CHARLEMAGNE had condemned gifts made to the church, to the prejudice of
the children or near relatives of the donor. In 816, a capitulary of
Louis I. declared all donations of this kind void. But, far from
continuing to limit by such restraints the sacerdotal ambition, Louis
was destined to become one of the first victims, and, by the same
circumstance, one of the first founders of the clerical power.
Pascal succeeding Stephen IV. in 817, did not wait for the consent of
the prince to instal himself: he confined himself to sending him
legates, and an apologetical letter, in which he pretended that he had
been compelled hastily to accept the dignity. Some years after, Pascal
crowned Lothaire, whom Louis, his father, had associated in the empire:
the pope, say the ecclesiastical historians of the ninth century, gave
to the young prince the power which the ancient emperors had enjoyed;
they add, that with the consent and good will of Louis, Lothaire
received from the sovereign pontiff the benediction, the dignity, and
the title of emperor; expressions truly remarkable, and of which they
have since availed themselves, in order to erect the pope into the
disposer of the imperial crown; as if Charles and Louis had not
previously borne it, without being indebted for it to the bishops of
Rome!—as if it were not, above all, contradictory, to pretend at once
that these two princes founded, the temporal power of the popes, and yet
received from these same popes the dignity of Emperors of the West.
Some officers in the service of Lothaire having been put to death in the
Lateran palace, the holy fathers, accused of having ordered the
commission of the crime, hastened to send nuncios to Louis to do away
such suspicion. Louis received the nuncios coldly, and dispatched
commissioners to Rome, before whom Pascal cleared himself by oath. He
constantly, however, evaded delivering up the murderers, ‘because they
were of the family of St. Peter’, that is, of the pope’s house.
Louis-le-Debonnaire followed his natural love of clemency, says Fleury⁷¹
and notwithstanding his wish to punish this action, he consented, not to
follow up a proceeding, the first acts of which prove, at least, that he
was recognized in 823, as sovereign of Rome, and judge of the Roman
Pontiff.
⁷¹ Hist Eccles. 1.46. n. 57.
Eugene II. after the example of his predecessor Pascal, dispensed with
having his election confirmed by the emperor. Lothaire complained loudly
of it, and came to fill at Rome the functions of the sovereign
authority. He tried a suit between the pope and the abbot of Farfa, of
whom the court of Rome exacted an annual tribute—Not only was the abbey
exempted from this tribute, but the pope was obliged to restore the
property which the Roman Church had _unjustly deprived it of_: these are
the terms of a charter of Lothaire.⁷² This prince published, at the same
time, a constitution of nine articles,⁷³ in which the authority of the
pope is indeed formally established, yet subordinate to that of the
emperor. It is there stated, that complaints against the judges and
other officers shall first be taken before the pontiff, who shall apply
an immediate remedy, or inform the sovereign thereof, in order that he
may provide for it.
This constitution is of the year 824, and it is also the date of an oath
which the Romans took in the following terms:⁷⁴
⁷² S. Marc. Ab. Hist Italy, vol. 1. p. 469.
⁷³ Ibid. p. 472.
⁷⁴ Ibid. p. 473.
“I promise to be faithful
“to the emperors Louis and Lothaire, saving the
“faith I have promised to the pope, and not to con−
“sent to the election of a pope uncanonically, not
“that the pope should be consecrated before he has
“taken, in presence of the emperor’s commissioners,
“an oath similar to that which Pope Eugene has
“made by writing.”
The clause, “saving the faith promised to the pope,” has not failed to
draw after it arbitrary restrictions: but this formula expressed
decisively the sovereignty of the emperor.
We also see Gregory IV. in 827, solicit the emperor to confirm his
election;⁷⁵ which proves, as we have already observed, that Louis had
not renounced this right in 819. If the prince, said De Morca,⁷⁶ had
left to the people and the clergy the power of electing the popes, their
consecration was, notwithstanding, to be deferred till the sovereign had
consented to it. In defiance of this preliminary, the pontificate of
Gregory IV. is, nevertheless, one of the most memorable for the
humiliations of the imperial dignity. It is true, they were caused by
the weakness of the prince as much as by the ambition of the pontiff.
The first error of Louis-le-Debonaire was the partition of his states,
in 817, amongst his three sons: associating Lothaire in the empire, he
gave Aquitaine to Pepin, and Bavaria to Louis; and by these arrangements
he especially dissatisfied his nephew Bernard, King of Italy.
⁷⁵ Lpco illius (scil. Valentini) Gregorius presbyter tituli Sancti
Marci electus est, dilatu consecratione ejus ad consulterai
imperatorh. Quo annuente et electionem cleri et populi probante,
ordinatus est in looo prions.—Vit. Ludov. Pii. kq mn.
827.—Gregorius presbyter non prius ordinatus est, quam legatus
imperatoris Romam veneret et electionem populi
ex-aminaret—Eginhard. ad ann. 827.
⁷⁶ De Concordiâ sacerdotii et imperii. 1;8. c. 14. n.8.
Bernard revolted: it became necessary to subdue and punish him. In
commuting the punishment of death pronounced against him, Louis had
nevertheless caused his eyes to be put out; and this cruel punishment
cost the patient his life. Louis reproached himself with this cruelty,
and evincing still less moderation in his repentance than in his crime,
he claimed public penance. To add to his difficulties, Judith, his
second wife, becoming the mother of Charles the Bald, claimed a kingdom
for this child. She obtained a new partition, which, however, interfered
with the first, and caused the three, who were portioned in 817, to
rebel. They leagued against their father: Vala, abbot of Corbia, a
factious but revered monk, encouraged their rebellion: like them, he
heaped invectives on the emperor, his wife Judith, and his minister
Bernard. Easily disconcerted by such an outcry, Louis convoked four
councils, to which he referred the examination of his conduct and the
complaints it occasioned. These synods favoured but little the
pretensions of the revolted; but in them was professed a doctrine on the
privileges of the clergy and the duties of princes, which, at a period
so near to that of the unbounded power of Charlemagne, would seem
incredible, if the purport itself of these assemblies⁷⁷ did not
suffice, to justify and explain the idea which they had formed of their
supreme authority.
⁷⁷ Concil. Grail, vol. 1.
We will here transcribe a speech which one of the four councils makes
Constantine the Great address to the bishops:
“God has given
“you the powers to judge us; but you cannot be
“judged by any man. God has established you as
“gods over us, and it becomes not men to be the
“judges of gods. That can belong to him alone
“of whom it is written, God has seated himself in
“the temple of the gods and judges them.”
Here, then, we certainly behold the question respecting the two powers
more clearly laid down than ever it had been; for they could not be more
decisively reduced to one only.
While councils were giving Louis these lessons; while he was sending
Judith into the bosom of a cloister, and was thinking of assuming
himself the monastic gown; his sons and the abbot Vala strove to compel
him to do so, and would have succeeded, if another monk, in sowing
discord among the three brothers, had not restored to their father some
moments of repose and vigour. He recalled Judith, exiled Vala, deprived
Lothaire of the title of emperor, and, incapable of prudence, abandoned
himself in such degree to the counsels of his ambitious and vindictive
wife, that he disinherited Pepin in favor of Charles, and even alienated
the minister Bernard. Immediately the revolt revived; and here commences
the part which Gregory IV. played in these disgraceful scenes. The pope
allied himself with the three princes: he entered France with
Lo-thaire—entered it without the permission of his sovereign, what none
of his predecessors had done. At the first report of the anathema he was
about to thunder against the emperor, some French prelates had the
courage to say, that if Gregory was come to excommunicate, he should
return excommunicated himself;⁷⁸ but Agobard, bishop of Lyons, and many
of his colleagues, said, that the pope must be obeyed. Gregory, on his
part, addressed to the partisans of Louis a memorable letter, in which
the secular power is, without any ambiguity, subjected to the Holy
See.⁷⁹
“The term of brother savours
“of equality,” said he to the prelates who had so addressed him;
“it is the title of *father* which you
“owe me: know that my chair is above Lewis’s
“throne.”
In the mean time Lothario and his two brothers collect their troops in
Alsace; Gregory joins them, and quits them only to appear in Louis’s
camp in quality of mediator.
⁷⁸ Si excoiwmunicaturua adveniret, excommunicatus abiret, cum aliter
se haberet antiquorum canonum autoritas.—Vit. hud. Pii. in Coll.
of Hist, of France, vol. 6. p. 113.
⁷⁹ Agobardi Oper. vol. p. p. 53.
What the pope did we know not; but the same night on which he took leave
of the emperor, the troops of the latter disbanded themselves. This
desertion dissolved Louis’s army, and doubled that of his opponents:
compelled to give himself up to his sons, he was dethroned, _by the
advice of the pope_, says Fleury;⁸⁰ and Gregory returned to Rome, very
much afflicted, according to the same historian, at the triumph of the
unnatural children whom he had served. The plain where he had
negociated, between Strasburg and Basle, is called to this day the
‘Field of falsehood.’
It would be too painful to retrace here the details so well known of the
humiliations of Louis I.; how Ebbon, his creature⁸¹ and other bishops,
condemned him to a public penance; how the son of Charlemagne shewed
himself almost worthy of the infamy by his submission; how, on his knees
before these prelates, he publicly recited a confession of his crimes,
in the number of which they had inserted the marching of his troops
during Lent, and the convocation of a parliament on Holy Thursday; how,
dragged from cloister to cloister, to Compagne, to Soissons, to
Aix-la-Chapelle, to Paris, to St. Denis, he seemed destined to terminate
his days there, when the excess of his misfortunes provoked the public
pity, and produced against his already divided enemies the indignation
of the nobles and of the people. The great lords came to offer him
homage as their sovereign, but Louis dared not recognize himself such
until he was canonically absolved: he did not resume, he said, the belt,
but in virtue of the judgment and authority of the bishops.
⁸⁰ Hist. Eccles. 1.47. n.39.
⁸¹ Ebbon a contemporary historian thus speaks of it: Elegerunt tunc
unum impudicum et crudelissimum, qui dice* batur Hebo, Rexnansis
episcopug; qui erat ex originalium servorum
stirpe......Abstulerunt ei gladium de femore suo, judicio servorum
suorum, induentes cum cilicio. Tunc im-pletum est eloquium Jeremiæ
prophet dicentis: Servi domi-nati sunt nostri. O qualem
remuneratkmem reddidisti ei! Fecit te liberum, non nobilem, quod
impossibile est post liber-tatem: vestivit te purpurio et pallio,
tu induisti cum cilicio. Hie pertraxit te immeritum ad culipen
pontificate, tu cum falso judicio voluigti expellere à solio
patrum suorum....Patres tui fuerunt pastores caprarum, non
copsiliarii principum, &c. Thegon. de gettis budov. Pit tom. 45.
On this occasion he invited Hilduin, the monk, to compose a life of St.
Denis, a legend since become so famous, and which would suffice to
characterize the reign of Louis I. or rather the empire of gross
superstition which he permitted to rule in his place. At Thionville an
assembly was held, half parliament, half council, which replaced him on
his throne. Solemnly reestablished in the body of the church, at Metz,
he pretended that the deposition of Ebbon, the Archbishop of Rheims,
pronounced at Thionville, had need to be confirmed by the pope. Many
prelates, accomplices of Ebbon, fled to Italy, under the protection of
Lothaire and of Gregory; others, almost as shameless in confessing the
crime as in commiting it, were pardoned:—none suffered the punishment
due to such wicked attempts. Louis carried his good nature so far as to
re-establish Agobard in the see of Lyons, and placed no bounds to the
respectful deference which the pope exacted of him. Baronius even
pretends, that it was by the pope’s authority the king remounted his
throne: but Bossuet⁸² has victoriously refuted this assertion, which is
unsupported by any contemporary witness.
⁸² Def. Cler. Gall, vol.2. b. 6. ch.21.
Marianus Sectus, the Chronicle writer of the twelfth.century, cited by
Baronius, makes no mention in it of Gregory IV. and confines himself to
saying, that in the year 835, Pepin and Louis restored to their father
the sovereign power.
In the mean time the death of Lothaire gave occasion for a new
partition, and a new revolt of Louis of Bavaria. Louis-le-Debonnaire
once more took up arms against his ever rebellious son, when a mortal
fright which an eclipse produced on this emperor, whose astronomical
knowledge is boasted of, terminated in the year 840 his lamentable
reign, worthy of such termination.
The ambition of Lothaire having united against him the King of Bavaria
and Charles the Bold, they subdued him at Fontenai; and to possess
themselves of his states, they addressed themselves to the bishops
assembled at Aix-la-Chapelle. “Do you promise,” said these bishops, “to
govern better than Lothaire has done?” the princes promised; and the
prelates added:
“Reign then in his place, we allow
“you so to do; receive by divine authority the
“kingdom; govern it according to the will of God;
“we exhort you to it, we command you.”
But Lothaire did not permit it, and his brother found him sufficiently
formidable to treat with, and to continue to him the name of emperor,
with certain states.
After the circumstances which had so humbled the imperial power, we are
not astonished to see Sergius II. succeed Gregory IV. without waiting
for the Emperor Lothaire’s consent. Yet this prince was so irritated at
it, that he sent his son Louis into Italy at the head of an army. The
terrified pontiff endeavoured to appease the young prince by means of
honours and of homage. Louis examined into the election of Sergius, and
ratified it in the midst of an assembly in which Sergius was judicially
interrogated. His premature consecration was held valid only on
condition that they should act more regularly for the future. The pope
and the rest of the assembly took the oath of fidelity to the emperor.⁸³
This firmness of Lothaire upheld for a while the civil power, even in
the states of Charles the Bald. This prince held a parliament at
Epernai, in 846, to which the bishops were not admitted; in it were
reprobated the canons which limited the rights of the king and of the
lords, and measures were taken against the abuse of excommunications;
⁸³ Anast Bibl. de vit. Roman. Pontif. p. 352.
In 847, Leo IV. was also consecrated before the emperor had confirmed
the election; but they protested, that the ravages of the Saracens in
the neighbourhood of Rome obliged them to act thus; and that nothing was
meant derogatory to the fealty due to the head of the empire. Besides
Leo IV. was the most venerated pontiff of the ninth century. He
fortified Rome, built the part which bears the name of the Leonine city;
and, without desiring to disturb other states, he laboured for the space
of eight years, for the prosperity of that which he governed. The same
praise cannot be bestowed on Nicholas I. who filled the chair of St.
Peter from the year 858 to 867; but he was the pope of that century,
which extended most the pontifical authority.
Elected in the presence, and by the influence of Lothaires’s son, the
Emperor Louis, he received from this prince a devotion unknown before:
Louis seems to have thought he might honor without danger a creature of
his own. The emperor then was seen to walk on foot before the pontiff
act as his equery, lead his horse by the bridle, and thus realize, if
not surpass, one of the directions of Constantine’s pretended ‘deed of
gift,’ Such ceremonies could not remain without effect, and Nicholas
delayed not to discover occasions of availing himself of them. The power
of Charlemagne was at that time divided among his numerous descendants:
there were sons of the Emperor Lothaire, to wit, Louis, the heir to the
empire, Charles, King of Provence, and Lothaire, King of Lorraine. Their
uncles Louis and Charles reigned, the one in Germany, the other in
France; while the son of Pepin, king of Aquitaine, fallen from the
throne of their father, resumed it but to descend from it once more. All
these princes, almost equally deprived of information and of energy,
weak in the first place by their numbers, became still more so by their
discord: each of them employed against the other the principal part of
his limited power; it remained for Nicholas only to declare himself
their master, in order to become so, and he failed not to do it.
An archbishop of Sens, named Venilon,. loaded with benefits by Charles
the Bald, but stimulated to rebel against this monarch by Louis, King of
Germany, had collected in the palace of Attichi some other disaffected
prelates, and in conjunction with them pronounced the deposition of the
King of France, loosing his subjects from their oaths, and declaring his
crown to have devolved to his brother. This attempt had but one
remarkable consequence; this was, the strange complaint made of it in
857 to a council held at Savonnieres,⁸⁴
“Venloon,” said he,
“consecrated me in the Church of St. Croix in
“Orleans; he promised never to depose me from
“the royal dignity, without the concurrence of the
“bishops who consecrated me with him: the bishops
“are the thrones upon which God sits to promulgate
“his decrees; I have always been, I am still in
“clined to submit to their paternal corrections, but
“only when they proceed regularly.”
⁸⁴ Libellas proclamationis adrersus Venilonem. Concil. vol. 8. p.79.
In order to confirm this enormous authority of the clergy, Charles the
Bald resorted to it against Louis. He caused the French prelates to
assemble at Metz: these signified to the German monarch, that he had
incurred excommunication, and presented the terms to which his
forgiveness was attached. Thus, by the avowal of the King of France,
bishops had, of themselves, the right to depose, and even to
excommunicate, a foreign sovereign. One day these bishops contracted a
solemn engagement at Savonnieres, to remain united, in order to correct
sovereigns, nobles, and people; and Charles heard and received these
expressions with all the humility which should have been the portion of
those who held them.
Nicholas cautiously avoided repressing these enterprises of the clergy;
on the contrary, he was pleased to behold the advancement of their
power, provided it continued in subjection to his. The quarrels which
arose among these prelates, gave him an open for exercising his
supremacy; and those in whose favor he exerted it supported it with
ardour. Hincmar, archbishop of Rheims, had deprived of his dignity
Rotade, bishop of Soissons, and Charles the Bald executed the decrees of
a council, which, in defiance of this Rotade’s appeal to the Holy See,
had condemned him for contumacy. Nicholas cancelled these decrees,
threatened Hincmar, and reestablished the bishop of Soissons. The king
never thought of supporting Hincmar: on the contrary, he protected the
nominated Vulfede, deposed by the Archbishop of Rheims, in another
council, the sentence of which, also, Nicholas annulled. To such length
had the ‘False Decretals’ extended the jurisdiction of the Holy See.
But the affair in which Nicholas made the most solemn display of his
power, was that of the king of Lorraine, Lothaire, who after having
repudiated and taken back his wife Theutberga, wished finally to part
with her in order to marry Valdrade. The opposition of the popes to the
divorces of princes has been often since renewed, but this is the first
example: we have seen Charlemagne repudiate Imiltrade, as also
Ermengarde or Desiderate, without any opposition on the part of the
Roman pontiff; but he was Charlemagne, and his great-grandson neither
inherited his genius nor his power.
Marriage is a civil act, which from its nature can be subject only to
the regulations of the civil law. The religious rules or maxims which
relate to it have no exterior force, no absolute efficacy, but inasmuch
as they are inserted into the national code: they are not so inserted in
those of the 9th century, and, consequently, the ecclesiastical ministry
should have confined itself to recommending, in secret and without
scandal, the observance, purely voluntary, of these maxims. But this
wisdom, though so natural, was already foreign to the manners of a
clergy, whose ministry the False Decretals had erected into authority;
and neither kings nor people were capable of that degree of attention,
necessary to acquire specific ideas of their civil rights and their
religious duties. While Lothaire continued the husband of Theutberga,
and had Valdrade but as a concubine, the pope and the bishops abstained
from requiring him to give an example of a more regular and decent life:
but from the time he thought of conferring upon Valdrade the rights of a
lawful wife, Nicholas was earnest to apply to this project of reform the
pontifical veto.
In truth, Lothaire himself provoked the intervention of the clergy, by
causing Theutberga to appear before a tribunal of bishops, in order to
undergo their indelicate interrogatories. Twice she confessed herself
guilty of incest; and when the office of these Lorraine priests extended
itself to extorting from her public avowals of the same, Nicholas whom
they acknowledged as their supreme head, might consider himself
authorised to revise so strong a proceeding. He therefore annulled the
decision pronounced against Theutberga by the councils of
Aix-la-Chapelle and of Metz; he degraded two prelates, Gonthier and
Theutgaud, whom the latter of these councils had thought proper to
depute to him. These prelates condemned in plain terms the Pope’s
sentence; they asserted, that Nicholas wished to make himself monarch of
the world.⁸⁵ The Emperor Louis seemed to believe so in part; he came to
Rome resolved to support his brother Lothaire again at Nicholas. But a
fast and processions ordained by the pope, a tumult which he did not
prevent, profanations about which he made a great noise, the sudden
death of a soldier accused of having mutilated a miraculous cross; so
many unlucky omens terrified Louis to that degree that it threw him into
a fever. Furthermore, while Louis had been endeavouring to protect
Lothaire, Charles the Bald, having declared against the latter, had
received Theutberga. Hincmar himself composed a treatise respecting this
divorce, which occupied all Europe, far from favourable to the interests
of Valdiade.⁸⁶
It was then enjoined by Nicholas, that Lothaire should give up the idea
of a second marriage under pain of excommunication. A legate named
Arsena came to compel the King of Lorraine to take back his first
wife;⁸⁷ and to detach him more certainly from Valdrade, this courtezan,
so she was styled by the Holy See, was borne off by the legate, who
would have taken her to Rome if she had not made her escape by the way.
⁸⁵ Fleury. Eccles. Hist 1. 60. n. 33.
⁸⁶ De Dirortio Lotharii, vol. 1. Operum Hincmari.
⁸⁷ Annal. Meteits. ad ann. 866. Annal. Fold. ad. ann. 365,
886.—Concil. Gall. toi. iii. p. 879.
The holy father who wished to convert, could therefore do no more than
excommunicate her. But he received from Lothaire an humble epistle, in
which this prince having declared that he had not seen Valdrade since
she left Arsena, conjures the court of Rome not to give the kingdom of
Lorraine to one of his rivals: a supplication that may seem to us in the
present day as the excess, if not delirium, of weakness, but which was
dictated to this king by the apprehension of being stripped of his
states to enrich Charles the Bald, who in fact did hope to obtain them
from the Holy See.
Divers letters, written by Nicholas on this subject, contain a precious
developement of his ideas of the royal powers, and of his own
authority,:
“You say,” he writes to the bishop of Metz, Adventius,
“that “the apostle commands obedience to kings: but ex−
“amine first whether those kings really be such, that
“is, whether they act justly, conduct themselves
“well, and govern their subjects properly; for other−
“wise it is necessary to account them tyrants, and
“as such to resist them. Be subject to them on
“God’s account, as says the apostle, but not against
“God.”
Fleury⁸⁸ here observes, “that the pope makes the bishops judges,
whether kings be so legitimately, or tyrants, while the Christian
morality requires their obedience of the worst of masters: in fact, to
what prince did the apostle exact fidelity from them? It was to Nero.”
⁸⁸ Hist. Eccles. 1.50. a. 35.
Nicholas wrote to the bishops,⁸⁹ to know if Lothaire fulfilled his
promises, and if they were satisfied with his behaviour to his first
wife. He wrote to the King of Germany with new complaints of Lothaire⁹⁰
“We learn,” said he,
“that he proposes
“coming to Rome without our permission: prevent
“his disobedience of us; and furthermore take care
“to preserve to us, by secure methods, the revenues
“of St. Peter, which we have not, for the two past
“years, received from your states.”
He declares to Charles the Bald,⁹¹ that Theutberga having had recourse
to the church, she could no longer be subject to a secular tribunal. In
another letter to the same monarch,⁹² he announces that he writes no
longer to Lothaire because he has excommunicated him. Lothaire, indeed,
though he had taken back Theutberga, had not altogether relinquished
Valdrade; and Nicholas would not be satisfied with a shew of compliance.
⁸⁹ Coll. Histories of France, vol. 8, p. 419.
⁹⁰ Ibid, p. 428.
⁹¹ Ibid, p. 422.
⁹² Ibid, p. 438.
Theutberga, finally, wearied with these contests, designed renouncing
for ever the titles of wife and of queen:—the pontiff would not permit
it; he addressed her in a long epistle, in which he recommended to her
perseverance and intrepidity, and directed her rather to die than to
yield.⁹³
The same principles relative to the jurisdiction and independence of the
clergy, are to be found in ‘Nicholas’s Rescript to the Bulgarians:’⁹⁴
“You who
“are laymen,” says he to them,
“ought not to
“judge either priest or clerk: they must be left to
“the judgment of their prelates.”
Thus, while the pope censures the conduct of kings, annuls or confirms
their civil acts, and even disposes of their crowns, the members of the
clerical body, to the lowest degree, are freed from all secular
jurisdiction. Such is the _regime_ to which Nicholas wished to subject
the East and the West. He especially had at heart to make Constantinople
submit; and his first step was to condemn and depose the patriarch
Photius, in defiance of the emperor Michael. He threatened to burn, in
the face of the world, an energetic letter which this emperor had
written him, to excommunicate the ministers who had advised him to this
step, and to annul in a Western council whatever had been done for
Photius in the East This quarrel, winch was prolonged under the
successors of Nicholas, was the prelude to the schism of the Greek
Church.
⁹³ Concilior, vol. 8, p. 425.
⁹⁴ Henry’s Eccles. Hist -b. 60. n. 61.
Basilius Cephalas, or the Macedonian, assassinated his benefactor
Michael, and seized upon the throne of Constantinople. Photius, on this
occasion, was willing to imitate St. Ambrose, and ventured to address
Basilius:
“Your hands are polluted with.
“blood: approach not the sacred mysteries.”
But Basilius did not in any respect imitate Theodosius: he banished
Photius, and re-established Ignatius, whom Michael had, not less
unjustly, driven from, the patriarchal chair. Adrian II. took advantage
from the disgrace of Photius to renew against him the anathemas of
Nicholas. Photius, condemned already at Rome, was also condemned in a
general council held at Constantinople.
Charles the Bald and Lewis the German, impatient to divide between them
the states of their nephew Lothaire, hoped that Adrian would finally
excommunicate that prince. But Adrian did not think it suitable to
provide such means of aggrandizing their domains: he permitted Lothaire
to come to Rome, and admitted him to the holy table;—did not hesitate to
absolve Valdrade herself, and. contented himself for such great
condescension with the King of Lorraine’s oaths and promises. The
monarch swore he had no connexion with Valdrade while she was under
excommunication, and pledged himself never more to see her. Lothaire
died at Placentia, a few days after taking this oath; and his death,
which was considered as a punishment of his perjury,⁹⁵ produced the
result for his two uncles, which they expected from his excommunication.
They divided his kingdom between them, without respect to the rights
which preceding treaties had given to the Emperor Louis.
Adrian, of his own motion, declared himself the guardian and arbiter of
the respective rights of the three princes; decreed the states of
Lothaire to the emperor, who had not as yet claimed them; enjoined
Charles and Louis, under the usual penalties of ecclesiastical censure,
to renounce the partition they had dared to make; and menaced with the
same punishment every lord or bishop who should support their
usurpation.
⁹⁵ Ann. Metens. ad. ann. 869.—Rhegin. Chron, ann. 869.
But neither in France nor Germany were any found disposed to the
obedience prescribed by Adrian—his commands were despised. Hincmar,
archbishop of Rheims, replied to him in the name of the nation, that a
bishop of Rome was not the dispenser of the crowns of Europe; that
France never received her masters from the pope’s hands; that wild
anathemas, launched forth from mere political motives, could not alarm a
king of France; that, until Nicholas, the popes had never written to the
French princes save respectful letters: in a word, that in reverencing
the apostolical ministry of the pontiff, they knew how to resist
efficaciously his attempts, whenever he sought to become at once both
pope and king.⁹⁶
⁹⁶ Hincmari Op. vol. 2, p. 689.—This letter is cited by Bossuet with
applause. Def. Cler. Gal. p. 2, b. 6, ch. 23.
This letter, worthy of a more enlightened age, excited in the soul of
Adrian the most violent anger. He knew that a son of Charles the Bald,
named Carloman, had revolted against this monarch; he knew that another
Hincmar, bishop of Laon, and nephew of the archbishop of Rheims, had
taken part with Carloman, and carried his rashness so far as to
excommunicate the king. Adrian declared himself the protector both of
Carloman and the seditious bishop. The latter, seeing his acts annulled
by his uncle, who was also his metropolitan, cited him before the Holy
See:
“an insolent step,” says Pasquier.
“unknown and contrary to the ancient
“decrees, which do not wish that causes should
“pass the confines of the kingdom in which they
“had their origin.”
They hesitated not to break this appeal, they even deposed the
appellant. A second fit of rage seizes Adrian, who commands the king, by
his apostolic power, to send the parties to Rome to await their judgment
there. In the vigorous reply of Charles, he protests that the kings of
France, sovereigns in their states, never shall humiliate themselves so
far as to hold themselves but as popes’ lieutenants,:
"exhorting him, in fine,” adds Pasquier,
“that for the future he might desist from
“letters of such a nature towards him and his pre−
“lates, lest he should be obliged to reject them.”
This epistle of Charles produced the effect which persevering firmness
always secures: the holy father became softened, excused himself,
abandoned Carloman, confirmed the deposition of the bishop of Laon, and
said no more about the partition made of the states of Lothaire. He
wrote the king a letter so full of professions of regard, of praises,
and of promises, that it contained the request to keep it very secret:
but it became and remains public.⁹⁷ Adrian died a short time after
having written it, and John VIII. succeeded him in December, 872.
⁹⁷ Concilior. vol. 8, p. 936.;—Coll. of Histories of France, vol. 7,
p. 456—468.
The ravages of the Saracens in Italy, and especially about Rome, obliged
the pope, John, to use a degree of management with the princes of
Christendom. He refrained, for instance, from displeasing Basilius, when
this emperor, having been reconciled to Photius, wished to replace this
prelate in the patriarchal chair of Constantinople, which the death of
Ignatius had left vacant. John, by his legates and letters, concurred in
the acts of the Council of Constantinople, which restored Photius, and
carried his desire to please the Greeks so far, as to blame those who
had added the word ‘filioque,’ to the Creed.⁹⁸
⁹⁸ Fleury’s Eccles. History, b. 53. n. 24.
But the competition which divided the numerous ‘heritors of Charlemagne,
offered more than one opportunity to John VIII. to constitute himself
arbiter, in return for the services he rendered to some, the right of
humiliating others, and of ruling over all.
The Emperor Louis died in 875; and Charles the Bald, in order to obtain
the imperial dignity, in prejudice of his elder brother, the king of
Germany, had occasion to have recourse to the Holy Father.—John VIII.
who did not expect to find in the German, and in his sons, defenders
sufficiently powerful ’against the Saracens, preferred Charles, and took
advantage of circumstances to dispose of the empire in favour of a king
of France. He consecrated him emperor during the festival of Christmas.
“We have adjudged him,” said he, “worthy of the imperial sceptre: we
have raised him to the dignify and-power of the empire; we have adorned
him with the title of Augustus.” Charles dearly repaid the ceremony of
this coronation. He consented to date from this day all the charters he
should henceforward subscribe: and, according to appearances, John must
have obtained from him considerable sums, which served afterwards to pay
the tributes enacted of him by the Saracens. It is even added, that
Charles stripped himself in favor of the pope, of his sovereign rights
over the city and territory of Rome; but the deed of such cession does
not exist; contemporary historians, with one exception, say nothing of
it: and John himself makes no mention of it in the letters of his which
have reached us.
In 877, when Charles had so much difficulty in defending France against
the Normans, John drew him into Italy to fight the Saracens. “Do not
forget,” he says to him, “from whom you hold the empire, and do not
cause us to change our mind.” Charles survived this threat but a short
time; and the imperial crown, which he had borne for so short a period,
was again solicited from the sovereign pontiff by several competitors.
This time John confined himself to promising it, in order to hold it for
the highest price: for three years there was no Emperor of the West:
none of those who were ambitious of the title were powerful enough to
assert it without the aid of the court of Rome. Louis the Stammerer, son
of Charles the Bald, succeeded him only as king of the French. The pope
came into France in the first year of this reign, and presided at the
Council of Troyes. He there fulminated anathemas against Lambert, duke
of Spoleto, and against Adelbert, marquis of Tuscany; against Gosfrid,
count of Mans; Bernard, marquis of Sep-temanei; and Hugues, son of
Lothaire and Valdvade.
It is decreed by one of the canons of this council, that the bishops
shall be treated with respect by the secular authorities, and that none
must be so bold as to be seated before them without their invitation.⁹⁹
One of the projects of John VIII. was to exercise over the affairs of
France a more immediate and habitual influence, through the medium of a
legate of the Holy See; already even he had clothed with this title
Angesius, archbishop of Sens: but this novelty was not pleasing to the
other prelates, nor too much so to the monarch. Hincmair, especially,
opposed it earnestly: he wrote a treatise to shew how pernicious it must
be; and his brethren, instructed by his lessons and animated by his
example, persevered in repelling this undertaking. The pope was indeed
willing to relinquish it: in truth, he had much preferred obtaining
military and pecuniary succours against the Saracens; but these were
more abundantly promised than granted.
Sergius, duke of the Neapolitans, continued to favour the Saracens,
notwithstanding the anathemas of Rome, and in despite of the
remonstrances of his brother Athanasius, bishop of Naples. Athanasius
took the resolution to tear out Sergius’s eyes, and proclaim himself
duke in his place. It is painful to relate, that the pope highly
approved this crime, or as Fleury has it, ‘this proceeding:’¹⁰⁰
⁹⁹ Concilior. vol. 9. p. 208.
¹⁰⁰ Eccles. Hist. b. 52, n. 47.4
But the letters are preserved which John wrote on this occasion,¹⁰¹ and
in which he applauds Athanasius for having preferred God to his brother,
and having, according to the precept of the gospel, ‘plucked out the
eye’ that scandalized him. This barbarous, and almost ludicrous,
application of a sacred text, opens to our view the character of John
VIII. whose three hundred and twenty letters speak so perpetually of
excommunication, that this menace presents itself as an ordinary and, as
we may say, an indispensable formula.
In 880, John disposed of the imperial crown; he gave it on Christmas-day
to the son of Louis the Gorman, Charles-le-Gros, who in 884 became king
of France, by the death of Louis III. and of Carlo-man, son of Louis the
Stammerer. The names of these princes suffice to remind us of the
decline of the Carlovingian race. A bishop of France wrote one day to
Louis III.¹⁰²
“It was not you who chose
“me to govern the church; but it was I, with my
“colleagues, who chose you to govern the kingdom,
“on condition of observing its laws.”
¹⁰¹ Joannis Epist ob.67.
¹⁰² Millofs Elem. of Hist, of France, vol. 1. p. 194.
And the bishop who held such language to his king, was the same Hincmar
of Rheims, who had so energetically repelled the daring enterprizes of
Adrian II. It seemed decreed that the monarch should have for his
master, either the national clergy or the bishop of Rome; and already
insecure against one of these powers, he inevitably sunk when they
united.
John VIII. died in 882, and we may reckon up ten popes after him, in the
course of the eighteen last years of the ninth century; none of whom had
time to render themselves illustrious by any very great undertaking. We
shall only observe, that the election of Stephen V. in 885, was, after
his installation, examined and confirmed by Charles-le-Gros;¹⁰³ that
the deposition of this emperor in 887, was pronounced, not by the
ecclesiastical authority, but by an assembly of the German and French
nobles;¹⁰⁴ that Formosus, in interfering in a dispute between Eudes and
Charles the Simple, spoke at least a language more evangelical, and less
haughty, than in similar circumstances had been held by Nicholas II.
Adrian II. and John VIII. Formosus crowned two emperors, Lambert in 892,
Amulf in 896: and in both these ceremonies, the Romans took the oath of
fidelity to the prince, ‘saving the faith pledged to the Lord
Formosus.’¹⁰⁵ This pope, in other respects, is only famous from the
proceedings which his memory, and his corpse, experienced from his
successors:—deplorable scenes, which are, however, foreign to the
subject of which we treat.
¹⁰³ Art of verifying dates, vol. i. p. 267.
¹⁰⁴ Muratori’s Annals of Italy, year 887.
¹⁰⁵ Liutprand. b.i. c. 8.—-St. Marc. Ab.of Hist of Italy, v.ii. p. 63.
In 898, during the pontificate of John IX. Arnulf was declared an
usurper of the imperial dignity, and Lambert re-assumed the title of
Emperor. The pope held, on this occasion, a council at Ravenna, in which
the sovereignty of the Western Emperors over Rome and the Ecclesiastical
State, was recognized by many decrees.¹⁰⁶ The following is the most
important:
“Considering that on the death
“of a sovereign pontiff, the Church is exposed to
“great and many disorders, when the new pope is
“consecrated without the privity of the emperor,
“and without waiting for his commissioners, whose
“authority might prevent the outrages and irregu−
“larities which generally attend on this ceremony;
“we desire that for the future the pope be nomi−
“nated by the bishops and clergy, on being pro−
“posed by the senate and the people; that, after
“having thus solemnly and publicly elected him,
“they consecrate him in presence of the commis−
"saries of the emperor; and, that no person dare,
“with impunity, under any pretence whatsoever,
“exact of him other promises or other oaths, than
“those which have been sanctioned by ancient
“usage; so that the church may neither suffer
“scandal nor injury, and that the authority of the
“emperor may receive no detriment.”
¹⁰⁶ SC Marc. Ab. of Hist of Italy, vol. 2, p. 636—640,
But, in thus rendering homage to the imperial dignity, the popes seem to
have reserved to themselves, by way of compensation, the right of
conferring it. After the death of Lambert, and of Arnulf, the bishops
and lords of Bavaria elected, in 899, a son of Arnulf, named Louis, and
solicited the pope to confirm this election, excusing themselves for
having made it without his approbation, in consequence of the pagans,
that is the Hungarians, having cut off the passage into Italy. Neither
John IX. nor his successor, Benedict IV. were in haste to crown Louis.
After the example of John VIII. they endeavoured to accustom the Romans
to dispense with an emperor: the empire remained vacant till 901.
We must recognize in the partition of the States of Charlemagne between
the sons of Louis-le-De-bonnaire, and in the subsequent subdivisions of
these states, the principal cause of the degradation of the civil
authority, and the metamorphose of the pontifical ministry into a
tremendous power:¹⁰⁷
“Hence,” says Velly,
“these enterprises of the popes, who,
“considering themselves as the dispensers of an
“empire, of which they were only the first subjects,
“assumed under the cloak of a purely spiritual
“authority, to dispose sovereignly of empires.
“Hence, the enormous power of the bishops, who,
“after having dethroned the father at the solicitation
“of the children, believed themselves empowered to
“elect, confirm or depose their masters; ambitious
“prelates, rather warriors than priests, scarcely
“knowing how to read, much less write; terrible
“notwithstanding, as well from the spiritual thunders
“which they after, as Pasquier expresses it, tilted
“too freely and carelessly with, as from the tem−
“poral power which they had usurped in their cities
“and dioceses. Hence these almost independent
“principalities that the monks established in those
“countries, where some years before they tilled, with
“their own hands, the grounds which a pious liberally
“had abandoned to them.”
¹⁰⁷ Hist of France, vol. 2 (in 12), p. 244.
Although there had been no authentic act which erected the pope into a
sovereign, and which freed from the imperial supremacy the authority
which he exercised at Rome, his power nevertheless became in effect
independent; and as, in consecrating the emperors, he already considered
himself as creating them, since he dared to speak of their dignity as a
favour for which they were indebted to him, he doubtless had the means
of placing limits to that obedience which they might be desirous of
exacting from him. Far from imposing laws on him in his own states, they
often acquiesced in his, even in the exercise of their civil rights and
political powers. In the course of the succeeding centuries, every thing
depended, not on the progress of ignorance or the return of knowledge
alone, but on the personal energy of the kings and of the pontiffs
individually.