan
in its meaning, if meaning at all further than a general throwing of
dust in the eyes of the world it could be said to have. But there is a
fictitious gravity in the proceedings which seems almost to infer a
sense of the prodigious folly of the assumption that these quite
incompetent persons were qualified to confer, without any warrant for
their deed, the greatest honour in Christendom upon the Bavarian. John
XXII. was not a very noble Pope, but his sanction was a very different
matter from that of Sciarra Colonna. No doubt however the people of
Rome--Lo Popolo, the blind mob so pulled about by its leaders, and
made to assume one ridiculous attitude after another at their
fancy--was flattered by the idea that it was from itself, as the
imperial city, that the Emperor took the confirmation of his election
and his crown.
Immediately afterwards a still more unjustifiable act was performed by
the Emperor thus settled in his imperial seat. Assisted by his
excommunicated bishops and his rebellious laymen, Louis held, Muratori
tells us, in the Piazza of St. Peter a _gran parlamento_, calling upon
any one who would take upon him the defence of Jacques de Cahors,
calling himself Pope John XXII., to appear and answer the accusations
against him.
"No one replied: and then there rose up the Syndic of that
part of the Roman clergy who loved gold better than
religion, and begged Louis to take proceedings against the
said Jacques de Cahors. Various articles were then produced
accusing the Pope of heresy and treason, and of having
raised the cross (_i.e._ sent a crusade, probably the
expedition of the Prince of the Morea in the chronicle)
against the Romans. For which reasons the Bavarian declared
Pope John to be deposed from the pontificate and to be
guilty of heresy and treason, with various penalties which
I leave without mention. On the 23rd of April, with the
consent of the Roman people, a law was published that every
Pope in the future ought to hold his court in Rome, and not
to be absent more than three months in the year on pain of
being deposed from the Papacy. Finally on the twelfth day
of May, in the Piazza of San Pietro, Louis with his crown
on his head, proposed to the multitude that they should
elect a new Pope. Pietro de Corvara, a native of the
Abbruzzi, of the order of the Friars Minor, a great
hypocrite, was proposed: and the people, the greater part
of whom hated Pope John because he was permanently on the
other side of the Alps (_dè la dai monti_), accepted the
nomination. He assumed the name of Nicolas V. Before his
consecration there was a promotion of seven false
cardinals: and on the 22nd of May he was consecrated bishop
by one of these, and afterwards received the Papal crown
from the hands of the said Louis, who caused himself to be
once more crowned Emperor by this his idol.
"The brutality of Louis the Bavarian in arrogating to
himself (adds Muratori) the authority of deposing a Pope
lawfully elected, who had never fallen into heresy as was
pretended: and to elect another, contrary to the rites and
canons of the Catholic Church, sickened all who had any
conscience or light of reason, and pleased only the
heretics and schismatics, both religious and secular, who
filled the court of the Bavarian, and by whose counsels he
was ruled. Monstrosity and impiety could not be better
declared and detested. And this was the step which
completed the ruin of his interests in Italy."
The apparition of this German court in Rome, with its curious
ceremonials following one upon another: the coronation in St. Peter's,
so soon to be annulled by its repetition at the hands of the puppet
Pope whom Louis had himself created, in the vain hope that a crown
bestowed by hands nominally consecrated would be more real than that
given by those of Sciarra Colonna--makes the most wonderful episode in
the turbulent story. In the same way Henry IV. was crowned again and
again--first in his tent, afterwards by his false Pope in St. Peter's,
while Gregory VII. looked grimly on from St. Angelo, a besieged and
helpless refugee, yet in the secret consciousness of all parties--the
Emperor's supporters as well as his own--the only real fountain of
honour, the sole man living from whom that crown could be received
with full sanction of law and right. Perhaps when all is said, and we
have fully acknowledged the failure of all the greater claims of the
Papacy, we read its importance in these scenes more than in the
loftiest pretensions of Gregory or of Innocent. Il Bavaro felt to the
bottom of his heart that he was no Emperor without the touch of those
consecrated hands. A fine bravado of triumphant citizens delighting to
imagine that Rome could still confer all honours as the mother city of
the world, was well enough for the populace, though even for them the
excommunicated bishops had to be brought in to lend a show of
authenticity to the unjustifiable proceedings; but the uneasy Teuton
himself could not be contented even by this, and it is to be supposed
felt that even an anti-pope was better than nothing. It is tempting to
inquire how Sciarra Colonna felt when the crown he had put on with
such pride and triumph was placed again by the Neapolitan monk, false
Pope among false cardinals, _articles d'occasion_, as the French
say--on the head of the Bavarian. One cannot but feel that it must
have been a humiliation for Colonna and for the city at this summit of
vainglory and temporary power.
The rest of the story of Sciarra and his emperor is quickly told, so
far as Rome is concerned. Louis of Bavaria left the city in August of
the same year. He had entered Rome in January amid the acclamations of
the populace: he left it seven months later amid the hisses and
abusive cries of the same people, carrying with him his anti-pope and
probably Sciarra, who at all events took flight, his day being over,
and died shortly after. Next day Stefano della Colonna, the true head
of the house, arrived in Rome with Bartoldo Orsini, and took
possession in the name of Pope John, no doubt with equal applause from
the crowd which so short a time before had witnessed breathless his
deposition, and accepted the false Nicolas in his place. Such was
popular government in those days. The legate so valiantly defeated by
Sciarra, and driven out of the gates according to the chronicle,
returned in state with eight hundred knights at his back.
We do not attempt to follow the history further than in those scenes
which show how Rome lived, struggled, followed the impulse of its
masters, and was flung from one side to the other at their pleasure,
during this period of its history. The wonderful episode in that
history which was about to open is better understood by the light of
the events which roused Lo Popolo into wild excitement at one moment,
and plunged them into disgust and discouragement the next.
The following scene, however, has nothing to do with tumults of arms.
It is a mere vignette from the much illustrated story of the city. It
relates the visit of what we should now call a Revivalist to Rome, a
missionary friar, one of those startling preachers who abounded in the
Middle Ages, and roused, as almost always in the history of human
nature, tempests of short-lived penitence and reformation, with but
little general effect even on the religious story of the time. Fra
Venturino was a Dominican monk of Bergamo, who had already when he
came to Rome the fame of a great preacher, and was attended by a
multitude of his penitents, dressed in white with the sacred monogram
I.H.S. on the red and white caps or hoods which they wore on their
heads, and a dove with an olive branch on their breasts. They came
chiefly from the north of Italy and were, according to the chronicle,
honest and pious persons of good and gentle manners. They were well
received in Florence, where many great families took them in, gave
them good food, good beds, washed their feet, and showed them much
charity. Then, with a still larger contingent of Florentines following
his steps, the preacher came on to Rome.
"It was said in Rome that he was coming to convert the
Romans. When he arrived he was received in San Sisto. There
he preached to his own people, of whom there were many
orderly and good. In the evening they sang Lauds. They had
a standard of silk which was afterwards given to La Minerva
(Sta. Maria sopra Minerva). At the present day it may
still be seen there in the Chapel of Messer Latino. It was
of green silk, long and large. Upon it was painted the
figure of Sta. Maria, with angels on each side, playing
upon viols; and St. Dominic and St. Peter Martyr and other
prophets. Afterwards he preached in the Capitol, and all
Rome went to hear him. The Romans were very attentive to
hear him, quiet, and following carefully if he went wrong
in his bad Latin. Then he preached and said that they ought
to take off their shoes, for the place on which they stood
was holy ground. And he said that Rome was a place of much
holiness from the bodies of the saints who lay there, but
that the Romans were wicked people: at which the Romans
laughed. Then he asked a favour and a gift from the Romans.
Fra Venturino said, 'Sirs, you are going to have one of
your holidays which costs much money. It is not either for
God or the saints: therefore you celebrate this idolatry
for the service of the Demon. Give the money to me. I will
spend it for God to men in need, who cannot provide for
themselves.' Then the Romans began to mock at him, and to
say that he was mad: thus they said and that they would
stay no longer: and rising up went away leaving him alone.
Afterwards he preached in San Giovanni, but the Romans
would not hear him, and would have driven him away. He then
became angry and cursed them, and said that he had never
seen people so perverse. He appeared no more, but departed
secretly and went to Avignon, where the Pope forbade him to
preach."
We may conclude these scraps of familiar contemporary information with
a companion picture which does not give a reassuring view of the state
of the Church in Rome. It is the story of a priest elected to a great
place and dignity who sought the confirmation of his election from the
Pope at Avignon.
"A monk of St. Paolo in Rome, Fra Monozello by name, who at
the death of the Abbot had been elected to fill his place,
appeared before Pope Benedict. This monk was a man who
delighted in society, running about everywhere, seeing the
dawn come in, playing the lute, a great musician and
singer. He spent his life in a whirl, at the court, at all
the weddings, and parties to the vineyards. So at least
said the Romans. How sad it must have been for Pope
Benedict to hear that a monk of his did nothing but sing
and dance. When this man was chosen for Abbot, he appeared
before the sanctity of the Pope and said, 'Holy Father, I
have been elected to San Paolo in Rome.' The Pope, who knew
the condition of all who came to him, said, 'Can you sing?'
The Abbot-elect replied, 'I can sing.' The Pope, 'I mean
songs' (_la cantilena_). The Abbot-elect answered, 'I know
concerted songs' (_il canzone sacro_). The Pope asked
again, 'Can you play instruments' (_sonare_)? He answered,
'I can.' The Pope, 'I ask can you play (_tonare_) the organ
and the lute?' The other answered, 'Too well.' Then the
Pope changed his tone and said, 'Do you think it is a
suitable thing for the Abbot of the venerable monastery of
San Paolo to be a buffoon? Go about your business.'"
Thus it would appear that, careless as they might be and full of other
thoughts, the Popes in Avignon still kept a watchful eye upon the
Church at Rome. These are but anecdotes with which the historian of
Rienzi prepares his tragic story. They throw a little familiar light,
the lanthorn of a bystander, upon the town, so great yet so petty,
always clinging to the pretensions of a greatness which it could not
forget, but wholly unworthy of that place in the world which its
remote fathers of antiquity had won, and incapable even when a
momentary power fell into its hands of using it, or of perceiving in
the midst of its greedy rush at temporary advantage what its true
interests were--insubordinate, reckless, unthinking, ready to rush to
arms when the great bell rang from the Capitol _a stuormo_, without
pausing to ask which side they were on, with the Guelfs one day and
the Ghibellines the next, shouting for the Emperor, yet
terror-stricken at the name of the Pope--obeying with surly reluctance
their masters the barons, but as ready as a handful of tow to take
flame, and always rebellious whatever might be the occasion. This is
how the Roman Popolo of the fourteenth century appear through the eyes
of the spectators of its strange ways. Fierce to fight, but completely
without object except a local one for their fighting, ready to rebel
but always disgusted when made to obey, entertaining a wonderful idea
of their own claims by right of their classic descent and connection
with the great names of antiquity, while on the other hand they
allowed the noblest relics of those times to crumble into irremediable
ruin.
The other Rome, the patrician side, with all its glitter and splendour
of the picturesque, is on the surface a much finer picture. The
romance of the time lay altogether with the noble houses which had
grown up in mediæval Rome, sometimes seizing a dubious title from an
ancient Roman potentate, but most often springing from some stronghold
in the adjacent country or the mountains, races which had developed
and grown upon highway robbery and the oppression of those weaker than
themselves, yet always with a surface of chivalry which deceived the
world. The family which was greatest and strongest is fortunately the
one we know most about. The house of Colonna had the good luck to
discover in his youth and extend a warm, if condescending, friendship
to the poet Petrarch, who was on his side the most fortunate poet who
has lived in modern ages among men. He was in the midst of everything
that went on, to use our familiar phraseology, in his day: he was the
friend and correspondent of every notable person from the Pope and the
Emperor downward: only a poor ecclesiastic, but the best known and
most celebrated man of his time. The very first of all his
contemporaries to appreciate and divine what was in him was Giacomo
Colonna, one of the sons of old Stefano, whom we have already seen in
Rome. He was Bishop of Lombez in Gascony, and his elder brother
Giovanni was a Cardinal. They were in the way of every preferment and
advantage, as became the sons of so powerful a house, but no promotion
they attained has done so much for them with posterity as their
friendship with this smooth-faced young priest of Vaucluse, to whom
they were the kindest patrons and most faithful friends.
Petrarch was but twenty-two, a student at Bologna when young Colonna,
a boy himself, took, as we say, a fancy for him, "not knowing who I
was or whence I came, and only by my dress perceiving that what he was
I also was, a scholar." It was in his old age that Petrarch gave to
another friend a description of this early patron, younger apparently
than himself, who opened to him the doors of that higher social life
which were not always open to a poet, even in those days when the
patronage of the great was everything. "I think there never was a man
in the world greater than he or more gracious, more kind, more able,
more wise, more good, more moderate in good fortune, more constant and
strong against adversity," he writes in the calm of his age, some
forty years after the beginning of this friendship and long after the
death of Giacomo Colonna. When the young bishop first went to his
diocese Petrarch accompanied him. "Oh flying time, oh hurrying life!"
he cries. "Forty-four years have passed since then, but never have I
spent so happy a summer." On his return from this visit the bishop
made his friend acquainted with his brother Giovanni, the Cardinal, a
man "good and innocent more than Cardinals are wont to be." "And the
same may be said," Petrarch adds, "of the other brothers, and of the
magnanimous Stefano, their father, of whom, as Crispus says of
Carthage, it is better to be silent than to say little." This is a
description too good, perhaps, to be true of an entire family,
especially of Roman nobles and ecclesiastics in the middle of the
fourteenth century, between the disorderly and oppressed city of Rome,
and the corrupt court of Avignon: but at least it shows the other
point of view, the different aspect which the same man bears in
different eyes: though Petrarch's enthusiasm for his matchless friends
is perhaps as much too exalted as the denunciations of the populace
and the popular orator are excessive on the other side.
It was under this distinguished patronage that Petrarch received the
great honour of his life, the laurel crown of the Altissimo Poeta, and
furnished another splendid scene to the many which had taken place in
Rome in the midst of all her troubles and distractions. The offer of
this honour came to him at the same time from Paris and Rome, and it
was to Cardinal Giovanni that he referred the question which he should
accept: and he was surrounded by the Colonnas when he appeared at the
Capitol to receive his crown. The Senator of the year was Orso, Conte
d'Anquillara, who was the son-in-law of old Stefano Colonna, the
husband of his daughter Agnes. The ceremony took place on Easter
Sunday in the year 1341, the last day of Anquillara's office, and so
settled by him in order that he might himself have the privilege of
placing the laurel on the poet's head. Petrarch gives an account of
the ceremony to his other patron King Robert of Naples, attributing
this honour to the approbation and friendship of that monarch--which
perhaps is a thing necessary when any personage so great as a king
interests himself in the glory of a poet. "Rome and the deserted
palace of the Capitol were adorned with unusual delight," he says: "a
small thing in itself one might say, but conspicuous by its novelty,
and by the applause and pleasure of the Roman people, the custom of
bestowing the laurel having not only been laid aside for many ages,
but even forgotten, while the republic turned its thoughts to very
different things--until now under thy auspices it was renewed in my
person." "On the Capitol of Rome," the poet wrote to another
correspondent, "with a great concourse of people and immense joy, that
which the king in Naples had decreed for me was executed. Orso Count
d'Anquillara, Senator, a person of the highest intelligence, decorated
me with the laurel: all went better than could have been believed or
hoped," he adds, notwithstanding the absence of the King and of
various great persons named--though among these Petrarch, with a
policy and knowledge of the world which never failed him, does not
name to his Neapolitan friends Cardinal Giovanni and Bishop Giacomo,
the dearest of his companions, and his first and most faithful
patrons, neither of whom were able to be present. Their family,
however, evidently took the lead on this great occasion. Their brother
Stefano pronounced an oration in honour of the laureate: he was
crowned by their brother-in-law: and the great celebration culminated
in a banquet in the Colonna palace, at which, no doubt, the father of
all presided, with Colonnas young and old filling every corner. For
they were a most abundant family--sons and grandsons, Stefanos and
Jannis without end, young ones of all the united families, enough to
fill almost a whole quarter of Rome themselves and their retainers.
"Their houses extended from the square of San Marcello to the Santi
Apostoli," says Papencordt, the modern biographer of Rienzi. The
ancient Mausoleum of Augustus, which has been put to so many uses,
which was a theatre not very long ago, and is now, we believe a
museum, was once the headquarters and stronghold of the house.
This ceremonial of the crowning of the poet was conducted with immense
joy of the people, endless applause, a great concourse, and every
splendour that was possible. So was the reception of Il Bavaro a few
years before; so were the other strange scenes about to come. The
populace was always ready to form a great concourse, to shout and
applaud, notwithstanding its own often miserable condition, exposed to
every outrage, and finding justice nowhere. But the reverse of the
medal was not so attractive. Petrarch himself, departing from Rome
with still the intoxicating applause of the city ringing in his ears,
was scarcely outside the walls before he and his party fell into the
hands of armed robbers. It would be too long to tell, he says, how he
got free; but he was driven back to Rome, whence he set out again next
day, "surrounded by a good escort of armed men." The _ladroni armati_
who stopped the way might, for all one knows, wear the badge of the
Colonnas somewhere under their armour, or at least find refuge in some
of their strongholds. Such were the manners of the time, and such was
specially the condition of Rome. It gave the crown of fame to the
poet, but could not secure him a safe passage for a mile outside its
gates. It still put forth pretensions, as on this, so in more
important cases, to exercise an authority over all the nations, by
which right it had pleased the city to give Louis of Bavaria the
imperial crown; but no citizen was safe unless he could protect
himself with his sword, and justice and the redress of wrong were
things unknown.
[Illustration: ON THE PINCIO.]