FROM CHARLEMAGNE TO NICHOLAS I (814-867)
The period from the death of Charlemagne (814) to the coronation of Otto
the Great (962) is a long dismal stretch, tenanted by discord and
ignorance. At the beginning stands the commanding figure of Charlemagne,
With Atlantean shoulders, fit to bear
The weight of mightiest monarchies.
But his descendants were unequal to their inheritance, and under them
his Empire crumbled away and resolved itself into incipient nations.
That Empire, in theory the restored Roman Empire, was in fact strictly
Teutonic, though buttressed by the Roman Church. Charlemagne deemed
himself head of both Empire and Church. In his eyes the Pope was his
subject, and he legislated, as a matter of course, upon ecclesiastical
affairs. In secular matters he endeavoured to maintain local
administration without detriment to a strong central government. For
this purpose he divided the Empire into three divisions, of which he
made his three sons nominally kings, really his lieutenants. Under these
sons he appointed counts and bishops, as local governors. He maintained
his central authority by means of deputies (_missi dominici_), who
traversed the whole Empire, two by two, a bishop and a count together.
The maintenance of such a political unity, however, required either the
organic strength and momentum of the old Roman Empire, or a breed of
Charlemagnes. On the great Emperor's death the forces of disruption made
themselves felt at once. His son, Louis the Pious, indeed succeeded to
the whole sovereignty of the Empire; but Louis's sons demanded division.
They rebelled; and civil war lasted most of Louis's life. After his
death the sons fought one another, and finally agreed on a division of
the territory, though the Imperial title was kept. One brother took the
territory to the east, destined to become Germany; another, that to the
west, destined to become France; and Lothair, the eldest, who also
received the Imperial title, took Italy and a long, heterogeneous strip
between the territories of his brothers. This division was fatal to the
Empire. On Lothair's death the Imperial crown descended to his son Louis
II (855-875), and afterwards to two other degenerate members of a
degenerate family. The last made himself unendurable and was deposed
(887). With him ended Charlemagne's legitimate male line, and also the
first revival of the Roman Empire.
This Empire had been a civilizing power. It had supported the Papacy, as
an oak supports the creeper that clings to it; and in its decline and
fall it pulled the Papacy down with it. Without such support the Papacy
could maintain neither dignity abroad nor order at home. This lesson the
Church learned once through the outrages inflicted upon Pope Leo, but
forgot it; and required the experience of a hundred and fifty years to
learn it a second time. In theory Papacy and Empire were co-equal
powers, religious and secular, together carrying on the noble task of
God's government on earth. In practice, as their respective rights and
powers had not been definitely set off, they could not agree; each
wished to be master. The relations between the two constitute the great
axis on which mediaeval politics revolve, and for a long time must serve
as the main motive of our story. The contest between them for mastery
resembles a fencing match, in which the Pope thrusts at the Emperor's
crown, the Emperor parries, and lunges back at the papal tiara. For
convenience we divide the match into two bouts, and first take the
Pope's attack.
At the famous coronation on Christmas day, 800, Charlemagne and Leo
stood side by side, co-labourers in the great task of reconstructing
Europe. But once the coronation over, the two undefined authorities
jostled each other. Charlemagne, to whom government was as much a
religious as a secular matter, though he had accepted his Imperial crown
at the hands of the Pope, did not regard papal participation necessary
for the continuance of the Imperial dignity. At Aachen, 813, he crowned
his son Louis the Pious co-Emperor, without the help of Pope or priest.
This thrust must have carried discomfiture to the banks of the Tiber.
But with Charlemagne's weak successors the astute Papacy scored hit
after hit. Louis the Pious submitted to be recrowned by the Pope, so did
his son, Lothair, and his grandson Louis II; and their two successors
were also crowned by the Pope. This sequence of palpable hits won this
bout and secured for the Papacy beyond dispute the prerogative of
crowning the Emperors.
If we now turn to that part of the game where Emperor lunged and Pope
parried, we find a more complicated situation. A third player takes a
hand, to the confusion of the game and to the great detriment of the
papal defence. This third player is the Roman people, who believed that
the _Senatus Populusque Romanus_ still possessed their ancient
prerogatives, and had the right to appoint both Emperor and Pope. Their
claim to elect the Emperor was flimsy enough, being merely the memory of
an empty form, and is not of enough consequence to stop for; but their
claim to interfere in the papal election was of the highest importance.
It arose from the anomalous nature of the Papacy. The Pope was bishop of
Rome, and as such his election lay in the hands of the clergy and people
of Rome; he was also the ruler of central Italy, and as such the barons
there were interested in his election; and, in addition, he was head of
all the Christian Churches in the West, and so all western Christendom,
and the Emperor as its temporal lord, was likewise concerned. The fact
was that no definite method of papal election and confirmation had been
settled upon during these disturbed centuries. The original practice had
been for the Roman churches, priests, and laymen together assembled, to
make the election; subsequently the senate, or the army, or the nobles,
had represented the lay body of electors; but whoever represented the
laymen, they and the clergy made the election; which was then submitted
to the Emperor, or his representative, for scrutiny and confirmation.
The submission of the Roman election to the examination of a Byzantine
Emperor had never been acceptable in Rome, and after the breach over
iconoclasm, the practice ceased. Naturally, on the revival of the Roman
Empire in the West, the new Emperors claimed the old Imperial right of
supervision; naturally, also, the papal party resisted the fresh
exercise of the old prerogative. Here was a situation for a scrimmage,
but any clear account of the papal elections in Rome, supposing such
were possible, would be too minute; this narrative must confine itself
to the main passes between the papal party and the Emperors.
After the death of Charlemagne (no papal election occurred during his
lifetime) several Popes were elected and consecrated without previously
consulting the Emperor. On the other hand, in the next reign the
Imperial deputy made the Romans take oath that no Pope should be
consecrated without the approval of the Emperor. What was done at the
following election is not known, but at the second the Pope was not
consecrated until the Emperor had ratified the proceedings. Thereafter
the Imperial right was acknowledged in theory, though in practice the
elected Pontiffs did not always wait for Imperial confirmation.
With the fall of the Carlovingian Empire the fencing match ceased for
lack of an Imperial contestant. The score stood thus: each had succeeded
in the attack, the Papacy had won its right to bestow the Imperial
crown, and the Empire had won, though not so definitely, its right to
supervise the election of a Pope. We must now pass to this Imperial
interregnum knowing that when the Empire shall be revived, the match
will begin anew and the combatants, with foils unbated and envenomed,
will fight to a finish.
The Imperial interregnum, nominally interrupted by one German and
several Italian make-believe Emperors, lasted for three generations; no
Imperial power was exercised from 875 to 962. It is a murky period in
which shadows wander about; but before taking our candle and descending
into the gloom, we will turn to the one bright spot, the career of a
great Pope, Nicholas I (858-867).
This Pope, in spite of the decadence of the Papacy, won immense prestige
for it by two successful assertions of cosmopolitan authority. The King
of Lorraine, brother to Louis II, the Emperor, wished to put away his
wife and marry another woman. The innocent queen, with the sanction of
the clergy of the kingdom, was divorced and forced to enter a convent;
and, with the consent of his clergy, the king married the other woman.
The wronged queen appealed to the Pope, who sent his legates to
investigate the affair; but the king bribed the legates and succeeded in
getting a decision from the local synod in his favour, although, in
fact, the whole matter had been a shocking scandal. Thereupon the king
sent the archbishops of Cologne and of Trier, the two great
ecclesiastical dignitaries of the kingdom, to announce this verdict of
acquittal. The Pope, "professing," as his enemies said, "to be
imperator of the whole world," seized his opportunity; he espoused the
cause of the innocent queen, annulled the fraudulent proceedings, and
excommunicated and deposed the two archbishops. The king applied to the
Emperor for help, and the Emperor went to Rome, but could obtain no
concession. The Pope stood like a rock. He allied himself with France
and Germany, and threatened to excommunicate the sinning husband and all
his bishops. The king was obliged to submit. The usurping wife was
excommunicated and banished, and the papal legate conducted the divorced
queen back to the royal palace. Thus the Papacy not only established a
great precedent for the supremacy of the spiritual over the temporal
power, but also stood conspicuous before the world as the champion of
the weak and oppressed and the defender of morality and justice.
It would be difficult to overrate the effect of this papal achievement.
It may be that the Papacy stood forth as champion of innocence when
policy coincided with righteousness; but it was the righteousness and
not the policy which gave the Papacy strength. One can imagine, in days
when brutal barons, scattered in strongholds all over the country, were
the normal forms of power and authority, what effect such news had upon
the people. A pilgrim from across the Alps, a peddler, or some poor
vagrant, enters a village huddled at the foot of a hill, on which stands
a great castle where a drunken lord revels with his mistresses, and
recounts to the assembled peasants, serfs, and slaves, how the Holy
Father, in the name of God, had commanded a greater lord, in a greater
castle, to put away his mistress and bring back his wife, and how that
lord had got down on his knees and had done the Holy Father's bidding.
The second case was the victory of papal authority over the spirit of
nationality in the Church. When the incipient nations of France and
Germany, having separated from the Empire, had begun to be
self-conscious, the spirit of nationality naturally showed itself in
ecclesiastical matters as well as in political matters. There was
obvious likelihood that the nations would govern themselves
ecclesiastically as well as politically. Should they do so, the papal
supremacy would fall just as the Imperial supremacy had fallen, and the
unity of the Church would be shattered just as the Empire had been. Here
was certainly a great danger to the Papacy, and probably a great danger
to Christianity and civilization; at least so Nicholas thought. He
resolved to meet it boldly. His opportunity came when a French (West
Frankish) bishop appealed to Rome against the action of his
metropolitan. The metropolitan objected that there was no precedent for
papal action in such a case; he did not deny that the Pope had certain
appellate functions, but said that if the Pope interfered directly in
the discipline of bishops, the power of the metropolitan would be
impaired. It is needless to say that this argument did not produce the
result that the metropolitan desired. There was nothing the Papacy
wanted more than that its central government should act directly
everywhere, and that all bishops should be dependent upon Rome; that
was the very principle of papal supremacy. The issue would determine
whether the Papacy was to be an autocratic power, or a limited court of
appeal. Nicholas was able to take advantage of the troubled political
situation to enforce direct papal authority, and so added an immense
prerogative to the papal power.
Apart from this imperial ecclesiastical principle the latter episode is
especially interesting on account of the character of the evidence
produced by the Pope to maintain his position. This evidence consisted
of a new compilation of Church law which appeared somewhat mysteriously
about this time. Theretofore Church law had consisted of a collection of
precepts taken from the Bible, from the early Fathers, from decrees of
Councils, and also of letters, called decretals, written by the bishops
of Rome, but none of these decretals was earlier than the time of
Constantine. The fact, that there were no papal decretals prior to
Constantine, seemed to imply, at least to the sceptically minded, that
papal authority had really begun at the time of Constantine and not at
the time of St. Peter. To the ardent papist such an idea was incredible.
Nicholas now produced a new batch of documents. Among these was the
_Donation of Constantine_, of which I have spoken. Others were papal
decretals, which purported to come from Popes of the third and second
centuries, and to prove that papal jurisdiction over other bishoprics
had been exercised almost as far back as the time of St. Peter. These
new appearing documents placed the Pope not only above kings, but above
metropolitans and provincial synods, and justified Nicholas in acting
directly in the case of the West Frankish bishop, in the King of
Lorraine's matrimonial affairs, and also in assuming to act as
"imperator of the whole world." These documents, known as the _Isidorian
Decretals_, were probably composed by some priest in France, not long
before their use by Nicholas. For six hundred years they were believed
to be genuine, and during that time rendered the Papacy great service by
ranging the sentiment of law throughout Europe (at least until the
revival of Roman law) on the side of the Papacy in its struggle with the
Empire.