PREPARATIONS FOR THE HILDEBRANDINE REFORMATION
OUTLINE: I.--Decline of the Papacy after Nicholas I.
(858-867). II.--Reform efforts before the time of Hildebrand.
III.--The youth and education of Hildebrand. IV.--The
Hildebrandine Popes. V.--Sources.
Nicholas I., through the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals, had raised the
Church above the state, made the Pope supreme in the Church, and
inaugurated needed reforms.[418:1] From Nicholas I. to Hildebrand
(867-1049), for about two centuries, the Popes as a rule were men of
very ordinary ability and education. Many of them gained the papal
office by crime, or force, or bribery, and used it for corrupt purposes.
Most of the fifty Popes and six anti-Popes of this period were Italians.
The chair of St. Peter was far more political and worldly than
spiritual. The latter part of the ninth century Rome saw twelve Popes
elected in twenty-three years. Hadrian II. (867-872), an ex-married man
with a family, connected with many a domestic scandal,[418:2] succeeded
Nicholas I., and defended the papal pretensions with ability and
dignity. Then followed John VIII. (872-882), an active, passionate,
shrewd prelate, who was killed by a relative covetous of the papal
throne with its wealth and influence. Stephen VI. (896-897) in revenge
caused the body of Formosus, his predecessor, to be exhumed, clad in
pontifical robes, seated on the pontifical throne, tried by a synod,
deposed as a usurper, the fingers with which the pontifical blessing was
given cut off, and thrown into the Tiber. He, himself, was cast into
prison and there strangled to death (897).
During the tenth century the Papacy was a reflection of the chaotic,
anarchistic condition of the state, the demoralisation and depravity of
society, and the ignorance, superstition, and crime of the day.[419:1]
The head of the Church had lost all dignity and independence, and the
office had become a prey to greed, force, and intrigue. Most of the
Popes ended their careers in deposition, prison, or murder. The
Marquises of Tuscany and the Counts of Tusculum ruled the city of Rome
and dictated the election of Popes for more than half a century.
Three bold, beautiful, wealthy Roman women,--Theodora and her two
daughters--Marozia and Theodora--filled the chair of St. Peter with
their lovers and their bastards.[419:2] This period has been given the
significant name of pornocracy. John X. (914-928), the first
warrior-Pope, lead an army against the Saracens and defeated them. He
was imprisoned and murdered by the wicked Marozia (928). John XII.
(955-963) was governor of Rome and frequently appeared dressed as a
soldier.[419:3] The Papacy was openly bought and sold for money.
Benedict VIII. and John XIX. were both indebted for their elevation to
acknowledged bribery, and the latter was only a layman when elected but
in one day passed through all the requisite clerical degrees and thus
qualified for the high office. The most conspicuous case was that of
Gregory VI. who paid one thousand pounds in silver for the empty
honour.[420:1] The office of the Papacy practically became hereditary.
Laymen as well as churchmen were elected. Benedict IX. (1033-1045)
ascended the papal throne at the age of ten and thought of marrying in
order to transmit his infamous rule.[420:2]
The higher clergy in this period of disorder were for the most part
secular princes. They ruled large tracts of land, possessed and
exercised royal prerogatives, and were granted immunities and privileges
such as market rights, coinage, tolls, feudal judicature, etc.
Furthermore they assumed secular titles and offices. The leading
statesmen of the day were chosen from the clergy. Louis the Infant made
the Abbot of Corvey a count (900), and gave the Bishop of Tours the same
title (902). Henry I. made the Bishop of Tule also the Duke of Tule
(928).[420:3] Otto I. gave his own brother, the Archbishop of Köln, the
duchy of Lorraine and made him Count of Brandenburg and Magdeburg. Otto
III. and Henry III. also made many such grants to churchmen. These
higher clergy were married in many cases, or lived with mistresses, and
had families. After the time of Otto I. they began to counteract the
power of the nobles, hence they were made more and more dependent upon
kings, who claimed the right to appoint them, who invested them with
their power, and to whom they swore allegiance. They appeared at the
court of the king like nobles, and in the event of war led their troops
in person to the battlefield. Depositions for alleged disloyalty were
very common. As the bishops became more involved in secular affairs they
naturally neglected their spiritual duties. Simony crept in as a
consequence and was shamefully practised. Often the worst fitted instead
of the best prepared persons were given the coveted sinecures. It was
but natural that the moral example set by the Pope should reveal itself
in the lives of the clergy.
Greedy hands were raised against the monasteries, and their rich lands
were frequently given as fiefs to laymen.[421:1] The abbots began to
strive for worldly reputation and power. Hence the old discipline was
neglected, and disorders and excesses of all kinds prevailed among the
monks and nuns.[421:2] The common priests and monks were probably better
as a rule than either Popes or bishops, still in too many cases they
were prone to follow the example set by their superiors. The laity were
undoubtedly on a lower moral and intellectual plane than the
priesthood.[421:3] Consequently few complaints were made by them against
the sins and crimes of Popes, bishops, abbots, and priests. The
denunciation of flagrant abuses and the cry for reform, as far as there
was any, came from the better clergy. Of the eighty councils held in
France during the eleventh century, every one denounced the lawlessness
of the laity and the unchastity and simony of the clergy.[422:1]
The manifold corruptions of the tenth century and the first part of the
eleventh produced a clergy that had almost forfeited its spiritual
character. Religion was a cloak for immorality, for licentious
self-indulgence, and for corruption and venality which can scarcely be
equalled in the entire history of the Christian Church. It was a matter
of common notoriety that France and Germany were addicted, almost equal
to Italy, to a shameless traffic in ecclesiastical offices and
preferments.
The most startling picture of the condition of the clergy comes from the
pen of Desiderius, Abbot of Monte Cassino, who later became Pope Victor
III.:
The Italian priesthood, and among them most conspicuously the
Roman pontiffs, are in the habit of defying all law and all
authority; thus utterly confounding together things sacred and
profane. During all this time the Italian priesthood, and none
more conspicuously than the Roman pontiffs, set at naught all
ecclesiastical law and authority. The people sold their
suffrages for money to the highest bidder; the clergy, moved
and seduced by avarice and ambition, bought and sold the
sacred rights of ordination, and carried on a gigantic traffic
with the gifts of the Holy Ghost. Few prelates remained
untainted with the vile pollution of simony; few, very few,
kept the commandments of God, or served him with upright
hearts; following their chiefs to do evil, the great
sacerdotal herd rushed headlong down the precipice into the
quagmire of licentiousness and profligacy: priests and
deacons, whose duty it was to serve God with clean hands, and
with chaste bodies to administer the sacraments of the Lord,
took to themselves wives after the manner of the laity; they
left families behind them, and bequeathed their ill-gotten
wealth to their children; yea, even bishops, in contempt of
all shame and decency, dwelt with their wives under the same
roof--a nefarious and execrable custom, prevailing, alas! most
commonly in that city where the laws, thus shamefully set at
naught, first issued from the sacred lips of the Prince of the
Apostles and his holy successors.[423:1]
When Otto III., the last of the Saxon Emperors, died, the Papacy had
become, apparently, merged in the state. The initiative of the Pope in
all important matters seemed to flow from imperial rather than
pontifical prerogative. The arbitrary erection of all sorts of
ecclesiastical foundations, the unquestioned secular appointment to the
highest offices in the Church, and the legislation by the state in
ecclesiastical affairs, all point to a closer fusion of the two powers
than since the year 476. But there was no deliberate intention to
encroach upon ecclesiastical right. The alliance was reciprocally
advantageous. There could be no Emperor without a Pope, and no Pope
without an Emperor. The causes for this ascendancy of the temporal power
were: (1) the decay of ecclesiastical organisation and discipline; (2)
the disruption of society and the confusion of political matters in
Italy and Europe generally; (3) the rise of the power and ambition of
the German sovereigns; (4) the social demoralisation of the age--the
wide-spread incontinence, perjury, venality, rapine, bribery, theft, and
murder which infected the Church to its heart's core. Until these
humiliating and devitalising forces were remedied, the Church could not
hope to attain independence.[423:2]
Several distinct efforts at reform were made before the time of
Hildebrand, first by the German Emperors and secondly by the German
Popes. Henry the Fowler (918-936) declared that he would abolish simony
but failed to do so. Otto the Great (936-973) deposed the criminal Pope
John XII., elected Leo VIII. in his place, and honestly intended to
improve the Papacy. Otto III. (983-1002), a great religious enthusiast,
desired to reform the Church through good Popes. Hence he chose Bruno, a
man of piety and morality, as the first German Pope, and then appointed
Gerbert renowned for sanctity and learning. Henry II., called the Saint
(1002-1024), was the first genuine imperial reformer. He opened a
campaign in Germany against simony and the marriage of the clergy. He
reformed the monasteries by destroying or uniting small monasteries, by
abolishing abuses, and by confiscating lands. With the King of France he
agreed to hold a great council at Pavia to cure the evils in the Church
both north and south of the Alps (1023). Notwithstanding these efforts
little real reform was accomplished. Henry III. (1039-1056), thoroughly
imbued with Clugniac zeal for reformation, had Leo IX. hold a big synod
at Mainz (1049) in which simony was denounced, marriage of the clergy
condemned, and local prelates ordered to abolish both evils. Personally
this ruler was wholly free from simony and waged an unrelenting war
against the abuse both in Italy and in Germany.[424:1] He deposed three
bishops for sins and crimes. He appointed a series of Clugniac puritans
to the papal chair[424:2] and thus paved the way for Hildebrand.
The German Popes were very active in reformatory efforts. Gregory V.
(996-999), who was Bruno[425:1] of the royal house of Germany, appointed
by Otto II., renowned for piety and of unblemished character, assumed a
lofty, dignified attitude as Pope and soon made his power felt in
Europe. He purified the papal court as far as possible and suppressed
the independence of the French clergy, but died too soon to realise his
hopes of reformation.
Gerbert, or Sylvester II. (999-1003),[425:2] born of poor parents, was
educated as a teacher first in the Clugniac cloister of Aurillac and
then taken by Count Borrel of Barcelona to Spain, where he studied
mathematics and the natural sciences in the Mohammedan schools. There
Bishop Hatto took a fancy to him and invited him to go to Rome where
Pope John XIII. noticed him and recommended him to Otto the Great (971).
The Emperor sent him to Rheims to be instructed in logic (972). The
Archbishop Adelbert of Rheims soon made him a teacher in the cathedral
school. There he taught the writings of Aristotle, the Latin classics,
and the sciences. Boethius was his favourite author and science his
"darling study." He had many pupils from far and near and gained great
fame for his scholarship.[425:3]
In those days nearly every great man was drawn into the Church, not
alone because his services were needed, but also for the reason that in
that field were the greatest opportunities for advancement. Otto III.,
therefore, made Gerbert Abbot of Gabbia, but he soon resigned the
position (982). Nine years later he was chosen Archbishop of Rheims
(991).[426:1] In this new office he was kept very busy. He had a council
pass an edict which was practically a declaration of independence.[426:2]
He formed a confession of faith which was not considered orthodox.[426:3]
His severe code of morals offended the looser clergy and aroused the
jealousy of others. Consequently a party was organised against him
composed of the clergy, Emperor, and Pope; and the papal legate held a
court in Germany which deprived him of his episcopal functions.[426:4]
Thus driven from office, he joined the court of Otto III. to cast his
spell over that young idealist. In 996 he went with him down to Italy
where he was soon elevated to the Archbishopric of Ravenna and invested
with the insignia of his office by Gregory V. (998). Upon the death
of Gregory V., in 999 Otto III. elevated him to that important
office[426:5] as Sylvester II. He surrendered his heretical ideas and
became the great forerunner of Hildebrand in attacking simony, in
denouncing clerical abuses, in subjecting the higher clergy to his will,
and in compelling obedience from the secular powers. To Stephen of
Hungary he gave a king's crown and made him primate (1000).[426:6] He
suggested the crusades and laboured with Otto III. for the realisation
of the world Empire. After his death in 1003 he soon became the subject
of all sort of wild legends.
Benedict VIII. (1012-1024) was elevated to the Papacy as a reform Pope
by Henry II. and the German party, though he was not a German. He
belonged to the Clugniac reform party and was a brave, independent Pope
who joined the Emperor in assailing simony and in sanctioning the
celibacy of the clergy. Clement II. (1046-1047) was made Pope by Henry
III. after deposing three rival Popes. He held a Roman synod which
condemned simony for the future, forbade the practice by churchmen, made
the penalty for disobedience excommunication, and endeavoured to
eradicate the evil in Italy and Germany.[427:1]
The reform efforts of the Popes were supplemented by the reforming
monastic orders. St. Nilus (910-1005), a Greek born in Calabria, after
his wife's death in 940 entered the monastery of St. Mercurius, where he
soon gained renown for his tortures, piety, and studies. Becoming
disgusted with the monastic practices, he left the convent and wandered
about as a hermit, taking St. Anthony as his model. His fame soon spread
abroad so that when he made a pilgrimage to Rome he was greatly honoured
there and even consulted by Gregory V. and Otto III. It was not long
before he gained a large following of ascetics in Italy and with them
founded several cloisters which were models of lofty zeal and
piety.[427:2]
Another monk of this period imbued with the desire for reformation
within the Church was St. Dunstan (924-988), the son of a West Saxon
noble, educated in the monastic school of Glastonbury, and trained at
court.[427:3] He early adopted the life of a monk, became a hermit,
studied the Scriptures and made bells, and was given to prayers and
visions. Appointed Abbot of Glastonbury in 945, he began to reform the
monastic life by restoring the early purity and simplicity. Becoming too
much absorbed in the politics of his day and thereby coming under the
displeasure of the king, he was banished to Flanders in 956 where he
first learned of St. Benedict's rule. Two years later, however, he was
recalled to England and soon appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. Then he
went to Rome to receive the pallium and, returning to his native land,
put himself at the head of the reform party. He sought to replace the
seculars by monks, to introduce the Benedictine rule, to enforce
celibacy, to prevent concubinage, to require all priests to learn
trades, and to forbid the clergy to hunt, hawk, play dice, get drunk,
and scold.
The monastery of Clugny grew out of the urgent need of monastic reform.
It was founded in 910 by Duke William of Aquitaine to honour Peter and
Paul and was put under the immediate control and direction of the
Pope.[428:1] Bruno (d. 927) was made the first abbot. He was a
Burgundian who had already gained renown as a monastic leader. A
modified St. Benedict's rule was introduced into the new monastery which
absolutely forbade the possession of private property, prohibited the
eating of quadrupeds, enforced a silence which resulted in the
development of a sign language, required psalm singing and Bible
reading, and demanded unquestioned obedience. Before Bruno's death six
cloisters had been founded. Odo (927-941), a pupil and follower of
Bruno, succeeded him.[428:2] He was a man of great energy and unusual
spirituality, and outlined the literary work of the order. From Pope
John XI. he obtained the permit to unite more cloisters under his rule
and to accept monks from unreformed monasteries. Before his death he had
restored the ancient cloister life in countless monasteries over France
and in Italy. Under succeeding abbots, Aymar (941-948), Majola
(948-994), Odilo (994-1048), and Hugh (1048-1109), reforms were extended
to German cloisters and to English monasteries; social and economic
reformatory results were produced; the Truce of God was promulgated; and
the reform spirit was spread throughout the Church, particularly in
reference to simony, celibacy, and concubinage, and uncanonical marriage
of the laity. At its height Clugny ruled over two thousand monasteries
and produced such Popes as Hildebrand, Urban II., and Pascal II. After
the thirteenth century the order began to decline and finally the French
Revolution swept it out of existence.[429:1]
The Camaldolites grew out of an Italian reform movement independent of
Clugny though no doubt related to it.[429:2] It came into existence at
the end of the tenth century when the Clugniac movement had already
reformed many of the Italian monasteries. The fundamental idea of this
order was to reform the monastic evils of Italy by reviving the
strictest form of ascetic life. The hermit, Simeon, St. Dominicus of
Foligno, and St. Nilus were worthy, inspiring examples. Traditions of
the Greek monastic fathers still lingered in southern Italy and in the
Apennines land may have had some influence. St. Romould, born at
Ravenna in 950 of a rich noble family, was the real founder. After
leading a gay youth, at the age of twenty, he entered a Benedictine
monastery to atone for his father's sin in murdering a relative, which
crime he witnessed with his own eyes. He intended to remain only forty
days but stayed three years, yet found no peace for his soul. Then he
turned hermit, practised the severest tortures to defeat the devil,
travelled from place to place, gained great fame, had a crowd of
followers wherever he went, organised them and appointed a leader, and
then moved on to a new field of labour. As his life drew near its close,
he retired to Camaldoli in the Apennines, and hence the name of the
place was given to his order (1018). To govern these little bands St.
Benedict's rule, modified by eastern asceticism, was used. The monks
lived in single cells, but had a common meeting place for worship and
for eating. Wine and meat were forbidden, and all days except Thursday
and Sunday were fast days. The monks were barefooted and went about in
silence with hair and beard uncut, performing the duties of farmers and
makers of nets and baskets. Some of the more ascetic lived for years
without leaving their cells. They were the first to use assistants as
servants. St. Romould had a great influence on his age and was called a
prophet and a miracle worker. He induced men like the Doge of Venice to
take up the monastic life and was visited by the young Otto III. (999).
He sent missionaries to Russia and Poland, and went himself to Hungary
with twenty-four monks, but was compelled by illness to return to Italy.
He preached with great power against the immoral, simoniacal, and wicked
clergy, the monastic abuses, simony, and the marriage of churchmen.
After his death in 1027, his work was carried on by his disciples and
the order has lived on through the varying vicissitudes of succeeding
centuries.[431:1]
The Vallombrosians originated in Tuscany in 1040 as an outgrowth of the
Camaldolian reform movement. St. John Gualbert, the scion of a noble
Florentine family, was the founder. Sent by his father to kill the
murderer of his brother, he spared his life, when he made the sign of
the cross with his arms. On his return to Florence, entering the little
Church of San Miniato to pray before an image of Jesus, the figure
nodded its head in approval of his act of mercy. As a result in 1038 he
became a monk and soon joined St. Romould. Two years later he determined
to found an order of his own at Vallombrosa. Followers enough came to
begin his organisation and they were put under St. Benedict's rule
modified to meet his ideas. Candidates were put on a year's probation
and members were divided into three classes,--the religious, the serving
brethren, and the laity. When he died in 1073, seven cloisters had been
established in Italy, and when the founder was made a saint in 1193 they
numbered sixty.
The monastery of Hirshau was established in the Black Forest of
Germany.[431:2] William of Bavaria began the reformation there in 1065
by freeing the monastery from secular control, drawing up a constitution
for it on reform lines, patterning its policy after the Clugniac
movement, and introducing lay brethren. From Hirshau reformation spread
over a large part of Germany, and these reform cloisters strongly
supported the lofty programme of Gregory VII.[432:1]
Peter Damiani was born in Ravenna of poor parents in 1006 and early left
an orphan. As a boy he had a hard life, but was educated by a brother at
Ravenna, Faenza, and Parma. Then he became a teacher and gained wealth
and fame as an instructor in grammar and rhetoric at Ravenna. Suddenly
at the age of twenty-nine resolving to become a monk, he entered a
monastery at Fonte Avellano where he excelled the old monks in
intemperate tortures, studied the Scriptures and preached, and wrote a
biography of St. Romould. At the age of thirty-seven he was chosen abbot
and then introduced St. Romould's Benedictine rule, which made fasting
and torture a regular system. Each psalm was to be recited accompanied
by one hundred lashes on the bare back and the whole psalter with one
thousand five hundred lashes. This practice soon became a regular craze
and was taken up later by the Dominicans, the Franciscans, and the
Flagellants. He permitted his monks to read the Scriptures and the
Fathers, encouraged them in performing hand work, but cut them off
wholly from the world. He soon became the recognised leader of the
reform party in Europe. He denounced his age as worse than that of Sodom
and Gomorrah; demanded a reformation of monasteries, of all the clergy,
and of the Church in general; dedicated his life to a crusade against
simony and marriage of the clergy; and condemned in the clergy the
practice of bearing arms as Leo IX. did in driving back the Normans
(1053). Damiani was too big a man to remain in obscurity, hence he
became Bishop of Ostia and in 1058 was made Cardinal. In the papal
court he was a very prominent personage, serving as legate on many an
important mission, and in 1061 was almost chosen Pope. He was the
spiritual counsellor and censor of seven Hildebrandine popes, and called
himself the "Lord of the Pope" and Hildebrand's "Holy Satan." He won the
confidence of Henry III. and exercised great control over Henry IV. He
died in 1072 just a year before Hildebrand became Pope.[433:1]
Next to Peter Damiani both in time and importance comes Hildebrand. From
the scanty sources concerning his youth it is known that he was born in
Tuscany at Saona about 1020 of parents in humble circumstances. His
father's name was Bonizo, but whether he was of Teutonic or Roman race,
or whether his occupation was that of a carpenter, a farmer, or a
goatherd, are unsettled questions. His mother is unknown, but she had a
brother who was Abbot of St. Mary's on the Aventine in Rome and one of
the twenty churchmen who helped the Pope celebrate mass. To that uncle's
monastery in the Eternal City young Hildebrand was early sent and there
studied Latin, rhetoric, mathematics, music, dialectics, and the Church
Fathers. There too he became imbued with the venerableness of Holy Rome
and the sacred authority of the Chair of St. Peter, so that in the
stormy days of his old age he could write that St. Peter had nourished
him from childhood. Under these surroundings it was but natural that he
should decide to be a monk. Soon he was driven to ascetic severities,
probably by the corruptions and abuses thrust upon him from all sides.
In this monastery he met such men as Odilo, Abbot of Clugny, leader of
the reform movement in France, who was accustomed to make St. Mary's his
stopping place when in Rome; Archbishop Laurentius of Amalfi, who may
have taught him the classics; and Archpresbyter John Gratian, a teacher
in St. Mary's, who later purchased the papal crown and became Pope
Gregory VI.
Abbot Odilo, favourably impressed with the young monk's ability and
piety, took him to Clugny, where he completed his studies, practised the
severe discipline of the Benedictines, and became grave and puritanical.
The life of a monk probably affected Hildebrand as later it did Luther.
He seems to have travelled some in Germany--perhaps even visited the
court of Henry III. for his order. He may have completed his novitiate
at Clugny. From this reform atmosphere Hildebrand returned to Rome when
three Popes were claiming the apostolic seat and the Papacy was in its
depths of humiliation. Gregory VI., one of the trio, Hildebrand's old
teacher, who had bought the office for 1000 pounds in silver, made the
young monk his chaplain. Soon he saw the German Emperor, Henry III.,
come to Rome, hold a council, depose the three Popes, exile his master
to a German monastery, and in 1046 elect a new Pontiff. True to his
unfortunate friend, Hildebrand followed him to Germany to see him die in
1048 of a broken heart and then, apparently, he returned to
Clugny.[434:1]
Pope Clement II., raised to the papal chair by Henry III. (1046), died
within a year and Damasus II. followed him in twenty-three days. The
Roman people then prayed the Emperor to name a new papal sovereign and
he chose his cousin Bruno Pope in the Diet of Worms in 1048 and had him
assume the pontifical insignia. This was a new method of election and
certainly a dangerous precedent. Bruno was a German, born at Alsace in
1002, well educated and at twenty-four elected Bishop of Toul. He joined
the Clugniac reform party and enforced reformation in his diocese. He
served the German king on several delicate secular missions,
particularly to Burgundy and France, and gained a reputation as a good,
clever, honest, brave, devout man. When elected to this high office he
was a matured man, handsome, tall and stately, with a strong frank face,
and was a general favourite. As a pilgrim he had often gone to Rome and
was familiar with the conditions there. His biographer said of the
times: "The World lay in wickedness; holiness had disappeared; justice
had perished; truth had been buried; Simon Magnus lorded it over the
Church, whose bishops and priests were given to luxury and
fornication."[435:1] In Rome the churches were neglected and in ruins,
sheep and cattle went in and out of the broken doors, and the monks and
clergy were steeped in immorality.[435:2]
Bruno asked Hildebrand, who appears to have been at the Diet of Worms,
to go with him to Rome, but that austere monk replied, "I cannot
accompany you because, without canonical institution, and by the royal
and secular power alone, you are going to seize upon the Roman Church."
If that statement is correct, it shows Hildebrand's ideas of the
relation of Church and state twenty-five years before he became Pope.
Bruno was persuaded, put off the papal robes, and declared that he would
not accept the papal crown save by the free election of the Roman
clergy and people. Then the two started for Rome as barefooted pilgrims
and many a legendary tale has grown up about that journey, which took
two months. At length reaching Rome, these two pious churchmen were
heartily welcomed by the Romans and Bruno was chosen Pope in a great
gathering in 1049 and coronated as Leo IX.
With Leo IX. began that new policy of reformation and purification of
which Hildebrand was the genius and Innocent III. executor. The spirit
of the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals and of Clugny were to be united and to
predominate. To reform the curia was the first step of the new Pope. He
did this by surrounding himself with good men like Hildebrand, Peter
Damiani, Cardinal Humbert, and Archbishop Halimand of Lyons. His next
move was to abolish the flagrant evils in the Church such as simony, the
violation of celibacy, unjust tithing of the laity, uncanonical
marriages of the laity, and lay investiture. These various reforms were
to be inaugurated through Church synods, such as the annual Easter
synods in Rome, national synods, and local synods. Leo IX. presided over
eleven of these synods in person and travelled incessantly through
Italy, France, and Germany to enforce the reforms, to root out heresy,
to settle disputes, to make appointments, and to manage Church affairs.
To enforce his measures in southern Italy he led an army of Italians and
Germans against the Normans in 1053, but was defeated and taken
prisoner, whereupon he put all the Normans under the ban. They begged
their sacred captive to remove the dreaded curse but he refused until
they should kiss his feet and recognise the rights of the Church. When
he died in 1054, beloved by all Christendom, he had accomplished more
in the way of reformation than any Pope since Nicholas I. and he left
behind him a new religious enthusiasm soon to be felt all over
Europe.[437:1]
Leo IX. had entrusted papal affairs to Hildebrand until a new Pope
should be elected, hence all eyes were on him and his friends wanted to
make him Supreme Pontiff. But he saw the time was not ripe for his work
and refused. Hildebrand then headed a delegation to ask the Emperor
Henry III. to confirm the nomination of Gebhard, Bishop of Eichstädt, a
friend and relative. After the imperial nomination at Mainz, Gebhard
went to Rome, was there elected in due canonical form as Pope Victor II.
(1055), and immediately took up Hildebrand's sweeping reform
policy.[437:2] Formerly he had advocated a national Church and was a
master of Clugniac politics. Now, however, he accepted the papal theory
in its entirety. With the Emperor he held a council at Florence which
forbade the alienation of Church property, enacted rules of discipline,
and determined matters of doctrine.[437:3] To cure abuses of the French
clergy he sent Hildebrand to France, who succeeded in humbling the
bishops guilty of simony.[437:4] Victor II. himself held a council at
Tours to discuss the imperial claims of Ferdinand the Great of Spain and
Henry III. of Germany, thus assuming that it was his prerogative to act
in the capacity of arbiter. He went to Germany in 1056 to see Henry III.
die, to hold the centrifugal forces in check in behalf of Henry IV., and
to thwart the ambition of Mamno of Cologne and Adelbert of Bremen to
establish a northern patriarchate. The following year he returned to
Italy and there soon died (1057), beloved throughout all Christendom.
Five days after the death of Victor II. the Romans, not waiting for the
return of Hildebrand, who was still absent on papal business, chose
Cardinal Frederick of Lorraine Pope and jubilantly inaugurated him
(Aug. 2, 1057). The new Pontiff, who took the name of Stephen IX., was
an old enemy of Henry III., had been made Cardinal and Chancellor by
Leo IX., had been sent to Constantinople to heal the breach between
the East and the West (1054), and had been appointed Abbot of Monte
Casino (1057).[438:1] Since he was elected without the consent of
the German imperial party, Hildebrand, elevated to the dignity of
cardinal-archdeacon, was sent north to appease the Queen Regent. Stephen
IX. manifested his sincere desire to carry forward the work of
reformation. Allied with him to accomplish this work were Hildebrand,
the greatest man in Rome, and Damiani, the leader of the reform party,
whom he appointed Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia. This trio no doubt would
have made great headway in the reform propagandism had not the Pope died
so soon (Mar. 29, 1058). Before death stilled his tongue, however, he
made his court promise not to elect a successor without the advice of
Hildebrand, who was still absent in Germany.
The party of nobles in Rome, not heeding the wishes of Stephen IX.,
immediately elected as Pope Benedict X., and every friend of reform was
driven from the city. Hildebrand upon returning to Rome secured the
elevation of Gerhard, Bishop of Florence, to the papal chair and
inaugurated him without difficulty, whereupon Benedict X. surrendered
and was pardoned, though degraded and confined for life within the
precincts of St. Maria Maggiore.[439:1] The new Pope, Nicholas II.,
practically allowed Hildebrand to dictate his policy. First he sought to
free the Church from imperial domination and to elevate it above the
state. The death of Henry III. (1056) and the coronation of his son of
six as Henry IV. removed a powerful barrier to that object. Germany was
divided into an imperial and anti-imperial party. In this condition
Italian influence could be used as the determining factor in German
politics, hence the states of Italy were forced to recognise the
over-sovereignty of the Pope.
In the next place Nicholas II. endeavoured to regulate the papal
elections so as to prevent a repetition of the election of Benedict X.
and at the same time to eliminate the influence of the Emperor. The
Lateran Council held April 13, 1059, attended by the Pope and one
hundred and thirteen bishops,[439:2] many abbots, and a vast concourse
of priests and deacons, after condemning Benedict X., prohibiting
simony, denouncing lay investiture, and decreeing celibacy to be the law
of the Church, created the College of Cardinals.[439:3] The election of
the Pope was now put into the hands of the Roman cardinal-bishops,[439:4]
who were to submit their nominee to the lower clergy and the people for
approval. This practically excluded both the Roman nobles and the Roman
Emperor. This edict was the greatest revolution ever attempted in the
hierarchy. It was an effort to give the Papacy a constitution which
would make it independent. An election by any hands but the cardinals'
could now be called unconstitutional or uncanonical. And any person who
attempted to resist or impugn the regulation was to be smitten with an
awful curse:
Let him be damned by anathema and excommunication, and be
counted among the impious in the resurrection of condemnation;
may the wrath of Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and the fury of
the Apostles Peter and Paul, whose Church he shall dare to
disturb, be poured out upon him in this life and in the life
to come; may his habitation be made desolate, so that there
may be none to inhabit his tents; may his children be made
orphans, and his wife a widow; he and his sons; and may he beg
his bread, and be driven out of his habitation; may the usurer
consume his substance, and the stranger reap the fruit of his
labours; may the world be at war with him, and all the
elements array themselves against him; and may the merits of
all the saints at rest confound him, and even in this life
hold the sword of vengeance suspended over him.[440:1]
The history of the cardinals is very interesting. The word cardinal
seems to come from _cardo_, a hinge, and contains the idea of principal
or important.[440:2] The term was early applied to the priests of the
first dioceses in Rome and in 308 there were twenty-five in the Eternal
City. Under Gregory I. (604) the word was plainly and commonly used.
Stephen IV. in 771 extended the title to suburban dioceses. Anastasius'
life of Leo III. (died 816) seems to indicate the germs of a College of
Cardinals. It was not, however, until the time of Nicholas II. that the
institution was definitely created. The number of cardinals varied
greatly--thirty in the twelfth century, seven in the thirteenth century,
twenty-four by the act of the Council of Basle, thirteen in 1516,
seventy-six in 1559, and finally Sixtus V. fixed the number once for all
at seventy to correspond with the seventy elders of Israel.[441:1] The
number, however, was seldom complete.
The paternal solicitude and indefatigable labours of Nicholas II. for
the restoration and maintenance of the unity and authority of the Church
met with unexpected success. All western Europe, even distant countries
like Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Iceland, felt the firm hand of this
strong Pope. In Milan Peter Damiani humbled the mighty archbishop and
lesser ecclesiastics to repentance for simony and immorality. Robert
Guiscard, King of the Normans, acknowledged papal suzerainty.[441:2]
From many standpoints he must be accounted the greatest Pope between
Gregory the Great and Gregory VII.
The death of Nicholas II. (1061) gave the College of Cardinals an
opportunity to employ the new method of electing the Pope. Hildebrand
first sent Cardinal Stephen as a messenger to the Empress Regent to
secure her approval of the election, but she refused to receive him
because she felt that the royal prerogatives had been encroached upon by
the Lateran Council and besides she hoped to carry out her own plans of
election. Hildebrand, after waiting some time, resolved to take the
initiative and summoned the College of Cardinals. The right of the
young king was tacitly waived and a new Pope called Alexander II.
elected. The Empress called a counter-council at Basle in which the
regulation creating the College of Cardinals was revoked, the election
of Alexander II. was declared null, and in his place the Bishop of Parma
was made Pope Honorius II. The German Pope attempted to take Rome by
force (April, 1062), did gain an entry, but was soon defeated by Godfrey
of Tuscany and forced to flee. A civil revolt in Germany soon led to the
recognition of Alexander II. and the Empress Regent sought absolution
from him and shortly afterwards entered a Roman convent. The continued
quarrel between these two rival claimants of St. Peter's Seat gave a
momentary check to reformation in the Church. But the battle over papal
election had been won. The Church was no longer ruled by the state.
Truly could it be said of Hildebrand "he found the Church a handmaid and
left her free." The contest over simony, lay investiture, and celibacy,
however, remained to be carried on by the great successor of Alexander
II. It was this same Pope Alexander II. who gave William of Normandy the
right to assume the crown of England, for which he exacted a yearly
tribute. He also appointed the archbishops for England. Lanfranc of
Canterbury ably seconded the reformatory exertions of the Pope and set
himself firmly against the sale of benefices and the unchastity of the
clergy. Nicholas II. likewise declared that papal bulls had the same
force as acts of councils--the first expression of that kind. Peter
Damiani was sent into France to correct the morals of the clergy and to
enforce discipline in the Church. Later he made a similar trip to
Germany. Had not death claimed Nicholas so soon (Apr. 21, 1073) he
would probably have carried out his intentions to reform the wicked
young German king, who was called to Rome to answer for his conduct,
and to punish his councillors, whom he did excommunicate. He bequeathed
that difficult work, however, to one more able than he for its
accomplishment.
Charles the Great and Otto the Great both called councils in Rome to try
Popes. But now the Pope has attained such a pre-eminence that he cites
the Emperor to appear before him to justify his conduct. Verily the
Papacy, with the aid of Damiani and Hildebrand, had got out of the
quagmire which almost engulfed it in the tenth and the eleventh
centuries. At the same time the imperial right to choose Popes, which
had so long been exercised and which had been recognised again and again
by the Popes themselves, was taken out of the Emperor's hands and
entirely controlled by the Roman cardinals.
SOURCES
A.--PRIMARY:
1.--Henderson, E. F., _Select Historical Documents of the
Middle Ages_. N. Y., 1892.
2.--Gee, H., and Hardy, W. J., _Documents Illustrative of
English Church History_. Lond., 1896.
3.--Neale, J. M., _Mediæval Preachers_. Lond., 1856.
4.--Thatcher and McNeal, _Source Book for Mediæval History_. N.
Y., 1905.
Bibliographical Note:--The primary material for this subject is
practically all in Latin. The most valuable collections
are: Migne, _Patrologia_, vols. 119-145; Pertz,
_Monumenta_; Mansi, _Sacrorum Conciliorum_; _Rolls
Series_; Muratori; _Bouquet_.
B.--SECONDARY:
I.--SPECIAL:
1.--Baring-Gould, S., _Lives of the Saints_. Lond., 1897-8.
15 vols.
2.--Bowden, J. W., _Life and Pontificate of Gregory VII._ 2
vols. Lond., 1840. I., 73-283.
3.--Bryce, J., _The Holy Roman Empire_. Various eds. Rev. ed.,
1904.
4.--Butler, A., _Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Saints_.
Dub., 1866. 12 vols.
5.--Fisher, H., _The Mediæval Empire_.
6.--Greenwood, A., _The Empire and the Papacy in the Middle
Ages_.
7.--Greenwood, T., _Cathedra Petri_. Ch. 4.
8.--Greisley, Sir R., _Life and Pontificate of Gregory VII._
Lond., 1832. Introduction.
9.--Lea, H. C., _History of Sacerdotal Celibacy_. Rev. ed.
10.--Maitland, S. R., _The Dark Ages_. Lond., 1889.
11.--Montalembert, Count de, _The Monks of the West_. Lond.,
1896. 7 vols.
12.--Stephens, W. R. W., _Hildebrand and His Times_. N. Y.,
1888.
13.--Villemain, A. F., _Life of Gregory VII._ Lond., 1874. 2
vols.
14.--Vincent, M. R., _The Age of Hildebrand_. N.Y., 1896.
II.--GENERAL:
Adams, ch. 10. Allen, ii., ch. 3. Alzog, ii., 228-241.
Bouzique, ii., bk. 3, ch. 1. Butler, ch. 63-65. Creighton, i.,
ch. 1, pp. 11-16. Döllinger, iii., ch. 3, sec. 2-3; ch. 5.
Emerton, ch. 7. Fisher, pd. 5, ch. 3. Foulkes, ch. 11.
Gieseler. Gilmartin, i., ch. 41, 42. Guericke. Hase, sec.
177-180. Hurst, i., 473, 701, 739, 753. Jennings, i., ch. 10;
ii., ch. 11. Kurtz, sec. 92, 96, 97, 98. Milman, ii., bk. 5,
p. 409. Milner, cent. 9, ch. 3; cent. 11, ch. 2; cent. 12,
cent. 13. Moeller. Neander, iii., 346-456. Newman. Riddle,
ii., ch. 4, 5. Robertson, bk. 4, ch. 6; bk. 5, ch. 1. Schaff,
pd. 4, ch. 4, sec. 63-66. Tout, ch. 5.
FOOTNOTES:
[418:1] See Chapter XVI.
[418:2] The Pope's wife was still living at the time of his election.
His daughter, a maiden of forty, was abducted by the son of Bishop
Aresenius. When threatened with punishment, the abductor murdered the
Pope's wife and daughter. See Schaff, iv., 277.
[419:1] Robinson, _Readings_, i., 245.
[419:2] Alzog, ii., § 187; Hefele, iv., 575; Gregorovius, iii., 282;
Pertz, v., 297; Migne, vol. 136, 827, 852; Robinson, _Readings_, i.,
251.
[419:3] See Chapter XVII.
[420:1] See Chapter XVII.
[420:2] Jaffé, 50; Hefele, iv., 707.
[420:3] Bömer, _Regesta_, v., 3. See Hauck, iii., 57-59. But it must be
remembered that among these wicked Popes there appeared here and there a
Pope distinguished for purity of life. Such were John IX. (898-900),
Benedict IV. (900-903), Anastasius III. (911-913), Leo VI. (928-929).
[421:1] Gieseler, ii., 332.
[421:2] Mansi, xviii., 270.
[421:3] Alzog, ii., § 200.
[422:1] Alzog, ii., § 200.
[423:1] Greenwood, bk. ix., ch. 3.
[423:2] _Ibid._, bk. x., ch. 1.
[424:1] Read his address to the Council of Pavia in Fisher, _Mediæval
Empire_, ii., 68. _Cf._ Greenwood, bk. ix., ch. 3, 4.
[424:2] Clement II., Damascus II., Leo IX., Victor II. Thatcher and
McNeal, No. 57.
[425:1] Robinson, _Readings_, i., 259.
[425:2] Migne, vol. 139, p. 85; Olleris, _Œuvres de Gerbert_.
[425:3] _Mon. Ger. Hist._, ii., 561.
[426:1] _Mon. Ger. Hist._, iii., 658.
[426:2] Milman, ii., 491.
[426:3] _Ibid._
[426:4] Milman, ii., 493; Schaff, iv., 290.
[426:5] Milman, ii., 496.
[426:6] Thatcher and McNeal, No. 56.
[427:1] Mansi, xix., 625.
[427:2] Migne, vol. 120, p. 9-166; _Mon. Ger. Hist._, iv., 616; Neander,
iii., 420; Butler, _Lives of the Saints_.
[427:3] Hook, _Lives of Archbishops of Canterbury_; Green, _Conquest of
England_; _Dictionary of National Biography_; Milman, bk. viii, ch. 1;
Butler, _Lives of the Saints_; Lea, _History of Sacerdotal Celibacy_.
[428:1] Henderson, 329; Ogg, § 42.
[428:2] Maitland, _Dark Ages_.
[429:1] Duckett, _Charters and Records Illust. of the Eng. Foundations
of the Ancient Abbey of Clugny_ (1077-1534).
[429:2] Migne, vol. 144, p. 953; Mabillon, iii., iv.
[431:1] Mabillon, _Ann. Ord. Benedict._, iii., iv., gives his life by
Peter Damiani; Sachur, _Die Cluniozenser bis zur Mitte des 11th Jahrh._;
Heimbucher, _Die Orden u. Kongregat. der Kath. Kirche_.
[431:2] _Mon. Ger. Hist._, xii., 209.
[432:1] Giseke, _Die Hirschauer während des Investiturstreites_, 1883.
[433:1] Migne, vol. 144, p. 145; Vagler, _Peter Damiani_; Neukirch, _Das
Leben des Peter Damiani_; Neander, iii., 382, 397; Hefele, iv.; Cooper,
_Flagellation and the Flagellants_; Schaff, iv., 787.
[434:1] _Cf._ Greenwood, bk. ix., ch. 4.
[435:1] Bruno, _Vita S. Leonis IX._
[435:2] Mansi, xix., 705.
[437:1] A large number of legends soon sprang up about Leo IX.
[437:2] Bonizo, ii., 804; Muratori, iv., 403.
[437:3] Harduin, vi., 1039.
[437:4] _Ibid._; Bonizo, 806.
[438:1] Greenwood, bk. x., ch. 1, p. 156.
[439:1] Greenwood, bk. x., ch. 1, p. 160.
[439:2] Henderson, 361.
[439:3] Mansi, xix., 898.
[439:4] Bowden, i., 200; Thatcher and McNeal, No. 59; Henderson, 361;
Alzog, § 190.
[440:1] Greenwood, bk. x., ch. 1, pp. 162, 163.
[440:2] Alzog, § 194.
[441:1] Bull _Postquam_, 1585.
[441:2] Thatcher and McNeal, No. 58.