PROTESTANTS take a malicious pleasure in pourtraying the court of Rome
in the tenth century, and in extracting from Liutprand a contemporary
author, the unedifying details with which he has filled up the
ecclesiastical and political history of this period. But without
examining whether the relations of this writer are as faithful as they
are satirical, we may say with Fleury¹⁰⁸ that Rome under these unworthy
popes ceased not to be the centre of Christendom. We may add with other
theologians, that so many abuses not having drawn after them the
destruction of the Holy See, their very excess serves to manifest the
care of Providence to maintain this visible focus of Catholic unity.
¹⁰⁸ Discour. 4, a. 10.
For the rest, the private lives of the popes is not the object which
claims our attention; we shall only consider their political relations
with secular governments. In confining ourselves to this view, we shall
not be troubled with unravelling the thread of succession, somewhat
confused, of thirty popes, who, in the course of this century, have
occupied, more or less legitimately, the chair of St. Peter. When two
shall start up at the same moment, we shall not stop to inquire which of
them is the true one; we shall not take on us to decide between
Baronius, who never wishes to recognize save the worthiest or the most
canonically elected, and those authors who adhere to the most effective,
that is, to the man who has more decisively exercised the pontifical
power: these are delicate questions, requiring long discussions, and the
investigation of a multitude of petty circumstances, foreign to the
history of those great disputes between the pontiffs and kings. In the
midst of those things and of those changes, two points appear to us
incontrovertible; one, that the Holy See was at this period reckoned in
the number of temporal governments; the other, that occupied with its
own affairs, and the interior troubles which agitated it, it lost,
without, a large portion of the influence and power which the preceding
century had bequeathed to it. The first of these consequences is
confirmed by Constantine Porphyrogenites, the Greek Emperor, who,
previous to the middle of the tenth century, digested a sort of
statistical table of the east and of the west: he in it represents the
popes as ‘sovereigns of Rome’.
Even in modifying this incorrect expression, we must admit, that this
text places the bishops of Rome in the rank of princes who immediately
governed states. As to the second conclusion, it followed almost of
course: pleasure ever extinguishes the fire of ambition, discord
shackles power, and the intrigues which employ us within, suspend our
exterior projects; he who is compelled to defend himself in the bosom of
his palace never meditates distant attacks. The excommunications so
familiar to Gregory III. to Nicholas I. and to John VIII. menace,
therefore, less frequently crowned heads. Theological opinions
themselves become less exposed to anathemas. We find no general council,
no new heresy in the tenth century.
This century may be divided into four epochs. The first would terminate
in 932; it would be characterised by the influence of Theodore and her
daughters. The second would present the administration of Alberic, and
of his son, up to 962. The third would open with the coronation of Otho
as emperor, and would terminate with the death of this prince in 973.
The consulate of Crescentius would designate the fourth.
The inhabitants of Rome had never ceased to nourish ideas of
independence; old customs led them back to republican forms. Their city
did not belong to the kingdom of Italy; it held only from the imperial
crown, which the pontiff himself had so far the disposal of, as
occasionally to keep it in reserve. We have noticed examples of this
interregnum of the empire, under John VIII. and John IX. p 906, when the
eyes of Louis III. who on this account was called: the Blind, had been
put out, the Romans ceased to insert his name in the public acts; and
although this, unfortunate prince persevered in assuming the title of
emperor, the imperial dignity actually remained vacant, until the
coronation, of Berengariusin 916.¹⁰⁹ During these interregnums, Rome
accustomed herself to consider, her pontiff, alone as her sovereign, or
rather her own, citizens, nobles, priests, or; sometimes even plebeans.
This, collective sovereign, created popes, and sometimes unmade them.
There had been seven or eight of these elections, or revolutions, in the
course of the first fourteen years of the tenth century; and each time
two factions were seen attacking each other, into which the Roman
nobility was divided, from the time of the proceedings against the
memory of Formosus. Some authors discover at this era, the origin of the
Guelphs, and Ghibelins: we must confess, we only behold as yet the
families which disputed the papacy, or these influence exercised, as
well over the electors as over the elected.
¹⁰⁹ St Marc. Ab. Hist of Italy, vol, 2, pa. 668.
A party in favour of the Western Emperors is the least to be
distinguished in the midst of these troubles; we rather have to remark a
tendency, weak at first, towards the Greek emperors, but which
disposition became much more evident towards the close of this century.
From the year 907, Rome behaved with complaisance to Leo VI. called the
Philosopher, whose fourth marriage had been censured by the patriarch of
Constantinople. The power of the clergy was, at this period, more
formidable at a distance from Rome than in the capital of Christendom.
William of Aquitaine, in founding the abbey of Cluni, about the year
910, declared, that these monks should never be subject to him, to his
relatives, or descendants, nor to any earthly power.¹¹⁰ In Northern and
Western Europe the monks inherited, without being inherited of, and the
edifice of their formidable opulence rapidly a rose. They made not such
a hasty progress in the Roman State, where, under ephemeral popes, the
elective chiefs of a species of republic, the intrigues attached to such
a system occupied every mind. In the midst of these political movements,
three female patricians arose, provided with all the resources of
influence with which rank, talents and beauty could arm ambition.
Theodora, the mother of the other two, seduced the nobles, calmed
faction, subjected to her authority the Church itself, and finally
softened public manners by corrupting them.
¹¹⁰ Concilior. vol. 9. p. 565—Bibl. Clun. —Fleury’s Eccles. Hist. b.
54, n. 45.
One of her lovers, at first bishop of Bologna, she raised to the
archbishopric of Ravenna, and, subsequently, to the sovereign
pontificate, which he filled under the name of John X. from 914 to 928.
We cannot make a favorable report of the holiness of this pontiff, but
in his character, as head of a state, he merits fewer reproaches. He did
not dispute the rights of other sovereigns; he acknowledged that it
belonged to kings alone to invest bishops¹¹¹ he reconciled the princes
whose rivalries destroyed Italy: on placing the imperial crown on the
head of Berengarius, he endeavoured to ally him with the Greek Emperor
against the Saracens, their common enemies: he himself marched against
these Mahometans, fought them with more bravery than belongs to the
office of a pope, and drove them from the neighbourhood of Rome.
¹¹¹ Concil. Gall. vol. 3, p. 565.
It appears that Theodora died previous to the year 928. Marosia, one of
her daughters, after having united herself in second marriage with Guy
of Tuscany, dethroned John and cast him into prison, where in a short
time he died, no doubt a violent death. He had for successors, a Leo VI.
and a Stephen VII.. creatures of Marosia’s, and finally John XI. a young
man of twenty to twenty-five years of age, of whom she herself was the
mother, and whom she had borne to Pope Sergius II. according to
Fleury¹¹² Baronius¹¹³ Sigowus¹¹⁴ and many others, who adopt on this
head the relation of Liutprand.¹¹⁵ Muratori¹¹⁶ makes Alberic, the
first husband of Marosia, the father of John XI. However it be, this
woman governed Rome, under the pontificate of her son, to the year 932,
the era of a new revolution. Marosia in her third nuptials took for
husband Hugues king of Provence, maternal brother of Guy of Tuscany.
This third spouse being disposed to maltreat Alberic, another son of
Marosia’s, a party devoted to young Alberic put him at the head of
affairs: Hugues was driven from the city, and John XI. continued to fill
in form, but without any actual power, the chair of St. Peter.
¹¹² Eccles. Hist. b. 66. n. 5.
¹¹³ Annal. Eccl. ad. ann. 931.
¹¹⁴ De regnorum Ital. b. 6, p. 400.
¹¹⁵ Lib. 3, c. 12, p. 410.
¹¹⁶ Annali Italia ad ann. 931.
At this period commenced, in Rome, a secular government which continued
about thirty years. Alberic with the title of consul or patrician,
selected the popes, ruled them, and held them in dependence. Out of the
city, the popes only possessed the property in the land; which they had
infeoffed in order to secure a part. An armed nobility had arisen in
their domains, which were now no longer part of their states, or which
had never so been. They were ignorant, in those barbarous ages, of the
art of distant government, the art of establishing over extensive
territories an energetic system of unity, subordination, and connection.
This art has been perfected only in modern times; and its absence in the
middle ages, was probably a principal cause of the establishment and
progress of feudal anarchy. They knew not how to retain an empire of any
extent, but by parcelling it out to vassals, who were desirous of
becoming independent, wherever the personal weakness of their liege lord
permitted them to become so. The pope, therefore, from 932 till towards
966, was but bishop of Rome, without any secular power, and his
spiritual influence was very much restricted. Properly speaking, the
Emperor of the West had also disappeared: for Henry the Fowler did not
assume this title in his diplomas: he characterised himself only as
‘patron’ or ‘advocate’ of the Romans:¹¹⁷ and this vain title, below
even that of patrician, embraced no authority, no duty, no political
relation. With what independence Alberic ruled his fellow citizens, we
can judge: he convoked them periodically in national assemblies; he
preserved or renewed in the midst of them, the republican forms he
supposed favourable to the support of his personal authority. Alberic
died in 954; and his son Octavian, who succeeded him, thought it
requisite to strengthen the civil power by re-annexing it to the
pontifical dignity: he became pope in 956, and took the title of John
XII. This double power would have been adequate to the restoration of
the Holy See, if the extreme youth of John, the mediocrity of his
talents, and the enterprises of Berengarius II. king of Italy, had not
led to the re-establishment of the imperial dignity. John having need of
Otho King of Germany to oppose to Berengarius, he crowned him emperor in
962.
¹¹⁷ Art of verifying dates, vol. 2, p. 10.
Berengarius and his son Adalbert were deposed: Otho reunited to his
kingdom of Germany, that of Italy, and the imperial crown. In order to
acquire such extensive power, he made most magnificent promises to the
Roman Church, and received in return the oaths and the homage of the
pope. These documents of Otho’s and of John are still in existence:
Gratian has delivered them to us in his canonical compilation; and if
their authenticity be disputed, the source is unquestionable.¹¹⁸ Otho
confirmed the donations of Pepin, of Charlemagne, and of Louis I. he
extended them perhaps, but expressly reserving to himself, the
sovereignty over the city of Rome and all the ecclesiastical domains:
“saving in every respect, he says, our own power and that of our son and
our successors.”¹¹⁹
¹¹⁸ Liutprand, b. 6, c. 6.—Pagi. Crit. Ann. Baron, ann. 962 —Fleury.
Eccles. Hist. b. 06, n. 1.
¹¹⁹ “This clause,” says Fleury, “shews, that the Emperor always
preserved to himself the sovereignty and jurisdiction over Rome,
and all places embraced in this donation: and the sequel of
history will prove it.”
The constitutions which required the emperor’s consent in the
installation of a pope were renewed: Otho considered himself even
invested with a right to depose the Roman pontiffs, and deferred not to
lay hold on an occasion for exercising it. Scarcely had he left Rome,
when John XII. measuring with terror the extent of the imperial
authority, repented having re-established it, and conceived the idea of
getting rid of it: Berengarius and Adalbert, with whom he had promised
to hold no intercourse, were to assist him in this undertaking. The
emperor who was soon apprised of it, received at the same time some
relation respecting the private conduct of the pontiff: it was not the
most edifying. Otho, appeared to pay but little attention to these
recitals:
“The pope, said he, is a child; the example of wor−
“thy men may convert him; prudent remonstrance
“may draw him from the precipice down which he
“is ready to cast himself.”
John received very ill these paternal counsels; he drew Adalbert to
Rome, affected receiving him with pomp, collected troops, and openly
revolted against the emperor, in defiance of the approach of this prince
and his army. But the forces were too unequal: John was compelled to fly
to Capua with Adalbert.¹²⁰
¹²⁰ Eccles. Hist. b.66. n. 6.
Otho entered Rome, and after receiving from the Romans an oath not to
recognize any pope not approved of by the emperor, he wrote to John XII.
a letter, which Fleury¹²¹ relates in these words:
“Being come to Rome for the service of God,
“when we demanded of the bishops and cardinals
“the occasion of your absence, they advanced
“against you things so shameful that they would be
“unworthy the folk of the theatre. All, clergy as
“well as laity, accuse you of homicide, perjury, sa−
“crilege, incest with your relatives, and with two
“sisters, and with having invoked irreverently Ju−
“piter, Venus, and other demons. We therefore
“beg of you to hasten instantly to exculpate your−
“self from all these charges. If you have any appre−
“hensions from the insolence of the people, we
“promise you that nothing shall be done contrary
“to the canons.”
¹²¹ Eccles. Hist b. 56. n. 6.
In reply the pope declared that he would excommunicate the bishops who
should dare to co-operate in the election of a sovereign pontiff. This
menace did not impede the council assembled by Otho, from deposing John
XII, and electing Leo VIII., notwithstanding some nobles attached to the
family of Alberic excited two seditions, one under the very eyes of the
emperor, the other immediately after his departure. The second of these
commotions replaced John on the pontifical throne, which he stained on
this occasion with the most horrible vengeance: he confined himself not
to excommunications, but caused to be executed or mutilated all who had
concurred in his deposition. His sudden death suspended the course of
these cruel executions: he perished from a stroke on the temple, applied
at night by the hand of some secret enemy, no doubt by one of the
husbands outraged by the Holy Father¹²² The Romans in contempt of all
the oaths they had taken to the emperor, gave him a a successor in
Benedict V: but Leo VIII. who had taken refuge with Otho, was soon led
back to Rome by this prince; and Benedict the true pope according to
Baronius¹²³ acknowledged himself the antipope at the feet of the head
of the empire, stripped himself of his pontifical vestments, sought
pardon for having dared to assume them, and finally offered his homage
to Leo as the legitimate successor of St. Peter¹²⁴ The German
publicists¹²⁵ have no doubt of the authenticity of an act, which Otho
caused Leo to subscribe at the time, addressed to the clergy and people
of Rome: it is stated in it, that no person for the future shall have
the privilege of electing the pope, or other bishop, without the
emperor’s consent; that the bishops elected by the clergy and the people
shall not be consecrated until the emperor shall have confirmed the
election, with the exception, however, of certain prelacies, the
investiture of which the emperor cedes to the archbishops; that Otho,
king of the Germans, and his successors in the kingdom of Italy, shall
have the power in perpetuity of selecting those who shall reign after
them; and that of nominating the popes, as well as the archbishops and
bishops who receive from these princes their investiture “by the cross
and the ring.”
¹²² Bellarmine, says John XII, was almost the most vicious of the
popes. Fait feri omnium deterrimus. De Rom. pontif. 6. 2. e. 29.
¹²³ Ann. Eccles. ad. aim. 964.
¹²⁴ Liutprand. I. 6. c. ult.—Vita Joannis xii. vol. 3. Rer. ltd. 1.
ii. pa. 328.
¹²⁵ See Pleffell. Abr. Chron. of the History of the Public Rights of
Germany, ann. 964; Koch’s Sketch of the Revolutions of Europe. 3d
period etc.
With the exception of these last words the act is delivered down to us
in Grotius’s decree; yet some Italian authors consider it apocryphal,
without, assigning any other reason for this opinion than the enormous
extent¹²⁶ which this constitution seems to confer on the imperial
power. We may, however, assert in this place, that though the
authenticity of this text be not very rigororously insisted on, the
testimony of contemporary historians¹²⁷ invariably proves, that Otho
obliged Leo VIII. to subscribe an explicit recognition of the imperial
rights.
¹²⁶ These decrees are inventions in which we find exorbitant
concessions to the imperial power, as well in the spiritualities
as temporalities of the Church of Rome. Cardinal Baronius in his
Ecclesiastical Annals, 964, father Pagi in his Critique on
Baronius, and others, have wisely rejected similar impostures.
Muratori’s Annals of Italy, year 964. vol. 6. p. 410.
¹²⁷ Liutprand. 1. 6, c. 6.—See vol. Pannom. 1. 8. c. 136; Grationi
Decretum dis. c. 73; De Marca Concord. 1. 8, c. 12; St Marc. Abd.
Hist, of Italy, vol. 4. dog. 1167, 1185.
The recent revolt of John XII. sufficed to excite in the emperor an
anxiety for this new guarantee: and Leo, his own creature, had no power
of placing restrictions to it. The act was such as Otho willed it to be
and this prince, a conqueror and a benefactor, would not rest satisfied
with an ambiguous formula.
Leo VIII. and Benedict V. died in 965; the commissioners of Otho caused
the election of John XIII. but the Romans revolted against this new
pope, and banished him. Otho was obliged to return into Italy, and
hasten to Rome to subdue the seditious and restore the pontiff. John
could forgive none of his enemies: he signalized his return by atrocious
vengeances, of which the emperor condescended to become the accomplice
and the instrument. They have tarnished the glory of this prince, and
justified the indifferent reception, at this period, of one of his
ambassadors to the Greek emperor, Nicephoras Phocas.:
“The impiety of thy master, said the empe−
“ror of Constantinople to the ambassador of Otho,
“does not allow us to receive thee honorably: thy
“master has become the tyrant of his Roman sub−
“ejects; he has exiled some, he has torn out the
“eyes of others; he has exterminated one−half of his
“people by the sword and by the scaffold.”
The ambassador to whom this discourse was addressed, was the historian
Liutprand, who himself relates it.
Otho, however, was not cruel by nature; in this instance he only yielded
to the importunities of the vindictive John.
The successes of Otho the Great, his excursions to Rome from the year
962 to 966, laid the foundation of the power of the German emperors, his
successors. He wished the imperial dignity to become forever inseparable
from the united kingdoms of Germany and Italy; that Christendom in its
full extent might form a republic which should recognize in the emperor
its sole temporal head; that it should be the privilege of this supreme
chief, to convoke councils, command the armies of Christendom, establish
or depose popes, to preside over, and to create kings. But in order to
elevate himself to such a pinnacle of greatness, he had need to manœuvre
the German bishops; they, therefore, received from him enormous
concessions. He distinguished the cities into two kinds, prefectorial,
and royal, since imperial, and confided the government of the latter to
the bishops, who laboured hard to render them episcopal. The bishops
became Counts and Dukes with royal prerogatives, such as the
administration of justice, privilege of coining money, collecting
customs, and other public revenues. It was by the title of fiefs, and on
condition of following him in his military expeditions, that Otho
gratified them with such power and wealth: but these dangerous
benefactions, in abridging the domains of the crown and the revenues of
the State, served the ends of future anarchy and revolution. The clergy,
as well the secular as regular, required in most of the countries of
Europe a formidable power, which would have been further encreased, if
already some symptoms of rivalry between these two bodies had not
fettered their common aggrandizement. Converts multiplied from day to
day, and enriched themselves almost beyond bounds. The Church’s period
of 1000 years was about to expire; and donations to the church,
especially to monasteries, passed for the most certain assurance against
eternal damnation. From the retirement of the cloisters arose important
personages, before whom the thrones of the world were humbled. Dunstan,
from Glastonbury Abbey, sprung forward to govern Great Britain, to
insult queens, and subject kings to penance. Otho the Great was at this
period the only prince of Christendom who fully ruled the ecclesiastical
authority: and if there remained among any people, ideas or ‘habitudes’
of civil independence, it was among the Romans in the centre of
Christianity itself.
The reign of Otho the Great, is the era to which we would willingly
refer the origin of the two factions, the papal and imperial, since
called those of the Guelphs and Ghibelins. But in the tenth century, the
partisans of the pope, were only citizens, emulous of obtaining the
independence of their city or republic, and to withdraw their elective
head from all domination. Some would have even preferred a civil
magistracy simply, as that of Alberic; they united rather in opposition
to the emperor, than in favor of the pontiffs chosen without, or in
defiance of, his authority. Such were the elements of the factions,
which revolted with John XII. which nominated Benedict V. and which
repelled, as far as in their power, Leo VIII. and John XIII. The emperor
had no partizans at Rome save his personal agents, and a few of the
inhabitants; the rest were subjected only by his presence or his arms.
Thus this pontifical faction which, in the sequel, appears to have
supported the most monstrous excesses of pontifical ambition, was
originally but a republican party, that more than once, it had been easy
to engage in the destruction of the temporal power of the popes, by
conferring on the Romans, and on some others of the cities of Italy, a
suitable government.
Otho died in 973; and from his death to the pontificate of Gerbert or
Sylvester II. the most remarkable events are, the accession of Hugh
Capet to the throne of France, the excommunication pronounced against
his son Robert, and the attempts of Crescentius to force Rome from the
yokes of Otho II. and Otho HI. the feeble successors of Otho the Great.
Crescentius was the son of Theodora, and, according to Fleury, of Pope
John X. We behold him governing Rome in quality of Consul towards 980;
but it is probable that from the year 974, he exercised a considerable
influence; stormy or weak pontificates restored the civil magistracy.
Benedict VI. the successor of John XIII. had been dethroned, imprisoned,
and strangled, or condemned to die of hunger. Boniface VII. the usurper
of the Holy See, after having plundered the churches, fled with his
booty to Constantinople: they hesitated not to fill his place, and the
imperial influence determined the election in favor of Benedict VII. who
belonged to the family of Alberic, now counts of Tusculum; a powerful
family, by whom the Emperor Otho II. and his agents, strengthened the
German party. But this emperor occupied in a war with the Greeks in the
Duchy of Beneventum, feared to displease the Romans by taking too active
a part in their affairs. He therefore prevented not Crescentius, who had
obtained their confidence, from ruling both the city and its bishop. In
983, when Benedict VII. died, the Romans and their consul elected John
XVI. Boniface, however, returned from Constantinople, made himself
master of Rome and of the person of John, caused him to perish in a
dungeon, and maintained himself during the space of eleven months, at
the head of the city and of the church. There is reason to think that
Crescentius contributed to the fall of Boniface, whom a sudden death
snatched from the vengeance of the people. John XV. elected in 985, had
disputes with the consul, who exiled him, and did not agree to see him
until the pope had promised to respect the popular authority. In despite
of this promise, Otho III. was called into Italy by John, who submitted
with reluctance to the ascendancy of Crescentius. John died at the
moment he expected to see himself delivered from this governor. Otho
III. nominated for pope a German, who took the name of Gregory V.: this
foreign pontiff elected by the influence of the Counts of Tusculum, on
the approach of the imperial army, odious on every account to the
Romans, became still more displeasing to them from German manners and
hauteur¹²⁸ It was at this moment Crescentius formed the project of
replacing Rome under the sovereign authority of the Greek emperors,
masters at once more gentle and more remote, accustomed to respect the
privileges of the people, and under whose protection the Neapolitans and
Venetians breathed freely and prospered. Greek ambassadors proceeded to
Rome under pretence of fulfilling a mission to the court of Otho; they
conferred with the consul, who deferred not to expel Gregory, and to
replace him by a Greek named Philogathus, who from being bishop of
Placentia, became pope or anti-pope under the name of John XVI. But Otho
came to Rome, and laid hold of this new pontiff, whom Gregory condemned,
in spite of the prayers of St. Nil, to lose his life by a series of the
most horrible torments. Crescen-tius had retired to the wall of Adrian;
they affected to treat with him, they pledged themselves to respect his
person: he relied on this promise given by the emperor, quitted the
fortress, submitted himself to Otho, and was instantly beheaded with his
most faithful partisans.
¹²⁸ Bellarmine and others, have attributed to Gregory V. the
institution of the seven electorates of the empire: this absurd
opinion has been often refuted. See for example, Natal. Alex.
Dissert. 18, in secul, 9 and 10; Maimbourg’s Hist, of the decline
of the empire, 1. 2, &c.; and Dupin’s Treatise on the
ecclesiastical power, p. 270.
It was John XV. who filled the chair of St. Peter, when in 987 Hugh
Capet dethroned the Carlovingian race, and made himself king of France.
This prince knew how to make this necessary revolution acceptable to the
French nobles and bishops; it proceeded without commotion, and above all
without the intervention of the Roman Court. Hugh did not apply to John
as Pepin before had done to Zachary; and the happiness of not being
indebted to the Holy See, for his elevation, was without doubt, one of
the causes of the security of Hugh, the long duration of his dynasty,
and the propagation of those maxims of independence, which have
distinguished and done honour to the Gallican church. These maxims were
proclaimed from the reign of Hugh, by a bishop of Orleans, and by
Gerbert archbishop of Rheims¹²⁹ It was in the affair of an archbishop
of this same city of Rheims, named Arnoul, who had betrayed the new
king, and whom this prince had deposed. John wished to re-establish
Arnoul and annul the election of Gerbert; but the monarch was firm, and,
while he lived, Gerbert remained in the See of Rheims, and Arnoul in the
prison of Orleans.
¹²⁹ Velly’s Hist, of France, vol. 2, p. 275, &c.
Robert, son of Hugh, did not resist with equal success the attempts of
Gregory V. Robert had married Bertha, although she was his relative in
the fourth degree, and that he had been godfather of a son that she had
by the Count of Chartres, her first husband. They exclaimed against a
marriage made in contempt of two such serious impediments. Too much
terrified by these clamours, Robert resolved to restore Arnoul to the
See of Rheims: this complaisance by which he hoped to reconcile himself
to the See of Rome, appeared but an indication of his weakness. The pope
did not hesitate to declare the marriage void; he excommunicated the two
spouses, and Robert, compelled to part Bertha, married Constance. This
pliability has been much urged against him; but after the
re-establishment of Arnoul, a perseverance in retaining Bertha would
have led almost infallibly to fatal consequences. We must consider that
Robert was the second king of his family; that this new dynasty had
scarcely reigned ten years; that Gerbert, one of the most judicious men
of this epoch, had left the King of France in order to attach himself to
Otho III.; that this emperor had appeared at the council in which
Gregory V. had excommunicated the son of Hugh; and finally, that these
anathemas were then so dreadful, that at the present day we can scarcely
avoid suspecting exaggeration in what is related to us of their
effects.¹³⁰ It was the first time France beheld herself placed under an
interdict, and that she received the injunction to suspend the
celebration of the divine offices; the administration of the sacrament
to adults, and religious sepulture to the dead. We are assured that
Robert, when excommunicated, was abandoned by his courtiers, his
relations, his household, and that even two servants who remained with
him caused to pass through the fire the things which he had touched.
¹³⁰ “I know,” says Bossuet, “that Peter Damien assures us, that no
person held intercourse with the king, except two servants for the
necessary occasions of life. But, either those of whom the pious
Cardinal received this information have exaggerated, or at least
we must suppose that the public officers continued to exercise
their duties, since without it the government could not subsist an
instant. Besides if it were true, that the exercise of certain
public offices had been suspended for some time, all history would
testify to this interregnum, and relate the confusion which would
have resulted from it.” Defence of the Grail. Cler. p. 2,1. 6, c.
27. Bossuet also observes, that at the moment in which Robert was
struck with these terrible anathemas, nobody thought or asserted
that this excommunication could carry the least attaint to the
sovereign authority of this monarch.
This Gerbert whom we have mentioned, became pope after Gregory V. by the
name of Sylvester II. It was he who, being archbishop of Rheims, and
seeing himself condemned by John XV. had expressed himself in these
words:¹³¹
“If the bishop of
“Rome sin against his brother, and that, often warn−
“ed, he obey not the church, he ought to be re−
“garded as a publican: the more elevated the rank,
“the greater the fall. When St. Gregory said, that
“the church ought to fear the sentence of its pastors,
“whether just or unjust, he did not mean to recom−
“mend this fear to the bishops, who do not consti−
“tute the flock, but are the heads and leaders thereof.
“Let us not furnish our enemies with an occasion to
“suppose that the priesthood, which is one in every
“church, be in such sort subject to a sovereign pon−
“tiff that if this pontiff suffer himself to be corrupted
“by money, favor, fear or ignorance, no person can
“hence be a bishop, unless he upholds himself by
“such means. The church has for a rule, the
“Scriptures, the decrees, and the canons of the Holy
“See, when these are conformable to Scripture.”
Driven from Rheims, Gerbert was received by Otho the III., who created
him, first, archbishop of Ravenna, then head of the church in 998. He
died in 1002, after having in this short pontificate, confirmed as far
as in his power, the imperial authority at Rome, and refused the
indications of independence which had agitated her citizens.
We cannot take leave of the 10th centuiy, without lamenting the gross
ignorance into which Europe was plunged. Possessions were regulated by
custom, and transactions pursued by remembrance alone. In the midst of
these people, these nobles, these kings, who knew neither how to read
nor write, the rudest instruction was, in the clergy suffered to put
them in possession of the civil administration.¹³²
¹³¹ Concilior. vol. 9, p. 744. A discourse which Arnoul bishop of
Orleans, pronounced in the Council of Rheims in 991, has been
occasionally cited under the name of Gerbert, which discourse may
be read in the history of this council revised by Gerbert. This
very remarkable document is too long to be inserted here.
¹³² Researches on France, b. 8, c. 13.
“The ecclesiastics, says Pasquier, di−
“vide among themselves the keys as well of reli−
“gion as of letters, altho’ so to speak, they derived
“from these only sufficient provision for their
“cubs.”
They alone could spell ancient writings, and trace some letters. They
assumed the dictating of wills, the regulation of marriages, contracts,
and public acts; they extorted legacies and donations, they freed
themselves from the secular jurisdiction, and endeavoured to subject all
things to a jurisprudence of their own.¹³³
¹³³ Velly’s Hist, of France, vol. 2, p. 293.