to be intimidated and corrupted by Photius. Deceived by their false
representations, John VIII. at first approved of what they had done;
but when he learnt the truth he publicly excommunicated at Rome both
Photius and the cowardly legates who had betrayed their trust in order
to curry favour with this impostor (880). John VIII. was the first
pope, since the fall of the Roman Empire, who had to decide between two
competitors for the Imperial crown. He declared, that as the empire had
been conferred upon Charlemagne by the grace of God and the authority
of the pope, he transferred it to the King of the Franks, Charles the
Bald.
For a century and a half the factions of powerful Italian families and
the arbitrary will of the emperors interfered with the free election
of the popes, whence arose great scandals, and many unworthy persons
were elevated to the pontificate. On several occasions the rivalry
of parties led to the creation of anti-popes, and at one time there
were as many as three claimants to the Holy See. It is little short of
miraculous that the papacy should have kept its place against so many
causes tending to its ruin. At last, in 1049, the Romans having sent to
the Emperor Henry III., asking him to appoint a successor to the pope
who had just died, that monarch assembled the bishops and grandees of
the empire at Worms, and upon their advice selected Bruno, Bishop of
Toul.
[Illustration: Fig. 210.--Portrait of the great Countess
Matilda.--From a Miniature in a contemporary poem of which she
was the heroine (Manuscript No. 4,922 in the Vatican Library).]
Before repairing to Rome, Bruno went to consult Hildebrand, the monk
of Cluny, whose reputation for virtue and ability stood very high.
The latter received him very cordially, but pointed out to him the
impropriety of a lay election, and persuaded him to exchange the
pontifical gown for that of the pilgrim, until the people and clergy of
Rome should have freely elected him.
Bruno entered Rome barefooted, and thus replied to the applause of
those who had gone to meet him: “The choice of the people and the
clergy, supported as they are by the authority of the canons, overrides
all other nominations; I am therefore ready to return to my country if
my election is not approved by all your suffrages.” By Hildebrand’s
advice, the ancient customs were observed. Bruno took the name of Leo
IX.; he was consecrated on the 2nd of February, and enthroned ten days
later. Thus did the Roman Court proclaim that the emperors and princes
did not possess absolute power over the election of the pontiffs, and
the right of election, after having been thus restored to the people
and the clergy, was subsequently vested in the cardinals.
With a view to reforming the morals of the ecclesiastics, to
re-establishing discipline and the liturgy, and to combat false
doctrines and heresies, Leo IX. held a vast number of councils, some at
Rome, some at Vercelli, and others at Paris; he travelled all through
France, Germany, and Italy, taking note of all the abuses which he
discovered, and showing himself determined to correct them. Thanks to
imperial munificence, he had increased very considerably the pontifical
power. Carried away by his zeal, he accompanied the troops sent him
by the emperor against the Normans who were devastating Italy. His
soldiers were defeated, and he himself was taken prisoner; but the
Normans did homage to their captive, and begged him to accept the
homage of all their possessions in Italy, so that Leo IX. actually
obtained advantages greater than ever he could have expected. The
nomination of his successor no longer came within the province of the
emperor, and the illustrious Hildebrand, who was at that time almost
supreme in the Roman Church, directed the election under the canonical
form of four successive popes, who required neither the approbation
nor the support of the holy empire. The last of them, Alexander II.,
died in 1072, after having reigned nine years, and the bishops were
deliberating on the choice of a new pontiff, when a voice was suddenly
raised from amongst the people, “Hildebrand for pope, St. Peter has
chosen him.” This was as the voice of God, and Hildebrand, who had
been pope _de facto_ for so many years, was enthroned under the
title of Gregory VII. His first care was to arrange at a council the
affairs of Italy and of France, and to contract alliances with Spain,
Hungary, and various German principalities. He judged himself strong
enough to undertake this severe and unwearied struggle, which he kept
up throughout the whole of his reign, in the interests of the Church,
against the sovereigns of Europe. He wished to obtain recognition of
the independence of the Holy See, to dispossess the abbots and prelates
who had been guilty of simony, reprimanding at the same time the
emperors and kings who had trafficked in ecclesiastical dignities. He
desired also to reform the loose morality of the clerks, at the same
time that he condemned the careless indifference of the episcopate. He
first attacked the Emperor Henry IV., he then threatened Philip I. with
excommunication if he did not mend his ways; he launched an anathema
against five of the principal members of the imperial household, and
afterwards summoned the monarch himself to appear in person before a
synod, to render account of what he had done. Henry IV., victorious
over the Saxons, and irritated at the pope’s audacity, convoked a diet
at Worms for the purpose of deposing him, and dismissed the legates
whom he had sent. During this time a conspiracy was being hatched at
Rome against the pope, the promoters of which were Cencius, prefect of
the city, and Guibert, Archbishop of Ravenna. It was brought to issue
upon the night of Christmas, 1075. Gregory, wounded in the forehead
while he was celebrating mass in the basilica of St. Peter, was carried
prisoner from the altar into one of the towers; from which he was
almost at once delivered by the people, and brought back to the altar
to terminate the service. The pope showed great clemency towards the
conspirators. Six weeks afterwards the Diet of Worms pronounced his
deposition, and the bishops gave in their solemn adherence to the
decree. Gregory VII., nowise cast down or discouraged, anathematized
the emperor at a council held in Rome; and, then addressing himself to
the whole Christian world, he entreated it to join him in the defence
of their outraged religion. The most distinguished women of Europe--at
the head of whom was Matilda, princess of Tuscany (Fig. 210), widow of
Godfrey the Humpbacked--declared themselves openly for the pope, in
whose favour a sudden reaction took place. Feudal Germany deserted the
cause of the emperor, who was compelled to withdraw to Spires until a
diet, convoked to meet at Augsburg, should decide as to the respective
complaints of the two sovereigns. But the emperor, impatient to get
rid of the sentence of excommunication which had been passed against
him, went to meet the pope on his way to Augsburg with the Countess
Matilda. This illustrious lady interposed to effect a reconciliation
between the two rivals, who had an interview in the fortress of
Canossa, near Reggio, when the emperor, in order to obtain his pardon,
submitted to the humiliation of going on his knees to the pope to ask
for it (1077). It was then that the Countess Matilda bequeathed all her
patrimonial domains and all her personal property to the Church and
to the Court of Rome. The unhappy Henry, ashamed of the penance which
he had been made to undergo, peremptorily separated himself from the
papal communion. Council after council was convoked, and in the space
of two years Gregory had convoked no less than seven for discussing the
general affairs of the Church. He had not omitted to secure for himself
allies, while the emperor was confronted in Germany by enemies who were
attempting to wrest from him the imperial crown. Henry IV. succeeded in
defeating them, and then turned to encounter Gregory, against whom he
had set up an anti-pope. After the victories of Fladeheim and Marburg
he crossed the Alps, crushed the papal army, and threatened Rome, where
Gregory, inflexible as ever, had assembled an eighth council, which
excommunicated the emperor afresh. The investment of the city had
lasted three years when the emperor, by the sacrifice of a vast sum of
money, caused the gates of the town to be opened to him; and though
Gregory attempted a last effort to assemble a fresh council, Henry
was already inside with his anti-pope, whom he had crowned under the
title of Clement III. The intrepid Gregory, immured in the Castle of
St. Angelo, held out until the old Norman knight Robert Guiscard, Duke
of Apulia, came to his deliverance. He then convoked a tenth council,
which once more excommunicated the emperor, the anti-pope, and their
numerous adherents. Before the emperor could return to Rome for the
fifth time, Duke Robert Guiscard deemed it prudent to return to Apulia
with the pope, whose death occurred at Salerno shortly afterwards (May
25th, 1085).
Gregory possessed too much foresight not to have thought of naming
an heir capable of pursuing his vast designs. Amongst those whom he
had named, Danfier, Abbot of Monte-Cassino, was ultimately selected,
and, though it was not without hesitation that he accepted so heavy a
burden, he was made pope with the title of Victor III. The new pontiff
came to Rome, and occupied with his troops the Faubourg of Transtevere
and the Castle of St. Angelo, while the anti-pope Clement III. held
the other bank of the Tiber. This state of things could not, however,
be of long duration. Victor, overcome with grief, died soon after at
Monte-Cassino, and was succeeded by Eudes de Châtillon, who took the
name of Urban II. (1087). Of French origin, and brought up in the
Metropolitan Cathedral of Rheims, he had for twenty-eight years been
prior of the famous abbey of Cluny. It was there that Gregory, whose
unbounded confidence he had enjoyed, first knew him, and, under these
circumstances, he naturally wished to continue the policy of that
pontiff. But the Emperor Henry IV. frustrated this project by suddenly
invading Italy, capturing Rome, and setting up a new anti-pope,
Guibert, to rule in the Holy City, under the protection of the German
soldiery. Urban, forced to abandon the Castle of St. Angelo, which was
besieged by the imperial troops, transported his seat of government to
Benevento, where he displayed more resolution than before, crowning
Conrad, son of the emperor, King of the Romans, after getting him to
abjure the schism, and excommunicated Philip I., who had sent away his
wife in order to marry his concubine. After this, he returned to Rome
in time to celebrate the Christmas services. He expelled the anti-pope,
Guibert, and his followers, recovered the independence of the tiara,
and assembled at Placentia, amidst the schismatical Lombards, a council
which was attended by two hundred prelates, four thousand clerks,
and thirty thousand laymen. This was an imposing protest on behalf
of the peace of the Church, to which the presence of delegates from
the Empires of Germany and the East, and from the Kings of France and
England, lent additional significance. Urban went, in the course of
the same year, to Clermont, in Auvergne (Fig. 211), to preside, under
the auspices of Philip I., over another council, at which the first
crusade (1095), preached by him throughout France, was decided upon;
he afterwards returned in triumph to Rome (1096), happy in the thought
that he had realised the wishes of Gregory, who first conceived the
idea of the Holy War.
[Illustration: Fig. 211.--Pope Urban II. presiding over the
Council of Clermont, in 1095, and calling the Christian
peoples to the First Crusade for the deliverance of the Holy
Land.--Fac-simile of a Wood Engraving from the “Grand Voyage de
Hiérusalem,” printed by François Regnault in 1522 (in the Library
of M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot).]
The Council of Rome, at which the sovereign right of the Church to
confer the investiture of ecclesiastical dignities was proclaimed,
marked the close of his reign. He died in 1099, upon the eve of that
century of strife and confusion over which his spirit and that of
Gregory VII., as well as of several other popes and learned doctors
who had come from Cluny, were destined, as it were, to hover, for the
investiture quarrel was far from being settled. Pascal II. imitated the
firmness of his predecessors, and the King of France gave way; but the
Emperor Henry V., in spite of the formal engagements entered into by
his father, revived his claim to appoint the bishops and the abbots,
and to induct them into their charge. After entering Rome with his
troops, and after having given the pope the kiss of peace, he had him
arrested, together with several of his cardinals, and, by means of a
long captivity, by threats, and by violence, he induced him to issue a
bull, in which the pontiff acknowledged the emperor’s right to annul
the canonical elections of bishops and abbots, and likewise promised
not to excommunicate him for the future. Pascal II. had no sooner
regained his liberty than he convoked a council at Rome, at which he
confessed that he had failed in his duty, whereupon the council, with
his consent, condemned afresh the ecclesiastical investitures conferred
by the civil power. Another council, held in France, excommunicated the
emperor, who succeeded in taking Rome. Pascal being dead, Gelasius II.
had to take refuge at Cluny, and Henry V. appointed an anti-pope, who
assumed the title of Gregory VIII.
At the death of Gelasius II., the cardinals who had followed him
into France elected as his successor a Frenchman--Calixtus II., to
whom belongs the renown of having put an end to the quarrel as to
investiture. The emperor, finding that the irritation of the Germans,
weary of his despotism, was growing perilous to his throne, convoked a
diet at Würtzburg, when it was decided by him and the princes of the
empire that ambassadors should be sent to negotiate with the pope, who
had returned to Rome amidst the acclamations of the inhabitants.
[Illustration: Fig. 212.--Public and Solemn Functions of the
Sovereign-Pontiff.--From a Roman Engraving of the Seventeenth
Century.
1. Solemn mass celebrated in St. Peter’s by the Pope.--2.
Celebration of the sacred services in which the Pope takes
part, especially those of the Sundays in Advent and Lent.--3.
Coronation of the Sovereign-Pontiff at St. John of Lateran.--4.
The newly-elected Pope seated upon the altar of the Clementine
Chapel and receiving the homage of the cardinals.--5. Solemn
benediction which the Pope gives to the people.--6. Tribute of
the white horse, formerly paid to the Pope each year, on St.
Peter’s day by the King of Naples in token of his vassalship.--7.
Solemn cavalcade of the Pope upon his first journey from St.
Peter’s to the Lateran Church.--8. Public consistory for the
reception of the ambassadors.--9. The Pope carrying the Holy
Sacrament in the procession of the Fête-Dieu.--10. Opening of the
holy gate by the Pope, for the twenty-five years’ jubilee.--11.
Solemn procession on the days when the Pope, clad in the sacred
decorations, goes to the Basilica of St. Peter to celebrate mass.]
According to the Concordat drawn up and adopted by Henry V. at the
Diet of Worms, the emperor finally renounced his claim to investiture
by the ring and the crozier, which were symbols of ecclesiastical
dignity; he acknowledged the right of the dioceses and abbeys to
elect their bishops and abbots, and the investiture of the elected
dignitaries into their domains was to be conferred by the emperor,
in Germany, _before_ their consecration, and in the kingdoms of
Italy and Burgundy _after_ it. This Concordat was confirmed at the
œcumenical council which Calixtus II. assembled at Rome in 1125.
We have dwelt at some length upon these matters, but it was necessary
in order to show what was the action of the popes in the Middle Ages,
and it was at this point that their influence reached its apogee. The
two conceptions of Gregory VII. had been realised: in accordance with
the idea generally received at that time, the kings or emperors, in
the eyes of the people, only possessed authority as long as they were
orthodox, and obstinacy, under the ban of excommunication, amounted
to heresy; hence the pope was regarded as the supreme chief of the
Christian republic, and was entrusted with the duty of making princes
respect morality, the faith, the rights of the Church, and the rights
of the people. The election of the head of the Church had, therefore,
to be free from the influence of the temporal power, since that
head would be called upon to be its judge. This was the point which
Hildebrand caused to be recognised in respect to the election of the
popes, beginning with Leo IX.; and the perseverance of his successors
got the principle extended to that of the bishops, during the reign of
Calixtus II.
The second object which Gregory VII. had in view, was the preservation
of Christian civilisation from the Mussulman yoke, by carrying the war
into the East; and the Crusades realised this great design. We may now
sketch in a few lines the part played by the popes during the last
centuries of the Middle Ages.
[Illustration: Fig. 213.--Gregory IX. (1227–1241) handing the
_Decretals_, which he had embodied in one work, to an
advocate of the Consistory.--Fresco by Raphael (1515), in the
_Stanzas_ at the Vatican.]
The great Roman families, anxious to obtain power, elected an
anti-pope. By means of these agitations, Arnold of Brescia, under
the pretext of creating a Roman republic, established a kind of
dictatorship in the city. The emperor overthrew this usurper, who
was burnt alive; but he set up anti-popes, and Alexander III., when
besieged in Rome, declared himself the ally of the Lombard cities,
the chief of the Guelfs against the Ghibelins, and the champion of
Italian liberty. Under his pontificate, it was ordained (at the third
Council of the Lateran, in 1179, that for the future, the cardinals
alone should take part in the election for the pontiff, without the
intervention of the clergy or the people. The Crusades occupied
men’s minds during the last twenty years of the twelfth century.
The thirteenth began with one of the most celebrated of the popes,
Innocent III., who, following in the footsteps of Gregory VII., made
emperors and kings to tremble by his threats of excommunication, and
preached the crusade against the infidels and the Albigenses. His
two successors, Honorius III. and Gregory IX., imitated his zeal and
resolution. Gregory IX., amidst the multifarious cares of his holy
office, found time to draw up a new collection of his own letters
and constitutions, and those of his predecessors. He confided this
heavy task, which was carried out with remarkable skill and order,
to Raymundus de Pennaforti, his chaplain. This collection, which
was received with respectful gratitude, has since been called the
_Decretals_ (Fig. 213).
After these three eminent popes, sedition broke out afresh inside Rome.
The Holy See was vacant for a long period more than once during the
latter part of this century, as the cardinals could not agree in their
choice; and in consequence it was decided that the election should take
place in conclave. After a numerous series of popes, who occupied the
chair for only a short time, Boniface VIII. (Fig. 218) endeavoured to
march in the footsteps of Gregory VII. and Innocent III. Philippe le
Bel, anxious to destroy all traces of the feudal régime in order to
obtain absolute power, would not submit to the reprimands and menaces
of the pope, and it is well known how he caused the pontiff to be
seized at Anagni by Nogaret. The aged pontiff, whom nothing could move,
was set free by the people, who expelled Nogaret and his soldiers; but
the rough treatment he had received hastened his death.
Philippe le Bel, who saw how seriously he had compromised himself,
profited by the dissensions which arose between the Guelfs and the
Ghibelins at the conclave to ensure the election of a Frenchman,
Bertrand de Got, Archbishop of Bordeaux, who took the title of Clement
V., and immediately came to reside in France. The prestige of the
papacy was diminished by this selection of Avignon as a place of
residence, for the Italians came to look upon themselves as being
enfeoffed to the French kingdom. Rome and the Pontifical States fell
into a condition of complete anarchy, and a man of enterprise, Rienzi,
endeavoured to re-establish the ancient republic. The cardinals,
nearly all of whom were Frenchmen, always nominated popes of their own
nationality. One of them--Gregory XI.--who had come to Rome for a short
visit, died there in 1377. The people then induced the cardinals by
threats to select a pope of Italian birth, and their choice fell upon
the Archbishop of Bari, who took the title of Urban VI. The cardinals
who were at Avignon when the election took place, at first recognised
it as valid, but when he manifested his intention of remaining at
Rome, they declared it to be irregular, and chose Cardinal Robert of
Geneva, formerly bishop of Cambrai, who took the title of Clement VII.,
and the Christian world was divided between the two popes. Each had
several successors, and this long schism proved the termination of the
Christian republic which had been the work of the Middle Ages. At last,
the General Council of Constance, convoked by one of the anti-popes,
but confirmed by Gregory XII., received that pontiff’s resignation,
and Cardinal Otho Colonna, a man of great piety and zeal, elected by a
unanimous vote, assumed the government of the Church under the name of
Martin V. He shortly afterwards repaired to Rome, where he was received
with enthusiasm; and his presence brought back the prosperity and
prestige of the Holy City. Notwithstanding, one of the anti-popes, with
a following of two cardinals, still had a successor who was recognised
by the kingdoms of Aragon, Valentia, and Sicily; but he finally
complied with the wishes of Christendom, and his abdication in 1429 put
an end to the schism which had lasted for half a century.
[Illustration: Fig. 214.--Solemn entry of the Emperor Charles
V. and Pope Clement VII. into Bologna, November 5th, 1529. The
persons at the head of the cortége are the great dignitaries of
the Church, the first bearing the pastoral staff, the second
the pontifical tiara, and the two others golden candelabra. The
taper-bearers precede the Holy Sacrament. (See next engraving.)]
[Illustration: (Remainder of Fig. 214.)--The Holy Sacrament,
borne upon the back of a white horse, is escorted by the
patricians and doctors of Bologna. The Pope’s sacristan marches
alone in the rear of the dais, and this part of the cortége is
brought up by a group of princes, dukes, and counts.--Drawn and
engraved on brass by John Hogenberg: in the Collection of M.
Ruggieri, Paris.]
Ten years after this, during the reign of the same pontiff (Martin
V.), another and an older schism seemed to all appearance extinguished
at the Council of Florence, in which the Emperor of the East and the
patriarchs of his Church were present. After grave deliberation, the
Greeks drew up an orthodox profession of faith, and, by the complete
submission of the Eastern Church to her Roman sister, union was
restored in 1439. But the emperor and his patriarchs found upon their
return that this was so deeply resented by the Greek people, that they
gave way to popular clamour and withdrew from their formal engagements,
the schism thus becoming wider than ever. The ruin of the Eastern
empire followed very closely upon this decision.