§ 96.4. =From Henry II. to the Synod at Sutri,

A.D. 1002-1046.=--After the death of Otto III., =Henry II.=,

A.D. 1002-1024, previously duke of Bavaria, a great-grandson of

Henry I. and as such the last scion of the Saxon line, obtained

the German crown--a ruler who proved one of the ablest that ever

occupied that throne. A bigoted pietist and under the power of

the priests, although pious-hearted according to the spirit of

the times and strongly attached to the church, and seeking in

the bishops supports of the empire against the relaxing influence

of the temporal princes, yet no other German emperor ruled over

the church to the same extent that he did, and no one ventured

so far as he did to impress strongly upon the church, by the most

extensive appropriation of ecclesiastical property, especially

of rich monasteries, that this was the shortest and surest way

of bringing about a much needed reformation. Meanwhile in Rome,

after the death of Otto III., Joannes Crescentius, the son of

Crescentius II., who was beheaded by order of Otto, assumed the

government, and set upon the chair of Peter creatures of his

own, John XVII., XVIII., and Sergius IV. But as he and his last

elected pope died soon after one another in A.D. 1012, the long

subjected faction of the Tusculan counts, successors of Alberich,

came to the front again, and chose as pope a scion of one

of their own families, =Benedict VIII.=, A.D. 1012-1024. The

anti-pope Gregory, chosen by the Crescentians, was obliged to

retire from the field. He sought protection from Henry II. But

this monarch came to an understanding with the incomparably

nobler and abler Benedict, received from him for himself and

his Queen Cunigunda, subsequently canonized by Innocent III.,

the imperial crown, in A.D. 1014, and continued ever after to

maintain excellent relations with him. These two, the emperor

and the pope, were on friendly terms with the monks of Clugny.

They both acknowledged the need of a thorough reformation of

the church, and both carried it out so far as this could be

done by the influence and example of their own personal conduct,

disposition, and character. But the pope had so much to do

fighting the Crescentians, then the Greeks and Saracens in

Italy, and the emperor in quelling internal troubles in his

empire and repelling foreign invasions, that it was only toward

the close of their lives that they could take any very decided

action. The pope made the first move, for at the Synod of Pavia

in A.D. 1018, he excommunicated all married priests and those

living in concubinage, and sentenced their children to slavery.

The emperor entertained a yet more ambitious scheme. He wished

to summon a Western œcumenical council at Pavia, and there to

engage upon the reformation of the whole church of the West.

But the death of the pope in A.D. 1024, which was followed in

a few months by the death of the emperor, prevented the carrying

out of this plan. After the death of the childless Henry II.,

=Conrad II.=, A.D. 1024-1039, the founder of the Franconian or

Salic dynasty, ascended the German throne. To him the empire

was indebted for great internal reforms and a great extension

of power, but he gave no attention to the carrying out of his

predecessor’s plans of ecclesiastical reformation. Still less,

however, was anything of the kind to be looked for from the

popes of that period. Benedict VIII. was succeeded by his brother

Romanus, under the name of =John XIX.=, A.D. 1024-1033, as void

of character and noble sentiments (§ 67, 2) as his predecessor

had been distinguished. When he died, Count Alberich of Tusculum

was able by means of presents and promises to get the Romans to

elect his son Theophylact, who, though only twelve years old,

was already practised in the basest vice. He took the name of

=Benedict IX.=, A.D. 1033-1048, and disgraced the papal chair

with the most shameless profligacy. The state of matters became

better under Conrad’s son, =Henry III.=, A.D. 1039-1056, who

strove after the founding of a universal monarchy in the sense

of Charlemagne, and by a powerful and able government he came

nearer reaching this end than any of the German emperors. He

was at the same time inspired with a zeal for the reformation

of the church such as none of his predecessors or successors,

with the exception of Henry II., ever showed. Benedict IX. was,

in A.D. 1044, for the second time driven out by the Romans. They

now sold the tiara to Sylvester III., who three months after

was driven out by Benedict. This pope now fell in love with his

beautiful cousin, daughter of a Tusculan count, and formed the

bold resolve to marry her. But the father of the lady refused

his consent so long as he was pope. Benedict now sold the papal

chair for a thousand pounds of silver to the archdeacon Joannes

Gratian. This man, a pious simple individual, in order to save

the chair of St. Peter from utter overthrow, took upon himself

the disgrace of simony at the bidding of his friends of Clugny,

among whom a young Roman monk called Hildebrand, son of poor

parents of Soana, in Tuscany, was already most conspicuous. The

new pope assumed the name of =Gregory VI.=, A.D. 1044-1046. He

wanted the talents necessary for the hard task he had undertaken.

Benedict having failed in carrying out his matrimonial plans,

again claimed to be pope, as did also Sylvester. Thus Rome

had at one and the same time, three popes, and all three were

publicly known to be simonists. The Clugny party cast off their

protégé Gregory, and called in the German emperor as saviour of

the church. Henry came and had all the the three popes deposed

at the =Synod at Sutri=, A.D. 1046. The Romans gave to him the

right of making a new appointment. It fell upon Suidger, bishop

of Bamberg, who took the name of =Clement II.=, and crowned

the king emperor on Christmas, A.D. 1046. The Romans were so

delighted at having order restored in the city, that they gave

over to the emperor with the rank of patrician the government

of Rome and the right of papal election for all time, and swore

never to consecrate a pope without the emperor’s concurrence.

Henry took the ex-pope Gregory along with him, back to Germany,

where he died in exile, at Cologne. Hildebrand, his chaplain,

had accompanied him thither, and after his death retired into

the monastery of Clugny.

§ 96.5. =Henry III. and his German Popes, A.D. 1046-1057.=--With

=Clement III.=, 1046-1047, begins a whole series of able German

popes, who, elected by Henry III., wrought under his protection

powerfully and successfully for the reform of the church. All

interested in the reformation, the brethren of Clugny, as well

as the disciples of Romuald and the settlers in Vallombrosa

(§ 98, 1), agreed that at the root of all the corruption of the

church of that age were _simony_, or obtaining spiritual offices

by purchase or bribery (Acts viii. 19), and _Nicolaitanism_

(§ 27, 8), under which name were included all fleshly lusts

of the clergy, marriage as well as concubinage and unnatural

vices. These two were, especially in Italy, so widely spread,

that scarcely a priest was to be found who had not been guilty

of both. Clement II., in the emperor’s presence, at a synod

in Rome in A.D. 1047, began the battle against simony. But

he died before the end of the year, probably by poison. While

Roman envoys presented themselves at the German court about

the election of a new pope, Benedict IX., supported by the

Tusculan party, again laid claim to the papal chair, and the

emperor had to utter the severest threats before the man of

his choice, Poppo, bishop of Brixen, was allowed to occupy

the papal chair as =Damasus II.= Twenty-three days afterwards,

however, he was a corpse. This cooled the ardour of German

bishops for election to so dangerous a position, and only after

long persuasion Bishop Bruno of Toul, the emperor’s cousin

and a zealous friend of Clugny, accepted the appointment, on

the condition that it should have the approval of the people

and clergy of Rome, which, as was to be expected, was given

with acclamation. He ascended the papal throne as Leo IX.,

A.D. 1049-1054. According to a later story conceived in the

interests of Hildebrandism, Bruno is said not only to have made

his definite acceptance of the imperial call dependent upon the

supplementary free election of people and clergy of Rome, but

also to have been prevailed upon by Hildebrand, who by his own

request accompanied him, to lay aside his papal ornaments, to

continue his journey in pilgrim garb, and to make his entrance

into the eternal city barefoot, so that the necessary sanction

of a formal canonical election might be given to the imperial

nomination. Leo found the papal treasures emptied to the last

coin and robbed of all its territorial revenues by the nobles.

But Hildebrand was his minister of finance, and soon improved

the condition of his exchequer. Leo now displayed an unexampled

activity in church reform and the purifying of the papacy. No

pope travelled about so much as he, none held as many synods

in the most distant places and various lands. The uprooting of

simony was in all cases the main point in their decrees. By bonds

of gratitude and relationship, but above all of common interests,

he was attached to the German emperor. He could not therefore

think of emancipating the papacy from the imperial suzerainty.

Practically Leo succeeded in clearing the Augean stable of the

Roman clergy, and filled vacancies with virtuous men brought

from far and near. In order to chastise the Normans, put by him

under ban because of their rapacity, he himself took the field

in A.D. 1053, when the emperor refused to do so, but was taken

prisoner after his army had been annihilated, and only succeeded,

after he had removed the excommunication, in getting them to kiss

his feet with the most profound devotion. He demanded from the

Greek emperor full restitution of the donation of Constantine,

so far as this was still in the possession of the Byzantines,

and his envoys at Constantinople rendered the split between the

Eastern and Western churches irreparable (§ 67, 3). Leo died in

A.D. 1054, the only pope for centuries whom the church honours as

a saint. A Roman embassy called upon the emperor to nominate a

new pope. He fixed upon Gebhardt, bishop of Eichstädt [Eichstadt],

who now ascended the papal throne as =Victor II.=, A.D. 1055-1057.

Here again monkish tales have transformed a single matter of fact

into a romance in the interests of their own party. The Romans

wished Hildebrand himself for their pope, but he was unwilling

yet to assume such a responsibility. He put himself, however,

at the head of an embassy which convinced the emperor of the

sinfulness of his former interferences in the papal elections,

and persuaded him to set aside the tyrannical power of his

patrician’s rank and to resign to the clergy and people their

old electoral rights. As candidate for this election, Hildebrand

himself chose bishop Gebhardt, the most trusted counsellor of

the emperor. After long opposition Henry’s consent was won to

this candidature, he even urged the bishop to accept it, who at

last submitted with the words: “Now so do I surrender myself to

St. Peter, soul and body, but only on the condition that you also

yield to him what belongs to him.” The latter, however, seems

not mere beating of the air, for the emperor restored to the

newly elected pope the patrimony of Peter in the widest extent,

and bestowed on him besides the governorship of all Italy.--Henry

died in A.D. 1056, after he had appointed his queen Agnes to the

regency, and had recommended her to the counsel and good offices

of the pope. But the pope’s days were already numbered. He died

in A.D. 1057. Hildebrand could not boast of having dominated him,

but the position of the powerful monk of Clugny under him had

become one of great importance.

§ 96.6. =The Papacy under the Control of Hildebrand,

A.D. 1057-1078.=--After Victor’s death the cardinals without

paying any regard to the imperial right, immediately elected

Cardinal Frederick of Lorraine, at that time abbot of Monte

Cassino, and Hildebrand travelled to Germany in order to

obtain the _post factum_ approval of the empress. =Stephen IX.=,

A.D. 1057-1058, for so Frederick styled himself, died before

Hildebrand’s return. The Tusculan party took advantage of

his absence to put forward as pope a partisan of their own,

Benedict X., A.D. 1058. But an embassy of Hildebrand’s to the

empress secured the succession to bishop Gerhard of Florence.

Benedict was obliged to withdraw, and Gerhard ascended the papal

throne as Nicholas II., A.D. 1058-1061. With him begins the

full development of Hildebrand’s greatness, and from this time,

A.D. 1059, when he became archdeacon of Rome, till he himself

mounted the papal chair, he was the moving spirit of the Romish

hierarchy. By his powerful genius in spite of all hindrances he

raised the papacy and the church to a height of power and glory

never attained unto before. He thus wrought on, systematically,

firmly, and irresistibly advancing toward a complete reformation

in ecclesiastical polity. Absolute freedom of the church from

the power and influence of the state, and in order to attain

this and make it sure, the dominion of the church over the

state, papal elections independent of any sort of temporal

influence, the complete uprooting of all simoniacal practices,

unrelenting strictness in dealing with the immorality of the

clergy, invariable enforcement of the law of celibacy, as the

most powerful means of emancipating the clergy from the world

and the state, filling the sacred offices with the most virtuous

and capable men, were some of the noble aims and achievements

of this reformation. Hildebrand sought the necessary secular

protection and aid for the carrying out of his plans among

the Normans. Nicholas II., on the basis of the donation of

Constantine, gave as a fief to their leader, Robert Guiscard

(§ 95, 1), the lordship of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, out of

which the Saracens had yet to be expelled, and exacted from him

the oath of a vassal, by which he bound himself to pay a yearly

tribute, to protect the papal chair against all encroachments

of its privileges, and above all to maintain the right of papal

elections by the “_meliores cardinales_.” Yet again, Nicholas,

when, at a later period, by the help of the Normans, he had

broken the power of the Tusculan nobles, issued a decree at

a Lateran synod at Rome, in A.D. 1059, by which papal elections

(§ 82, 4) were regulated anew. Of the two extant recensions

of this decree, which are distinguished as the papal and the

imperial, the former is now universally acknowledged to be

the more authentic form. According to it the election lies

exclusively with the Roman cardinal priests (§ 97, 1); to

the rest of the clergy as to the people there is left only

the right of acclamation, that brought no advantage, and to

the emperor, according to Boichorst, the right of concurrence

after the election and investiture, according to Granert, the

right of veto before the election. This decree, and not less

the league with the Normans, were open slights to the imperial

claims upon Italy and the papal chair. The empress therefore

convened about Easter, A.D. 1061, a council of German bishops, at

which Nicholas was deposed, and all his decisions were annulled.

Soon after the pope died. The Tusculan party, now joined with

the Germans under the Lombard chancellor Wibert, asked a new

pope from the empress. At the Council of Basel in A.D. 1061,

bishop Cadalus of Parma was appointed. He assumed the name

of Honorius II., A.D. 1061-1072. But Hildebrand had already

five weeks earlier in concert with the Margravine Beatrice

of Canossa, wholly on his own responsibility, chosen bishop

Anselm of Lucca, and had him consecrated as =Alexander II.=

A.D. 1061-1073. Honorius advanced to Rome, accompanied by

Wibert, and frequently in bloody conflicts conquered the

party of his opponent. Duke Godfrey the Bearded of Lorraine,

the husband of Beatrice, now appeared as mediator. He made

both popes retire to their dioceses and gave to the empress

the decision of the controversy. But meanwhile a catastrophe

occurred in Germany that led to the most important results.

Archbishop Anno of Cologne, standing at the head of a rising

of the princes, decoyed the young king of twelve years of age

on board a ship at Kaiserswerth on the Rhine, and took him

to Cologne. The regency and the conduct of government were

now transferred to the German bishops collectively, but lay

practically in the hands of Anno, who meanwhile, however,

since A.D. 1063, found himself obliged to share the power with

Archbishop Adalbert of Bremen. At a council held at Augsburg

in A.D. 1062, Alexander was acknowledged as the true pope, but

Honorius by no means resigned his claims. With a small army

he advanced upon Rome in A.D. 1064, seized fort Leo, which

had been built and fortified by Leo IV. for defence against

the Saracens, entrenched himself in the castle of St. Angelo,

and repeatedly routed his opponent’s forces. But Hildebrand

reminded the Normans of their oath of fealty. At a council

held at Mantua in A.D. 1064 (or 1067?) Alexander was once

again acknowledged, and Honorius, whose party the council

sought in vain to break up by force of arms, was again deposed.

The proud, ambitious and self-seeking priest of Cologne had

meanwhile been obliged to transfer to his northern colleague,

Adalbert of Bremen, the further education and training of

the young king, who, though only fifteen years old was now

proclaimed of age in A.D. 1065, as =Henry IV.=, A.D. 1056-1106.

If the bishop of Cologne injured the disposition of the royal

youth by his excessive harshness and severity, the bishop of

Bremen did him irreparable damage by allowing him unrestrained

indulgence in his evil passions.

§ 96.7. =Gregory VII., A.D. 1073-1085.=--Hildebrand had at last

brought the papacy to such a height of power that he was able

now to put the finishing stroke to his own work in his own name,

and so now he mounted the chair of the chief of the apostles,

as Gregory VII., elected and enthroned by a disorderly mob. The

Lombard and German bishops appealed to the emperor to have the

election declared invalid. But he being on all sides threatened

with wars and revolution, thought it advisable to forego the

assertion of his rights and to win the favour of the pope by a

letter full of devotion and humility. At the Roman Fast Synod of

A.D. 1074, Gregory renewed the old law of celibacy and rendered

it more strict, deposed all married priests or those who got

office through simony, and pronounced their priestly acts

invalid. The lower clergy, who were generally married, violently

opposed the measure, but Gregory’s stronger will prevailed. Papal

legates visited all lands, and, supported by the people, insisted

upon the strict observance of the papal decree. At the next

fast synod in A.D. 1075, the pope began the contest against the

usual investiture of the higher clergy by the temporal princes,

with ring and staff as symbols of episcopal office. Whoever

should accept ecclesiastical office from the hand of a layman

was to be deposed, and any potentate who should give investiture

should be put under the ban of the church. Here too he thundered

his anathema against the counsellors of Henry who should meanwhile

prove guilty of the sale of ecclesiastical offices. Henry, whose

hands were fully occupied with the rebellious Saxons, at first

dismissed his counsellors, but after the close of the wars he

reinstated them, and quite ignored the papal prohibition of

investiture. Gregory had for a while quite enough to do in Italy.

Cencius, the head of the nobles opposed to reform, fell upon

him on Christmas, A.D. 1075, during Divine service, and made

him prisoner, but the Romans rescued him, and Cencius had to

take to flight. On New Year’s Day, A.D. 1076, there appeared at

the royal residence at Goslar a papal embassy which threatened

the king with excommunication and deposition should he not

immediately break off all relations with the counsellors under

the ban, and reform his own infamous life. The king burst out

in furious rage. He heaped insults upon the legates, and at

the Synod of Worms, on 24th January, had the pope formally

deposed as a perjured usurper of the papal chair, a tyrant,

an adulterer and a sorcerer. The Lombard bishops, too, gave

their consent to this decree (§ 97, 5). At the next Roman Fast

Synod on 22nd February, the pope placed all bishops who had

taken part in these proceedings under ban, and at the same time

solemnly excommunicated and deposed the king, and released all

his subjects from the obligation of their oaths of allegiance.

Moreover he had the king’s ambassadors, whose life he had

preserved from the fury of those present at the meeting of

synod by his personal interference, cast into prison, and

then in the most contemptuous manner led through the streets.

The papal ban made a deep impression upon the German people

and princes. One bishop after another gave in, the Saxons

raised a new revolt, and at the princes’ conference at Tribur,

in October, A.D. 1076, the pope was invited to come personally

to Augsburg on 2nd February, to meet and confer with the princes

about the affairs of the king. It was resolved that if Henry

did not succeed by 22nd February, the first anniversary of the

ban, to get it removed, he should for ever forfeit the crown,

but that meanwhile he should reside at Spires and continue in

the exercise of all royal prerogatives.

§ 96.8. It was for the pope’s advantage to have the business

settled upon German soil with the greatest possible publicity.

Therefore he scornfully refused the humble petition of the king

to send him absolution from Rome, and hastened his preparations

for travelling to Augsburg. But Henry went forth to meet him on

the way. Shortly before Christmas he escaped from Spires with

his wife and child, and in spite of a severe winter crossed Mount

Cenis. The Lombards protected him in defying the pretensions

of the pope. But Henry’s whole attention was now directed to

overturning the machinations of the hostile German princes.

So he suddenly appeared at Canossa, where Gregory was staying

with the Margravine Matilda, daughter of Beatrice, a princess

enthusiastically attached to him and his ideal. This meeting

was unexpected and undesired by the pope. There during the cold

winter days, from 25th to 27th January, A.D. 1077, stood the son

of Henry III. barefoot in the courtyard of the castle of Canossa,

wearing a sackcloth shirt, fasting all day and supplicating

access to the proud monk. With inflexible severity the pope

refused, until at last the tears, entreaties, and reproaches

of the margravine overcame his obduracy. Henry promised to

submit himself to the future judgment of the pope in regard

to his reconciliation with the German princes, and was absolved.

Nevertheless the princes at the Assembly at Forcheim in March,

with the concurrence of the papal legate, elected a new king in

the person of Rudolph of Swabia, Henry’s brother-in-law. Roused

to fury, Henry now hastened back to Germany, where soon he

gathered round him a great army. Notwithstanding all pressure

brought to bear upon him, Gregory maintained for three years a

position of neutrality, but at last, in A.D. 1080, at the Roman

Fast Synod, where the envoys of the contending kings presented

their complaints, he renewed the excommunication and deposition

of Henry. Then the bishops of Henry’s party immediately met

at Brixen, and hurled the anathema and pronounced sentence of

deposition against Gregory, and elected as anti-pope Wibert,

formerly chancellor, then archbishop of Ravenna, who assumed

the title of Clement III., A.D. 1080-1100. After the death of

Rudolph in battle, at Merseburg, in A.D. 1080, Henry marched

across the Alps and appeared at Pentecost before the gates

of Rome, which were opened to him after a three years’ siege.

Clement III. then at Easter, A.D. 1084, set upon him and his

queen the imperial crown. Gregory had withdrawn to the Castle

of St. Angelo. Henry, however, was compelled by the appearance

of a new rival for the crown, Henry, Count of Luxemburg, to

return to Germany, and Robert Guiscard, the Norman duke, hastened

from the south to deliver the pope, which he accomplished only

after Rome had been fearfully devastated. Gregory died in the

following year, A.D. 1085, at Salerno. Gregory VII. also took

the field against the dissolute and prodigal king of France,

Philip I., and threatened him, because of simony, with interdict

and deposition. His success here, however, was comparatively

small. Philip avowedly submitted to the papal decree, but did

not in the least alter his conduct, and Gregory felt that it was

not prudent to push matters to an extremity. He showed himself

more indulgent toward the powerful William the Conqueror of

England, although this prince ruled the church of his dominions

with an iron hand, pronounced all church property to be freehold,

and was scarcely less guilty of simony than the kings of Germany

and France. Yet the pope himself, who hoped to secure the aid

of his arms against Henry IV., and sought therefore to dazzle

him with the prospect of the imperial throne, winked at his

delinquencies, and loaded him with expressions of his good-will.

The primate of England, too, the powerful Conqueror’s right-hand

supporter, Lanfranc of Canterbury, who bore a grudge against

Gregory because of his patronage of the heretic Berengarius

[Berengar] (§ 101, 2), showed no special zeal for the reforms

advocated by the pope. At a synod held at Winchester in A.D. 1076,

the law of celibacy was enforced, with this limitation, however,

that those of the secular clergy who were already married should

not be required to put away their wives, but no further marriages

among them were to be permitted.[275]

§ 96.9. =The Central Idea in Gregory’s Policy= was the

establishment of a universal theocracy, with the pope as

its one visible head, the representative of Christ upon earth,

who as such stands over the powers of the world. Alongside of

it, indeed, the royal authority was to stand independently as

one ordained of God, but it was to confine itself strictly to

temporal affairs, and to be directed by the pope in regard to

whatever might be partly within and partly without these lines.

All states bearing the Christian name were to be bound together

as members of one body in the great papal theocracy which had

superior to it only God and His law. The princes must receive

consecration and Divine sanction from the spiritual power;

they are “by the grace of God,” not immediately, however, but

only mediately, the church as the middle term stands between

them and God. The pope is their arbiter and highest liege lord,

whose decisions they are under obligation unconditionally to

obey. Royalty stands related to the papacy as the moon to the

sun, from which she receives her light and warmth. The church,

which lends to the power of the world her Divine authority, can

also withdraw it again when it is being misused. When this is

done, the obligation of subjects to obey also ceases. Gregory

began this gigantic work, not so much to raise himself personally

to the utmost pinnacle of power, but rather to save the church

from destruction. He certainly was not free from ambition

and the lust of ruling, but with him higher than all personal

interests was the idea of the high vocation of the church,

and to the realizing of it he enthusiastically devoted all

the energies of his life. On the other hand, he cannot escape

the reproach of having striven with carnal weapons for what he

called a spiritual victory, of having meted out unequal measures,

where his interests demanded it, in the exercise of his assumed

function as judge of kings and princes, and of having occupied

himself more with political schemes and intrigues than with the

ministry of the church of Christ. His whole career shows him to

have been a man of great self reliance, yet, on the other hand,

he was able to preserve the consciousness of the poor sinner who

seeks and finds salvation only in the mercy of Christ. The strict

morality of his life has been admitted even by his bitterest

foes. Not infrequently too did he show himself in advance of

his time in humanity and liberality of sentiment, as _e.g._

in the Berengarian controversy (§ 101, 2), and in his decided

disapproval of the prosecution of witches and sorcerers.[276]

§ 96.10. =Victor III. and Urban II., A.D. 1086-1099.=--Gregory VII.

was succeeded by the talented abbot of Monte Cassino, Desiderius,

under the title of =Victor III.=, A.D. 1086-1087. Only after

great pressure was brought to bear upon him did he consent to

leave the cloister, which under his rule had flourished in a

remarkable manner; but now aged and sickly, he only enjoyed

the pontificate for sixteen months. His successor was bishop

Odo, of Ostia, a Frenchman by birth, and a member of the Clugny

brotherhood, who took the name of =Urban II.=, A.D. 1088-1099.

For a long time he was obliged to give up Rome to the party of

the imperial anti-pope. But the enthusiasm with which the idea

of rescuing the Holy Sepulchre was taken up, which he proposed

to Western Christendom at the Council of Clermont, in A.D. 1095

(§ 94), secured for him the highest position in his time, and

made him strong enough to withstand the opposition of Philip I.,

king of France, whom he had put under ban at Clermont, on

account of his adulterous connection with Bertrada. Returning

to Italy from his victorious campaign through France, he was

able to celebrate Christmas once again in the Lateran at Rome

in A.D. 1096. His main supporters in the conflict against the

emperor were the powerful Margravine Matilda, and the emperor’s

most dangerous opponent in Germany, duke Welf of Bavaria, whose

son of the same name, then in his seventeenth year, was married

by the pope to the widowed Matilda, who was now forty years of

age, whence arose the first of the anti-imperial and strongly

papistical Welf or Guelph party in Germany and Italy. On the

other side the margravine succeeded in stirring up Conrad,

the son of Henry IV., to rebel against his father, and had him

crowned king in A.D. 1087. At Cremona this prince held the pope’s

stirrup, and took the oath of obedience to him. The emperor had

him deposed in A.D. 1098, and had his second son elected and

crowned as Henry V. Urban, who received on his death-bed the

news of the destruction of Jerusalem, died in A.D. 1099, and

his anti-pope Clement III., who had withdrawn to Ravenna, died

in the following year.

§ 96.11. =Paschalis II., Gelasius II., and Calixtus II.,

A.D. 1099-1124.=--Urban’s successor, =Paschalis II.=,

A.D. 1099-1118, also a member of the Clugny brotherhood, at

once stirred up the fire of rebellion against the excommunicated

emperor, and favoured a conspiracy of the princes. The young

king, at the head of the insurgents, took his father prisoner,

and obliged him to abdicate in A.D. 1106. Six months afterwards

the emperor died. The church’s curse pursued even his corpse.

Twice interred in holy ground, first in the cathedral of Liège,

then in the cathedral of Spires, his bones were exhumed and

thrown into unconsecrated ground, until at last, in A.D. 1111,

his son obtained the withdrawal of the ban. At the Council

of Guastalla in A.D. 1106, Paschalis renewed the prohibition

of =Investiture=. But =Henry V.=, A.D. 1106-1125, concerned

himself as little about this prohibition as his father had done.

No sooner had he seated himself upon the throne in Germany than

he crossed the Alps to compel the pope to crown him emperor

and concede to him the right of investiture. The pope, who was

willing that the church should be poor if only she retained

her freedom, being now without counsel or help (for Matilda

was old and her warlike spirit was broken, and from the Normans

no assistance could be looked for), was driven in A.D. 1111, in

his perplexity to offer a compromise, whereby the emperor should

surrender investiture to the church, but on the other hand the

clergy should return to him all landed property and privileges

given them by the state since the times of Charlemagne, while

the Patrimony of Peter should continue the property of the

pope himself. On the basis of this agreement the coronation of

the emperor was to be celebrated in St. Peter’s on 12th Feb.,

A.D. 1111. But when after the celebration had begun the document

which set forth the compact was read, the prelates present in

the cathedral raised loud cries of dissent and demanded that it

should immediately be cancelled. The coronation was not proceeded

with, the pope and his cardinals were thrown into prison, and a

revolt of the Romans was suppressed. The pope was then compelled

to rescind the synodal decrees and formally to grant to the king

the right of investiture; he had also, after solemnly promising

never again to put the emperor under ban, to proceed with the

coronation. But Hildebrand’s party called the pope to account

for this betrayal of the church. A synod at Rome in A.D. 1112

declared the concessions wrung from him invalid, and pronounced

the ban against the emperor. The pope, however, remembering his

oaths, refused to confirm it, but it was nevertheless proclaimed

by his legate in the French and German synods. Matilda’s death

in A.D. 1115 called the emperor again to Italy. She had even in

the time of Gregory VII. made over all her goods and possessions

to the Roman Church; but she had the right of free disposal

only in regard to allodial property, not in regard to her feudal

territories. Henry, however, now laid claim to all her belongings.

At the Fast Synod of A.D. 1116 Paschalis asked pardon of God and

man for his sin of weakness, renewed and made more strict the

prohibition of investiture, but still stoutly refused to confirm

the ban of the emperor. In consequence of a rebellion of the

Romans he was obliged to take to flight, and he died in exile

in A.D. 1118. The high church party now chose =Gelasius II.=,

A.D. 1118-1119, but immediately after the election he was seized

by a second Cencius (see § 96, 7) on account of a private grudge,

fearfully maltreated and confined in chains within his castle.

The Romans indeed rescued him, but the emperor’s sudden arrival

in Rome led him, in order to avoid making inconvenient terms of

peace, to seek his own and the church’s safety in flight. The

people and nobles in concert with the emperor set up Gregory VIII.

as anti-pope. So soon as the emperor left Rome, Gelasius returned.

But Cencius fell upon him during Divine service, and only

with difficulty he escaped further maltreatment by flight

into France, where he died in the monastery of Clugny after a

pontificate of scarcely twelve months. The few cardinals present

at Clugny elected archbishop Guido of Vienne. He assumed the

title of =Calixtus II.=, A.D. 1119-1124. Pope and emperor met

together expressing desires for peace. But the auspiciously

begun negotiations never got beyond the statement of the terms

of contract, and ended in the pope renewing at the Council

of Rheims, in A.D. 1119, the anathema against the emperor and

anti-pope. Next year Calixtus crossed the Alps. He received

a hearty greeting in Rome. He laid siege to the anti-pope

in Sutri, took him prisoner, and after the most contumelious

treatment before the Roman mob, cast him into a monastic prison.

The investiture question, now better understood through learned

discussions on civil and ecclesiastical law, was at last

definitely settled in the =Worms Concordat=, as the result

of mutual concessions made at the National Assembly at Worms,

A.D. 1122. The arrangement come to was this: canonical election

of bishops and abbots of the empire by the diocesan clergy

and the secular nobles should be restored, and under imperial

inspection made free from all coercion, but in disputed elections

decisions should be given in accordance with the judgment of

the metropolitan and the rest of the bishops, the investing of

the elected with the sceptre in Germany before, in other parts

of the empire after, consecration, should belong to the emperor,

and investiture with ring and staff at the consecration should

belong to the pope. This agreement was solemnly ratified at the

=First Œcumenical Lateran Synod= in A.D. 1123.

§ 96.12. The contemporary =English Investiture Controversy=

was brought earlier to a conclusion. William the Conqueror had

unopposed put Norman prelates in the place of the English bishops,

and had homage rendered him by them, while they received from

him investiture with the ring and the staff. William Rufus, the

Conqueror’s son and successor, A.D. 1087-1100, a domineering and

greedy prince, after Lanfranc’s death in A.D. 1089 (§ 101, 1)

allowed the archbishopric of Canterbury to remain vacant for

four years, in order that he might himself enjoy the undisturbed

possession of the revenues. It was not till A.D. 1093, during

a severe illness and under fear of death, that he agreed to

bestow it upon Anselm, the celebrated Abbot of Bec (§ 101, 1, 3),

with the promise to abstain ever afterwards from simony. No

sooner had he recovered than he repented him of his promise.

He resumed his old practices, and even demanded of Anselm a

large sum for his appointment. For peace sake Anselm gave him

a voluntary present of money, but it did not satisfy the king.

When, in A.D. 1097, the archbishop asked permission to make a

journey to Rome in order to have the conflict settled there,

the king banished him. In Rome Anselm was honourably received

and his conduct was highly approved; but neither Urban II. nor

Paschalis II. could venture upon a complete breach with the

king. William the Conqueror’s third son, Henry I. Beauclerk,

A.D. 1100-1135, who, having also snatched Normandy from his

eldest brother Robert, needed the support of the clergy to

secure his position, agreed to the return of the exiled primate,

and promised to put a stop to every kind of simony; but he

demanded the maintenance of investiture and the oath of fealty

which Anselm now, in consequence of the decrees of a Roman

synod which he had himself agreed to, felt obliged to refuse.

Thus again the conflict was renewed. The king now confiscated

the goods and revenues of the see, and the archbishop was on the

point of issuing an excommunication against him, when at last an

understanding was come to in A.D. 1106, through the mediation of

the pope, according to which the crown gave up the investiture

with ring and staff, and the archbishop agreed to take the oath

of fealty.--In France, too, from the end of the 11th century,

owing to the pressure used by the high church reforming party,

the secular power was satisfied with securing the oath of

fealty from the higher clergy, without making further claim

to investiture.[277]

§ 96.13. =The Times of Lothair III. and Conrad III.,

A.D. 1125-1152.=--After the death of Henry V. without issue,

the Saxon =Lothair=, A.D. 1125-1137, was elected, and the

Hohenstaufen grandson of Henry IV. descended in the female

line was passed over. =Honorius II.=, A.D. 1124-1130, successor

of Calixtus II., hastened to confer the papal sanction upon

the newly elected emperor, who already upon his election had,

by accepting spiritual investiture before temporal investiture,

and a minimising of the oath of fealty by ecclesiastical

reservations, showed himself ready to support the claims

of the clergy. But neither ban nor the preaching of a crusade

against Count Roger II. of Sicily (§ 95, 1) could prevent him

from building up a powerful kingdom comprehending all Southern

Italy. The next election of the cardinals gives us two popes:

=Innocent II.=, A.D. 1130-1143, and Anacletus II., A.D. 1130-1138.

The latter, although not the pope of the majority, secured a

powerful support in the friendship of Roger II., whom he had

crowned king by his legate at Palermo. Innocent, on the other

hand, fled to France. There the two oracles of the age, the

abbot Peter of Clugny and Bernard of Clairvaux, took his side

and won for him the favour of all Cisalpine Europe. Both popes

fished for Lothair’s favour with the bait of the promise of

imperial coronation. A second edition of the Synod of Sutri

would probably have enabled a more powerful king to attain the

elevation of Henry III. But Lothair was not the man to seize the

opportunity. He decided in favour of the _protégé_ of Bernard,

led him back in A.D. 1133 to the eternal city, had himself

crowned emperor by him in the Lateran and invested with Matilda’s

inheritance, which was declared by the curialists a fief of

the empire. But Lothair’s repeated demands, that what had been

acquired by the Concordat of Worms should be renounced, were

set aside, through the opposition not so much of the pope as

of St. Bernard and St. Norbert (§ 98, 2). At the prayer of the

pope, who immediately after Lothair’s departure had been driven

out by Roger, and moved by the prophetic exhortations of Bernard,

the emperor prepared for a second Roman campaign in A.D. 1136.

Leaving the conquest of Rome to the eloquence of the prophet

of Clairvaux, he advanced from one victory to another until he

brought all Southern Italy under the imperial sway, and died on

his return homeward in an Alpine hut in the Tyrol. Fuming with

rage Roger now crossed over from Sicily and in a short time he

reconquered his southern provinces of Italy. The appointment,

however, of a new pope after the death of Anacletus miscarried,

and Innocent was able at the =Second Œcumenical Lateran Synod=

in A.D. 1139 to declare the schism at an end. The pope then

renewed the excommunication of Roger and pronounced an anathema

against the teachings of Arnold of Brescia (§ 108, 7), a young

enthusiastic priest of the school of Abælard, who traced all

ecclesiastical corruption back to the wealth of the church and

the secular power of the clergy. He next prepared himself for

war with Roger. That prince, however, waylaid him and had him

brought into his tent, where he and his sons cast themselves at

the holy father’s feet and begged for mercy and peace. The pope

could do nothing else than play the _rôle_ of the magnanimous

given him in this comedy. He had therefore to confirm the

hated Norman in the possession of the conquered provinces

as a hereditary monarchy with the ecclesiastical privilege

of a native legate, and, as some set off to comfort himself

with, the prince was to regard the territory as a fief of the

papal see. But still greater calamities befell this pope. The

republican freedom, which the cities of Tuscany and Lombardy

won during the 12th century, awakened also among the Romans

a love of liberty. They refused to render obedience in temporal

matters to the pope and established in the Capitol a popular

senate, which undertook the civil government in the name of

the Roman Commune. Innocent died during the revolution. His

successor =Cœlestine II.= held the pontificate for only five

months, and =Lucius II.=, after vainly opposing the Commune

for seven months, was killed by a stone thrown in a tumult.

=Eugenius III.=, A.D. 1145-1153, a scholar and friend of

St. Bernard, was obliged immediately after his election to

seek safety in flight. An agreement, however, was come to in

that same year: the pope acknowledged the government of the

Commune as legitimate, while it recognised his superiority and

granted to him the investiture of the senators. Yet, though

taken back three times to Rome, he could never remain there for

more than a few months. He visited France and Germany (Treves)

in A.D. 1147. In France he heard of the fall of Edessa. Supported

by the fiery zeal of Bernard, the summons to a second crusade

(§ 94, 2) aroused a burning enthusiasm throughout all the West.

But in Rome he was unable to offer any effectual resistance

to the demagogical preaching by which Arnold of Brescia from

A.D. 1146 had inflamed the people and the inferior clergy with

an ardent enthusiasm for his ideal constitution of an apostolic

church and a democratic state. Since this change of feeling

had taken place in Rome, both parties, that of the Capitol

as well as that of the Lateran, had repeatedly endeavoured

to win to their side the first Hohenstaufen on the German

throne, =Conrad III.=, A.D. 1138-1152, by promise of bestowing

the imperial crown. But Conrad, meanwhile otherwise occupied,

refrained from all intermeddling, and when at last he actually

started upon a journey to Rome death overtook him on the way.

§ 96.14. =The Times of Frederick I. and Henry VI.,

A.D. 1152-1190.=--The nephew and successor of Conrad III.,

=Frederick I. Barbarossa=, A.D. 1152-1190, began his reign with

the firm determination to realize fully the ideas of Charlemagne

(§ 82, 3) by his pope Paschalis III., whom at a later period,

in A.D. 1165, he had canonized. With profound contempt at heart

for the Roman democracy of his time, he concluded a compact

in A.D. 1153 with the papal see, which confirmed him in the

possession of the imperial crown and gave to the pope the

_Dominium temporale_ in the Church States. After the death

of Eugenius which soon followed, the aged =Anastasius IV.=

occupied the papal chair for a year and a half, a time of peace

and progress. He was succeeded by the powerful =Hadrian IV.=,

A.D. 1154-1159. He was an Englishman, Nicholas Breakspear, son

of a poor English priest, the first and, down to the present

time, the only one of that nation who attained the papal dignity.

He pronounced an interdict upon the Romans who had refused him

entrance into the inner part of the city and had treacherously

slain a cardinal. Rome endured this spiritual famine only for

a few weeks, and then purchased deliverance by the expulsion of

Arnold of Brescia, who soon thereafter fell into the hands of a

cardinal. He was indeed again rescued by force, but Frederick I.,

who had meanwhile in A.D. 1154 begun his first journey to

Rome, and on his way thither had humbled the proud Lombard

cities struggling for freedom, urged by the pope, insisted

that he should be surrendered up again, and subsequently gave

him over to the Roman city prefect, who, in A.D. 1155, without

trial or show of justice condemned him to be burnt and had

his ashes strewn upon the Tiber. In the camp at Sutri the pope

personally greeted the king who, after refusing for several days,

at length agreed to show him the customary honour of holding

his stirrup, doing it however with a very bad grace. Soon too

the senatorial ambassadors of the Roman people, who indulged in

bombastic, turgid declamation, presented themselves professing

their readiness on consideration of a solemn undertaking to

protect the Roman republic, and on payment of five thousand

pounds, to proclaim the German king from the Capitol Roman

emperor and ruler of the world. With a furious burst of anger

Frederick silenced them, and with scathing words showed them

how the witness of history pointed the contrast between their

miserable condition and the glory and dignity of the German name.

Yet on the day of the coronation, which they were not able to

prevent, the Romans took revenge for the insults he had heaped

upon them by an attack upon the papal residence in the castle

of Leo, and upon the imperial camp in front of the city, but

were repelled with sore loss. Soon thereafter, in A.D. 1155, the

emperor made preparations for returning home, leaving everything

else to the pope. The relations between the two became more

and more strained from day to day. The Lombards, too, once

again rebelled. Frederick therefore in A.D. 1158 made his second

expedition to Rome. On the Roncalian plains he held a great

assembly which laid down to the Lombards as well as to the pope

the imperial prerogatives. Hadrian would have given utterance to

his wrath by thundering an anathema, but he was restrained by the

hand of death.

§ 96.15. The cardinals of the hierarchical party elected

=Alexander III.=, A.D. 1159-1181, those of the imperial party,

Victor IV. A synod convened by the emperor at Pavia in A.D. 1160

decided in favour of Victor, who was now formally recognised.

Meanwhile Milan threw off the yoke that had been laid upon her.

After an almost two years’ siege the emperor took the city in

A.D. 1162 and razed it to the ground. From France whither he had

fled, Alexander, in A.D. 1163, launched his anathema against the

emperor and his pope. The latter died in A.D. 1164, and Frederick

had Paschalis III. († A.D. 1168) chosen his successor; but in

A.D. 1165, Alexander returning from France, pressed on in advance

of him and was acknowledged by the Roman senate. Now for the

third time in A.D. 1166, Frederick crossed the Alps. A small

detachment of troops that had been sent in advance to accompany

the imperial pope to Rome under the leadership of the archbishops

of Cologne and Mainz, in a bloody battle at Monte Porzio in

A.D. 1167 utterly destroyed a Roman army of twenty times its

size. Frederick then himself hasted forward. After an eight

days’ furious assault the fortress of Leo surrendered, and

Paschalis was able to perform the _Te Deum_ in St. Peter’s.

The Transtiberines, too, after Alexander had sought safety

in flight, soon took the oath of fealty to the emperor upon

a guarantee of imperial protection of their republic. But at

the very climax of his success “the fate of Sennacherib” befell

him. The Roman malaria during the hot August became a deadly

fever plague, thinned the lines of his army and forced him to

withdraw. So weakened was he that he could not even assert his

authority in Lombardy, but had to return to Germany in A.D. 1168.

The emperor’s disaster told also unfavourably upon the fortunes

of his pope, whose successor Calixtus III. was quite disregarded.

In A.D. 1174 Frederick again went down into Italy and engaged

upon a decisive battle with the confederate cities of Lombardy,

but in A.D. 1176 at Legnano he suffered a complete defeat,

in consequence of which he agreed at the Congress of Venice,

in A.D. 1177, to acknowledge the freedom of the Lombard

cities, abandoned the imperial claims upon Rome, and recognised

Alexander III., who was also present there, as the rightful

pope, kissing his feet and holding his stirrup according to

custom. Rome, which he had not seen for nearly eleven years,

would no longer shut her gates against the pope. Welcomed

by senate and people, he made his public entrance into the

Lateran in March A.D. 1178, where in the following year he

gathered together 300 bishops in the =Third Lateran Council=

(the 11th œcumenical), in order by their advice to heal the

wounds which the schism of the church had made. Here also,

in order to prevent double elections in time to come, it was

resolved that for a valid papal election two-thirds of the whole

college of cardinals must be agreed. The right of concurrence

assigned by the decree of Nicholas II. in A.D. 1059 to the people

and emperor was treated as antiquated and forgotten, and was not

even alluded to.

§ 96.16. Even before his victory over the powerful Hohenstaufen,

Alexander III. during his exile won a yet more brilliant success

in England. King Henry II., A.D. 1154-1189, wished to establish

again the supremacy of the state over church and clergy, and

thought that he would have a pliant tool in carrying out his

plans in =Thomas à Becket=, whom he made archbishop of Canterbury,

in A.D. 1162. But as primate of the English church, Thomas

proved a vigorous upholder of hierarchical principles. Instead

of the accommodating courtier, the king found the archbishop

immediately upon his consecration the bold asserter of the claims

of the church. The jovial man of the world became at once the

saintly ascetic. At a council at Tours in A.D. 1163, he returned

into the pope’s own hand the pallium with which an English

prince had invested him in name of the king, resigning also his

archiepiscopal dignity, that he might receive these directly as

a papal gift. Straightway began the conflict between the king

and his former favourite. Henry summoned a diet at Clarendon,

where he obtained the approval of the superior clergy for his

anti-hierarchical propositions; Thomas also for a time withstood,

promising at last, when urged on all sides, to assent to the

constitutions, but refusing to sign the document when it was

placed before him. The king now ordered a process of deposition

to be executed against him, and Thomas then fled to France,

where the pope was at that time residing. The pope released him

from his promise, condemned the Constitutions of Clarendon, and

threatened the king with anathema and interdict. At last, after

protracted negotiations, in A.D. 1170 by means of a personal

interview on the frontiers of Normandy, a reconciliation was

effected; by which, however, neither the king nor the archbishop

renounced their claims. Thomas now returned to England and

threatened with excommunication all bishops who should agree

to the Constitutions of Clarendon. Four knights seized upon an

unguarded word of the king which he had uttered in passion, and

murdered the archbishop at the altar in A.D. 1170. Alexander

canonized the martyr to Hildebrandism, and the king was so

sorely pressed by the pope, his own people and his rebellious

sons, that he consented to do penance humbly at the tomb of

his deadly sainted foe, and submitted to be scourged by the

monks. Becket’s bones, for which a special chapel was reared at

Canterbury, were visited by crowds of pilgrims until Henry VIII.,

when he had broken with Rome (§ 139, 4), formally arraigned

the saint as a traitor, had his name struck out of the calendar

and his ashes scattered to the winds.[278]--Thus by A.D. 1178

Alexander III. had risen to the summit of ecclesiastical power;

but in Rome itself as well as in the Church States, he remained

as powerless politically as before. Soon, therefore, after the

great council he again quitted the city for a voluntary exile,

and never saw it more. His three immediate successors, too,

=Lucius III.= († A.D. 1185), =Urban III.= († A.D. 1187), and

=Gregory VIII.= († A.D. 1187), were elected, consecrated and

buried outside of Rome. =Clement III.= († A.D. 1191) was the

first to enter the Lateran again in A.D. 1188, on the basis of

a compromise which acknowledged the republican constitution under

the papal superiority. Meanwhile Frederick I., without regarding

the protest of the pope as liege lord of the Sicilian crown, had

in A.D. 1186 consummated the fateful marriage of his son Henry

with Constance, the posthumous daughter of king Roger, and aunt

of his childless grandson William II. († A.D. 1194), and thus the

heiress of the great Norman kingdom of Italy. From the crusade

which he then undertook in A.D. 1189 Frederick never returned

(§ 94, 3). His successor, =Henry VI.=, A.D. 1190-1197, compelled

the new pope =Cœlestine III.=, A.D. 1191-1198, to crown him

emperor in A.D. 1191, conquered the inheritance of his wife,

pushed back the boundaries of the Church States to the very

gates of Rome, and asserted his imperial rights even over the

city of Rome itself. He pressed on to the realizing of the scheme

for making the German crown together with the imperial dignity

for ever hereditary in his house. The princes of the empire in

A.D. 1196 elected his son Frederick II., when scarcely two years

old, as king of the Romans. He then thought under the pretext

of a crusade to conquer Greece, to which he had laid groundless

claims of succession, but while upon the way his plans were

overthrown by his sudden death at Messina.

§ 96.17. =Innocent III., A.D. 1198-1216.=--After the death

of Alexander III. the power and reputation of the Holy See had

fallen into the lowest degradation. Then the cardinal deacon,

Lothair Count of Segni in Anagni, succeeded in A.D. 1198 in his

37th year, under the name of Innocent III., and raised the papacy

again to a height of power and glory never reached before. In

point of intellect and power of will he was not a whit behind

Gregory VII., while in culture (§ 102, 9), scholarship, subtlety

and adroitness he far excelled him. His piety, too, his moral

earnestness, his enthusiasm and devotion to the church and the

theocratical interest of the chair of St. Peter, were at least

as powerful and decidedly purer, deeper and more spiritual

than Gregory’s. And in addition to all these great endowments

he enjoyed an invariable good fortune which never forsook him.

His first task was the restoration of the Church States and

his political prestige in Rome. In both these directions he

was favoured by the sudden death of Henry VI. and the internal

disorders of the Capitoline government of that time. On the very

day of his enthronement the imperial prefect tendered him the

oath of fealty and the Capitol did homage to him as the superior.

And also before the second year had passed the Church States

in their fullest extent were restored by the expulsion of the

greater and smaller feudal lords who had been settled there

by Henry VI. Rome was indeed once more the scene of wild party

conflicts which forced the pope in A.D. 1203 to fly to Anagni.

He was able, however, to return in A.D. 1204 and to conclude

a definite and decisive peace with the Commune in A.D. 1205,

according to the terms of which the many-headed senate resigned,

and a single senator or podestà nominated by the pope was

entrusted with the executive authority. Meanwhile Innocent

had been gaining brilliant successes beyond the limits of the

States of the Church. These were won first of all in Sicily.

The widow of Henry VI. had her son Frederick of four years old,

after his father’s death, crowned king in Palermo. Unadvised

and helpless, pressed upon all sides, she sought protection

from Innocent, which he granted upon her renouncing the

ecclesiastical privileges previously claimed by the king

and making acknowledgment of the papal suzerainty. Dying in

A.D. 1198, Constance transferred to him the guardianship of her

son, and the pope justified the confidence placed in him by the

excellent and liberal education which he secured for his ward,

as well as by the zeal and success with which he restored rest

and peace to the land. In Germany, Philip of Swabia, Frederick’s

uncle, was appointed to carry on the government in the name

of his Sicilian nephew during his minority. The condition of

Germany, however, demanded the direct control of a firm and

vigorous ruler. The princes, therefore, insisted upon a new

election, for which Philip also now appeared as candidate. The

votes were split between two rivals; the Ghibellines voting

for Philip, A.D. 1198-1208, and the Guelph party for =Otto IV.=

of Brunswick, A.D. 1198-1218. The party of the latter referred

the decision to the pope. For three years he delayed giving

judgment, then he decided in favour of the Guelph, who paid

for the preference by granting all the demands of the pope,

and calling himself king by the grace of God and the pope. The

States of the Church were thus represented as including the Duchy

of Spoleto, and in the election of bishops the church was freed

from the influence of the state. By A.D. 1204, however, Philip’s

power and repute had risen to such a pitch that even the pope

found himself obliged to take into account the altered position

of matters. A papal court of arbitration at Rome to which both

claimants had agreed to submit, was on the point of giving its

decision unequivocally in favour of the Hohenstaufen, when the

murder of Philip by Otto of Wittelsbach, in A.D. 1208, rendered

it void. Otto IV. was now acknowledged by all, and in A.D. 1209

he was crowned by the pope after new concessions had been made.

But as Roman emperor he either would not or could not perform

what he had promised before and at his coronation. He took to

himself the possessions of Matilda as well as other parts of

the States of the Church, and was not prevented from pursuing

his victorious campaign in Southern Italy by the anathema which

Innocent thundered against him in A.D. 1210. Then Innocent called

to mind the old rights of his former pupil to the German crown,

and insisted that they should be given effect to. In A.D. 1212,

Frederick II., now in his eighteenth year, accepted the call, was

received in Germany with open arms, and was crowned in A.D. 1215

at Aachen. Otto could not maintain his position against him, and

so withdrew to his hereditary possessions, and died in A.D. 1218.

§ 96.18. King Philip Augustus II. of France, had in A.D. 1193

married the Danish princess Ingeborg, but divorced her in

A.D. 1196, and married the beautiful Duchess Agnes of Meran.

Innocent compelled him in A.D. 1200 to put her away by issuing

against him an interdict, but it was only in A.D. 1213 that

he again took back Ingeborg as his legitimate wife.--From far

off Spain the young king Peter of Arragon went in A.D. 1204 to

Rome, laid down his crown as a sacred gift upon the tomb of the

chief of the apostles, and voluntarily undertook the payment of

a yearly tribute to the Holy See. In the same year a crusading

army, by founding a Latin empire in Constantinople, brought

the schismatical East to the feet of the pope (§ 94, 4). In

England, when the archbishopric of Canterbury became vacant,

the chapter filled it by electing their own superior Reginald.

This choice they had soon cause to rue. They therefore annulled

their election, and at the wish of the usurping king John

Lackland made choice of John, bishop of Norwich. Innocent

refused to confirm their action, and persuaded certain members

of the chapter staying in Rome to choose the cardinal priest

Stephen Langton, whose election he immediately confirmed.[279]

When the king refused to recognise this appointment, and on an

interdict being threatened swore that he would drive all priests

who should obey it out of the country, the pope issued it in

A.D. 1208 against all England, excommunicated the king, and

finally, in A.D. 1212, released all his subjects from their

oath of allegiance and deposed the monarch, while he commissioned

Philip Augustus of France to carry the sentence into effect.

John, now as cringing and terrified as before he had been proud

and despotic, humbled himself in the dust, and at Dover, in

A.D. 1213, placed kingdom and crown at the feet of the papal

legate Pandulf, and received it from his hands as a papal fief,

undertaking to pay twice a year the tribute imposed. But in

A.D. 1214 the English nobles extorted from their cowardly tyrant

as a safeguard against lordly wilfulness and despotism the famous

_Magna Charta_, against which the pope protested, threatening

excommunication and promising legitimate redress of their

grievances, though in consequence of confusion caused by the

breaking out again of the civil wars he was unable to enforce

his protest. And now his days were drawing to an end. At the

famous =Fourth Lateran Council of A.D. 1215=, more than 1,500

prelates from all the countries of Christendom, along with the

ambassadors of almost all Christian kings, princes and free

cities, gave him homage as the representative of God on earth,

as visible Head of the Church, and supreme lord and judge of all

princes and peoples. A few months later he died.--As in Italy and

Germany, in France and England, he had also in all other states

of the Christian world, in Spain and Portugal, in Poland, Livonia

and Sweden, in Constantinople and Bulgaria, shown himself capable

of controlling political as well as ecclesiastical movements,

arranging and smoothing down differences, organizing and putting

into shape what was tending to disorder. Some conception of his

activity may be formed from the 5,316 extant decretals of the

eighteen years of his pontificate.

§ 96.19. =The Times of Frederick II. and his Successors,

A.D. 1215-1268.=--=Frederick II.=,[280] A.D. 1215-1250, contrary

to the Hohenstaufen custom, had not only agreed to the partition

of Sicily from the empire in favour of his son Henry, but also

renewed the agreements previously entered into with the pope

by Otto IV. He even increased the papal possessions by ceding

Ancona, and still further at his coronation at Aachen he showed

his goodwill by undertaking a crusade. He also allowed this

same Henry who became king of Sicily as a vassal of the pope,

to be elected king of the Romans in A.D. 1220, and then began

his journey to Rome to receive imperial coronation. The new pope

=Honorius III.=, A.D. 1216-1227, formerly Frederick’s tutor and

even still entertaining for him a fatherly affection, exacted

from him a solemn renewal of his earlier promises. But instead

of returning to Germany, Frederick started for Sicily in order

to make it the basis of operations for the future carrying out

of the ideas of his father and grandfather. The peace-loving

pope constantly urged him to fulfil his promise of fitting out

a crusade. But it was only after his successor =Gregory IX.=,

A.D. 1227-1241, a high churchman of the stamp of Gregory VII.

and Innocent III., urged the matter with greater determination,

that Frederick actually embarked. He turned back, however,

as soon as an epidemic broke out in the ships, but he did

not himself escape the contagion, and died three days after.

In A.D. 1227 the pope had in a senseless passion hurled an

anathema against him, and, in an encyclical to all the bishops,

painted the emperor’s ingratitude and breach of faith in

the darkest colours. The emperor on his part, in a manifesto

justifying himself addressed to the princes and people of Europe,

had quite as unsparingly lashed the worldliness of the church,

the corruption, presumption and self-seeking of the papacy,

and then in A.D. 1228 he again undertook the postponed crusade

(§ 94, 5). The pope’s curse followed “the pirate” to the very

threshold of the Holy Sepulchre, and a papal crusading force

made a raid upon Southern Italy. Frederick therefore hastened

his return, landed in A.D. 1229 in Apulia, and entered into

negotiations for peace, to which, however, the pope agreed

only in A.D. 1230, when the emperor’s victoriously advancing

troops threatened him with the loss of the States of the Church.

In consequence of the pope’s continued difficulties with his

Romans, who drove him three times out of the city, Frederick

had frequent opportunities of showing himself serviceable

to the pope by giving direct aid or mediating in his favour.

Nevertheless he continually conspired with the rebellious

Lombards, and in A.D. 1239 renewed the ban against the emperor.

The pope who had hitherto only charged Frederick with a tendency

to freethinking, as well as an inclination to favour the Saracens

(§ 95, 1), and to maintain friendly intercourse with the Syrian

sultans, now accused him of flippant infidelity. The emperor,

it was said, had among other things declared that the birth of

the Saviour by a virgin was a fable, and that Jesus, Moses and

Mohammed were the three greatest impostors the world had ever

seen,--a form of unbelief which spread very widely in consequence

of the crusades. Manifestoes and counter-manifestoes sought to

outdo one another in their violence. And while the wild hordes

of the Mongols were overspreading unopposed the whole of Eastern

Europe, the emperor’s troops were victoriously pressing forward

to the gates of Rome, and his ships were preventing the meeting

of the council summoned against him by catching the prelates who

in spite of his prohibition were hastening to it. The pope died

in A.D. 1241, and was followed in seventeen days by his successor

Cœlestine IV.

§ 96.20. For almost two years the papal chair remained vacant.

Then this position was won by =Innocent IV.=, A.D. 1243-1254,

who as cardinal had been friendly to the emperor, but as pope

was a most bitter enemy to him and to his house. The negotiations

about the removal of the ban were broken off, and Innocent

escaped to France, where at the =First Lyonese or 13th Œcumenical

Council of A.D. 1245=, attended by scarcely any but Frenchmen

and Spaniards, he renewed the excommunication of the emperor,

and declared him as a blasphemer and robber of the church

deprived of his throne. Once again with the most abject humility

Frederick sued for reconciliation with the church. The pope,

however, wished not for reconciliation, but the destruction of

the whole “viper brood” of the Hohenstaufens. But the rival king,

Henry Raspe of Thuringia, set up by the papal party in Germany,

and William of Holland, who was put forward after his death in

A.D. 1247, could not maintain their position against Frederick’s

son, Conrad IV., who as early as A.D. 1235 had been elected

in place of his rebel brother Henry as king of the Romans.

Even in Italy the fortune of war favoured at first the imperial

arms. At the siege of Parma, which was disloyal, the tide began

to turn. The sorely pressed citizens made a sally in A.D. 1248,

while Frederick was away at a hunt, and roused to courage by

despair, put his army to flight. His brave son, Enzio, king of

Sardinia and governor of Northern Italy, fell in A.D. 1249 into

the hands of the Bolognese, and was subjected to a life-long

imprisonment. Frederick himself in A.D. 1250 closed his active

life in the south in the arms of his son Manfred. The pope then

returned to Italy, in order to take possession of the Sicilian

kingdom, which he claimed as a papal fief. But in A.D. 1251

=Conrad IV.=, summoned by Manfred, hasted thither from Germany,

subdued Apulia, conquered Naples, and was resolved to lay hands

on the person of the pope himself, who had also excommunicated

him, when his career was stopped by death in A.D. 1254, in

his twenty-sixth year. On behalf of Conrad’s two-year-old

son, Conradin, who had been born in Germany after his father’s

departure, Manfred undertook the regency in Southern Italy,

but found himself obliged to acknowledge the pope’s suzerainty.

Nevertheless the pope was determined to have him also overthrown.

Manfred, however, escaped in time to the Saracenic colony

of Luceria, and with its help utterly defeated the papal

troops sent out against him. Five days after Innocent IV.

died, =Alexander IV.=, A.D. 1254-1261, although without his

predecessor’s ability, sought still to continue his work. He

could not, however, either by ban or by war prevent Manfred,

who on the report of Conradin’s death had had himself crowned,

from extending the power and prestige of his kingdom farther and

farther into the north. =Urban IV.=, A.D. 1261-1264, a Frenchman

by birth, son of a shoemaker of Troyes, took up with all his

heart the heritage of hate against the Hohenstaufens, and in

A.D. 1263 invited Charles of Anjou, the youngest brother of

Louis IX. of France, to win by conquest the Sicilian crown.

While the prince was preparing for the campaign Urban died.

His successor, =Clement IV.=, A.D. 1265-1268, also a Frenchman,

could not but carry out what his predecessor had begun. Charles,

whom the Romans without the knowledge of the pope had elected

their senator, proceeded in A.D. 1265 into Italy, took the vassal

oath of fealty, and was crowned as Charles I., A.D. 1265-1285,

king of the two Sicilies. Treachery opened up his way into

Naples. Manfred fell in A.D. 1266 in the battle of Benevento;

and Conradin, whom the Ghibellines had called in as a deliverer

of Italy, after the disastrous battle of Tagliacozzo in A.D. 1268,

died on the scaffold in his sixteenth year.

§ 96.21. =The Times of the House of Anjou down to Boniface VIII.,

A.D. 1288-1294.=--The papacy had emerged triumphantly from

its hundred years’ struggle with the Hohenstaufens, and by

the overthrow of this powerful house Germany was thrown into

the utmost confusion and anarchy. But Italy, too, was now in

a condition of extreme disorder, and the unconscionable tyrants

of Naples subjected it to a much more intolerable bondage than

those had done from whom they pretended to have delivered it.

After the death of Clement IV. the Holy See remained vacant

for three years. The cardinals would not elect such a pope

as would be agreeable to Charles I. During this papal vacancy

Louis IX. of France, A.D. 1226-1270, fitted out the seventh

and last crusade (§ 94, 6), from which he was not to return.

As previously he had reformed the administration of justice,

he now before his departure introduced drastic reforms in the

ecclesiastical institutions of his kingdom, which laid the first

foundations of the celebrated “Gallican Liberties.” Clement IV.

gave occasion for such procedure on the part of the monarch

who was a model of piety after the standard of those times,

by claiming in A.D. 1266 for the papal chair the _plenaria

dispositio_ of all prebends and benefices. In opposition

to this assumption the king secured by a Pragmatic Sanction

of A.D. 1269 to all churches and monasteries of his realm

unconditional freedom of all elections and presentations

according to old existing rights, confirmed to them anew all

privileges and immunities previously granted them, forbade

every form of simony as a heinous crime, and prohibited all

extraordinary taxation of church property on the part of the

Roman curia.--At last the cardinals took courage and elected

=Gregory X.=, A.D. 1271-1276, an Italian of the noble house

of Visconti. The desolating interregnum in Germany was also

put an end to by the election of =Count Rudolf of Hapsburg=,

A.D. 1273-1291, as king of the Germans. At the =Second Lyonese

or 14th Œcumenical Council of A.D. 1274=, the worthy pope

continued his endeavours without avail to rouse the flagging

enthusiasm of the princes so as to get them to undertake another

crusade. The union with the Greek church did not prove of an

enduring kind (§ 67, 4). The constitution, too, sanctioned

at the council, which provided, in order to prevent prolonged

vacancies in the papal see, that the election of pope should

not only be proceeded with in immured conclaves in the place

where the deceased pope last resided with the curia, but also

(though this was again abrogated in A.D. 1351 by a decree of

Clement VI.) should be expedited by limiting the supply of food

after three days to one dish, after other five days to water,

wine, and bread. Yet this completely failed to secure the object

desired. More successful, however, were the negotiations carried

on at Lyons with the ambassadors of the new German king. Rudolf,

in entering upon his government, renewed all the concessions

made by Otto IV. and Frederick II., renounced all imperial claims

upon Rome and the States of the Church, with the exception of the

possessions of Matilda, and abandoned all pretension to Sicily.

The pope on his part acknowledged him as king of the Romans and

undertook to crown him emperor in Rome, where this agreement

was to be formally ratified and signed. But Gregory died before

arrangements had been completed.

§ 96.22. The three following popes, Innocent V., Hadrian V.,

and John XXI., died soon after one another. The last named,

previously known as Petrus [Peter] Hispanus, had distinguished

himself by his medical and philosophical writings. He was

properly the twentieth Pope John, but as there was a slight

element of uncertainty (§ 82, 6) he designated himself the

twenty-first. After a six months’ vacancy =Nicholas III.=,

A.D. 1277-1280, mounted the papal throne. By diplomacy he

secured the ratification of the still undecided concordat with

the German kingdom, and Rudolf, who had enough to do in Germany,

immediately withdrew from Italian affairs, even abandoning

his claims to imperial coronation. The powerful pope, whose

pontificate was marked by rapacity and nepotism, and who is

therefore put by Dante in hell, did not live long enough to

carry out his plans for the overthrow of the French yoke in

Italy. But he obliged Charles I. to resign his Roman senatorship,

and secretly encouraged a conspiracy of the Sicilians, which

under his successor =Martin IV.=, A.D. 1281-1285, a Frenchman

and a pliable tool of Charles, broke out in the terrible

“Sicilian Vespers” of A.D. 1282. The island of Sicily was

thereby rent from the French rule and papal vassalage, and in

a roundabout way the Hohenstaufens by the female line regained

the government of this part of their old inheritance (§ 95, 1).

Rome now again in A.D. 1284 shook off the senatorial rule which

Charles I. had meanwhile again assumed, and after his death

and that of Martin, which speedily followed, they transferred

this dignity to the new pope =Honorius IV.=, A.D. 1285-1287,

whose short but vigorous reign was followed by a vacancy of

eleven months. The Franciscan general then mounted the papal

throne as =Nicholas IV.=, A.D. 1288-1292. He filled up the

period of his pontificate with vain endeavours to revive the

spirit of the crusades and secure the suppression of heresy.

Violent party feuds of cardinals of the Orsini and Colonna

factions delayed the election of a pope after his death for

two years. They united at last in electing the most unfit

conceivable, Peter of Murrone (§ 98, 2), who, as =Cœlestine V.=

changed the monk’s cowl for the papal tiara, but was persuaded

after four months by the sly and ambitious Cardinal Cajetan

to resign. Cajetan now himself succeeded in A.D. 1294 as

Boniface VIII. The poor monk was confined by him in a tower,

where he died. He was afterwards canonized by Pope John XXII.

§ 96.23. =Temporal Power of the Popes.=--During the 12th and 13th

centuries, when the spiritual power of the papacy had reached its

highest point, the pope came to be regarded as the absolute head

of the church. Gregory VII. arrogated the right of confirming

all episcopal elections. The papal recommendations to vacant sees

(_Preces_, whence those so recommended were called _Precistæ_)

were from the time of Innocent III. transformed into mandates

(_Mandata_), and Clement IV. claimed for the papal chair

the right of a _plenario dispositio_ of all ecclesiastical

benefices. Even in the 12th century the theory was put forth

as in accordance with the canon law that all ecclesiastical

possessions were the property not of the particular churches

concerned but of God or Christ, and so of the pope as His

representative, who in administering them was responsible to

Him alone. Hence the popes, in special cases when the ordinary

revenues of the curia were insufficient, had no hesitation

in exercising the right of levying a tax upon ecclesiastical

property. They heard appeals from all tribunals and could

give dispensations from existing church laws. The right of

canonization (§ 104, 8), which was previously in the power of

each bishop with application simply to his own diocese, was

for the first time exercised with a claim for recognition over

the whole church by John XV., in A.D. 993, without, however,

any word of withdrawing their privilege from the bishops.

Alexander III. was the first to declare in A.D. 1170 that

canonization was exclusively the right of the papal chair. The

system of Gregory VII. made no claim of doctrinal infallibility

for the Holy See, though his ignorance of history led him to

suppose that no heretic had ever presided over the Roman church,

and his understanding of Luke xxii. 32 made him confidently

expect that none ever would. Innocent III., indeed, publicly

acknowledged that even the pope might err in matters of faith,

and then, but only then, become amenable to the judgment of

the church. And Innocent IV., fifty years later, taught that

the pope might err. It is therefore wrong to say, “I believe

what the pope believes;” for one should believe only what the

church teaches. Thomas Aquinas was the first who expressly

maintained the doctrine of papal infallibility. He says that

the pope alone can decide finally upon matters of faith, and that

even the decrees of councils only become valid and authoritative

when confirmed by him. Thomas, however, never went the length of

maintaining that the pope can by himself affirm any dogma without

the advice and previous deliberations of a council.--Kissing

the feet sprang from an Italian custom, and even an emperor

like Frederick Barbarossa humbled himself to hold the pope’s

stirrup. According to the _Donation of Constantine_ document

(§ 87, 4), Constantine the Great had himself performed this

office of equerry to Pope Sylvester. When the coronation of

the pope was introduced is still a disputed point. Nicholas I.

was, according to the _Liber pontificalis_, formally crowned on

his accession. Previously the successors of the apostles were

satisfied with a simple episcopal mitre (§ 84, 1), which on the

head of the crowned pope was developed into the tiara (§ 110, 15).

At the Lateran Council of A.D. 1059 Hildebrand is said to have

set upon the head of the new pope Nicholas II. a double crown to

indicate the council’s recognition of his temporal and spiritual

sovereignty. The papal granting of a golden rose consecrated by

prayer, incense, balsam and holy water to princes of exemplary

piety or even to prominent monasteries, churches, or cities,

conveying an obligation to make acknowledgment by a large money

gift, dates as far back as the 12th century. So far as is known,

Louis VII. was the first to receive it from Alexander III.

in A.D. 1163.--The popes appointed legates to represent them

abroad, as they had done even earlier at the synods held in the

East. Afterwards, when the institution came to be more fully

elaborated, a distinction was made between _Legati missi_ or

nuntios and _Legati nati_. The former were appointed as required

for diplomatic negotiations, visitation and organization of

churches, as well as for the holding of provincial synods, at

which they presided. They were called _Legati a latere_, if the

special importance of the business demanded a representation

from among the nearest and most trusted councillors of the pope,

_i.e._ one of the cardinals, as _Pontifices collaterales_. The

rank of _born_ legate, _Legatus natus_, on the other hand, was

a prelatic dignity of the highest order conferred once for all

by papal privilege, sometimes even upon temporal princes, who

had specially served the Holy See, as for example the king of

Hungary and the Norman princes of Italy (§ 96, 3, 13), which

made them permanently representatives of the pope invested with

certain ecclesiastical prerogatives.--Among the numerous literary

and documentary fictions and forgeries with which the Gregorian

papal system sought to support its ever-advancing pretensions to

authority over the whole church, is one which may be regarded as

the contemporary supplement to the work of the Pseudo-Isidore.

It is the production of a Latin theologian residing in the East,

otherwise unknown, who, at the time of the controversies waged

at the Lyonese Council of A.D. 1274 between the Greeks and

Latins (§ 67, 4), brought forth what professed to be an unbroken

chain of traditions from alleged decrees and canons of the most

famous Greek Councils, _e.g._ Nicæa, Chalcedon, etc., and church

fathers, most frequently from Cyril of Alexandria, the so-called

Pseudo-Cyril, in which the controverted questions were settled

in favour of the Roman pretensions, and especially the most

extreme claims to the primacy of the pope were asserted. It was

presented in A.D. 1261 to Urban IV., who immediately guaranteed

its genuineness in a letter to the emperor Michael Palæologus.

On its adoption by Thomas Aquinas, who diligently employed its

contents in his controversies against the Greeks as well as in

his dogmatic works, it won respect and authority throughout all

the countries of the West.

§ 97. THE CLERGY.

By tithes, legacies, donations, impropriations, and the rising value

of landed estates, the wealth of churches and monasteries grew from

year to year. In this way benefit was secured not only to the clergy

and the monks, but also in many ways to the poor and needy. The law

of celibacy strictly enforced by Gregory VII. saved the church from

the impoverishment with which it was beginning to be threatened by the

dividing or squandering of the property of the church upon the children

of the clergy. But while an absolute stop was put to the marriage

of the clergy, it tended greatly to foster concubinage, and yet more

shameful vices. Yet notwithstanding all the corruption that prevailed

among the clerical order it cannot be denied that the superior as well

as the inferior clergy embraced a great number of worthy and strictly

moral men, and that the sacerdotal office which the people could quite

well distinguish from the individuals occupying it, still continued to

be highly respected in spite of the immoral lives of many priests. Even

more hurtful to the exercise of their pastoral work than the immorality

of individual clergymen was the widespread illiteracy and gross

ignorance of Christian truth of those who should have been teachers.

§ 97.1. =The Roman College of Cardinals.=--All the clergy

attached to one particular church were called _Clerici cardinales_

down to the 11th century. But after Leo IX. had reformed and

re-organized the Roman clergy, and especially after Nicholas II.

in A.D. 1059 had transferred the right of papal election to

the Roman cardinals, _i.e._ the seven bishops of the Roman

metropolitan dioceses and to the presbyters and deacons of the

principal churches of Rome, the title of cardinal was given to

them at first by way of eminence and very soon exclusively. It

was not till the 13th century that it became usual to give to

foreign prelates the rank of Roman cardinal priests as a mark of

distinction. Under the name of the holy college the cardinals, as

the spiritual dignitaries most nearly associated with the pope,

formed his ecclesiastical and civil council, and were also as

such entrusted with the highest offices of state in the papal

domains. Innocent IV. at Lyons in A.D. 1245 gave to them as a

distinction the red hat; Boniface VIII. in A.D. 1297 gave them

the purple mantle that indicated princely rank. To these Paul II.

in A.D. 1464 added the right of riding the white palfrey with red

cloth and golden bridle; and finally, Urban VIII. in A.D. 1630

gave them the title “Eminence.” Sixtus V. in A.D. 1586 fixed

their number at seventy, after the pattern of the elders of

Israel, Exod. xxiv. 1, and the seventy disciples of Jesus,

Luke x. 1. The popes, however, took care to keep a greater

or less number of places vacant, so that they might have

opportunities of showing favour and bestowing gifts when

necessary. The cardinals were chosen in accordance with the

arbitrary will of the individual pope, who nominated them

by presenting them with the red hat, and installed them into

their high position by the ceremony of closing and opening the

mantle. From the time of Eugenius IV., A.D. 1431, the college

of cardinals put every newly elected pope under a solemn oath

to maintain the rights and privileges of the cardinals and not

to come to any serious and important resolution without their

advice and approval.