a sale such as this? And yet so general was the traffic in
ecclesiastical dignities throughout the world that when a pope finally
sold the chair of Peter the scandal did not strike society as specially
heinous.
John Gratian, or Gregory VI, set aside the canon law with a defiant
courage which perhaps was only understood by the minority of his
compatriots; he bought the papacy in order to wrest it from the hands of
a criminal, and this remarkable Pope, although regarded as an idiot in
that terrible period, was possibly an earnest and high-minded man.
Scarcely had Peter Damian knowledge of this traffic when he wrote to
Gregory VI on his elevation, rejoicing that the dove with the olive
branch had returned to the ark. The Saint may have known the Pope
personally and have been persuaded of his spiritual virtues. Even the
chroniclers of the time, who represent him--assuredly with injustice--as
so rude and simple that he was obliged to appoint a representative, are
unable to fasten any crime upon him. The Cluniacs in France and the
congregations of Italy all hailed his elevation as the beginning of a
better time, and side by side with this simonist Pope a young and brave
monk suddenly appears, who, after the heroic exertions of a lifetime,
was to raise the degenerate papacy to a height hitherto undreamed of.
Hildebrand first issues from obscurity by the side of Gregory VI; he
became the Pope's chaplain, and this fact alone proves that Gregory was
no idiot. How far Hildebrand's activity already extended, whether he had
any share in Gregory's illegal elevation, we do not know; but in the
"representative" spoken of by the chronicles, we may easily recognize
the gifted young monk who was Gregory's counsellor, and who later took
the name of Gregory VII in grateful recollection of his predecessor.
While Benedict IX pursued his wild career in Tusculum or Rome, Gregory
VI remained Pope for nearly two years. His desire was to save the
Church, which stood in need of a drastic reform--and which soon
afterward obtained it. The papacy, lately a hereditary fief of the
counts of Tusculum, was utterly ruined; the _dominium temporale_, the
ominous gift of the Carlovingians, the box of Pandora in the hands of
the Pope from which a thousand evils had arisen, had disappeared, since
the Church could scarcely command the fortresses in the immediate
neighborhood of the city. A hundred lords, the captains or vassals of
the Pope, stood ready to fall upon Rome; every road was infested with
robbers, every pilgrim was robbed; within the city the churches lay in
ruins, while the priests caroused. Daily assassinations made the streets
insecure. Roman nobles, sword in hand, forced their way into St. Peter's
itself to snatch the gifts which pious hands still placed upon the
altar.
The chronicler who describes this state of things extols Gregory for
having repressed it. The captains, it is true, besieged the city, but
the Pope boldly assembled the militia, restored a degree of order, and
even conquered several fortresses in the district. Sylvester had
apparently made an attempt on Rome; he was, however, defeated by
Gregory's energy. The short and dark period of Gregory's pontificate was
terrible, and his severity toward the robbers soon made him hated by the
nobles and even by the equally rapacious cardinals.
Whatever he may have done under the influence of French and Italian
monks to rescue the Church from its state of barbarous confusion, it
was--as in the time of Otto the Great--by the German dictatorship alone
that it could be saved. The exertions of Gregory VI soon ceased to bear
any result; his means were exhausted, and his opponents gradually
overpowered him. So utter was the state of anarchy that it is said that
all three popes lived in the city at the same time: one in the Lateran,
a second in St. Peter's, and a third in Santa Maria Maggiore.
The eyes of the better citizens at length turned to the King of Germany.
The archdeacon Peter convoked a synod without consulting Gregory, and it
was here resolved urgently to invite Henry to come and take the imperial
crown and raise the Church from the ruin into which it had fallen.
Henry, coming from Augsburg, crossed the Brenner, and arrived at Verona
in September, 1046, accompanied by a great army and filled with the
ardent desire of becoming the reformer of the Church. No enemy opposed
him, the bishops and dukes, among them the powerful margrave Boniface of
Tuscany, did homage without delay. The Roman situation was provisionally
discussed at a great synod in Pavia. Gregory VI now hastened to meet the
King at Piacenza, where he hoped to gain the monarch to his side. Henry,
however, dismissed him with the explanation that his fate and that of
the antipopes would be canonically decided by a council.
Shortly before Christmas he assembled one thousand and forty-six bishops
and Roman clergy at Sutri. The three popes were summoned, and Gregory
and Sylvester III actually appeared. Sylvester was deposed from his
pontificate and condemned to penance in a monastery. Gregory VI,
however, gave the council cause to doubt its competence to judge him.
Gregory, who was an upright man, or one at least conscious of good
intentions, consented publicly to describe the circumstances of his
elevation, and was thereby forced to condemn himself as guilty of simony
and unworthy of the papal office. He quietly laid down the insignia of
the papacy, and his renunciation did him honor. Henry, with the bishops
and the margrave Boniface, immediately started for the city, which did
not shut its gates against him; for Benedict II had hid himself in
Tusculum, and his brothers did not venture on any resistance. Rome,
weary of the Tusculum horrors, joyfully accepted the German King as her
deliverer. Never afterward was a king of Germany received with such glad
acclamations by the Roman people; never again did any other effect such
great results or achieve the like changes. With the Roman expedition of
Henry III begins a new epoch in the history of the city, and more
especially of the Church. It seemed as if the waters of the deluge had
subsided, and as if men from the ark had landed on the rock of Peter to
give new races and new laws to a new world. What law, that stern and
terrible power which kills, binds, and holds together, signifies in
human affairs, has indeed been experienced by few periods so fully as by
that with which we have now to deal.
A synod, assembled in St. Peter's on December 23d, again pronounced all
three popes deposed, and a canonical pope had consequently to be
elected. Like Otto III before his coronation, Henry had also at his side
a man who was to wear the tiara and to confer the crown upon himself.
Adalbert of Hamburg and Bremen having refused the papacy, the King chose
Suidger of Bamberg. The royal command was all that was required to place
the candidate on the sacred chair. Henry, however, would not violate any
of the canonical forms. As King of Germany he possessed no right either
over that city or yet over the papal election. The right must first be
conferred upon him, and this was done by a treaty which he had already
concluded with the Romans at Sutri. "Roman Signors," said Henry at the
second sitting of the synod on December 24th, "however thoughtless your
conduct may hitherto have been, I still accord you liberty to elect a
pope according to ancient custom; choose from among this assembly whom
you will."
The Romans replied: "When the royal majesty is present, the assent to
the election does not belong to us, and, when it is lacking, you are
represented by your _patricius_. For in the affairs of the republic the
patricius is not patricius of the pope, but of the emperor. We admit
that we have been so thoughtless as to appoint idiots as popes. It now
behooves your imperial power to give the Roman republic the benefit of
law, the ornament of manners, and to lend the arm of protection to the
Church."
The senators of the year 1046, who so meekly surrendered the valuable
right to the German King, heeded not the shades of Alberic and the three
Crescentii; since these--their patricians--would have accused them of
treason.
The Romans of these days were, however, ready for any sacrifice so that
they obtained freedom from the Tusculum tyranny. Nothing more clearly
shows the utter depth of their exhaustion and the extent of their
sufferings than the light surrender of a right which it had formerly
cost Otto the Great such repeated efforts to extort from the city. Rome
made the humiliating confession that she possessed no priest worthy of
the papacy, that the clergy in the city were rude and utter simonists.
All other circumstances, moreover, forbade the election of a Roman or
even of an Italian to the papacy.
The Romans besought Henry to give them a good pope; he presented the
Bishop of Bamberg to the assenting clergy, and led the reluctant
candidate to the apostolic chair. Clement II, consecrated on Christmas
Day, 1046, immediately placed the imperial crown on Henry's head and on
that of his wife Agnes. There were still many Romans who had been
eye-witnesses of like transactions--that is to say, of papal election
and imperial coronation following one the other in immediate
succession--in the case of Otto III and Henry V; who, as they now saw
the second German pope mount the chair of Peter, may have recalled the
fact that the first had only lived a few sad years in Rome and had died
in misery.
The coronation of Henry III was performed under such significant
conditions and in such perfect tranquillity that it offers the most
fitting opportunity for describing in a few sentences the ceremonial of
the imperial coronation.
Since Charles the Great, these repeated ceremonies, with the more
frequent coronations or Lateran processions of the popes, formed the
most brilliant spectacle in Rome.
When the Emperor-elect approached with his wife and retinue, he first
took an oath to the Romans, at the little bridge on the Neronian Field,
faithfully to observe the rights and usages of the city. On the day of
the coronation he made his entrance through the Porta Castella close to
St. Angelo and here repeated the oath. The clergy and the corporations
of Rome greeted him at the Church of Santa Maria Traspontina, on a
legendary site called the Terebinthus of Nero. The solemn procession
then advanced to the steps of the cathedral. Senators walked by the side
of the King, the prefect of the city carried the naked sword before him,
and his chamberlains scattered money.
Arrived at the steps he dismounted from his horse and, accompanied by
his retinue, ascended to the platform where the Pope, surrounded by the
higher clergy, awaited him sitting. The King stooped to kiss the Pope's
foot, tendered the oath to be an upright protector of the Church,
received from the Pope the kiss of peace, and was adopted by him as the
son of the Church. With solemn song both King and Pope entered the
Church of Santa Maria in Turri, beside the steps of St. Peter's, and
here the King was formally made canon of the cathedral. He then
advanced, conducted by the Lateran count of the palace and by the
_primicerius_ of the judges, to the silver door of the cathedral, where
he prayed, and the Bishop of Albano delivered the first oration.
Innumerable mystic ceremonies awaited the King in St. Peter's itself.
Here, a short way from the entrance, was the _rota porphyretica_, a
round porphyry stone inserted in the pavement, on which the King and
Pope knelt. The imperial candidate here made his profession of faith,
the Cardinal-bishop of Portus placed himself in the middle of the rota
and pronounced the second oration. The King was then draped in new
vestments, was made a cleric in the sacristy by the Pope, was clad with
tunic, dalmatica, pluviale, mitre and sandals, and was then led to the
altar of St. Maurice, whither his wife, after similar but less fatiguing
ceremonies, accompanied him. The Bishop of Ostia here anointed the King
on the right arm and neck and delivered the third oration.
If the Emperor-elect were fitted by the dignity of his calling, then the
solemnity of the function, the mystic and tedious pomp, the magnificent
monotone of prayer and song in the ancient cathedral, hallowed by so
many exalted memories, must have stirred his inmost soul. The pinnacle
of all human ambition, the crown of Charles the Great, lay glittering
before his longing eyes on the altar of the Prince of the Apostles. The
Pope, however, first placed a ring on the finger of the Anointed, as
symbol of the faith, the permanence and strength of his Catholic rule;
with similar formulæ girt him with the sword, and finally placed the
crown upon his head. "Take," he said, "the symbol of fame, the diadem of
royalty, the crown, the empire, in the name of the Father, of the Son,
and of the Holy Ghost; renounce the archfiend and all sins, be upright
and merciful, and live in such pious love that thou mayest hereafter
receive the everlasting crown in company with the saints, from our Lord
Jesus Christ."
The church resounded with the Gloria and the Laudes: "Life and victory
to the Emperor, to the Roman and the German army," and with the endless
acclamations of the rude soldiers who hailed their King in German, Slav,
and Romance tongues.
The Emperor divested himself of the symbols of the empire, and now
ministered to the Pope as subdeacon at mass. The Count Palatine
afterward removed the sandals, and put the red imperial boots with the
spurs of St. Maurice upon him. Whereupon the entire procession,
accompanied by the Pope, left the church and advanced along the
so-called "Triumphal Way," through the flower-bedecked city, amid the
ringing of all the bells, to the Lateran. At special stations were
posted clergy singing praises, and the _scholæ_ or guilds placed to
salute the Emperor as he passed. Chamberlains scattered money before and
behind the procession, and all the scholæ and the officials of the
palace received the _presbyterium_ or customary present of money. A
banquet closed the solemnities in the papal palace.
Such are merely the barest outlines of an imperial coronation of this
period. The ceremonies, borrowed from Byzantine pomp, had been
established since Charles the Great, and had remained essentially the
same, although, in the course of time, many details had been altered and
others had been introduced. The magnificence of these spectacles is no
longer rivalled by the pageantry of our days. The multitudes of dukes
and counts, of bishops and abbots, knights and nobles with their
retinues, the splendor of their attire, the strangeness of their faces
and their tongues, the martial array of warriors, the mystic
magnificence of the papacy with all its orders in such picturesque
costume, the aspect of secular Rome, of judges and senators, of consuls
and _duces_, of the militia with their banners, in curious, motley,
fantastic attire; lastly, as the sublime scene of the drama, the stern,
gloomy, ruinous city, through which the procession solemnly
advanced--all combined to produce a picture of such mighty and universal
historic interest that even a Roman accustomed to the pomp of Trajan's
period could not have beheld it without feelings of astonishment.
These coronation processions restored to the city its character of
metropolis. The Romans of the time might flatter themselves that the
emperors whom they elected still ruled the universe. The strangers who
flocked to the city freely distributed their gold, and the hungry
populace could live for weeks on the proceeds of the coronation.
J.E. DARRAS
The accession of Gregory VI was the harbinger of an epoch of moral
renaissance. The wise Pontiff, whose glory it had been to free the
Church from a disgraceful yoke, proved himself worthy of the sovereign
power, as much by the zeal with which he wielded as by the noble
disinterestedness with which he resigned it. He found the temporal
domains of the Church so far diminished that they hardly furnished the
Pope with the means of an honorable maintenance. As guardian of the
rights of the Church, he hurled an excommunication against the usurpers.
The infuriated plunderers marched upon Rome with an armed force. The
Pope also raised troops, took possession of St. Peter's church, drove
out the wretches who stole the offerings laid upon the tombs of the
Apostles, took back several estates belonging to the domain of the
Church, and secured the safety of the roads, upon which pilgrims no
longer ventured to travel except in caravans. This policy displeased the
Romans, who had now become habituated to plunder. Their complaints
induced Henry III, King of Germany, to hurry to Italy, and to summon a
council at Sutri, during the Christmas festival, to inquire whether the
election of Gregory should be regarded as simoniacal. The Pope and the
clergy entertained the sincere conviction that they were justified in
bringing about, even by means of money, the abdication of the unworthy
Benedict, thus to end the scandal which so foully disgraced the Holy
See. As opinions were divided on this point, Gregory VI, to set all
doubts at rest, stripped himself, with his own hands, of the Pontifical
vestments, and gave up to the bishops his pastoral staff. Having given
to the world this noble example of self-denial, Gregory withdrew to the
monastery of Cluny, bearing with him the consciousness of a great duty
done. He died in that holy solitude in the odor of sanctity.
The see left vacant by the magnanimous humility of Gregory VI was
bestowed, by general consent, upon Suidger, bishop of Bamberg, whom King
Henry had brought with him to Rome. The new Pope, whose elevation was
due only to universally known and acknowledged virtues, took the name of
Clement II, and was crowned on Christmas-Day (A.D. 1046); in the same
solemnity he bestowed the imperial title and crown upon Henry III, and
his queen, Agnes, daughter of William, duke of Aquitaine.
The Emperor Henry, during his sojourn in Rome, sent for St. Peter Damian
to assist the Pope by his counsels. The illustrious religious thus wrote
to the Pontiff, in excuse for not complying: "Notwithstanding the
Emperor's request, so expressive of his benevolence in my regard, I
cannot devote to journeys the time which I have promised to consecrate
to God in solitude. I send the imperial letter in order that your
Holiness may decide, if it become necessary. My soul is weighed down
with grief when I see the churches of our provinces plunged into
shameful confusion through the fault of bad bishops and abbots. What
does it profit us to learn that the Holy See has been brought out from
darkness into the light, if we still remain buried in the same gloom of
ignominy? But we hope that you are destined to be the savior of Israel.
Labor then, Most Holy Father, once more to raise up the kingdom of
justice, and use the vigor of discipline to humble the wicked and to
raise the courage of the good."
On his return to Germany, Henry took the Pope with him. The city of
Beneventum refused to open its gates to the Sovereign Pontiff, who, at
the Emperor's request, pronounced against it a sentence of
excommunication. Clement made but a short visit to his native land, and
hastened back to Rome. His apostolic zeal led him to visit, in person,
the churches of Umbria, the deplorable condition of which he had learned
from the letter of St. Peter Damian. On reaching the monastery of St.
Thomas of Aposello, he was seized with a mortal disease, before having
accomplished the object of his journey. His last thought was for his
beloved church of Bamberg, to which he sent, from his dying couch, a
confirmation of all its former privileges, assuring it, in the most
touching terms, of his unchanging affection.
DISSENSION AND SEPARATION OF THE GREEK AND ROMAN CHURCHES
A.D. 1054
HENRY FANSHAWE TOZER
JOSEPH DEHARBE
(In the division of the Greek Catholic Church from that at Rome,
Protestant writers see a very natural and legitimate separation of two
equal powers. Roman Catholics, regarding the Papal supremacy as
established from the beginning, treat the division as a plot by evil and
malignant men. Both viewpoints are here given.
The Eastern--or Greek Christian--Church, now known as the Holy Orthodox,
Catholic, Apostolic, Oriental Church, first assumed individuality at
Ephesus, and in the catechetical school of Alexandria, which flourished
after A.D. 180. It early came into conflict with the Western or Roman
Church: "the Eastern Church enacting creeds, and the Western Church
discipline."
In the third century, Dionysius, Bishop of Rome, accused the Patriarch
of Alexandria of error in points of faith, but the Patriarch vindicated
his orthodoxy. Eastern monachism arose about 300; the Church of Armenia
was founded about the same year; and the Church of Georgia or Iberia in
340.
Constantine the Great caused Christianity to be recognized throughout
the Roman Empire, and in 325 convened the first ecumenical or general
Council at Nicaea [Nice], when Arius, excommunicated for heresy by a
provincial synod at Alexandria in 321, defended his views, but was
condemned. Arianism long maintained a theological and political
importance in the East and among the Goths and other nations converted
by Arian missionaries. In A.D. 330, Constantine removed the capital of
the Roman Empire to Constantinople, and thence dates the definite
establishment of the Greek Church and the serious rivalry with the Roman
Church over claims of preeminence, differences of doctrine and ritual,
charges of heresy and inter-excommunications, which ended in the final
separation of the churches in 1054.
In A.D. 461, the churches of Egypt, Syria, and Armenia separated from
the Church of Constantinople, over the Monophysite controversy on the
single divine or single compound nature of the Son; in 634 the struggle
with Mahometanism began; in 676 the Maronites of Lebanon formed a strong
sect, which, in 1182, joined the Roman Church. In 988, Vladimir the
Great of Russia founded the Græco-Russian Church, in which the Greek
Church found a refuge, when Mahometanism was established at
Constantinople, after its capture by the Turks in 1453.)
HENRY FANSHAWE TOZER
The separation of the Eastern and Western churches, which finally took
place in the year 1054, was due to the operation of influences which had
been at work for several centuries before. From very early times a
tendency to divergence existed, arising from the tone of thought of the
dominant races in the two, the more speculative Greeks being chiefly
occupied with purely theological questions, while the more practical
Roman mind devoted itself rather to subjects connected with the nature
and destiny of man. In differences such as these there was nothing
irreconcilable: the members of both communions professed the same forms
of belief, rested their faith on the same divine persons, were guided by
the same standard of morals, and were animated by the same hopes and
fears; and they were bound by the first principles of their religion to
maintain unity with one another. But in societies, as in individuals,
inherent diversity of character is liable to be intensified by time, and
thus counteracts the natural bonds of sympathy, and prevents the two
sides from seeing one another's point of view. In this way it coöperates
with and aggravates the force of other causes of disunion, which adverse
circumstances may generate. Such causes there were in the present
instance, political, ecclesiastical, and theological; and the nature of
these it may be well for us to consider, before proceeding to narrate
the history of the disruption.