The Church and the Empire - D. J. Medley (first color ebook reader txt) 📗
- Author: D. J. Medley
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The danger was in no sense removed. Pope Stephen’s schemes for driving them out of Italy were cut short by his death, and meanwhile the Norman power increased. Thus there could be no question of expulsion, nor could the Papacy risk a repetition of the humiliation of Leo IX.
It was Hildebrand who conceived the idea of turning a dangerous neighbour into a friend and protector. A meeting was arranged at Melfi between Pope Nicholas and the Norman princes, and there, while on the one side canons were issued against clerical marriage, which was rife in the south of Italy, on the other side Robert Guiscard, the Norman leader, recognised the Pope as his suzerain, and obtained in return the title of Duke of Apulia and Calabria and of Sicily when he should have conquered it. Pope Leo’s agreement, six years before, had been made by a defeated and humiliated ecclesiastic with a band of unscrupulous adventurers. Pope Nicholas was dealing with an actual ruler who merely sought legitimate recognition of his title from any whose hostility would make his hold precarious. Thus resting on the shadowy basis of the donation of Constantine the Pope substituted himself for the Emperor, whether of West or of East, over the whole of Southern Italy. Truly the movement for the emancipation of the Church from the State was already shaping itself into an attempt at the formation of a rival power.
[Sidenote: Alexander II (1061-73) and Milan.]
The value of this new alliance to the Papacy was put to the test almost immediately. On the death of Pope Nicholas (1061) the papal and imperial parties proceeded to measure their strength against each other. The reformers, acting under the leadership of Hildebrand, chose as his successor a noble Milanese, Anselm of Baggio, Bishop of Lucca, who now became Alexander II. He was elected in accordance with the provisions of the recent Lateran decree, and no imperial ratification was asked. On the purely ecclesiastical side this choice was a strong manifesto against clerical marriage. The city of Milan as the capital of the Lombard kingdom of Italy had for many centuries held itself in rivalry with Rome. Moreover, it was the stronghold of an aristocratic and a married clergy, which based its practice on a supposed privilege granted by its Apostle St. Ambrose. But this produced a reforming democracy which, perhaps from the quarter whence it gained its chief support, was contemptuously named by its opponents the Patarins or Rag-pickers. The first leader of this democratic party had been Anselm of Baggio. Nicholas II sent thither the fanatical Peter Damiani as papal legate, and a fierce struggle ended in the abject submission of the Archbishop of Milan, who attended a synod at Rome and promised obedience to the Pope.
[Sidenote: German opposition.]
The weak point in the decree of Nicholas II had been that the German clergy were not represented at the Council which issued it, and it was construed in Germany as a manifest attempt of the reforming party to secure the Papacy for Italy as against the German influence maintained by Henry III. The Roman nobles also had seen in the decree the design of excluding them from any share in the election. It was only by the introduction of Norman troops into Rome that the new Pope could be installed at the Lateran. A few weeks later a synod met at Basle in the presence of the Empress-Regent and the young Henry IV. The latter was invested with the title of Patrician, and the election of Alexander having been pronounced invalid, a new Pope was chosen in the person of another Lombard, Cadalus Bishop of Parma, who had led the opposition to the Patarins in the province of Milan. The Normans were recalled to their dominions, and the imperialist Pope, Honorius II, was installed in Rome. The struggle between the rival Popes lasted for three years (1061-4), and fluctuated with the fluctuations of power at the German court. Here the young King had fallen under the influence of Archbishop Hanno of K�ln, who, surrounded by enemies in Germany, hoped to gain a party by the betrayal of imperial interests in the recognition of the decree of Nicholas II and of the claims of Alexander. Again by the help of a Norman force Alexander was installed in Rome, where he remained even when Hanno’s influence at the German court gave way to that of Archbishop Adalbert of Bremen. Honorius, however, despite the desertion by the imperialist party, found supporters until his death in 1072, and it was only by the arms of Duke Godfrey of Tuscany acting for the imperialists and those of his own Norman allies that Alexander held Rome until his death.
[Sidenote: Steps towards reformation.]
Meanwhile the ecclesiastical reformation went steadily on under the direction of Hildebrand. The young King Henry endeavoured to free himself from the great German ecclesiastics who held him in thrall, by repudiating the wife whom they had forced upon him. He was checked by the austere and resolute papal legate, Peter Damiani, and was obliged to accept Bertha of Savoy, to whom subsequently he became much attached. Peter Darniani’s visit, however, brought him relief in another way, for the legate took back such a report of the prevalence of simony that the archbishops of Mainz and K�ln were summoned to Rome, whence they returned so humiliated that their political influence was gone. It is almost equally remarkable that the two English Archbishops also appeared at Rome during this Pontificate, Lanfranc of Canterbury in order that he might obtain the pall without which he could not exercise his functions as Archbishop, and Thomas of York, who referred to the Pope his contention that the primacy of England should alternate between Canterbury and York. In France, too, we are told that the envoys of Alexander interfered in the smallest details of the ecclesiastical administration and punished without mercy all clergy guilty of simony or of matrimony. Almost the last public act of Pope Alexander was to excommunicate five counsellors of the young King of Germany, to whom were attributed responsibility for his acts, and to summon Henry himself to answer charges of simony and other evil deeds.
[Sidenote: Gregory VII (1073-85).]
The crowd which attended the funeral of Alexander II acclaimed Hildebrand as his successor. The Cardinals formally ratified the choice of the people and contrary to the wish of the German bishops the young King Henry acquiesced.
[Sidenote: His rise to power.]
The new Pope was born a Tuscan peasant and educated in the monastery of St. Mary’s on the Aventine in Rome. His uncle was the Abbot, and the monastery was Roman lodging of the Abbot of Cluny. Hildebrand entered the service of Gregory VI, whom he followed into exile. On his master’s death in 1048 Hildebrand retired to Cluny. Hence he was drawn once more back to Rome by Pope Leo IX. From this moment his rise was continuous. Leo made him a Cardinal and gave him the charge of the papal finances. In 1054 he sent him as legate to France in order to deal with the heresy of Berengar of Tours. Hildebrand was no theologian, and he accepted a very vague explanation of Berengar’s views upon the disputed question of the change of the elements in the Sacrament. On Leo’s death Hildebrand headed the deputation which was sent by the clergy and people of Rome to ask Henry III to nominate his successor; and again, on the death of Victor II, although Hildebrand took no part in the choice of Stephen IX, it was he who went to Germany to obtain a confirmation of the election from the Empress-Regent. On Stephen’s death Hildebrand’s prompt action obtained the election of Nicholas II. It was probably Hildebrand who worded the decree regulating the mode of papal elections, and whose policy turned the Normans from troublesome neighbours into faithful allies and useful instruments of the papal aims. Nicholas rewarded him with the office of Archdeacon of Rome, which made him the chief administrative officer of the Roman see and, next to the Pope, the most important person in the Western Church. Hildebrand was the chief agent in the election of Alexander II; and the ultimate triumph of Alexander meant the reinstatement of Hildebrand at headquarters. Thus it had long been a question of how soon the maker of Popes would himself assume the papal title, and this was settled for him by the acclamations of the people. In memory of his old master he took the title of Gregory VII. As yet he was only in deacon’s orders. Within a month he was ordained priest; but another month or more elapsed before he was consecrated bishop.
[Sidenote: Opportunity of reform.]
At last the individual who was most identified in men’s minds with the forward movement in the Church was the acknowledged head of the ecclesiastical organisation in the West. For more than twenty years he had been at headquarters intimately knowing and ultimately directing the course of policy. It was mainly by his exertions that the Church was now officially committed to the views of the Cluniac reformers.
Yet so much opposition had been called forth as to show that the success of the party hitherto had depended merely on the circumstances of the moment. The time seemed to have arrived when matters should be brought to an issue. The continued existence of the Roman factions and the power of Henry III had made compromise necessary, and the general result of the reformers’ efforts upon the Church had been inappreciable. But the lapse of time had done at least two things—it had cleared the issue and it had brought the opportunity.
[Sidenote: Direction in which reform should move.]
The Church was so entirely enmeshed in the feudal notions of the age that at first it was not very clear to the reformers where it would be most effective to begin in the process or cutting her free. But by this time it was seen that the real link which bound the Church to the State was the custom by which princes took it on themselves to give to the new bishop, in return for his oath of homage, investiture of his office and lands by the presentation of the ring which symbolically married him to his Church, and of the pastoral staff which committed to him the spiritual oversight of his diocese. Probably there was not a single prince in Western Europe who pretended to confer on the new bishop any of his spiritual powers; but the two spheres of the episcopal work had become inextricably confused, and in the decay of ecclesiastical authority the lay power had treated the chief ecclesiastics as mainly great officers of State and a special class of feudal baron. In the eyes of the reformers the entire dealing of the King with the bishops was an act of usurpation, nay, of sacrilege.
Ecclesiastics owed to the sovereign of the country the oath of fealty demanded of all subjects. But for the rest, neither bishop, abbot, nor parish priest could be a feudal vassal. The land which any ecclesiastic held by virtue of his office had been given to the Church; the utmost claim that any
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