The Church and the Empire - D. J. Medley (first color ebook reader txt) 📗

[Sidenote: He secures power in Rome.]

But while the Pope assumed this all-embracing position, a considerable share of his energies was absorbed in a very small and purely selfish matter—the extension of the temporal dominion of the Papacy; and the use for this personal object of the great powers which men willingly acknowledged in the Pope as the upholder of the standard of morality greatly prejudiced the success of Innocent’s policy elsewhere. In its origin this was a policy of self-preservation. The civil government of Rome was in the hands of a prefect representing the Emperor and a senator who was the spokesman of the Commune. The Pope was either a prisoner or a nonentity in his own capital. The Empire being in abeyance, it was not difficult to transform the prefect into a papal officer, but a greater triumph was the nomination of the senator, for it carried the ultimate control over the municipality, and thus undermined the power of the Commune, which had paralysed the papal influence in Rome for nearly sixty years. This signal victory was not gained without a struggle. The democratic party even drove the Pope from the city for a time; but by 1205, Innocent, by apparent concessions and the use of bribery, had won his end.

[Sidenote: Central Italy.]

Meanwhile an even more important movement had been accomplished. The centre of the peninsula outside the Patrimony of St. Peter was in the hands Of Henry VI’s German followers. One was driven from Spoleto, another from Ravenna, and both these districts were added to the papal dominions. Tuscany had been made over to Henry VI’s brother, Philip; but he went off to secure the German crown, and his subjects did homage to the Pope. There existed, however, a League of Tuscan cities, and the Pope, leaving to them their independence, merely accepted the office of President of the League. It was the addition of these substantial dominions to the lands of the Patrimony which, as between Pope and Emperor, effectually solved the question of the long-contested Matildan inheritance, and laid the foundation of the temporal dominions of the Papacy as they remained until 1860.

[Sidenote: South Italy.]

The German influence also threatened to be paramount in the south of the peninsula. For Henry VI, while giving to Queen Constance the nominal regency during the minority of their son Frederick, took care that the real authority should be in the hands of his German followers. Constance, however, had no desire for the continued union of the German and Sicilian crowns; and here she found a staunch supporter in the Pope. First with Celestine, and then with Innocent, she entered into close relations. Frederick took the old Norman oath of vassalage for his dominions; and when Innocent confirmed the title, he compelled Constance in return to surrender the ecclesiastical privileges connected with elections, legatine visits, appeals, and councils originally granted by Urban II to Count Roger of Sicily, and to promise an annual tribute. The Pope, however, aided her to clear her country of the Germans, many of whom he afterwards again hunted from Central Italy. It was natural, therefore, that on her death in November, 1198, Constance should commend her child to the guardianship of Innocent. Innocent himself was far too much occupied to take the personal direction of affairs, and eight years of incessant warfare (1200-8) were necessary before the German influence could be finally got rid of, and then Innocent secured his influence through a regency of native nobles under the presidency of his own brother.

[Sidenote: The contest in Germany.]

Even on the German side there was little need to anticipate that the two crowns of Germany and Sicily would remain united. The nobles were scarcely likely to keep their promise of crowning Henry’s young son.

He was a mere child, three years of age; not yet baptised, perhaps because his father was excommunicate; brought up in Italy and in the hands of Italians; a prot�g� of the Pope. Thus his uncle Philip was easily persuaded by the Hohenstaufen supporters in Germany to take the place intended for his nephew, and was chosen and crowned as King of Germany (March, 1198). But the enemies of the Hohenstaufen could not let the opportunity go by, and three months later, at the suggestion of Richard of England, they elected and crowned his nephew, Otto of Brunswick, a son of Henry the Lion of Saxony, whom Richard had made Count of Poitou and York. Thus was revived the struggle between Ghibelline and Guelf.

[Sidenote: Innocent’s decision.]

Innocent undertook the decision of the question as a matter belonging to his sphere, “chiefly because it was the Apostolic See which transferred the Empire from the east to the west, and lastly because the same See grants the crown of the Empire.” In the divided condition of Germany much depended on his attitude. It was scarcely likely that he would accept a Hohenstaufen who was lord of Tuscany. But Philip was the nominee of the most numerous and important section of the German nobles, while the death of Richard of England (1199) deprived Otto of his chief supporter. As Gregory VII on a similar occasion, so now Innocent delayed his decision between the rivals until he could make up his mind that Otto had some chance of success. Meanwhile he did everything to prejudice the minds of the German people against Philip, who, as the holder of lands claimed by the Papacy, was already excommunicate. After three years of deliberation Innocent declared himself. Otto paid a heavy price for the decision in his favour. By the Capitulation of Neuss (June, 1201) he swore to protect to the utmost all the possessions, honours, and rights of the Roman Church, both those which it already held and those which he would help it to recover. The extent of land was defined as including not only the Patrimony of St. Peter (from Radicofani to Ceperano), but also the Exarchate, the Pentapolis, the March of Ancona, the Duchy of Spoleto, and the territories of the Countess Matilda.

[Sidenote: Innocent III and Philip Augustus of France.]

But in the course of the next few years Innocent was obliged to take up a totally different attitude in this struggle in consequence of disappointments elsewhere. There were two such which fell especially heavily upon him during the first half of his reign. He inherited from his predecessor a quarrel with Philip Augustus of France. Philip lost his first wife in 1190; in 1193 his designs against England caused him to marry Ingebiorg, a sister of the King of Denmark. Immediately after the marriage he took a dislike to her, refused to live with her, and obtained from an assembly of his own clergy a sentence of divorce, founded on an allegation of some very distant relationship between him and his new wife. Ingebiorg and her brother appealed to Pope Celestine III, who declared the sentence of divorce illegal and null. Philip not only paid no attention to the numerous letters and legates of the Pope, but he tried to make the divorce irrevocable by taking a new wife. After several rebuffs he found in Agnes of Meran, the daughter of a Bavarian noble, one who was willing to accept the dubious position (1196). Innocent III at once took up an uncompromising attitude, and instructed his legates that if Philip refused to send away Agnes and to restore Ingebiorg, they should put the kingdom under an interdict preparatory to a sentence of personal excommunication against Philip and Agnes themselves. Those bishops who dared to publish the interdict were seriously maltreated by the King; but after nine months of resistance the distress of his people at the cessation of religious services caused him to submit; he pretended to take back Ingebiorg, and the interdict was raised (1200). But he did not send away Agnes, and a renewal of the interdict was only averted by Agnes’

death in 1201. Innocent, desiring to be conciliatory, actually declared Agnes’ two children legitimate. Philip still, however, pressed for a divorce from Ingebiorg, declaring that he was bewitched by her. After his victory over John of England in 1204 he became more than ever obdurate to papal remonstrances, and he even contemplated a new marriage. Innocent was not in a position to drive him to extremes, and was obliged to temporise for a time. Eventually, however, he reduced Philip to submission.

[Sidenote: The Fourth Crusade.]

But Innocent suffered more definite defeat in the matter of the Crusade. The crusading fervour had much diminished, and it has been pointed out as characteristic of the age that a fourth crusade was determined on at a tournament in Champagne in 1199. Celestine III had vainly tried to rouse the interest of Europe, but the preaching of Fulk, the priest of Neuilly, recalled the efforts and the success of Peter the Hermit and St. Bernard. Innocent III lent his whole influence to the enterprise. But from the first everything seemed to go contrary to his wishes. The death of Theobald of Champagne (1201), who was the papal nominee for the leadership, placed at the head of the crusaders Boniface, Marquis of Montserrat, an Italian and kinsman of Philip of France and a typical representative of the worst side of feudalism. From that moment Innocent lost all control over the expedition. Instead of going directly to the Holy Land, the barons decided to attack the Mohammedan power in Egypt—perhaps the sounder policy. They made an agreement with the Venetians to find the shipping for the host in return for a large sum of money. But the long delay caused many crusaders to set off to the Holy Land; so that when the main force arrived at Venice it was so diminished in numbers that the leaders could not raise the sum for which they had pledged themselves to Venice. Probably there was no deep-laid plot for the diversion of the crusading host from the first. But the Venetians suddenly found themselves with the practical direction of a formidable army; they had enemies in the Adriatic against whom they had hitherto been powerless; they had old causes of rivalry and enmity with Constantinople. At the same time King Philip of Germany was urging the cause of his brother-in-law, who had been deposed from the Byzantine throne. The crusaders, unwilling to disperse and unable to insist, allowed themselves to be diverted, first to an attack upon Zara, a nest of pirates in the Adriatic, although it belonged to the King of Hungary, who was himself a crusader; and then to Constantinople, which they ultimately captured (1204), and where they set up a Latin Empire.

Innocent did everything to prevent this diversion of his cherished scheme. He forbade the attack upon Zara, he excommunicated the Venetians for going to Constantinople, and threatened the whole host with the same penalty. But he was powerless. The few in the army who were moved by some of the crusading spirit were overruled; and when the papal legates for the expedition to Palestine joined the army at Constantinople, all thought of going on to Palestine was abandoned.

Innocent was forced to accept what was done and to console himself with the thought of the blow thus dealt to the Eastern Church.

[Sidenote: Innocent’s difficulty.]

These rebuffs seriously diminished Innocent’s influence in Europe for a time. Moreover, Innocent soon had reason to regret his championship of Otto. Philip was wealthy and personally popular, while Otto’s brusquerie and selfishness alienated many supporters. Consequently from 1203 Philip distinctly obtained the upper hand, and at length in 1207 Innocent opened negotiations with him. But these were rendered futile when Philip fell victim to the assassin’s knife in June, 1208.

Otto’s acceptance now became inevitable, and he did everything to conciliate his opponents. He submitted himself to a fresh election by the German nobles, and won the Hohenstaufen