II. THE HIERARCHY, THE CLERGY AND THE MONKS.

§ 82. THE PAPACY AND THE CAROLINGIANS.

The Christianizing of the German world was in great part accomplished

without the help of Rome. Hence the German churches, even those that

were Catholic, troubled themselves little at first about the papal

chair. The Visigoth church in Spain was most completely estranged

from it. The Saracen invasion of A.D. 711 cut off all possibility

of intercourse with Rome. Even the free Christian states in Spain

down to the 11th century had no connection with Rome. The Frankish

churches, too, in Gaul as well as in Austrasia, throve and ran wild

in their independence during the Merovingian age. On the other hand,

the relation of the English Church to Rome was and continued to be

very intimate. Numerous pilgrimages of Anglo-Saxons of higher and lower

ranks were undertaken to the grave of the chief of the Apostles, and

increased the dependence of the nation on the chair of St. Peter. For

the support of these pilgrims and as a training school for English

clergy, the _Schola Saxonica_ was founded in the 8th century, and for

its maintenance and that of the holy places in the city, on Peter’s day

the 29th June was collected the so-called Peter’s pence, a penny for

every house. Out of this sprang a standing impost on all the English

people for the papal chair, which in the 13th century became a money

tax upon the kings of England which Henry VIII. was the first to

repudiate in A.D. 1532. The credit belongs to the Anglo-Saxons and

especially to Boniface of not only delivering the rich sheaves of their

missionary harvest into the granaries of Rome, but also of organizing

the previously existing churches of the Frankish territories after

the Romish method and rendering them obedient to the Roman see. Since

then there has been such a regular intercourse between the pope and

the Carolingian rulers that it absorbed almost completely the whole

diplomatic activity of the Romish curia.

§ 82.1. =The Period of the Founding of the States of the

Church.=--From bequests and presents of ancient times the

Roman chair succeeded to an immense landed property, _Patrimonium

S. Petri_, which afforded it the means of greatly assuaging the

distress of the inhabitants of Italy during the disturbances

of the migrations of the peoples. There was naturally then no

word of the exercise of sovereign rights. From the time of the

restoration of the Byzantine exarchate in A.D. 567 (§ 76, 7) the

political importance of the pope grew immensely; its continued

existence was often dependent on the good will of the pope for

whom generally indeed the idea of becoming the court patriarch

of a Longobard-Roman emperor was not an enticing one. But the

pope could not prevent the Longobard power (§ 76, 8) from gaining

ground in the north as well as in the south of the peninsula. An

important increase of influence, power and prestige was brought

to the papal chair under =Gregory II.=, A.D. 715-731, through

the rebellions in northern and central Italy occasioned by the

Byzantine iconoclastic disputes. Rome was in this way raised

to a kind of political suzerainty not only over the Roman duchy

but also over the rest of the exarchate in the north--Ravenna

and the neighbouring cities together with Venice (§ 66, 1).

=Gregory III.=, A.D. 731-741, hard pressed by Luitprand the

Longobard, thrice (A.D. 739, 740) applied for help to the Frank

=Charles Martel=, who, closely bound in friendship with Luitprand,

his ally against the Saracens, sent some clerics to Italy to

secure a peaceful arrangement. Gregory’s successor =Zacharias=,

A.D. 741-752, sanctioned by his apostolic judgment the setting

aside of the Merovingian sham king Childeric III., whereupon

=Pepin the Short=, in A.D. 752, assumed the royal title with

the royal power which he had long possessed. The next elected

pope called Stephen died before consecration, consequently his

successor of the same name is usually designated =Stephen II.=,

A.D. 752-757. The Longobard Aistulf had in A.D. 751 conquered

Ravenna and the cities connected with it. Pope Stephen II. sought

help anew of the Frankish king and supported his petition by

forwarding an autograph letter of the Apostle Peter, in which

he exhorted the king of the Franks as his adopted son under

peril of all the pains of hell to save Rome and the Roman church.

He himself at Pepin’s invitation went to France. At Ponthion,

where, in A.D. 754, the king greeted him, Pepin promised the

pope to restore to Rome her former possessions and to give

protection against further inroads of the Longobards; while the

pope imparted to the king and his two sons Charles and Carloman

the kingly anointing in the church of St. Dionysius or Denis

in Paris. At Quiersy then Pepin took counsel with his sons and

the nobles of his kingdom about the fulfilling of his promise,

bound the Longobard king by oath in the year following after

a successful campaign to surrender the cities, properties and

privileges claimed by the pope, and assigned these in A.D. 755

as a present to St. Peter as their possessor from that time forth.

But scarcely had he retired with his army when Aistulf not only

refused all and any surrender, but broke in anew upon Roman

territory, robbing and laying waste on every side. By a second

campaign, however, in A.D. 756, Pepin compelled him actually

to deliver over the required cities in the provinces of Rome

and Ravenna the key of which he deposited with a deed of gift,

no longer extant, on the grave of St. Peter; while the pope,

transferring to Pepin the honorary title of Exarch of Ravenna,

decorated him with the insignia of a Roman patrician. When the

Byzantine envoys claimed Ravenna as their own property, Pepin

answered that the Franks had not shed their blood for the Greeks

but for St. Peter.--Aistulf’s death followed soon after this

and amid the struggles for the succession to the throne one of

the candidates, duke Desiderius of Tuscany, sought the powerful

support of the pope and promised him in return the surrender

of those cities of the eastern province of Ravenna which still

remained in the hands of the Longobards. The pope obtained

Pepin’s consent to this transaction, and Desiderius was

made king. But neither Stephen nor his successor Paul I.,

A.D. 757-767, could get him completely to fulfil his promise,

and new encroachments of the Longobards as well as new claims

of the pope intensified the bad feeling between them, which the

conciliation of Pepin, who died in A.D. 768 had not by any means

overcome.[227]

§ 82.2. After the death of Paul I. the nobles forced one of

their own order upon the Romans as pope under the name of

Constantine II. Another party with Longobard help appointed

a presbyter, Philip. The former maintained his ground for

thirteen months, but was then overthrown by a clerical party

and, with his eyes put out, was cast into the street. They now

united in the choice of =Stephen III.=, A.D. 768-772.--Desiderius

wished greatly to form a marriage connection with the Frankish

court, and found a zealous friend in Bertrada, the widow of Pepin.

When Stephen heard of it his wrath was unbounded, and he gave

unbridled expression to it in a letter which he sent to her sons

Charlemagne and Carloman. Referring to the fact that the devil

had already in Paradise by the persuasion of a woman overthrown

the first man and with him the whole race, he characterized this

plan as _propria diabolica immissio_, declared that any idea

of a connection by marriage of the illustrious reigning family

of the Franks with the _fœtentissima Longobardorum gens_, from

which all vile infections proceed, was nothing short of madness,

etc. Not peace and friendship, but only war and enmity with this

robber of the patrimony of Peter would be becoming in the pious

kings of the Franks. He laid down this his exhortation at the

grave of Peter and performed over it a Mass. Whoever sets himself

to act contrary to it, on him will fall the anathema and with the

devil and all godless men he shall burn in everlasting flames;

but whosoever is obedient to it, shall be partaker of eternal

salvation and glory. Nevertheless Charles married Desiderata the

daughter of Desiderius, and Gisela, Charles’ sister, married the

son of Desiderius. But before a year had passed, in A.D. 771,

he wearied of the Longobard wife and sent her home. Soon after

this Carloman died. Charles seized upon the inheritance of his

youthful nephews, who together with their mother found shelter

with Desiderius. When =Hadrian I.=, A.D. 772-795, refused to give

the royal anointing to Carloman’s sons, Desiderius took from him

a great part of the States of the Church and threatened Rome. But

Charles hastened at the pope’s call to give him help, conquered

Pavia, shut up king Desiderius in the monastery of Corbei, and

joined Lombardy to the Frankish empire. Further information

as to what passed between him and Hadrian at Rome in A.D. 774

is only to be got from the _Vita Hadriani_ (§ 90, 6) written

during the reign of Louis of France. It relates as follows: At

the grave of Peter the pope earnestly exhorted him to fulfil

at last completely the promise which his father Pepin I. with

his own consent and that of the Frankish nobles gave to pope

Stephen II. at Quiersy in A.D. 754. Charles after reading over

the document referred to agreed to everything promised therein,

and produced a new deed of gift after the style (_ad instar_)

of the old, undertaking to transfer to the Roman church

a territorial possession which, together with the assumed

_Promissio_ of Pepin described with geographical precision,

embraced almost all Italy, excepting Lombardy but including

Corsica, Venice and Istria. It is now quite inconceivable that

Charles, let alone Pepin, should have given the pope such an

immense territory which Pepin for a simple footing in A.D. 754,

and Charles for at least three-fourths of it, must have first

themselves conquered. Moreover this account of the matter is

directly contradicted by the statement of all the witnesses of

Pepin’s own times. On the part of the Franks the continuator of

the Chronicler Fredégar, on the part of the Romans the biographer

of Stephen II. in the _Liber pontificalis_ and that pope himself

in his letters to Pepin, all speak of the negociations between

the king and the pope as having reference simply to Rome and

Ravenna. And since all attempts to reconcile these contradictions

by exegetical devices have failed, we can only regard this

as a fiction designed to palm off upon Louis of France Rome’s

own ambitious territorial scheme. All that Charlemagne did was

to confirm and renew his father’s gifts, as Hadrian himself

distinctly states: _Amplius_ (=further, _i.e._ for time to

come) _confirmavit_.--Moreover Pepin, and still more Charlemagne,

would hardly have granted to the holy father by his gift

absolute sovereignty over the States of the Church thus founded.

By conferring the patriciate upon the two Frankish princes,

the pope, indeed, himself acknowledged that the suzerainty

now belonged to them which formerly the Byzantine emperor

had exercised by his viceroy, the exarch of Ravenna. A more

exact definition of these rights, however, may have been first

given when Charles was crowned emperor, his imperial authority

undoubtedly extending over the Papal States. The pope as a

temporal prince was his vassal and must himself, like all

citizens of Rome, take the oath of allegiance to the emperor.

Judicial authority and the appointment of government officials

belonged to him; but they were supervised and controlled by

the Frankish ambassadors, _Missi dominici_, who heard appeals

and complaints of all kinds and were authorized to give a final

judgment.

§ 82.3. =Charlemagne and Leo III.=--Hadrian I. was succeeded by

=Leo III.=, A.D. 795-816. During a solemn procession in A.D. 799

he was murderously attacked by the nephews of his predecessor

and severely beaten. Some of the bystanders declared that they

had seen the bandits tear out his tongue and eyes. The legend

vouched for by the pope himself was added that Peter by a miracle

restored him both the next night. Leo meanwhile escaped from

his tormentors and fled to Charlemagne. His opponents accused

him before the king of perjury and adultery, and the hearing of

witnesses seems to have confirmed the serious charges, for Alcuin

hastened to burn the report which was given in to him on the

subject. But the pope was honourably discharged and assumed again

the chair of Peter under the protection of a Frankish guard.

Next year Charles crossed the Alps with his army for a campaign

against Benevento. He convened a Synod at Rome; but the bishops

maintained that the pope, the head of all, can be judged of none;

yet the pope with twelve sponsors swore an oath of purgation and

prayed for his accusers. At the Christmas festival Charles went

to the church of St. Peter. At the close of Mass the pope amid

the applause of the people placed a beautiful golden crown upon

his head (A.D. 800). The world is asked to believe that he did

it by the immediate impulse of a divine inspiration; but it was

the result of the negociations of years and the fulfilment of

a promise by which the pope had purchased the king’s protection

against his enemies. With the idea of the imperial power

Charlemagne connected the idea of a theocratic Christian

universal monarchy in the sense of Daniel’s prophecy. The

Greeks had proved themselves unworthy of this position and

so God had transferred it to the king of the Franks. As emperor,

Charles stands at the head of all Christendom, and has only

God and His law over him. He is the most obedient son, the most

devoted servant of the church, so far as it is the vehicle and

dispenser of salvation; but he is its supreme lord and ruler so

far as it needs to adopt earthly forms and an earthly government.

Church and state are two separate domains, which, however, on all

sides limit and condition one another. Their uniting head they

have in the person of the emperor. Hence on every hand Charles’

legislation enters the domain of the church, in respect of her

constitution, worship and doctrine. On these matters he consults

the bishops and synods, but he confirms, enlarges and modifies

their decisions according to his own way of thinking, because for

this he is personally answerable to God. In the pope he honours

the successor of Peter and the spiritual head of the church;

but, because the emperor stands over church and state, he is also

ruler of the pope. The pope who gave him imperial consecration

did it not by any power of his own immanent in the papacy, but

by special divine impulse and authority. Hence the crowning

of the emperor is only to be once received at the pope’s hand.

This rank is henceforth hereditary in the house of Charles, and

only the emperor can beget and nominate the new emperor. The

unity of the empire is to be maintained under all circumstances,

and hence, contrary to the Frankish custom of dividing the

inheritance, younger sons are to receive only the subordinate

rank of ruling princes.[228]

§ 82.4. =Louis the Pious and the Popes of his

Time.=--Charlemagne’s weaker son Louis the Pious, A.D. 814-840,

was not in a position to carry out the work his father had begun.

But pious as Louis was, he was yet as little inclined as his

immediate successor to give up the imperial suzerainty over

the city and chair of St. Peter. The popes were most expressly

required before receiving papal consecration to obtain imperial

confirmation of their election. Leo’s successor =Stephen IV.=,

A.D. 816-817, seems indeed to have evaded it, yet still he let

the Romans take the oath of fealty to the emperor, and unasked

submitted to make a journey over the Alps in order to get over

the anomaly of an emperor without the consecration of Peter’s

hand. An agreement come to on that occasion, A.D. 816, between

emperor and pope has not been preserved. A few days after

his return the pope died. The newly-elected =Paschalis I.=,

A.D. 817-824, also indeed mounted the papal chair without

imperial confirmation, but apologized by an embassy on the ground

that he had been unwillingly obliged to act so, and praying for a

continuation of the agreement made with his predecessor, to which

the emperor consented. Indeed, according to a diploma of A.D. 817,

extant only in a transcript, bearing the name of Louis, the

king was to bestow upon the papal chair, besides what Pepin and

Charlemagne had given, Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily, and many

estates in Calabria and Naples. There was also an undertaking

that only after having been consecrated should any newly-elected

pope interchange friendly greetings with the emperor. All copies

of this document can be traced back to a collection of imperial

grants to the Romish church of the 11th century. At its basis

there lay probably a genuine document, but it has been variously

altered in the interests of the high church party.--Some years

later, after he had decoyed to France and blinded his illegitimate

nephew Bernard, who had as reigning prince in Italy rebelled

against the law of succession passed in A.D. 817, Louis sent his

son Lothair into Italy to quiet the tumults there, and the pope

availed himself of this opportunity to crown the prince already

crowned by his father as co-emperor. But scarcely had Lothair

got over the Alps again when two of the most distinguished and

zealous of the Frankish partisans were in A.D. 823 blinded and

beheaded in the papal palace. Before the imperial commission

the pope took an oath of purgation, to which 34 bishops and

5 presbyters joined with him in swearing, but bluntly refused

to deliver up the perpetrator of the deed. As the pope died soon

afterwards, Lothair was sent a second time to Rome, in order

to enforce once and for all upon his successor =Eugenius II.=,

A.D. 824-827, the observance of imperial rights. The result of

their conference was the so-called _Constitutio Romano_, by which

the election of the pope (§ 46, 11) was taken from the common

people and given to the clergy and nobles, but the consecration

was made dependent on the emperor’s confirmation and an oath

of homage from the newly-elected pope (A.D. 824). Nevertheless

his successor Valentine was elected and consecrated without any

reference to the constitution. He died, however, after six months,

and now the Frankish party came forward so energetically that

the new pope =Gregory IV.=, A.D. 827-844, was obliged to submit

in all particulars to the requirements of the law. But soon

after political troubles arose in the Frankish kingdom which

could not fail to contribute to the endeavours of the papacy

after emancipation. From his weak preference for his younger

son, Charles the Bald, born of a second marriage, Louis was

led in A.D. 829 to set aside the law of succession he himself

had issued in A.D. 817. The sons thus disinherited rebelled with

the assistance of the most distinguished Frankish prelates, at

whose head was Wala, abbot of Old Corbie, cousin of Charlemagne,

and the bishops Agobard of Lyons, Ebo of Rheims, etc., as

assertors of the unity of the empire. Also pope Gregory IV.,

whose predecessors had sanctioned the law of succession now set

aside, was won over and was taken across the Alps by Lothair to

strengthen his cause by the weight of his apostolic authority.

The pope threatened with the ban those bishops who remained true

to the old emperor and had obeyed his summons to attend the diet.

But they answered the pope that he had no authority in the empire

of the Franks, and that if he did not quietly take himself over

the Alps again they would excommunicate him. He was inclined to

yield, but Wala’s counsel restrained him. He answered the bishops

earnestly and moderately, and, as a last attempt at conciliation,

went himself personally to the camp of the emperor, but was

unable to effect anything. But next morning Louis had no army;

during the night most of his soldiers had passed over to the camp

of his enemy. The emperor now had to surrender himself prisoner

to his son Lothair, then at a diet at Compiègne in A.D. 833,

to do humble penance in church and to resign the government. His

penitent son, Louis the German, however, set him free in A.D. 834.

A severe judgment was now passed upon the confederate prelates at

the Diedenhosen in A.D. 835. But the brothers continued constantly

at war with one another, and Louis the Pious did not live to see

the end of it.

§ 82.5. =The Sons of Louis the Pious and the Popes of their

Days.=--The Treaty of Verdun, A.D. 843, put an end to the bitter

war between the sons of Louis the Pious, and made of the western

empire three independent groups of states under Lothair, Louis

the German and Charles the Bald. Lothair I., who got the title

of Emperor with Italy and a strip of land between Neustria and

Austrasia, died in A.D. 855. Of his sons, Louis II. inherited

Italy with title of Emperor, Lothair II. the province called

after him Lotharingia, _Lotharii regnum_, and Charles Burgundy

and Provence. Lothair and Charles died in A.D. 869 soon after one

another without heirs, and before the emperor Louis II. could lay

his hands upon their territories they were seized by the uncle.

By the treaty of Mersen, A.D. 870, Charles took the Romanic, and

Louis the German took the German portions. Thus was completed

the partition of the Carolingian empire into three parts

distinguished as homogeneous groups of states by language

and nationality: Germany, France and Italy.--Gregory IV. had

survived the overthrow of the universal monarchy of Charlemagne.

His successor, =Sergius II.=, A.D. 844-847, did not observe

the obligations devolving on him by the _Constitutio Romana_.

But Lothair I. was not inclined to let pass this slight to

his imperial authority. His son Louis was sent into Italy with

a powerful army, and obliged the pope and the Romans to take

the oaths of fealty to his father with the promise not again to

consecrate a pope before they had the emperor’s consent. But the

next pope =Leo IV.=, A.D. 847-855, was also consecrated without

it, but excused himself from the circumstances of the age,

the pressure of the Saracens, while making humble professions

of most dutiful obedience. His successor =Benedict III.=,

A.D. 855-858, did not regard the imperial consent as necessary,

and the anti-pope set up by the French party could not maintain

his position.

§ 82.6. =The Legend of the Female Pope Joanna.=--Between Leo IV.

and Benedict III. is inserted an old legend of the pontificate

of a woman, the so-called female pope Joanna: A maiden from Mainz

went in man’s clothes with her lover to Athens, obtained there

great learning, then appeared at Rome as Joannes Anglicus,

was elected pope, but having become pregnant by one of her

chamberlains, was seized with labour pains in the midst of a

solemn procession and died soon after, having been pope under

the name of John VIII. for two years, five months and four days.

This story was widely credited from the 13th to the 17th century,

but its want of historical foundation is proved by the following

facts:

1. The immediate succession of Benedict III. to Leo. IV. has

contemporary testimony from the _Annales Bertiniani_ of

A.D. 855, also from a letter of Hincmar to Nicholas I.,

Benedict’s successor, as well as the inscription “Benedict”

and “Lothair,” on a Roman denarius of the same year.

2. Neither Photius nor Michael Cærularius, who certainly would

not have failed to make a handle of such a papal scandal

(§ 67), know anything of the matter.

3. The first certain trace of the existence of such a legend

is found about A.D. 1230 in Stephen of Bourbon, yet there

indeed the words are added: _Ut dicitur in chronicis_; but

he makes the female pope mount St. Peter’s chair only about

A.D. 1100, knows neither her name nor her native country,

and describes the catastrophe of her overthrow differently

from the legend current in later times.

4. On the other hand, the existence of her biography in the

_Liber pontificalis_ between that of Leo IV. and that of

Benedict III., was regarded down to the 17th century as

the oldest and indeed almost contemporary witness to the

historicity of the female pope. It is wanting, however, in

the oldest and best MSS. and must therefore be considered

a later interpolation. This also applies to the reference

made thereto by Marianus Sectus (d. A.D. 1086), Sigbert of

Semblours (d. A.D. 1113), Otto of Friesingen (d. A.D. 1158),

and Godfrey of Viterbo (about A.D. 1190). Even in the oldest

MSS. of the Chronicle of the Roman penitentiary Martinus

Polonus (d. A.D. 1278) we read nothing of the female pope;

yet the story must soon have been inserted there, for

Tolomeo of Lucca about A.D. 1312 affirms in his Church

History, that all writers whom he had read, with the single

exception of Martin, made Benedict III. follow immediately

after Leo IV. Perhaps Martin himself in a second enlarged

edition of his chronicle had inserted a biography of the

female pope, which he might do with the less hesitation

if it was true that the pope of his own time John XX.,

A.D. 1276-1277, thought it wrong not to count the female

pope and so styled himself John XXI. From that time all

chroniclers of the Middle Ages without the slightest

expression of doubt repeated the legend in essentially the

same way as Martin’s chronicle and the _Liber pontificalis_

report it. The Reformed theologian, David Blondel, in

A.D. 1649, performed a service to the Catholic church

by his elaborate critical treatment of the legend which

destroyed all belief in its historicity. After this, however,

it was again vindicated by Spanheim (_Opp._ ii. 577) and

Kist; and even Hase regards it as still conceivable that

the church which has affirmed the existence of things that

never were, may have denied the existence of things that

were, if the knowledge of it might prove hazardous to the

interests of the papacy.

The origin and gradual development of the legend, about the

middle of the 12th century and certainly in Rome, may be most

simply explained with Döllinger from a combination of the

following data.

1. From the time of Paschalis II. in A.D. 1099 it was customary

for the new pope in the solemn Lateran procession when

having his entrance on office attested to sit upon two

old chairs standing in the Lateran with pierced seats,

which probably came from an old Roman bath. But the popular

wit of the Romans suggested another reason for the pierced

seats. The chairs were thus pierced in order that before the

consecration a deacon might satisfy himself of the manhood

of the new pope; for, it would be added by and by, a woman

in disguise was once made pope, etc.

2. In a street of Rome was found a statue in white robes with

a child and an enigmatical inscription, the letter P six

times repeated which some read: _Parce pater patrum papissæ

prodere partum_, others: _Papa pater patrum peperit papissa

papellum_; so that this statue was supposed to represent the

female pope with her child.

3. Further the papal processions between the Lateran and the

Vatican at a point where the direct way was too narrow were

wont to diverge into another wider street; this was done, it

was now said, because at this place the catastrophe referred

to had befallen the female pope.

4. That the name Joannes was given to the female pope is easily

explained from the frequency of this name among the popes.

In A.D. 1024 it had been already held by nineteen. And that

she who had brought such a disgrace upon the papacy should

have been described as a native of the German city of Mainz,

is explained from national antipathy entertained by the

Italians for everything German.

5. Finally, the most difficult part of the problem, why this

episode should have been inserted just between Leo IV. and

Benedict III., may perhaps find satisfactory solution in the

supposition that the legend may have been first introduced

as an appendix to a codex of the _Liber ponficalis_ which

closed with the biography of Leo IV.[229]

§ 82.7. =Nicholas I. and Hadrian II.=--The successor of

Benedict III., =Nicholas I.=, A.D. 858-867, was chosen with

the personal concurrence of the emperor Louis II. then in

Rome. This pope was undoubtedly the greatest of all the popes

between Gregory I. and Gregory VII. He was a man of inflexible

determination, clear insight and subtle intellect, who, favoured

by the political movement of the age, supported by public opinion

which regarded him as a second Elijah, and finally backed up in

his endeavours after papal supremacy by the Isidorian collection

of decretals just now brought forward (§ 87, 2), could give

prestige and glory to the struggle for law, truth and discipline.

Among the many battles of his life none brought him more credit

and renown than that with Lothair II. of Lothringia. That

he might marry his mistress Waldrade, Lothair accused his

wife Thielberga of committing incest before her marriage with

her brother, abbot Hucbert, and of having obtained abortion

to conceal her wickedness. Before a civil tribunal she was in

A.D. 858 acquitted by submitting to a divine ordeal, the boiling

caldron ordeal which a servant undertook for her. But Lothair

treated her so badly that at last, in order simply to be rid of

her tormentors, she confessed herself guilty of the crime charged

against her before a Synod at Aachen in A.D. 859 attended by the

two Lothringian metropolitans Günther of Cologne and Thietgaut

of Treves, and expressed the wish that she should atone for

her sins in a cloister. But soon she regretted this step and

fled to Charles the Bald in Neustria. A second Synod at Aachen

in A.D. 860 now declared the marriage with Thielberga null,

and Lothair formally married Waldrade. Meanwhile the Neustria

metropolitan Hincmar of Rheims had published an opinion in

respect of civil and ecclesiastical law (_De divortio Lotharii_)

wholly favourable to the ill-used queen, and she herself had

referred the matter to the pope. Nicholas sent two Italian

bishops, one of whom was Rhodoald of Porto (§ 67, 1), to

Lothringia to investigate the affair. These took bribes and

decided at the Synod of Metz in A.D. 863 in favour of the

king. But Nicholas annulled the decisions of the Council,

excommunicated his legates and deposed the two Lothringian

metropolitans who had vainly trusted to the omnipotence of

Lothringian gold in Rome. Thirsting for revenge they incited

the emperor Louis II., Lothair’s brother, against the pope.

He besieged Rome, but came to an understanding with the pope

through his wife’s mediation. Lothair, detested by his subjects,

threatened with war by his uncles Louis of Germany and Charles

the Bald as champions of the childless Thielberga, repented and

besought the pope for grace and protection from the ambitious

designs of his uncles. Nicholas now sent a legate, Arsenius,

across the Alps, who acting as plenipotentiary in all three

kingdoms, obliged Lothair to take back Thielberga and put away

Waldrade. But she flung herself upon him and in her arms Lothair

soon forgot the promise to which he had sworn. At the same time

he reconciled himself to his uncles whose zeal had somewhat

cooled in presence of the lordly conduct of the papal legate.

Thielberga now herself sought divorce from the pope. But Nicholas

continued firmly to insist upon his demands. His successor

=Hadrian II.=, A.D. 867-872, an old man of seventy-five years,

could only gradually emancipate himself from the imperial party

which had elected him and taken him under its protection. He

received back again the two excommunicated metropolitans, without,

however, restoring them to their offices, released Waldrade

from church discipline, and always put off granting Thielberga’s

reiterated request for divorce. Lothair now went himself to

Rome, took a solemn oath that he had no carnal intercourse with

Waldrade since the restoration of his wife, and received the

sacrament from the pope’s hand. Full of hope that he would get

success in his object he started for home, but died at Piacenza

of a violent fever in A.D. 869. When dead the uncles pounced

upon the kingdom. Hadrian used all his influence in favour of

the emperor, the legitimate heir, and threatened his opponents

with excommunication. But Hincmar of Rheims composed a state

paper by order of his king, in which he told the pope that the

opinion of France was that he should not interfere with things

about which he knew nothing. The pope was obliged to let this

insult pass unrevenged. In a dispute of his own Hincmar succeeded

in giving the pope a second rebuff (§ 83, 2).[230]

§ 82.8. =John VIII. and his Successors.=--His successor

=John VIII.=, A.D. 872-882, was more successful than Hadrian

in bringing the Carolingian king to kneel at his footstool.

In the art of intrigue and in the perfidy, hypocrisy and

unconscionableness required therefor, he was, however, greatly

superior. He succeeded almost completely in freeing the papal

chair from the imperial authority. But he did so only to make it

a playball of the wildest party interests around his own hearth.

To his account mainly must be laid the unfathomable degradation

and debasement of the papacy during the 10th century. When the

emperor Louis II. died in A.D. 875, Louis the German, as elder

and full brother of his father, ought to have been his heir.

But the pope wished to show the world that the papal favour

could make a gift of the imperial crown to whomsoever it chose.

Accepting his invitation, Charles the Bald appeared in Rome and

was crowned by the pope on Christmas Day, A.D. 875. But he had

to pay dearly for the papal favour, by formally renouncing all

claims to the rights of superior over the States of the Church,

allow for the future absolute freedom in the election of popes,

and accept a papal representative and clerical primate for all

France and Germany. But not altogether satisfied with this,

the pope made the new emperor submit himself to a formal act

of election by the Lombards of Pavia, and in order to secure

the approval of his own nobles to his proceedings he even agreed

to give them the right of election. The Neustrian clergy, however,

with Hincmar at their head, offered a vigorous resistance and

at the first Synod at Pontion in A.D. 876 there were violent

altercations. The shameful compromise satisfied neither pope

nor emperor. In Rome a wild party faction gained ground against

the pope, and the Saracens pressed further and further into Italy.

From the emperor, who knew not how to keep back the advances of

the Normans in his own country, no help could be expected. Yet

he made hasty preparations, purchased a dishonourable peace

from the Normans, and crossed the Alps. But new troubles at

home imperiously called him back, and at the foot of Mount Cenis

in A.D. 877, he died in a miserable hut of poison administered

by his physician, a Jew. The pope got into yet greater straits

and made his position worse by further intrigues. Also his

negotiations with Byzantium in A.D. 879 involved him in yet

more serious troubles (§ 67, 1). He died in A.D. 882, apparently

by the hand of an assassin. A year before his death Charles

the Fat, the youngest son of Louis the German, had been crowned

emperor, and he, the least capable of all the Carolingian line,

by the choice of the Neustrian nobles, united once more all the

Frankish empire under his weak sceptre. Marinus, the successor

of John VIII., died after a single year’s pontificate. So

was it, too, with Hadrian III. And now the Romans, without

paying any heed to the impotent wrath of the emperor, elected

and consecrated =Stephen V.=, A.D. 885-891, as their pope. In

A.D. 857 the German nobles at last put an end to the despicable

rule of the fat Charles by passing an act of formal deposition.

They chose in his place Arnulf of Carinthia, a natural son of

Charles’ brother Carloman. Pope =Formosus=, A.D. 891-896, called

him to his assistance in A.D. 894, and crowned him emperor. But

he could not hold his ground in Italy and the opposition emperor

Lambert, a Longobard, had possession of the field. Formosus died

soon after Arnulf’s withdrawal. Boniface VI., who died after

fifteen days, was succeeded by =Stephen VI.= in A.D. 896. This

man, infected by Italian fanaticism, had the body of Formosus,

who had favoured the Germans, lifted from the grave, shamefully

abused and then thrown into the Tiber. The three following popes

reigned only a few weeks or months, and were either murdered

or driven away. John IX., A.D. 898-900, in order to pacify the

German party, honoured again the memory of Formosus.--Arnulf’s

tenure of the empire, however, had only been a short vain dream;

but in Germany during a trying period he wielded the sceptre

with power and dignity. When he died in A.D. 899, the German

nobles elected his seven-year-old son, Louis the Child. He

died in A.D. 911, and with him the dynasty of the Carolingians

in Germany became extinct. In France this line continued to

exist in pitiable impotence down to the death of Louis V. in

A.D. 987.--Continuation, § 96.

§ 82.9. =The Papacy and the Nationalities.=[231]--From the

time of Charlemagne the policy of the French kings was to

establish bishoprics on the frontiers of their territories

for Christianizing the neighbouring heathen countries, and

thereby securing their conquest, or, if this had been already

won, confirming it. The first part of this purpose the popes

could only approve and further, but just as decidedly they

opposed the second. There must be a reference to the chair

of Peter, that the pope may maintain and preserve as head of

the universal church the rights of nationalities. Each country

won to Christianity should be received into the organism of the

church with its national position unimpaired, and so under the

spiritual fatherhood of the pope there would be established

a Christian family of states, of which each member occupies

a position of perfect equality with the others. In this way

the interests of humanity, and at the same time, the selfish

interests of papal policy, were secured. This policy was

therefore directed to the emancipating as soon as possible

the newly founded national churches from the supremacy of the

German clergy and giving them an independent national church

organization under bishops and archbishops of their own.

§ 83. THE RANK OF METROPOLITAN.[232]

The position of metropolitan was not regarded with equal favour in

the German church and in the German state. Amid the variety of races

the metropolitans represented the unity of the national church, as

the pope did that of the universal church, while at the same time

as an estate of the empire they exercised great influence on civil

administration and foreign policy. The reigning princes recognised

in the unity of the ecclesiastical administration of the country a

support and security for the political unity and therefore opposed

the partition of the national church into several metropolitanates,

or, where the larger extension of the empire required several

archbishoprics, wished rather to give the ablest of these the rank

and authority of a primate. The popes on the other hand endeavoured to

give each of the larger countries at least two or three metropolitans,

and to prevent as far as possible the appointment of a national church

primate; for in the unity of the national church they perceived the

danger of such a prelate sooner or later giving way to the desire to

emancipate himself from Rome and secure for himself the position of an

independent patriarch.

§ 83.1. =The Position of Metropolitans in General.=--As

representing the unity of the national churches the interests

of the metropolitans were bound up with those of the ruling

princes. They were the most vigorous supporters of their policy,

and generally got in return the prince’s hearty support. This

coalition of the metropolitans and the civil power, however,

threatened the subordinate clergy with abject servitude, and

drove them to champion the interests of the pope. Through

pressure of circumstances, a widespread conspiracy of bishops

and abbots was formed during the last years of Louis the Pious

to emancipate the clergy and especially the episcopate from

the dominion of the state and the metropolitans and to place

them immediately under the papal jurisdiction. They founded upon

the Isidorian decretals as showing their rights in the earliest

times (§ 87, 2). Their endeavour met indeed powerful opposition,

but the statements of the Pseudo-Isidore had now obtained the

validity of canon law.

§ 83.2. =Hincmar of Rheims.=--Among the =French= prelates

after the restoration of the order of metropolitans by Boniface

the first place was held by the occupant of the see of Rheims.

It reached the summit of its glory under Hincmar of Rheims,

A.D. 845-882, the ablest of all the ecclesiastical leaders of

France. His life consists of an uninterrupted series of battles

of the most varied kind. The first fight in which he engaged was

the predestination controversy of Gottschalk (§ 91, 5). But his

strength did not lie in dogmatics but in church government. And

here, every inch a metropolitan, he has fought the most glorious

battles of his life and affirmed, against the assumptions of

popes and emancipation efforts of bishops, the autonomy of

reigning princes, the freedom and independence of national

churches, and the jurisdiction of metropolitans. Of this sort

was his contest with bishop Rothad of Soissons. Hincmar had

deposed him in A.D. 861 for insubordination. Rothad appealed to

pope Nicholas I. on the ground of the Sardican Canon (§ 46, 3),

which, however, had never been accepted in the Frankish Empire.

He had at the same time referred the pope to the Isidorian

decretals. Thus supported, Nicholas after a hard struggle had

Rothad reinstated in A.D. 865. The insolent defiance of his

own nephew, Hincmar, bishop of Laon, led the archbishop into

another obstinate fight. Here too the Isidorian decretals played

a prominent part. Hadrian II. in A.D. 869 took the side of the

nephew, but the metropolitan gained the victory, and the nephew,

who defied the king as well as the metropolitan and moreover had

entered into treasonable communication with the German court,

ended his course by being deprived of his eyes by the king. Down

to A.D. 875 Hincmar was inflexibly true to the king as a pillar

of his policy and his throne. But when Charles the Bald in

that year paid down as purchase price for the imperial throne,

not only the autonomy of the empire but also the freedom of the

French church and the rights of the metropolitans, he was obliged

now to turn his weapons against him. Hincmar died in A.D. 882

in flight before the Normans. With him the glory of the French

archbishopric sank into its grave. The pseudo-Isidorian party

had triumphed, the bishops were emancipated from the government

of the princes of their country, but instead of this were often

surrendered to the rude caprice of secular nobles.

§ 83.3. =Metropolitans in other lands.=--The =English= princes

in the interests of the political unity of the Heptarchy for

a long time withstood the endeavours of the popes to place a

rival alongside of the archbishop of Canterbury. The action and

reaction of these opposing interests were particularly strong

in the time of Wilfrid (§ 78, 3), whom the Roman party had

appointed archbishop of York. Wilfrid was driven away and died

in A.D. 709 after an eventful life, without succeeding in taking

possession of the place to which he had been appointed. At last,

however, the pope reached his end. In A.D. 735 a Northumbrian

prince obtained a pallium, and after that the see of York got

an undisputed place alongside that of Canterbury.--In =Northern

Italy= there were metropolitan sees at Ravenna, Milan and

Aquileia which still made their old claims to self-government

(§ 46, 1). Sergius, the prelate of Ravenna, about A.D. 760,

thought it would be well out of the ruins of the exarchate to

found an ecclesiastical state after the model of that of Rome.

There was often opposition there to the Roman supremacy. On

this account the violent archbishop John of Ravenna, who was

also a defrauder of the church, suffered the most complete

humiliation from Nicholas I. in A.D. 861, in spite of the

emperor’s protection. The force of public opinion compelled

the emperor to abandon his protégé when excommunicated by the

pope. But during the pontificate of John VIII., Ausbert, prelate

of Milan (died A.D. 882), who kept true to the German party,

could defy papal anathema and deposition. His successor, however,

again acknowledged the papal supremacy.--In =Germany=, since

the time of Charlemagne, new metropolitan sees had been created

at Salzburg, Cologne, Treves and Hamburg-Bremen. Mainz, however,

still claimed the primacy and represented the unity of the German

church. The Isidorian forgery availed not here as in the land of

its birth to stop the contention of the archbishop. The German

metropolitanate to the advantage of the empire maintained its

rights untouched for centuries. Among the primates of Mainz

the most important by far was =Hatto I.=, A.D. 891-913. Even

under Arnulf (died A.D. 899), whose most trusted adviser he

was, he exercised a wide as well as wholesome influence on the

administration of the empire. It was still greater under Louis

the Child (died A.D. 911) whom he raised to the throne and for

whom he acted as regent. Conrad I. (§ 96, 1) also owed to him

his election as king of the Germans. In the internal affairs

of the German church, he directed and adjusted, organized and

ruled in this time of general upheaval with wonderful insight,

wisdom and energy, most conspicuously, and that too against

papal assumptions, at the great national synod of Tribur in

A.D. 895. The primate regarded it as a political axiom, that,

in order to conserve and advance the unity of the empire, the

particularism of the several races and the struggles of their

chiefs and princes for independence should be crushed. Owing to

the consistency and energy with which he carried out his idea,

he did indeed make many enemies. The stories of insidious perfidy

and bloody violence which have attached themselves to his memory

are to all appearance due to their calumnious hatred. His sudden

death probably gave rise to the legend that the devil fetched

him away and cast him into the mouth of Etna. To him, and not

to the much less important Hatto II., who died in A.D. 970, is

the other equally baseless legend of the Mäusethurm near Bingen

to be referred.--Continuation, § 97, 2.

§ 84. THE CLERGY IN GENERAL.[233]

The bishops subject to the archbishop were called diocesan bishops,

or, as voting members of the Provincial Synod, suffragan bishops. The

canonical election of bishops by the people and clergy was completely

done away with in the German national church. Kings without opposition

filled vacant bishoprics according to their own choice. Louis the

Pious at the Synod of Aachen, in A.D. 817, restored canonical election

by people and clergy, subject to the emperor’s confirmation, but

his successors paid no attention to the law. Deposition was usually

carried out by the Provincial and National Synods. The investiture of

bishops with pastoral staff and marriage ring by the reigning prince

is occasionally met with even in the Merovingian age and became general

after the development of the benefice system in the 9th century. Out

of the institution of bishops without dioceses, _Episcopi regionarii_,

originally intended for missionary service, arose in all probability

the institution of _Chorepiscopi_ which flourished especially in

France during the 8th and 9th centuries. With the old _Chorepiscopi_

(§ 34, 2; § 45) they have nothing in common beyond the name. They

were subordinate assistants of the diocesan bishops, whose convenience,

unspirituality and often absence on state affairs demanded such

substitutes. But by their arbitrary conduct and refractoriness they

often gave great trouble to those bishops who had any care for their

flock. A Synod at Paris, therefore, in A.D. 849, withdrew all authority

from them. From that time they gradually sank out of view. The inferior

clergy, taken generally from the serfs, stood mostly in slavish

dependence on the bishop and often had not the barest necessaries

of culture. Their appointment lay with the bishop, yet the founder of

a church and his successors frequently retained the right of patronage

in choosing their own officiating clergymen.[234] Especially in the

later Merovingian and earlier Carolingian periods, the Frankish clergy,

superior and inferior, had become terribly corrupt. Boniface was the

first to reintroduce some sort of discipline (§ 78, 5) and Charlemagne’s

powerful government contributed in an extraordinary measure to the

ennobling of the clergy. Yet the corruption was too general and too

great to be altogether eradicated. Louis the Pious, therefore, in

A.D. 816, extended to the whole kingdom a reformation which Chrodegang

of Metz had introduced fifty years previously among his own clergy, by

which means discipline and order were again improved for some decades.

But in the troublous times of the last Carolingians everything went

again into confusion and decay. Exemption from civil jurisdiction

was accorded the clergy during this period only to this extent, that

the secular courts could not proceed against a clergyman without the

advice of the bishop, and the bishop himself was subject only to the

jurisdiction of the king and the Provincial Synod.

§ 84.1. =The Superior Clergy.=--In the German states from

the earliest times the superior clergy constituted a spiritual

aristocracy which by means of their higher culture won a more

influential position in civil life than the secular nobles. In

all important affairs of state the bishops were the advisers of

the king; they were almost exclusively employed on embassies; on

all commissions there were clerical members and always one half

of the _Missi dominici_ were clerics. This nearness to the person

of the king and their importance in civil life made them rank as

one of the estates of the realm. The Frankish idea of immunity,

in consequence of which by royal gift along with the rights of

territorial lords there were handed over to the new proprietors

also the princely right of levying taxes and administering

justice, brought to them secular as well as spiritual jurisdiction

over a great part of the land. As the court of the Frankish

king was moved from place to place, he required a special court,

chapel, with a numerous court-clergy, at the head of which was

an Arch-chaplain, usually the most distinguished prelate in

the land. The names _Capella_ and _Capellani_ were originally

applied only to court chapels and court chaplains, and were

derived from the fact that in the chapel was kept the _Cappa_

or coat of Martin of Tours as a precious relic and the national

palladium of France. The court clergy formed the nursery for

future bishops of the realm. In addition to the ring and staff

as episcopal insignia we find in the Carolingian age the bishop’s

cap, consisting of two long sheets of tin or pasteboard running

up to a peak, covered with silk of the same colour as the dress

used in celebrating mass, generally richly ornamented with gold

and precious stones, called by the old pagan name _Infula_ or

_Mitra_.[235]

§ 84.2. =The Inferior Clergy.=--The enormous expansion of

episcopal dioceses rendered a new arrangement of the =inferior

clergy= indispensable. The extension churches in towns and the

country churches which previously had been served by the clergy

of the cathedral church, obtained a regular clergy of their

own. As these churches were always dedicated to a saint they

were called _Tituli_, and the clergy appointed to officiate in

them, _Intitulati_, _Incardinati_, _Cardinales_. Thus originated

the idea of _Parochia_, παροικία and of _Parochus_ or parish

priest,[236] who, because the _cura animarum_ was committed to

him was also called Curate, as in the French curé. Over about

ten parishes was placed an _Archipresbyter ruralis_ who was

called _Decanus_, Dean. As the right of administering baptism

belonged originally to him exclusively, his church was called

_Ecclesia baptisimalis_; his diocese, _Christianitas_ or _Plebs_;

he himself also, _Plebanus_. A further arrangement was first

introduced in the 8th century by Heddo of Strasburg [Strassburg],

who gave to each of the deans in his diocese seven archdeacons,

_præpositi_, provosts. Besides the parish churches there were

many chapels or oratories where divine service was conducted

only at certain times by the neighbouring parish clergy or

chaplains appointed for that purpose. To this class also belong

the domestic chapels in episcopal residences or on the estates

of noblemen which were served by special domestic or castle

chaplains. The latter indeed had in addition the duty of feeding

the dogs, waiting at table and taking charge of the lady’s pony.

Notwithstanding repeated reinforcement of the old law: _Ne quis

vage ordinetur_, there was still a great number of so-called

_Clericis vagis_, mostly vagabonds and idlers, who, ordained by

unprincipled bishops for a reward, roamed over the country like

clerical pedlars.

§ 84.3. =Compulsory Celibacy= was stoutly resisted by the German

clergy. The inferior clergy were mostly married. At ordination

they were ordered indeed to separate from their wives and to

abstain from marital intercourse, but the promise was rarely

fulfilled. Among the unmarried clergy, fornication, adultery

and unnatural lust were prevalent. A bishop, Ulrich of Augsburg,

addressed to Nicholas I. a philippic against the law of celibacy

with fearless exposures of its evil consequences. The =moral

condition= of the clergy was generally speaking shockingly low.

Legacy hunting, forging of documents, simony and chaffering for

benefices were carried on in a shameless way. The lordly habits

of the bishops consisted in hunting, going about with dogs and

falcons, and in wild drunken revels. In the 7th century it was

the peculiar pleasure of the Frankish bishops in wild scenes

of blood that induced them to take part in the wars, and led

to their being afterwards obliged to fit out contingents for

the field at the cost of their ecclesiastical revenues. Pepin,

Charlemagne and Louis the Pious passed stringent laws against

these warlike habits of churchmen; but the later Carolingians

not only tolerated but actually encouraged them.

§ 84.4. =Canonical life.=--Augustine’s institution of a

_monasterii Clericorum_ (§ 45, 1) was often imitated in later

times. But bishop =Chrodegang of Metz=, who died in A.D. 766,

gave it for the first time, about A.D. 760, a fixed and permanent

form. His rule or _Canon_ is closely connected with the monastic

rule of St. Benedict (§ 85), with the omission of the vow of

poverty. He built a commodious residence Domus, _monasterium_

(comp. Germ. words Dom and Münster), in which all the clergy of

his cathedral church were obliged to live, pray, work, eat and

sleep under the constant and strict supervision of the bishop

or his archdeacon. This was the _Vita canonica_. After morning

devotions all the members of the establishment gathered together

in the hall where the bishop or provost read to them a chapter

from the Bible, most frequently from Leviticus, from the rule or

from the fathers, and added thereto the necessary explanations

and exhortations. The hall was therefore called the Chapter House;

then the name =Chapter=[237] was given to the whole body gathered

together there. The =Colleges=[238] were a subsequent development

of the chapter in non-episcopal city churches, with a provost

or deacon at their head. Louis the Pious allowed Chrodegang’s

rule to be revived and generalized by the deacon Amalarius of

Metz, and at the National Assembly at Aachen in A.D. 817 enforced

it for the whole kingdom. It is known as _Regula Aquisgranensis_.

But soon after the Canons endeavoured to emancipate themselves

more and more from the burdensome yoke of episcopal control.

Gunther of Cologne (§ 82, 7) who, though deposed by the pope,

retained his official position, was obliged to purchase the

support of his chapter by a bargain in accordance with which

a great part of the ecclesiastical revenues of the chapter were

placed at their own full disposal as Prebends or Benefices. And

what this one chapter gained for itself was afterwards contended

for by others.[239]--Continuation, § 97, 3.

§ 85. MONASTICISM.[240]

While from the 5th century one rush of migrating peoples was rapidly

followed by another, the monkish orders fell into decay, barbarism and

corruption. They would scarcely have survived this period of commotion,

at least would not have proved the great blessing that they have

been to the German west, had not the spirit of ancient Rome with its

practical turn, its appreciation of law and order and its organizing

talent, given them at the right time, what they hitherto wanted, a

rule answering to the requirements and circumstances of the age, and

by means of it firm footing, unity, order and legal form. This task was

accomplished by =Benedict of Nursia= (d. A.D. 543), the patriarch of

Western Monasticism. The rule, which he prescribed in A.D. 529 to the

monks of the monastery of Monte Cassino in Campania founded by him, was

not unduly ascetic, combined strict discipline with a certain degree

of mildness and indulgence, estimated the needs of human nature as well

as the circumstances of the times, and was, in short, adaptable and

practical. From the rule of Cassiodorus (§ 47, 23) Benedict’s disciples

borrowed that zeal for scholarly studies about which their master had

given no directions, and Gregory the Great inspired the order with

enthusiasm for missionary labours. Thus the Benedictine order obtained

its full consecration to its calling of worldwide significance. Soon

spreading over all the West, being introduced into France by Maurus in

A.D. 543, it nobly fulfilled its vocation by cultivating the soil and

the mind, by clearing the forests, bringing in waste lands, zealously

preaching the gospel, rooting out superstition and paganism, educating

the young, fostering and restoring literature, science and art. The

barbarous age, however, which saw the overthrow of the Merovingians

and the rise of the Carolingians, exerted a deteriorating influence

also on the Benedictines. But Charlemagne restored strict discipline,

and assigned to the monasteries the task of erecting schools and

prosecuting scholarly studies. By authority of Louis the Pious and

by order of the National Assembly at Aachen in A.D. 817, =Benedict of

Aniane= undertook a reformation and re-organization of all the monkish

systems throughout the empire. At the head of a commission appointed

for that purpose he visited all the Frankish monasteries, and compelled

them to organize themselves after his improved Benedictine Rule.

§ 85.1. The one source of information regarding the life

of =Benedict of Nursia= is the miracle-laden record of the

miracle-loving pope Gregory the Great in the second book of

his Dialogues. Benedict’s =Rule= comprises 73 chapters. The

first principle of the monastic life is obedience to the Abbot,

as representative of Christ. The choice of abbot lies with the

brothers. Of serving brothers the rule knows nothing. The chief

occupation is agriculture. Idleness is strictly forbidden. Charge

of the kitchen and reading at table are duties performed by all

the monks in turn week about. Divine service begins at 3 a.m. and

is rendered regularly through all the seven hours (§ 56, 2). Two

meals a day are partaken of and each monk has daily half a bottle

of wine. Flesh meat is given only to the sick and weak. At table

and after the _Completorium_ or last hour of prayer, no word

was allowed to be spoken. All the brothers slept in a common

dormitory, each in a separate bed, but completely dressed and

girded, so as to be ready at call for matins. The discipline was

strict and reasonable; first private, then public rebuke, then

penal fasting, corporal punishment, and finally excommunication.

Hospitality and attention to the poor were enjoined on all

monasteries. Reception was preceded by a year’s novitiate.

The vow included _Stabilitas loci_, _Conversio morum_ (poverty

and chastity) and _Obedientia_. The _Oblati_ were a special kind

of novices, _i.e._ children who in their early youth were placed

in the monastery by their parents. They were educated in the

monastic schools and were not allowed to go back to the world.

§ 85.2. =Benedict of Aniane= (A.D. 821) was originally called

Witiza and was the son of a Visigoth count. He had served as

a soldier under Charlemagne. In attempting to save his brother

he was himself almost drowned. His ambition was now directed

to an ascetic life, in which his personal performances were

most remarkable. On the river Anianus in Languedoc he founded

in A.D. 779 the monastery of Aniane. He was the indispensable

and all-powerful counsellor of Louis the Pious. In order to have

him always near him, Louis founded for him the monastery of Inda

or the Cornelius-Münster near Aachen. In the interests of his

cloister reform he published in A.D. 817 a _Codex regulorum_ in

which he collected all the monastic rules previously known.

§ 85.3. The rule of the elder Benedict made no reference to

=Nunneries=; but his sister Scholastica is regarded as the

founder of the order of female Benedictines. Another form of

female asceticism was developed after the model of the canonical

life of the secular clergy in the institution of canonesses. The

rule, which Louis the Pious at Aachen in A.D. 816 allowed them

to draw up for themselves, is distinctly milder than that of

the nuns. The ladies’ orders gradually became places of resort

for the unmarried daughters of the nobles. The canonical age for

taking the nun’s vows was twenty-five. The novitiate lasted three

years. Besides the _propria professio_ the _paterna devotio_ was

also regarded as binding. In regard to dress the adoption of the

veil was the main thing; but in addition they wore the wreath as

a symbol of virginity and the ring as token of spiritual marriage.

At this time the cutting of the hair was only a punishment for

unchaste nuns. The honourable position of the wife among the

Germans secured special respect for the abbess, and obtained

for the most famous nunneries exemption, civil prerogatives and

proprietary, even princely rights. The frequent appearance of

=Double-Cloisters= where monks and nuns, naturally in separate

dwellings, under a common rule either of an abbess as often in

England, or of an abbot, was also peculiarly German.

§ 85.4. =The Greater Monasteries=, formed as they were of a vast

number of separate buildings for agriculture, cattle rearing,

handicraft and arts of all kinds, for elementary teaching, for

higher education, for hospitable entertainment, caring for the

sick, etc., came by and by to attain the proportions of little

towns. Frequently they were the centre around which cities were

raised. The monastery of Vivarium in Calabria, Cassiodorus’

foundation, inspired Western monasticism with an enthusiasm

for scholarly studies. The regulations of Monte Cassino were

extended to all monasteries of the West. Columbanus’ monastery

of Bobbio rooted out paganism and Arianism in northern Italy. The

monasteries of Iona in Scotland and Bangor in Ireland gained high

repute in the struggle of the Celtic church against the Roman.

The English monastery of Wearmouth was a famous school of science.

In France St. Denys near Paris and Old Corbei in Picardy gained

a high reputation. In South Germany St. Gall, Reichenau, Lorsch

and Hirschau, in Central Germany Fulda, Hersfeld and Fritzlar,

and in North Germany New Corbei, a branch from Old Corbei, were

main centres of Christian culture.

§ 85.5. In its new Western form also monasticism was still

without the clerical character. But there was an ever-increasing

tendency to draw the monastic and the clerical institutions

more and more closely together. By means of celibacy and

the introduction of the canonical life (§ 84, 4) the clergy

came to have the monkish character, and on the other hand,

most of the monks, in the first instance for monastic and

mission services, took clerical orders. By and by monks sought

appointments as curates (§ 84, 2), and thus rivalries arose

between them and the clergy. The monasteries were wholly under

the jurisdiction of the bishops in whose diocese they lay. The

exemptions of this period were limited to security for the free

election of the abbot, independent administration of property

and gratuitous performance of consecrations by the bishop. In

the Frankish empire, however, abbots were ordinarily appointed

to vacancies by the court, and rich abbeys were also often

bestowed upon distinguished noblemen _in commendam_, _i.e._,

for temporary administration with the enjoyment of their revenues,

or even to court and military officers as a reward for special

services. Such lay abbots or _abbacomites_ often stayed in the

monasteries for months with their families, their huntsmen and

their soldiers, and made them the scene of their drinking bouts,

their field sports and their military exercises. The kings

retained the richest abbacies to themselves or gave them to

their sons and daughters, wives and concubines.

§ 85.6. =The Stylites= (§ 44, 6) on account of the climate,

could gain no footing, though attempts were indeed made, _e.g._

by Wulflaich (§ 78, 3). In place of them we find male and female

recluses, =Reclusi= (_Inclusi_) and _Reclusæ_, who shut themselves

up in cells which they never quitted. =Hermits of the Woods=,

unfettered by any rules, found great favour among the Germans.

Their national melancholic temperament inclining them to solitude,

their strong love of nature, their passionate delight in roaming

unchecked through woods and mountains, contributed to make such a

mode of life attractive. It was during the 6th century that this

craze for hermit life reached its height in Germany, and its main

seat was in Auvergne with its wild mountains, glens and gorges.

But as the cell of the saint was often in later times developed

into a monastery on account of the crowds of disciples that

gathered round, the hermit life gradually passed over into a

regulated cœnobite life. In Switzerland Meinard, son of a count

of Zollern, was a hermit of this sort. In A.D. 861 he had been

murdered by two robbers, and this was afterwards discovered, the

legend says, by means of two ravens feeding upon the body of the

murdered man. His cell in later times grew into the beautiful

Benedictine abbey of Maria-Einsiedeln with its miracle-working

image of the mother of God, which at this day is visited by more

than a hundred thousand pilgrims yearly.

§ 86: THE PROPERTY OF CHURCHES AND MONASTERIES.

The inalienableness of church property being regarded as the first

principle of its administration, it grew by enormous strides from year

to year through donations and legacies, At the end of the 7th century

there was in Gaul fully a third of the whole territory in the possession

of the churches and monasteries, while the national exchequer was

quite exhausted. In this emergency Charles Martel founded the benefice

system, for which he also converted into money the abundant possessions

of the church. His sons, however, Carloman and Pepin the Short, in

consideration of the reorganization of the Frankish church effected by

Boniface (§ 78, 5), sought to avert the impoverishment of many churches

and cloisters by a partial restitution so far as the neediness of the

times would allow. Charlemagne and Louis the Pious did still more in

this direction, so that partly by these means, partly by the continued

donations of rich people, church property soon acquired its earlier

proportions. Thus, _e.g._, the monastery of Luxeuil had in the 9th

century an estate with 15,000 farm-houses upon it.--The administration

of the property of churches and monasteries lay in the hands of the

bishops and abbots. For defending and maintaining secular and legal

rights there were ecclesiastical and monastic advocates, _Advocati

ecclesiæ_. This institution, however, often degenerated into an

agency for oppressing the peasants and plundering the property of

their clients; for many advocates assumed arbitrary powers and dealt

with the property of the church and its proceeds just as they chose.

§ 86.1. =The Revenues of Churches and Monasteries.=--The main

sources of their growing wealth were donations and legacies.

Princes often made bequests of enormous magnitude and rich people

in private life vied with them. Occasions were never wanting;

restoration from sickness, escape from danger, the birth of

a child, etc., regularly won for the church whose patron saint

had been helpful, some valuable present. The clergy also used

all means in their power to encourage this prevailing readiness

to bestow presents; and to this must in great measure be traced

the beginnings of the forging of deeds. A peculiar form for

bequeathing a gift was that of the _Precaria_, according to

which the giver retained to himself for his lifetime the use

of the goods which he gifted. Church property was farther greatly

increased by the personal possessions of the clergy and the

monks, which at the death of the former and at the _conversio_

of the latter usually became part of the revenue of the church

or cloister to which their owners belonged. Besides the proceeds

of its own estates the church drew the tithes of all property

and incomes of parishioners, the claim being enforced as a _jus

divinum_ by a reference to the Mosaic legislation and made a

law of the empire by the injunction of Charlemagne. On the other

hand the clergy were forbidden to exact payment for discharge

of official duties, so called stole-dues, because they were

performed by the priest dressed in the _stola_. The cathedral

church was entitled to an annual tax, _Honor cathedræ_, levied

upon all the churches of the diocese. The inferior clergy, on the

other hand, often arrogated to themselves the right in accordance

with a bad custom of grasping by violent plunder the possessions

of their deceased bishop, _Spolium_.[241]

§ 86.2. =The Benefice System.=--In consequence of the vast

gifts of the Merovingians to the churches and their ministrants,

when Charles Martel assumed the government, the sources of crown

revenue that hitherto seemed inexhaustible were almost completely

dried up, while this prince, in order to deliver the country from

the Saracens and in order to maintain his rule over against the

innumerable petty tyrants who threatened to dismember the empire,

required a yet fuller treasury than any of his predecessors. Out

of these circumstances grew the =Benefice System=. The soldiers

who had served the nation and princes had been as before rewarded

by grants of lands. These, however, were no longer given as

hereditary possessions but only for the lifetime of the receiver

(_Beneficium_), and for this he was under obligation to supply

a proportionate contingent for military service. When the crown

lands had been well nigh exhausted, Charles Martel did not

hesitate to lay claim to the church property. His son Carloman

at the first Austrasian national Synod in A.D. 742 (§ 78, 5)

promised to restore the church property that had thus been

alienated, but had soon to confess his inability to perform his

promise. At the second Austrasian Synod at Lestines in A.D. 743

he therefore limited the immediate restitution to the most

pressing cases of notoriously poor and needy churches and

monasteries. He was driven to this by the absolutely needful

claims of the civil and military departments. But the claim

of the church to get back the property was secured by the

beneficiary giving a _Precarial_ letter and by the payment of

an annual tax of a solidus for every farm house on the estate.

The king also promised the full restoration on the death of

the beneficiary, with express retention, however, of the right,

if the needs of the times required it, to lease out again the

vacant _precariæ_. Even Pepin at the Neustrian national Synod

at Soissons in A.D. 744 granted similar concessions, but yet

in the execution of them did not go so far as his brother. In

A.D. 751 he caused a _descriptio et divisio_, _i.e._ an inventory

of church property with an exact fixing of the limits of its

various titles to be made.[242]--The annual tax referred to was

transformed by Charlemagne into a second tithe, the so-called

_Nonæ_. But even after the partial restitution effected by the

descendants of Pepin there still remained upon the restored

property the beneficial burdens that had been laid upon it,

especially the obligation to supply and equip a certain number

of soldiers, and this was thence transferred to the whole

property of the church.--The benefice system, originating

in the pressure of circumstances, continued to spread more

and more, and formed the foundation of the entire social and

civil organization of the Middle Ages.[243]

§ 87. ECCLESIASTICAL LEGISLATION.

The construction of ecclesiastical legislation for the German

empire was at first wholly the work of the Synods. The popes exerted

scarcely any influence upon it, but all the more powerfully was

felt the influence of the kings. They summoned the Synods, laid

down to them the subjects to be discussed, and confirmed according

to their own judgment their decisions. From the time that the Frankish

bishoprics were filled by native Franks the independent life of

the Synods was quenched, and ecclesiastical affairs were arranged

at the national assemblies in which the bishops also took part as

territorial nobles. The great national Synods, too, at which Boniface’s

reorganization of the church in accordance with Roman ecclesiastical

law as carried (§ 78, 5) were _Concilia mixta_ of this kind; and

even under Charlemagne and Louis of France these were still prevalent.

Charles, however, made their proceedings more orderly by grouping the

nobles into three ranks as bishops, abbots and counts. Under the Pepin

dynasty alongside of the synodal we have the royal decrees, arranged

in separate chapters, and hence the ordinances are called _Capitularia_.

Purely ecclesiastical Synods in later times again gained a footing and

were particularly numerous in the times of Hincmar.

§ 87.1. =Older Collections of Ecclesiastical Law.=--Gregory II.

furnished Boniface with a _Codex canonum_, undoubtedly the

_Dionysiaca_ (§ 43, 3), and Hadrian II. presented Charlemagne

with one which was solemnly received at the National Synod of

Aachen in A.D. 802. There was in Spain a new collection which

was erroneously attributed to bishop Isidore of Seville, who to

distinguish him from the Frankish Pseudo-Isidore is designated

the genuine Isidore, or more correctly as _Hispana_. This

collection in form attaches itself to _Dionysiaca_. In the

9th century it was introduced among the Franks, and here gave

contents and name to the Pseudo-Isidorian collection. In close

connection with this masterpiece of forgery stands the collection

of laws by Benedictus Levita of Mainz, which was indeed called

a collection of capitularies, but was gathered mainly from

documents of ecclesiastical legislation, genuine and spurious. A

collection of true and genuine capitularies was made in A.D. 827

by Ansegis, Abbot of Fontenelles. Benedict’s collection was

included in it as 5th, 6th, and 7th books. Besides these large

collections many bishops prepared epitomized collections for

the use of their own dioceses, of which several are extant under

the name of _Capitula Episcoporum_. Decidedly in the interest

of the Pseudo-Isidore are the _Capitula Angilramni_, composed

and subscribed by bishop Angilramnus of Metz (d. A.D. 791). The

dates and contents of the three first-named collections were

determined in the interest of the Pseudo-Isidorian, and are still

a matter of controversy. Benedict, according to his own credible

statement, undertook his work at the command of the archbishop

Otgar, of Mainz, for the archives of Mainz, but completed and

published it probably in France only after Otgar’s death, which

occurred in A.D. 847. But while in earlier times it was generally

believed that Benedict had used the Pseudo-Isidore, Hinschius

has become convinced that the author of the capitula is identical

with the Pseudo-Isidore, and from Benedict’s capitularies has

unravelled first the composition of the capitula and then that

of the decretals.[244]

§ 87.2. =The Collection of Decretals of the Pseudo-Isidore.=--In

the fiftieth year of the 9th century there appeared in France

under the name of Isidorus Mercator a collection of canons and

decretals, which indeed completely embraced the older so-called

_Isidoriana_, but was enlarged by the addition of a multitude

of forged decretals. The surname Mercator, otherwise Peccator,

is probably derived from the well known Marius Mercator

(§ 47, 20), who had also occupied himself with the translation

of ecclesiastical documents, which the Pseudo-Isidore used

for his work. It begins with the fifty _Canones Apostt._, then

follow fifty-nine forged decretals which are assigned to the

thirty oldest popes from Clement to Melchiades (d. A.D. 314).

The second part embraces, besides the original document of

the Donation of Constantine, genuine synodal decrees falsified

apparently only in one passage. The third part, again, contains

decretals of Sylvester, the successor of Melchiades, down to

Gregory II. (d. A.D. 731), of which thirty-five are not genuine.

The non-genuine decretals are for the most part not altogether

forgeries, but are rather based upon the literature of theology

and canon law then existing, amplified or altered, and wrought

up to serve the purposes of the compiler. The system of the

Pseudo-Isidore is characterized by the following peculiarities:

Over the _Imperium_ is raised the _Sacerdotium_, ordained of

Christ to be governor and judge of the world. The unity and

head of the _Sacerdotium_ is represented by the pope. Bishops

are related to the pope as the other apostles were to Peter.

The metropolitan is only _primus inter pares_. Between the pope

and the bishops as an intermediate rank we have the primates or

patriarchs. This rank, however, belongs only to such metropolitan

sees as either were ordained to it by the apostles and their

successors, or to such sees in more recently converted lands

as were elevated to this position in consequence of the multitude

of bishops belonging to them. Provincial Synods should be held

only with the consent of the pope, their decrees become valid

only after receiving his confirmation, and all _causæ majores_,

especially all complaints against bishops, belong solely to

his own judicature. Priests are the _Familiares Dei_, the

_Spirituales_; the laity, on the other hand, are the _Carnales_.

No clergyman, least of all a bishop, may be taken before a

secular tribunal. A layman may not appear as an accuser against

a clergyman, and the Synods are enjoined to render charges

against a bishop as difficult as possible. An expelled bishop,

before the charges against him can be examined, must have been

fully restored (_Exceptio Spolii_). If the accused regards his

judges as _inimici_ or _suspecti_, he may appeal to be examined

before the pope. For the establishing of a charge at least

seventy-two witnesses are necessary, etc.

§ 87.3. The forgery originated in France, where it had been in

existence for some years before it was known in Rome, as appears

from the process against Rothad of Soissons (§ 83, 2). Rothad

first brought it to Rome in A.D. 864. Blondel and Kunst regard

Benedict Levita as its author. He first gave currency to the

forgery in his Collection of Capitularies. and so arouses

the suspicion that he is himself the forger. Philipps fathers

it upon Rothad of Soissons; Wasserschleben ascribes it to

archbishop Otgar of Mainz, who, as a prominent head of the

clerical conspiracy against Louis the Pious (§ 82, 4), would

have reason to defend himself against the judgment which would

befall conspirators. But this doom did not in any very special

manner threaten Otgar. On Louis’ restoration he was not sentenced

or deposed by any synod, but was without more ado received into

favour by the emperor. The Pseudo-Isidore’s hostile attitude

toward the chorepiscopi (§ 84), while gaining no footing in

Germany, certainly prevailed in France; and France, not Germany,

was the place where this collection first appeared between

A.D. 853 and 864. Since now, moreover, the prominence given

by the Pseudo-Isidore to the rank of primate may be regarded

as equally favourable to the see of Rheims as to that of Mainz,

Weizsäcker and v. Noorden have sought the original home of the

forgery in the diocese of Rheims, and point to Ebo, archbishop of

Rheims, Hincmar’s predecessor, as the forger. And Ebo certainly

stood in the front rank of the revolt referred to. Before him

Louis had specially to humble himself. He was therefore taken

prisoner immediately upon the emperor’s restoration, and deprived

of his office at the Synod of Didenhofen in A.D. 835 (§ 82, 4).

The emperor Lothair, indeed, restored him in A.D. 840, but

his position was still very insecure, as he had before a year

passed to save himself by flight on the approach of Charles

the Bald, and never again saw Rheims, which till Hincmar’s

elevation remained in the hands of chorepiscopi. The composition

of the collection, according to v. Noorden, belongs to the

period immediately preceding and lasting through his restitution.

Finally Hinschius regards Rheims as undoubtedly the scene

of the composition of these forgeries, but he cannot ascribe

them to Ebo because, according to his demonstration, Benedict’s

Pseudo-Isidore used as his authority only a collection completed

after A.D. 847, and by that time Ebo could not have the shadow

of a hope of restoration. But he also advances other weighty

considerations. Ebo himself had never attempted to make good

the claims which the Pseudo-Isidorian decretals would have

afforded him. If his own affairs had first led him to think

of forging decretals he must have foreseen that the extensive

studies necessary for such a work would have demanded many years

of laborious effort, and would be concluded much too late to

serve his purpose. It would, therefore, seem to him safer to

confine himself to what his immediately present circumstances

urgently required; whereas the actual Pseudo-Isidore, on the

contrary, puts in the mouths of the early popes, with no little

zeal and emphasis, a vast array of other exhortations and decrees

that seemed to him useful amid the troubles of that age for the

well being of the church and its ministers. Thus the whole work

assumes more of the character of a _pia fraus_ of a somewhat

high church cleric of that time than of a forgery devised in

the selfish interests of an individual. This much, however,

must be admitted, that the directions quoted about judicial

procedure against accused bishops exactly fit the case of Ebo.

As the first attempt to use the non-genuine decretals only found

in Pseudo-Isidore was made at the Synod of Soissons in A.D. 853,

by those clerics who had been ordained by Ebo after his deposition

but rejected by Hincmar, the final redaction and publication must

fall between A.D. 847 and 853. Langen fixes the date at A.D. 850,

and refers its authorship to Servatus Lupus (§ 90, 5). Nobody

then doubted their genuineness. Even Hincmar seems for a long

time to have had no doubts. But he decidedly repudiated their

legal authority in the Frankish church, and energetically opposed

them when they were sought to be enforced against the independence

of the church. Thus he could always refer to them where their

contentions agreed with his own, or, as in the case against his

nephew, where they supported his rights as primate, in order to

defeat his opponents with their own weapons. Subsequently however,

in A.D. 872, in a letter written in the name of his king to pope

Hadrian, he characterized them in contrast with the genuine and

valid decretals as _secus a quoquam compilata sive conficta_.

The Magdeburg Centuriators were the first conclusively to prove

them spurious. The Jesuit Turrianus, however, entered the lists

once more on their behalf. But the reformed theologian, David

Blondel, castigated so sharply and thoroughly this theological

unprincipledness, that even in the Roman Catholic church their

non-genuineness has been now since admitted.[245]

§ 87.4. Among the many spurious documents which the

Pseudo-Isidore included in his collection of ecclesiastical

laws, we find an =Edictum Constantini Imperatoris=. In the

first part of it, the so-called _Confessio_, Constantine makes

a confession of his faith, and relates in detail in what a

wonderful way he was converted to Christianity by pope Sylvester,

and cured of leprosy (§ 42, 1). Then in the second part, the

so-called _Donatio_, he confers upon the chair of Peter, with

recognition of its absolute primacy over all patriarchates of

the empire, imperial power, rank, honour, and insignia, as all

privileges and claims of imperial senators upon its clergy. In

order that the possessor of this gift may be able to all time to

maintain the dignity of his position, he gives him the Lateran

palace, transfers to him independent dominion over “_Romanam

urbem et omnes Italiæ seu_ (in Frankish Latin of the 8th and

9th centuries this means ‘as well as’) _occidentalium regionum

provincias, loca et civitates_” (therefore not merely Italy

but the whole West Roman empire); he removes his own imperial

residence to Byzantium, “_quoniam ubi principates Sacerdotum et

Christ. religionis Caput ab Imperatore cœlesti constitutum est,

justum non est, ut illic Imperator terrerum habeat potestatem_.”

In a letter of Hadrian I. to Charlemagne in A.D. 788, in which he

salutes the emperor as a second Constantine who is called upon by

God not only to restore to the apostolic chair the “_potestas in

his Hesperiæ partibus_,” which had been already assigned it by

the first Constantine, but also all later legacies and donations

“of various patricians and other God-fearing men,” which the

godless race of the Longobards in course of time tore from it,

we have the first hint at the idea of a _Donatio Constantini_.

The same pope, too, according to the _Vita Hadriani_ in the

Romish Pontifical, on the occasion of Charles’ visit to Rome

in A.D. 774 is said to have reclaimed from him an enormous grant

of land (§ 82, 2). It seemed therefore an extremely probable

supposition that assigned Rome as the place where this document

originated, and the period of the overthrow of the Longobard

empire, whether actually accomplished or on the eve of taking

place, as the date of its fabrication (§ 82, 1, 2). Against

this view, almost universally prevalent, quite recently Grauert

has advanced a vast array of powerful arguments, _e.g._, the

limitation of the _Donatio_ of Constantine to Italy which

is here suggested contradicts its own express statement. The

words of the letter of Hadrian referred to speak not of a

dominion =over= Italy, and which they could have read, “_in

has H. partes_,” but of a dominion in Italy which was founded

upon Constantine’s munificence and enlarged by many subsequent

presents. They do not, therefore, refer like the words of

the _Donatio_ to sovereign territorial authority, but to the

exceedingly wide-spread and rich property included in the

_Patrimonium Petri_ (§ 46, 10). The “potestas,” said to have

been assigned by Constantine to the Roman see, does not exceed

the authority which even according to the _Vita Sylvestri_ of

the Pontifical had been given by Constantine to that pope.--Thus

the donation document is met with first in the Pseudo-Isidore.

It was often afterwards referred to by the Frankish government.

By Rome, on the other hand, although even Nicholas I. was made

acquainted with the Pseudo-Isidorian decretals by Rothad, and

referred to them in A.D. 865, they are never used, either against

the Franks or against the Byzantines until, in A.D. 1053, we meet

an allusion to them in a letter from Leo IX. to the patriarch

Michael Cærularius (§ 67, 3). Grauert accounts for this by saying

that there were two recensions of Pseudo-Isidore, a shorter,

which had only the first part of the document, the so-called

_Confessio_; and a longer, which had also the _Donatio_, and

that Rothad took probably only the shorter one to Rome. From

these and other data adduced by Grauert it seems more than

probable that the foundry in which the document was forged

was not in Rome, but rather in France among the high church

party there, from which also the full-fledged forgery

proceeded. It would also seem that a double purpose was

served by its composition. On the one hand, over against the

Greeks it represented the chair of Peter as raised above all

the patriarchates of the empire, and the Western empire as a

thoroughly legitimate one transferred by Constantine the Great

to the pope, and then by him to the kings of the Franks. And,

on the other hand, it also made it clear to the Frankish princes

that all temporal power in the West essentially, and from of old,

belonged to the pope, and is bestowed upon them by means of their

coronation by the pope’s hands.--That from the time when they met

with the document unto the 11th century the Byzantines did not

contest its genuineness, need not surprise us when we consider

the uncritical character of the age. They would also be the less

disposed to do so as they could only thereby hope to win that

perfect equality in spiritual authority as well as in secular

rank with the Roman bishop which the fourth œcumenical council

had assigned to their patriarchal see. But while the Byzantines

may be regarded as inconsiderately incorporating this donation

of Constantine into their historical and legal books, blotting

out indeed the passages which seemed to them to favour the

pretensions of the pope to universal sovereignty, it is a

more difficult task to secure for it acceptance among Western

diplomatists. Even in A.D. 999 a state paper of Otto III.

describes it as a pure fiction. High church tendencies, however,

raised their standard also in the West during the 11th century

(§ 96, 4, 5). Indeed, even in A.D. 1152, an Arnoldist (§ 108, 7),

named Wetzel, wrote to the Emperor Frederick I.: “Their lies

and heretical fables are now so completely exploded that even

day-labourers and cow-men could prove to scholars their emptiness,

and the pope with his cardinals ventures not for shame to show

himself in the city of Rome.” The victory, however, of the papacy

over the Hohenstaufen gained currency for it again, and it was

the treatise of Laurentius Valla, “De falso credita et ementita

Constantini donatione declamatio,” which Ulrich von Hutten issued

in multitude from the press, gave it the death blow (§ 120, 1).

When, thereafter, even Baronius admitted the spuriousness of the

document, though assigning its fabrication to the Greeks, who

wished by it to prove that the Roman primacy was not of Christ

but from Constantine, it found no longer a vindicator even in the

Roman Catholic church.