We associate with Hildebrand the great contest of the Middle Ages
between spiritual and temporal authority, the triumph of the
former, and its supremacy in Europe until the Reformation. What
great ideas and events are interwoven with that majestic
domination,--not in one age, but for fifteen centuries; not
religious merely, but political, embracing as it were the whole
progress of European society, from the fall of the Roman Empire to
the Protestant Reformation; yea, intimately connected with the
condition of Europe to the present day, and not of Europe only, but
America itself! What an august power is this Catholic empire,
equally great as an institution and as a religion! What lessons of
human experience, what great truths of government, what subtile
influences, reaching alike the palaces of kings and the hovels of
peasants, are indissolubly linked with its marvellous domination,
so that whether in its growth or decay it is more suggestive than
the rise and fall of any temporal empire. It has produced,
probably, more illustrious men than any political State in Europe.
It has aimed to accomplish far grander ends. It is invested with
more poetic interest. Its policy, its heroes, its saints, its
doctors, its dignitaries, its missions, its persecutions, all rise
up before us with varied but never-ending interest, when seriously
contemplated. It has proved to be the most wonderful fabric of
what we call worldly wisdom that our world has seen,--controlling
kings, dictating laws to ancient monarchies, and binding the souls
of millions with a more perfect despotism than Oriental emperors
ever sought or dreamed. And what a marvellous vitality it seems to
have! It has survived the attacks of its countless enemies; it has
recovered from the shock of the Reformation; it still remains
majestic and powerful, extending its arms of paternal love or
Briarean terror over half of Christendom. As a temporal
government, rivalling kings in the pomps of war and the pride of
armies, it may be passing away; but as an organization to diffuse
and conserve religious truths,--yea, even to bring a moral pressure
on the minds of princes and governors, and reinforce its ranks with
the mighty and the noble,--it seems to be as potent as ever. It is
still sending its missionaries, its prelates, and its cardinals
into the heart of Protestant countries, who anticipate and boast of
new victories. It derides the dissensions and the rationalistic
speculations of the Protestants, and predicts that they will either
become open Pagans or re-enter the fold of Saint Peter. No longer
do angry partisans call it the "Beast" or the "Scarlet Mother" or
the "predicted Antichrist," since its religious creeds in their
vital points are more in harmony with the theology of venerated
Fathers than those of some of the progressive and proudest parties
which call themselves Protestant. In Germany, in France,--shall I
add, in England and America?--it is more in earnest, and more
laborious and self-denying than many sects among the Protestants.
In Germany--in those very seats of learning and power and fashion
which once were kindled into lofty enthusiasm by the voice of
Luther--who is it that desert the churches and disregard the
sacraments, the Catholics or the Protestants?
Surely such a power, whether we view it as an institution or as a
religion, cannot be despised, even by the narrowest and most
fanatical Protestant. It is too grand and venerable for sarcasm,
ridicule, or mockery. It is too potent and respectable to be
sneered at or lied about. No cause can be advanced permanently
except by adherence to the truth, whether it be agreeable or not.
If the Papacy were a mere despotism, having nothing else in view
than the inthralment of mankind,--of which it has been accused,--
then mankind long ago, in lofty indignation, would have hurled it
from its venerable throne. But despotic as its yoke is in the eyes
of Protestants, and always has been and always may be, it is
something more than that, having at heart the welfare of the very
millions whom it rules by working on their fears. In spite of
dogmas which are deductions from questionable premises, or which
are at war with reason, and ritualism borrowed from other
religions, and "pious frauds," and Jesuitical means to compass
desirable ends,--which Protestants indignantly discard, and which
they maintain are antagonistic to the spirit of primitive
Christianity,--still it is also the defender and advocate of vital
Christian truths, to which we trace the hopes and consolations of
mankind. As the conservator of doctrines common to all Christian
sects it cannot be swept away by the hand of man; nor as a
government, confining its officers and rules to the spiritual
necessities of its members. Its empire is spiritual rather than
temporal. Temporal monarchs are hurled from their thrones. The
long line of the Bourbons vanishes before the tempests of
revolution, and they who were borne into power by these tempests
are in turn hurled into ignominious banishment; but the Pope--he
still sits secure on the throne of the Gregories and the Clements,
ready to pronounce benedictions or hurl anathemas, to which half of
Europe bows in fear or love.
Whence this strange vitality? What are the elements of a power so
enduring and so irresistible? What has given to it its greatness
and its dignity? I confess I gaze upon it as a peasant surveys a
king, as a boy contemplates a queen of beauty,--as something which
may be talked about, yet removed beyond our influence, and no more
affected by our praise or censure than is a procession of cardinals
by the gaze of admiring spectators in Saint Peter's Church. Who
can measure it, or analyze it, or comprehend it? The weapons of
reason appear to fall impotent before its haughty dogmatism.
Genius cannot reconcile its inconsistencies. Serenely it sits,
unmoved amid all the aggressions of human thought and all the
triumphs of modern science. It is both lofty and degraded; simple,
yet worldly wise; humble, yet scornful and proud; washing beggars'
feet, yet imposing commands on the potentates of earth; benignant,
yet severe on all who rebel; here clothed in rags, and there
revelling in palaces; supported by charities, yet feasting the
princes of the earth; assuming the title of "servant of the
servants of God," yet arrogating the highest seat among worldly
dignitaries. Was there ever such a contradiction?--"glory in
debasement, and debasement in glory,"--type of the misery and
greatness of man? Was there ever such a mystery, so occult are its
arts, so subtile its policy, so plausible its pretensions, so
certain its shafts? How imposing the words of paternal
benediction! How grand the liturgy brought down from ages of
faith! How absorbed with beatific devotion appears to be the
worshipper at its consecrated altars! How ravishing the music and
the chants of grand ceremonials! How typical the churches and
consecrated monuments of the passion of Christ! Everywhere you see
the great emblem of our redemption,--on the loftiest pinnacle of
the Mediaeval cathedral, on the dresses of the priests, over the
gorgeous altars, in the ceremony of the Mass, in the baptismal
rite, in the paintings of the side chapels; everywhere are rites
and emblems betokening maceration, grief, sacrifice, penitence, the
humiliation of humanity before the awful power of divine
Omnipotence, whose personality and moral government no Catholic is
tempted to deny.
And yet what crimes and abominations have not been committed in the
name of the Church? If we go back and accept the history of the
darker ages, what wars has not this Church encouraged, what
discords has she not incited, what superstitions has she not
indorsed, what pride has she not arrogated, what cruelties has she
not inflicted, what countries has she not robbed, what hardships
has she not imposed, what deceptions has she not used, what avenues
of thought has she not guarded with a flaming sword, what truth has
she not perverted, what goodness has she not mocked and persecuted?
Ah, interrogate the Albigenses, the Waldenses, the shades of Jerome
of Prague, of Huss, of Savonarola, of Cranmer, of Coligny, of
Galileo; interrogate the martyrs of the Thirty Years' War, and
those who were slain by the dragonnades of Louis XIV., those who
fell by the hand of Alva and Charles IX.; go to Smithfield, and
Paris on Saint Bartholomew; think of gunpowder plots and
inquisitions, and intrigues and tortures, all vigorously carried on
under the cloak of Religion--barbarities worse than those of
savages, inflicted at the command of the ministers of a gospel of
love!
I am compelled to allude to these things; I do not dwell on them,
since they were the result of the intolerance of human nature as
much as the bigotry of the Church,--faults of an age, more than of
a religion; although, whether exaggerated or not, more disgraceful
than the persecutions of Christians by Roman emperors.
As for the supreme rulers of this contradictory Church, so
benevolent and yet so cruel, so enlightened and yet so fanatical,
so humble and yet so proud,--this institution of blended piety and
fraud, equally renowned for saints, theologians, statesmen,
drivellers, and fanatics; the joy and the reproach, the glory and
the shame of earth,--there never were greater geniuses or greater
fools: saints of almost preternatural sanctity, like the first Leo
and Gregory, or hounds like Boniface VIII. or Alexander VI.; an
array of scholars and dunces, ascetics and gluttons, men who
adorned and men who scandalized their lofty position; and yet, on
the whole, we are forced to admit, the most remarkable body of
rulers any empire has known, since they were elevated by their
peers, and generally for talents or services, at a period of life
when character is formed and experience is matured. They were not
greater than their Church or their age, like the Charlemagnes and
Peters of secular history, but they were the picked men, the best
representatives of their Church; ambitious, doubtless, and worldly,
as great potentates generally are, but made so by the circumstances
which controlled them. Who can wield irresponsible power and not
become arrogant, and perhaps self-indulgent? It requires the
almost superhuman virtue of a Marcus Aurelius or a Saint Louis to
crucify the pride of rank and power. If the president of a college
or of a railroad or of a bank becomes a different man to the eye of
an early friend, what can be expected of those who are raised above
public opinion, and have no fetters on their wills,--men who are
regarded as infallible and feel themselves supreme!
But of all these three hundred or four hundred men who have swayed
the destinies of Europe,--an uninterrupted line of pontiffs for
fifteen hundred years or more, no one is so famous as Gregory VII.
for the grandeur of his character, the heroism of his struggles,
and the posthumous influence of his deeds. He was too great a man
to be called by his papal title. He is best known by his baptismal
name, Hildebrand, the greatest hero of the Roman Church. There are
some men whose titles add nothing to their august names,--David,
Julius, Constantine, Augustine. When a man has become very eminent
we drop titles altogether, except in military life. We say Daniel
Webster, Edward Everett, Jonathan Edwards, Thomas Jefferson,
Benjamin Franklin, William Pitt. Hildebrand is a greater name than
Gregory VII., and with him is identified the greatest struggle of
the Papacy against the temporal powers. I do not aim to dissect
his character so much as to present his services to the Church. I
wish to show why and how he is identified with movements of supreme
historical importance. It would be easy to make him out a saint
and martyr, and equally so to paint him as a tyrant and usurper.
It is of little consequence to us whether he was ascetic or
ambitious or unscrupulous; but it IS of consequence to show the
majestic power of those ideas by which he ruled the Middle Ages,
and which will never pass away as sublime agencies so long as men
are ignorant and superstitious. As a man he no longer lives, but
his thunderbolts are perpetual powers, since they still alarm the
fears of men.
Still, his personal history is not uninteresting. Born of humble
parents in Italy in the year 1020, the son of a carpenter, he rose
by genius and virtue to the highest offices and dignities. But his
greatness was in force of character rather than original ideas,--
like that of Washington, or William III., or the Duke of
Wellington. He had not the comprehensive intellect of Charlemagne,
nor the creative genius of Peter of Russia, but he had the sagacity
of Richelieu and the iron will of Napoleon. He was statesman as
well as priest,--marvellous for his activity, insight into human
nature, vast executive abilities, and dauntless heroism. He
comprehended the only way whereby Christendom could be governed,
and unhesitatingly used the means of success. He was not a great
scholar, or theologian, or philosopher, but a man of action,
embracing opportunities and striking decisive blows. From first to
last he was devoted to his cause, which was greater than himself,--
even the spiritual supremacy of the Papacy. I do not read of great
intellectual precocity, like that of Cicero and William Pitt, nor
of great attainments, like those of Abelard and Thomas Aquinas, nor
even an insight, like that of Bacon, into what constitutes the
dignity of man and the true glory of civilization; but, like
Ambrose and the first Leo, he was early selected for important
missions and responsible trusts, all of which he discharged with
great fidelity and ability. His education was directed by the
monks of Cluny,--that princely abbey in Burgundy where "monks were
sovereigns and sovereigns were monks." Like all earnest monks, he
was ascetic, devotional, and self-sacrificing. Like all men
ambitions to rule, "he learned how to obey." He pondered on the
Holy Scriptures as well as on the canons of the Church. So marked
a man was he that he was early chosen as prior of his convent; and
so great were his personal magnetism, eloquence, and influence that
"he induced Bruno, the Bishop of Toul, when elected pope by the
Emperor of Germany, to lay aside the badges and vestments of the
pontifical office, and refuse his title, until he should be elected
by the clergy and people of Rome,"--thus showing that at the age of
twenty-nine he comprehended the issues of the day, and meditated on
the gigantic changes it was necessary to make before the pope could
be the supreme ruler of Christendom.
The autocratic idea of Leo I., and the great Gregory who sent his
missionaries to England, was that to which Hildebrand's ardent soul
clung with preternatural earnestness, as the only government fit
for turbulent and superstitious ages. He did not originate this
idea, but he defended and enforced it as had never been done
before, so that to many minds he was the great architect of the
papal structure. It was a rare spectacle to see a sovereign
pontiff lay aside the insignia of his grandeur at the bidding of
this monk of Cluny; it was grander to see this monk laying the
foundation of an irresistible despotism, which was to last beyond
the time of Luther. Not merely was Leo IX. his tool, but three
successive popes were chosen at his dictation. And when he became
cardinal and archdeacon he seems to have been the inspiring genius
of the papal government, undertaking the most important missions,
curbing the turbulent spirit of the Roman princes, and assisting in
all ecclesiastical councils. It was by his suggestion that abbots
were deposed, and bishops punished, and monarchs reprimanded. He
was the prime minister of four popes before he accepted that high
office to which he doubtless had aspired while meditating as a monk
amid the sunny slopes of Cluny, since he knew that the exigences of
the Church required a bold and able ruler,--and who in Christendom
was bolder and more far-reaching than he? He might have been
elevated to the chair of Saint Peter at an earlier period, but he
was contented with power rather than glory, knowing that his day
would come, and at a time when his extraordinary abilities would be
most needed. He could afford to wait; and no man is truly great
who cannot bide his time.
At last Hildebrand received the reward of his great services,--"a
reward," says Stephen, "which he had long contemplated, but which,
with self-controlling policy, he had so long declined." In the
year 1073 Hildebrand became Gregory VII., and his memorable
pontificate began as a reformer of the abuses of his age, and the
intrepid defender of that unlimited and absolute despotism which
inthralled not merely the princes of Europe, but the mind of
Christendom itself. It was he who not only proclaimed the
liberties of the people against nobles, and made the Church an
asylum for misery and oppression, but who realized the idea that
the Church was the mother of spiritual principles, and that the
spiritual authority should be raised over all temporal power.
In the great crises of States and Empires deliverers seem to be
raised up by Divine Providence to restore peace and order, and
maintain the first condition of society, or extricate nations from
overwhelming calamities. Thus Charlemagne appeared at the right
time to prevent the overthrow of Europe by new waves of barbaric
invasion. Thus William the Silent preserved the nationality of
Holland, and Gustavus Adolphus gave religious liberty to Germany
when persecution was apparently successful. Thus Richelieu
undermined feudalism in France, and established absolutism as one
of the needed forces of his turbulent age, even as Napoleon gave
law and order to France when distracted by the anarchism of a
revolution which did not comprehend the liberty which was invoked.
So Hildebrand was raised up to establish the only government which
could rescue Europe from the rapacities of feudal nobles, and
establish law and order in the hands of the most enlightened class;
so that, like Peter the Great, he looms up as a reformer as well as
a despot. He appears in a double light.
Now you ask: "What were his reforms, and what were his schemes of
aggrandizement, for which we honor him while we denounce him?" We
cannot see the reforms he attempted without glancing at the
enormous evils which stared him in the face.
Society in Europe, in the eleventh century, was nearly as dark and
degraded as it was on the fall of the Merovingian dynasty. In some
respects it had reached the lowest depth of wretchedness which the
Middle Ages ever saw. Never had the clergy been more worldly or
devoted to temporal things. They had not the piety of the fourth
century, nor the intelligence of the sixteenth century; they were
powerful and wealthy, but had grown corrupt. Monastic institutions
covered the face of Europe, but the monks had sadly departed from
the virtues which partially redeemed the miseries that succeeded
the fall of the Roman Empire. The lives of the clergy, regular and
secular, still compared favorably with the lives of the feudal
nobility, who had, in addition to other vices, the vices of robbers
and bandits. But still the clergy had fallen far from the high
standard of earlier ages. Monasteries sought to be independent of
all foreign control and of episcopal jurisdiction. They had been
enormously enriched by princes and barons, and they owned, with the
other clergy, half the lands of Europe, and more than half its
silver and gold. The monks fattened on all the luxuries which then
were known; they neglected the rules of their order and lived in
idleness,--spending their time in the chase, or in taverns and
brothels. Hardly a great scholar or theologian had arisen among
them since the Patristic age, with the exception of a few schoolmen
like Anselm and Peter Lombard. Saint Bernard had not yet appeared
to reform the Benedictines, nor Dominic and Saint Francis to found
new orders. Gluttony and idleness were perhaps the characteristic
vices of the great body of the monks, who numbered over one hundred
thousand. Hunting and hawking were the most innocent of their
amusements. They have been accused of drinking toasts in honor of
the Devil, and celebrating Mass in a state of intoxication. "Not
one in a thousand," says Hallam, "could address to one another a
common letter of salutation." They were a walking libel on
everything sacred. Read the account of their banquets in the
annals which have come down to us of the tenth and eleventh
centuries, when convents were so numerous and rich. If Dugdale is
to be credited, their gluttony exceeded that of any previous or
succeeding age. Their cupidity, their drunken revels, their
infamous haunts, their disgusting coarseness, their hypocrisy,
ignorance, selfishness, and superstition were notorious. Yet the
monks were not worse than the secular clergy, high and low.
Bishoprics and all benefices were bought and sold; "canons were
trodden under foot; ancient traditions were turned out of doors;
old customs were laid aside;" boys were made archbishops; ludicrous
stories were recited in the churches; the most disgraceful crimes
were pardoned for money. Desolation, according to Cardinal
Baronius, was seen in the temples of the Lord. As Petrarch said of
Avignon in a better age, "There is no pity, no charity, no faith,
no fear of God. The air, the streets, the houses, the markets, the
beds, the hotels, the churches, even the altars consecrated to God,
are all peopled with knaves and liars;" or, to use the still
stronger language of a great reviewer, "The gates of hell appeared
to roll back on their infernal hinges, that there might go forth
malignant spirits to empty the vials of wrath on the patrimony even
of the great chief of the apostles."
These vices, it is true, were not confined to the clergy. All
classes were alike forlorn, miserable, and corrupt. It was a
gloomy period. The Church, whenever religious, was sad and
despairing. The contemplative hid themselves in noisome and
sepulchral crypts. The inspiring chants of Ambrose gave place to
gloomy and monotonous antiphonal singing,--that is, when the monks
confined themselves to their own vocation. What was especially
needed was a reform among the clergy themselves. They indeed owned
their allegiance to the Pope, as the supreme head of the Church,
but their fealty was becoming a mockery. They could not support
the throne of absolutism if they were not respected by the laity.
Baronial and feudal power was rapidly gaining over spiritual, and
this was a poor exchange for the power of the clergy, if it led to
violence and rapine. It is to maintain law and order, justice and
safety, that all governments are established.
Hildebrand saw and lamented the countless evils of the day,
especially those which were loosening the bands of clerical
obedience, and undermining the absolutism which had become the
great necessity of his age. He made up his mind to reform these
evils. No pope before him had seriously undertaken this gigantic
task. The popes who for two hundred years had preceded him were a
scandal and a reproach to their exalted position. These heirs of
Saint Peter wasted their patrimony in pleasures and pomps. At no
period of the papal history was the papal chair filled with such
bad or incompetent men. Of these popes two were murdered, five
were driven into exile, and four were deposed. Some were raised to
prominence by arms, and others by money. John X. commanded an army
in person; John XI. died in a fit of debauchery; and John XII. was
murdered by one of the infamous women whom he patronized. Benedict
IX. was driven from the throne by robbery and murder, while Gregory
VI. purchased the papal dignity. For two hundred years no
commanding character had worn the tiara.
Hildebrand, however, set a new example, and became a watchful
shepherd of his fold. His private life was without reproach; he
was absorbed in his duties; he sympathized with learning and
learned men. He was the friend of Lanfranc, and it was by his
influence that this great prelate was appointed to the See of
Canterbury, and a closer union was formed with England. He infused
by his example a quiet but noble courage into the soul of Anselm.
He had great faults, of course,--faults of his own and faults of
his age. I wonder why so STRONG a man has escaped the admiring
eulogium of Carlyle. Guizot compares him with the Russian Peter.
In some respects he reminds me of Oliver Cromwell; since both
equally deplored the evils of the day, and both invoked the aid of
God Almighty. Both were ambitious, and unhesitating in the use of
tools. Neither of them was stained by vulgar vices, nor seduced
from his course by love of ease or pleasure. Both are to be
contemplated in the double light of reformer and usurper. Both
were honest, and both were unscrupulous; honest in seeking to
promote public morality and the welfare of society, and
unscrupulous in the arts by which their power was gained.
That which filled the soul of Hildebrand with especial grief was
the alienation of the clergy from their highest duties, their
worldly lives, and their frail support in his efforts to elevate
the spiritual power. Therefore he determined to make a reform of
the clergy themselves, having in view all the time their assistance
in establishing the papal supremacy. He attacked the clergy where
they were weakest. They--the secular ones, the parish priests--
were getting married, especially in Germany and France. They were
setting at defiance the laws of celibacy; they not only sought
wives, but they lived in concubinage.
Now celibacy had been regarded as the supernal virtue from the time
of Saint Jerome. It was supposed to be a state most favorable to
Christian perfection; it animated the existence of the most noted
saints. Says Jerome, "Take axe in hand and hew down the sterile
tree of marriage." This notion of the superior virtue of virginity
was one of the fruits of those Eastern theogonies which were
engrafted on the early Church, growing out of the Oriental idea of
the inalienable evil of matter. It was one of the fundamental
principles of monasticism; and monasticism, wherever born--whether
in India or the Syrian deserts--was one of the established
institutions of the Church. It was indorsed by Benedict as well as
by Basil; it had taken possession of the minds of the Gothic
nations more firmly even than of the Eastern. The East never saw
such monasteries as those which covered Italy, France, Germany, and
England; they were more needed among the feudal robbers of Europe
than in the effeminate monarchies of Asia. Moreover it was in
monasteries that the popes had ever found their strongest
adherents, their most zealous supporters. Without the aid of
convents the papal empire might have crumbled. Monasticism and the
papacy were strongly allied; one supported the other. So efficient
were monastic institutions in advocating the idea of a theocracy,
as upheld by the popes, that they were exempted from episcopal
authority. An abbot was as powerful and independent as a bishop.
But to make the Papacy supreme it was necessary to call in the aid
of the secular priests likewise. Unmarried priests, being more
like monks, were more efficient supporters of the papal throne. To
maintain celibacy, therefore, was always in accordance with papal
policy.
But Nature had gradually asserted its claims over tradition and
authority. The clergy, especially in France and Germany, were
setting at defiance the edicts of popes and councils. The glory of
celibacy was in an eclipse.
No one comprehended the necessity of celibacy, among the clergy,
more clearly than Hildebrand,--himself a monk by education and
sympathy. He looked upon married life, with all its hallowed
beauty, as a profanation for a priest. In his eyes the clergy were
married only to the Church. "Domestic affections suited ill with
the duties of a theocratic ministry." Anything which diverted the
labors of the clergy from the Church seemed to him an outrage and a
degeneracy. How could they reach the state of beatific existence
if they were to listen to the prattle of children, or be engrossed
with the joys of conjugal or parental love? So he assembled a
council, and caused it to pass canons to the effect that married
priests should not perform any clerical office; that the people
should not even be present at Mass celebrated by them; that all who
had wives--or concubines, as he called them--should put them away;
and that no one should be ordained who did not promise to remain
unmarried during his whole life.
Of course there was a violent opposition. A great outcry was
raised, especially in Germany. The whole body of the secular
priests exclaimed against the proceeding. At Mentz they threatened
the life of the archbishop, who attempted to enforce the decree.
At Paris a numerous synod was assembled, in which it was voted that
Gregory ought not here to be obeyed. But Gregory was stronger than
his rebellious clergy,--stronger than the instincts of human
nature, stronger than the united voice of reason and Scripture. He
fell back on the majestic power of prevailing ideas, on the ascetic
element of the early Church, on the traditions of monastic life.
He was supported by more than a hundred thousand monks, by the
superstitions of primitive ages, by the example of saints and
martyrs, by his own elevated rank, by the allegiance due to him as
head of the Church. Excommunications were hurled, like
thunderbolts, into remotest hamlets, and the murmurs of indignant
Christendom were silenced by the awful denunciations of God's
supposed vicegerent. The clergy succumbed before such a terrible
spiritual force. The fear of hell--the great idea by which the
priests themselves controlled their flocks--was more potent than
any temporal good. What priest in that age would dare resist his
spiritual monarch on almost any point, and especially when
disobedience was supposed to entail the burnings of a physical hell
forever and ever? So celibacy was re-established as a law of the
Christian Church at the bidding of that far-seeing genius who had
devised the means of spiritual despotism. That law--so gloomy, so
unnatural, so fraught with evil--has never been repealed; it still
rules the Catholic priesthood of Europe and America. Nor will it
be repealed so long as the ideas of the Middle Ages have more force
than enlightened reason. It is an abominable law, but who can
doubt its efficacy in cementing the power of the popes?
But simony, or the sale of eeclesiastical benefices, was a still
more alarming evil to the mind of Gregory. It was the great
scandal of the Church and age. Here we honor the Pope for striving
to remove it. And yet its abolition was no easy thing. He came in
contact with the selfishness of barons and kings. He found it an
easier matter to take away the wives of priests than the purses of
princes. Priests who had vowed obedience might consent to the
repudiation of their wives, but would great temporal robbers part
with their spoils? The sale of benefices was one great source of
royal and baronial revenues. Bishoprics, once conferred for wisdom
and piety, had become prizes for the rapacious and ambitious.
Bishops and abbots were most frequently chosen from the ranks of
the great. Powerful Sees were the gifts of kings to their
favorites or families, or were bought by the wealthy; so that
worldly or incapable men were made overseers of the Church of
Christ. The clergy were in danger of being hopelessly secularized.
And the evil spread to the extremities of the clerical body. The
princes and barons were getting control of the Church itself.
Bishops often possessed a plurality of Sees. Children were
elevated to episcopal thrones. Sycophants, courtiers, jesters,
imbecile sons of princes, became great ecclesiastical dignitaries.
Who can wonder at the degeneracy of the clergy when they held their
cures at the hands of lay patrons, to whom they swore allegiance
for the temporalities of their benefices? Even the ring and the
crozier, the emblems of spiritual authority,--once received at the
hand of metropolitan archbishops alone,--were now bestowed by
temporal sovereigns, who claimed thereby fealty and allegiance; so
that princes had gradually usurped the old rights of the Church,
and Gregory resolved to recover them. So long as emperors and
kings could fill the rich bishoprics and abbacies with their
creatures, the papal dominion was weakened in its most vital point,
and might become a dream. This evil was rapidly undermining the
whole ecclesiastical edifice, and it required a hero of prodigious
genius, energy, and influence to reform it.
Hildebrand saw and comprehended the whole extent and bearing of the
evil, and resolved to remove it or die in the attempt. It was not
only undermining his throne, but was secularizing the Church and
destroying the real power of the clergy. He made up his mind to
face the difficulty in its most dreaded quarters. He knew that the
attempt to remove this scandal would entail a desperate conflict
with the princes of the earth. Before this, popes and princes were
generally leagued together; they played into each other's hands:
but now a battle was to be fought between the temporal and
spiritual powers. He knew that princes would never relinquish so
lucrative a source of profit as the sale of powerful Sees, unless
the right to sell them were taken away by some tremendous conflict.
He therefore prepared for the fight, and forged his weapons and
gathered together his forces. Nor would he waste time by idle
negotiations; it was necessary to act with promptness and vigor.
No matter how great the danger; no matter how powerful his enemies.
The Church was in peril; and he resolved to come to the rescue,
cost what it might. What was his life compared with the sale of
God's heritage? For what was he placed in the most exalted post of
the Church, if not to defend her in an alarming crisis?
In resolving to separate forever the spiritual from the temporal
power, Hildebrand followed in the footsteps of Ambrose. But he had
also deeper designs. He resolved to raise, if possible, the
spiritual ABOVE the temporal power. Kings should be subject to the
Church, not the Church to the kings of the earth. He believed that
he was the appointed vicar of the Almighty to rule the world in
peace, on the principles of eternal love; that Christ had
established a new theocracy, and had delegated his power to the
Apostle Peter, which had descended to the Pope as the Apostle's
legitimate successor.
I say nothing here of this colossal claim, of this ingenious
principle, on which the monarchical power of the Papacy rests. It
is the great fact of the Middle Ages. And yet, but for this
theocratic idea, it is difficult to see how the external unity of
the Church could have been preserved among the semi-barbarians of
Europe. And what a necessary thing it was--in ages of superstition,
ignorance, and anarchy--to preserve the unity of the Church, to
establish a spiritual power which should awe and control barbaric
princes! There are two sides to the supremacy of the popes as head
of the Church, when we consider the aspect and state of society in
those iron and lawless times. Would Providence have permitted such
a power to rule for a thousand years had it not been a necessity?
At any rate, this is too complicated a question for me to discuss.
It is enough for me to describe the conflict for principles, not to
attempt to settle them. In this matter I am not a partisan, but a
painter. I seek to describe a battle, not to defend either this
cause or that. I have my opinions, but this is no place to present
them. I seek to describe simply the great battle of the Middle
Ages, and you can draw your own conclusions as to the merits of the
respective causes. I present the battle of heroes,--a battle worthy
of the muse of Homer.
Hildebrand in this battle disdained to fight with any but great and
noble antagonists. As the friend of the poor man, crushed and
mocked by a cold and unfeeling nobility; as the protector of the
Church, in danger of being subverted by the unhallowed tyranny and
greed of princes; as the consecrated monarch of a great spiritual
fraternity,--he resolved to face the mightiest monarchs, and suffer,
and if need be die, for a cause which he regarded as the hope and
salvation of Europe. Therefore he convened another council, and
prohibited, under the terrible penalty of excommunication,--for that
was his mighty weapon,--the investiture of bishoprics and abbacies
at the hands of laymen: only he himself should give to ecclesiastics
the ring and the crozier,--the badges of spiritual authority. And
he equally threatened with eternal fire any bishop or abbot who
should receive his dignity from the hand of a prince.
This decree was especially aimed against the Emperor of Germany, to
whom, as liege lord, the Pope himself owed fealty and obedience.
Henry IV. was one of the mightiest monarchs of the Franconian
dynasty,--a great warrior and a great man, beloved by his subjects
and feared by the princes of Europe. But he, as well as Gregory,
was resolved to maintain the rights of his predecessors. He also
perceived the importance of the approaching contest. And what a
contest! The spiritual and temporal powers were now to be arrayed
against each other in a fierce antagonism. The apparent object of
contention changed. It was not merely simony; it was as to who
should be the supreme master of Germany and Italy, the emperor or
the pope. To whom, in the eyes of contemporaries, would victory
incline,--to the son of a carpenter, speaking in the name of the
Church, and holding in his hands the consecrated weapon of
excommunication; or the most powerful monarch of his age, armed
with the secular sword, and seeking to restore the dignity of Roman
emperors? The Pope is supported by the monks, the inferior clergy,
and the vast spiritual powers universally supposed to be delegated
to him by Christ, as the successor of Saint Peter; the Emperor is
supported by large feudal armies, and all the prestige of the
successors of Charlemagne. If the Pope appeals to an ancient
custom of the Church, the Emperor appeals to a general feudal
custom which required bishops and abbots to pay their homage to him
for the temporalities of their Sees. The Pope has the canons of
the Church on his side; the Emperor the laws of feudalism,--and
both the canons of the Church and feudal principles are binding
obligations. Hitherto they have not clashed. But now feudalism,
very generally established, and papal absolutism, rapidly
culminating, are to meet in angry collision. Shall the kings of
the earth prevail, assisted by feudal armies and outward grandeur,
and sustained by such powerful sentiments as loyalty and chivalry;
or shall a priest, speaking in the name of God Almighty, and
appealing to the future fears of men?
What conflict grander and more sublime than this, in the whole
history of society? What conflict proved more momentous in its
results?
I need not trace all the steps of that memorable contest, or
describe the details, from the time that the Pope sent out his
edicts and excommunicated all who dared to disobey him,--including
some of the most eminent German prelates and German princes. Henry
at this time was engaged in a desperate war with the Saxons, and
Gregory seized this opportunity to summon the Emperor--his emperor--
to appear before him at Rome and answer for alleged crimes against
the Saxon Church. Was there ever such audacity? How could Henry
help giving way to passionate indignation; he--the successor of the
Roman Caesars, sovereign lord of Germany and Italy--summoned to the
bar of a priest, and that priest his own subject, in a temporal
sense? He was filled with wrath and defiance, and at once summoned
a council of German bishops at Worms, "who denounced the Pope as a
usurper, a simonist, a murderer, a worshipper of the Devil, and
pronounced upon him the empty sentence of a deposition."
"The aged Hildebrand," in the words of Stephen, "was holding a
council in the second week of Lent, 1076, beneath the sculptured
roof of the Vatican, arrayed in the rich and mystic vestments of
pontifical dominion, and the papal choir were chanting those
immortal anthems which had come down from blessed saints and
martyrs, when the messenger of the Emperor presented himself
before the assembled hierarchy of Rome, and with insolent
demeanor and abrupt speech delivered the sentence of the German
council." He was left unharmed by the indignant pontiff, but
the next day ascending his throne, and in presence of the
dignitaries of his Church, thus invoked the assistance of the
pretended founder of his empire:--
"Saint Peter! lend us your ears, and listen to your servant whom
you have cherished from his infancy; and all the saints also bear
witness how the Roman Church raised me by force and against my will
to this high dignity, although I should have preferred to spend my
days in a continual pilgrimage than to ascend thy pulpit for any
human motive. And inasmuch as I think it will be grateful to you
that those intrusted to my care should obey me; therefore,
supported by these hopes, and for the honor and defence of the
Church, in the name of the Omnipotent God,--Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost,--by my authority and power, I prohibit King Henry, who with
unheard-of pride has raised himself against your Church, from
governing the kingdoms of Germany and Italy; I absolve all
Christians from the oath they have taken to him, and I forbid all
men to yield to him that service which is due unto a king.
Finally, I bind him with the bonds of anathema, that all people may
know that thou art Peter, and that upon thee the Son of God hath
built His Church, against which the gates of hell cannot prevail."
This was an old-fashioned excommunication; and we in these days
have but a faint idea what a dreadful thing it was, especially when
accompanied with an interdict. The churches were everywhere shut;
the dead were unburied in consecrated ground; the rites of religion
were suspended; gloom and fear sat on every countenance; desolation
overspread the land. The king was regarded as guilty and damned;
his ministers looked upon him as a Samson shorn of his locks; his
very wife feared contamination from his society; his children, as a
man blasted with the malediction of Heaven. When a man was
universally supposed to be cursed in the house and in the field; in
the wood and in the church; in eating or drinking; in fasting or
sleeping; in working or resting; in his arms, in his legs, in his
heart, and in his head; living or dying; in this world and in the
next,--what could he do?
And what could Henry do, with all his greatness? His victorious
armies deserted him; a rival prince laid claim to his throne; his
enemies multiplied; his difficulties thickened; new dangers
surrounded him on every side. If loyalty--that potent principle--
had summoned one hundred thousand warriors to his camp, a principle
much more powerful than loyalty--the fear of hell--had dispersed
them. Even his friends joined the Pope. The sainted Agnes, his
own mother, acquiesced in the sentence. The Countess Matilda, the
richest lady in the world, threw all her treasures at the feet of
her spiritual monarch. The moral sentiments of his own subjects
were turned against him; he was regarded as justly condemned. The
great princes of Germany sought his deposition. The world rejected
him, the Church abandoned him, and God had forsaken him. He was
prostrate, helpless, disarmed, ruined. True, he made superhuman
efforts: he traversed his empire with the hope of rallying his
subjects; he flew from city to city,--but all in vain. Every
convent, every castle, every city of his vast dominions beheld in
him the visitation of the Almighty. The diadem was obscured by the
tiara, and loyalty itself yielded to the superior potency of
religious fear. Only Bertha, his neglected wife, was faithful and
trusting in that gloomy day; all else had defrauded and betrayed
him. How bitter his humiliation! And yet his haughty foe was not
contented with the punishment he had inflicted. He declared that
if the sun went down on the 23d of February, 1077, before Henry was
restored to the bosom of the Church, his crown should be
transferred to another. That inexorable old pontiff laid claim to
the right of giving and taking away imperial crowns. Was ever
before seen such arrogance and audacity in a Pope? And yet he knew
that he would be sustained, he knew that his supremacy was based on
a universally recognized idea. Who can resist the ideas of his
age? Henry might have resisted, if resistance had been possible.
Even he must yield to irresistible necessity. He was morally
certain that he would lose his crown, and be in danger of losing
his soul, unless he made his peace with his dangerous enemy. It
was necessary that the awful curse should be removed. He had no
remedy; only one course was before him. He must yield; not to man
alone, but to an idea, which had the force of fate. Wonder not
that he made up his mind to submit. He was great, but not greater
than his age. How few men are! Mohammed could renounce prevailing
idolatries; Luther could burn a papal bull; but the Emperor of
Germany could not resist the accepted vicegerent of the Almighty.
Behold, then, the melancholy, pitiable spectacle of this mighty
monarch in the depth of winter--and a winter of unprecedented
severity--crossing, in the garb of a pilgrim, the frozen Alps,
enduring the greatest privations and fatigues and perils, and
approaching on foot the gloomy fortress of Canossa (beyond the Po),
in which Hildebrand had intrenched himself. Even then the angry
pontiff refused to see him. Henry had to stoop to a still deeper
degradation,--to stand bareheaded and barefooted for three days,
amid the blasts of winter, in the court-yard of the castle, before
the Pope would promise absolution, and then only at the
intercession of the Countess Matilda.
What are we to think of such a fall, such a humiliation on the part
of a sovereign? What are we to think of such haughtiness on the
part of a priest,--his subject? We are filled with blended pity
and indignation. We are inclined to say that this was the greatest
blunder that any monarch ever made; that Henry--humbled and
deserted and threatened as he was--should not have stooped to this;
that he should have lost his crown and life rather than handed over
his empire to a plebeian priest,--for he was an acknowledged hero;
he was monarch of half of Europe. And yet we are bound to consider
Henry's circumstances and the ideas with which he had to contend.
His was the error of the Middle Ages; the feeblest of his modern
successors would have killed the Pope if he could, rather than have
disgraced himself by such an ignominy.
True it is that Henry came to himself; that he repented of his
step. But it was too late. Gregory had gained the victory; and it
was all the greater because it was a moral one. It was known to
all Europe and all the world, and would be known to all posterity,
that the Emperor of Germany had bowed in submission to a foreign
priest. The temporal power had yielded to the spiritual; the State
had conceded the supremacy of the Church. The Pope had triumphed
over the mightiest monarch of the age, and his successors would
place their feet over future prostrate kings. What a victory!
What mighty consequences were the result of it! On what a throne
did this moral victory seat the future pontiffs of the Eternal
City! How august their dominion, for it was over the minds and
souls of men! Truly to the Pope were given the keys of Heaven and
Hell; and so long as the ideas of that age were accepted, who could
resist a man armed with the thunders of Omnipotence?
It mattered nothing that the Emperor was ashamed of his weakness;
that he retracted; that he vowed vengeance; that he marched at the
head of new armies. No matter that his adherents were indignant;
that all Germany wept; that loyalty rallied to his aid; that he
gained victories proportionate with his former defeats; that he
chased Gregory from city to city, and castle to castle, and convent
to convent, while his generals burned the Pope's palaces and wasted
his territories. No matter that Gregory--broken, defeated,
miserable, outwardly ruined--died prematurely in exile; no matter
that he did not, in his great reverses, anticipate the fruits of
his firmness and heroism. His principles survived him; they have
never been lost sight of by his successors; they gained strength
through successive generations. Innocent III. reaped what he had
sown. Kings dared not resist Innocent III., who realized those
three things to which the more able Gregory had aspired,--
"independent sovereignty, control over the princes of the earth,
and the supremacy of the Church." Innocent was the greater pope,
but Hildebrand was the greater man.
Yet, like so many of the great heroes of the world, he was not
destined in his own person to reap the fruits of his heroism. "I
have loved righteousness and hated iniquity, and therefore I die in
exile,"--these were his last bitter words. He fancied he had
failed. But did he fail? What did he leave behind? He left his
great example and his still greater ideas. He left a legacy to his
successors which makes them still potent on the earth, in spite of
reformations and revolutions, and all the triumphs of literature
and science. How mighty his deeds! How great his services to his
Church! "He found," says an eloquent and able Edinburgh reviewer,
"the papacy dependent on the emperor; he sustained it by alliances
almost commensurate with the Italian peninsula. He found the
papacy electoral by the Roman people and clergy; he left it
electoral by papal nomination. He found the emperor the virtual
patron of the Roman See; he wrenched that power from his hands. He
found the secular clergy the allies and dependents of the secular
power; he converted them into inalienable auxiliaries of his own.
He found the patronage of the Church the desecrated spoil and
merchandise of princes; he reduced it to his own dominion. He is
celebrated as the reformer of the impure and profane abuses of his
age; he is more justly entitled to the praise of having left the
impress of his gigantic character on all the ages which have
succeeded him."
Such was the great Hildebrand; a conqueror, however, by the force
of recognized ideas more than by his own strength. How long, you
ask, shall his empire last? We cannot tell who can predict the
fortunes of such a power. It is not for me to speculate or preach.
In considering his life and career, I have simply attempted to
paint one of the most memorable moral contests of the world; to
show the power of genius and will in a superstitious age,--and,
more, the majestic force of ideas over the minds and souls of men,
even though these ideas cannot be sustained by reason or Scripture.