THE STRANGE DOUBLE LOYALTY OF THE PEOPLE OF THE MIDDLE AGES AND HOW IT
LED TO ENDLESS QUARRELS BETWEEN THE POPES AND THE HOLY ROMAN EMPERORS
IT is very difficult to understand the people of by-gone ages. Your own
grandfather, whom you see every day, is a mysterious being who lives in
a different world of ideas and clothes and manners. I am now telling you
the story of some of your grandfathers who are twenty-five generations
removed, and I do not expect you to catch the meaning of what I write
without re-reading this chapter a number of times.
The average man of the Middle Ages lived a very simple and uneventful
life. Even if he was a free citizen, able to come and go at will, he
rarely left his own neighbourhood. There were no printed books and only
a few manuscripts. Here and there, a small band of industrious monks
taught reading and writing and some arithmetic. But science and history
and geography lay buried beneath the ruins of Greece and Rome.
Whatever people knew about the past they had learned by listening to
stories and legends. Such information, which goes from father to son, is
often slightly incorrect in details, but it will preserve the main
facts of history with astonishing accuracy. After more than two thousand
years, the mothers of India still frighten their naughty children by
telling them that "Iskander will get them," and Iskander is none other
than Alexander the Great, who visited India in the year 330 before the
birth of Christ, but whose story has lived through all these ages.
The people of the early Middle Ages never saw a textbook of Roman
history. They were ignorant of many things which every school-boy to-day
knows before he has entered the third grade. But the Roman Empire, which
is merely a name to you, was to them something very much alive. They
felt it. They willingly recognised the Pope as their spiritual
leader because he lived in Rome and represented the idea of the Roman
super-power. And they were profoundly grateful when Charlemagne, and
afterwards Otto the Great, revived the idea of a world-empire and
created the Holy Roman Empire, that the world might again be as it
always had been.
But the fact that there were two different heirs to the Roman tradition
placed the faithful burghers of the Middle Ages in a difficult position.
The theory behind the mediaeval political system was both sound and
simple. While the worldly master (the emperor) looked after the physical
well-being of his subjects, the spiritual master (the Pope) guarded
their souls.
In practice, however, the system worked very badly. The Emperor
invariably tried to interfere with the affairs of the church and the
Pope retaliated and told the Emperor how he should rule his domains.
Then they told each other to mind their own business in very
unceremonious language and the inevitable end was war.
Under those circumstances, what were the people to do, A good Christian
obeyed both the Pope and his King. But the Pope and the Emperor were
enemies. Which side should a dutiful subject and an equally dutiful
Christian take?
It was never easy to give the correct answer. When the Emperor happened
to be a man of energy and was sufficiently well provided with money to
organise an army, he was very apt to cross the Alps and march on Rome,
besiege the Pope in his own palace if need be, and force His Holiness to
obey the imperial instructions or suffer the consequences.
But more frequently the Pope was the stronger. Then the Emperor or the
King together with all his subjects was excommunicated. This meant that
all churches were closed, that no one could be baptised, that no dying
man could be given absolution--in short, that half of the functions of
mediaeval government came to an end.
More than that, the people were absolved from their oath of loyalty to
their sovereign and were urged to rebel against their master. But if
they followed this advice of the distant Pope and were caught, they were
hanged by their near-by Lege Lord and that too was very unpleasant.
Indeed, the poor fellows were in a difficult position and none fared
worse than those who lived during the latter half of the eleventh
century, when the Emperor Henry IV of Germany and Pope Gregory VII
fought a two-round battle which decided nothing and upset the peace of
Europe for almost fifty years.
In the middle of the eleventh century there had been a strong movement
for reform in the church. The election of the Popes, thus far, had
been a most irregular affair. It was to the advantage of the Holy Roman
Emperors to have a well-disposed priest elected to the Holy See. They
frequently came to Rome at the time of election and used their influence
for the benefit of one of their friends.
In the year 1059 this had been changed. By a decree of Pope Nicholas
II the principal priests and deacons of the churches in and around
Rome were organised into the so-called College of Cardinals, and this
gathering of prominent churchmen (the word "Cardinal" meant principal)
was given the exclusive power of electing the future Popes.
In the year 1073 the College of Cardinals elected a priest by the name
of Hildebrand, the son of very simple parents in Tuscany, as Pope, and
he took the name of Gregory VII. His energy was unbounded. His belief in
the supreme powers of his Holy Office was built upon a granite rock of
conviction and courage. In the mind of Gregory, the Pope was not only
the absolute head of the Christian church, but also the highest Court of
Appeal in all worldly matters. The Pope who had elevated simple German
princes to the dignity of Emperor could depose them at will. He could
veto any law passed by duke or king or emperor, but whosoever should
question a papal decree, let him beware, for the punishment would be
swift and merciless.
Gregory sent ambassadors to all the European courts to inform the
potentates of Europe of his new laws and asked them to take due notice
of their contents. William the Conqueror promised to be good, but Henry
IV, who since the age of six had been fighting with his subjects, had no
intention of submitting to the Papal will. He called together a college
of German bishops, accused Gregory of every crime under the sun and then
had him deposed by the council of Worms.
The Pope answered with excommunication and a demand that the German
princes rid themselves of their unworthy ruler. The German princes, only
too happy to be rid of Henry, asked the Pope to come to Augsburg and
help them elect a new Emperor.
Gregory left Rome and travelled northward. Henry, who was no fool,
appreciated the danger of his position. At all costs he must make peace
with the Pope, and he must do it at once. In the midst of winter he
crossed the Alps and hastened to Canossa where the Pope had stopped for
a short rest. Three long days, from the 25th to the 28th of January of
the year 1077, Henry, dressed as a penitent pilgrim (but with a warm
sweater underneath his monkish garb), waited outside the gates of the
castle of Canossa. Then he was allowed to enter and was pardoned for
his sins. But the repentance did not last long. As soon as Henry
had returned to Germany, he behaved exactly as before. Again he was
excommunicated. For the second time a council of German bishops deposed
Gregory, but this time, when Henry crossed the Alps he was at the head
of a large army, besieged Rome and forced Gregory to retire to Salerno,
where he died in exile. This first violent outbreak decided nothing. As
soon as Henry was back in Germany, the struggle between Pope and Emperor
was continued.
The Hohenstaufen family which got hold of the Imperial German Throne
shortly afterwards, were even more independent than their predecessors.
Gregory had claimed that the Popes were superior to all kings because
they (the Popes) at the Day of Judgement would be responsible for the
behaviour of all the sheep of their flock, and in the eyes of God, a
king was one of that faithful herd.
Frederick of Hohenstaufen, commonly known as Barbarossa or Red Beard,
set up the counter-claim that the Empire had been bestowed upon his
predecessor "by God himself" and as the Empire included Italy and Rome,
he began a campaign which was to add these "lost provinces" to the
northern country. Barbarossa was accidentally drowned in Asia Minor
during the second Crusade, but his son Frederick II, a brilliant
young man who in his youth had been exposed to the civilisation of
the Mohammedans of Sicily, continued the war. The Popes accused him of
heresy. It is true that Frederick seems to have felt a deep and serious
contempt for the rough Christian world of the North, for the boorish
German Knights and the intriguing Italian priests. But he held his
tongue, went on a Crusade and took Jerusalem from the infidel and was
duly crowned as King of the Holy City. Even this act did not placate
the Popes. They deposed Frederick and gave his Italian possessions to
Charles of Anjou, the brother of that King Louis of France who became
famous as Saint Louis. This led to more warfare. Conrad V, the son
of Conrad IV, and the last of the Hohenstaufens, tried to regain the
kingdom, and was defeated and decapitated at Naples. But twenty years
later, the French who had made themselves thoroughly unpopular in Sicily
were all murdered during the so-called Sicilian Vespers, and so it went.
The quarrel between the Popes and the Emperors was never settled, but
after a while the two enemies learned to leave each other alone.
In the year 1278, Rudolph of Hapsburg was elected Emperor. He did not
take the trouble to go to Rome to be crowned. The Popes did not object
and in turn they kept away from Germany. This meant peace but two
entire centuries which might have been used for the purpose of internal
organisation had been wasted in useless warfare.
It is an ill wind however that bloweth no good to some one. The little
cities of Italy, by a process of careful balancing, had managed to
increase their power and their independence at the expense of both
Emperors and Popes. When the rush for the Holy Land began, they were
able to handle the transportation problem of the thousands of eager
pilgrims who were clamoring for passage, and at the end of the Crusades
they had built themselves such strong defences of brick and of gold that
they could defy Pope and Emperor with equal indifference.
Church and State fought each other and a third party--the mediaeval
city--ran away with the spoils.