The Age of Reason - D. J. Medley (free novels .txt) 📗

because he would not listen to any compromise which might be an acknowledgment that he had exaggerated his own claims. Thus, despite the undoubted purity of his life and the ultimate loftiness of his ideals, he is to be regarded rather as a man of immense force of character than as a great ecclesiastical statesman, rather as the stirrer-up of divine discontent than as a creative mind which gives a new turn to the desires and impulses of the human race.

[Sidenote: His activity in Europe.]

All this is borne out by his dealings outside Germany and Italy. He conducted a very extensive correspondence with princes as well as ecclesiastics all over Europe. Indeed this, as much as the despatch of legates and the annual attendance of bishops at the Lenten Synod, was one of the means by which the Papacy strove to make itself the central power of Christendom. These letters deal with all kinds of subjects and bear ample witness to his personal piety and high moral aims. But alongside of these come arrogant assertions of papal authority. He claims as fiefs of St. Peter on various grounds Hungary, Spain, Denmark, Corsica, Sardinia; he gives the title of King to the Duke of Dalmatia; he even offers to princes who belong to the Eastern Church a better title to their possessions as held from St. Peter.

[Sidenote: His policy in France.]

Gregory's great contest with the Empire has been described without interruption, as if it were the only struggle of his time, instead of being merely the most important episode in a very busy life. And if we ask in conclusion why it was fought out in the imperial dominions rather than elsewhere, the answer will be instructive of his character and methods of action. At the beginning of his pontificate his harshest phrases were directed against Philip I of France, who added to the crimes of lay investiture and shameless simony a scandalous personal immorality. Ultimately Gregory threatened him with excommunication and deposition. But he never passed beyond threats. The reason is to be found in the fact that Gregory was soon in pursuit of larger game. The French King only shared with his great nobles the investiture of the bishops in the kingdom. Moreover, the French bishops were not as a body great secular potentates like the German bishops. The opposition to reform in France was passive, not active. Crown, nobles, and Church stood together in opposition: there was no papal party. Not enough was to be gained by a victory, and there was great chance of a defeat. The result was that Philip continued his simoniacal transactions and never entirely gave up investiture, while Gregory allowed himself to be satisfied with occasional promises of better things. His dealings with the French bishops are equally inconclusive. For six years (1076-82) two of the papal legates divided France between them, practically superseded the local ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and acted with the utmost severity against all, ecclesiastics or laymen, who practised the methods now under condemnation. Great opposition was aroused and the legates went in peril of their lives. They were only carrying out strenuously the principles laid down under Gregory's guidance in many acts of synods and inculcated by Gregory in numberless private letters. And yet Gregory is found frequently undoing their acts, restoring bishops whom they have deposed, accepting excuses or explanations which cannot possibly have deceived him.

[Sidenote: In England.]

His policy towards England affords another instructive contrast. Both in Normandy and in England William the Conqueror practised investiture of his bishops and abbots and held his ecclesiastics in an iron grip. He refused the papal demand for homage for his English kingdom and he would allow no papal interference with his clergy without the King's permission. Archbishop Lanfranc also only consented to accept the decree against married clergy with a serious limitation—while married canons were to dismiss their wives at once, parish priests already married were not interfered with; but marriage was forbidden to clergy in the future, and bishops were warned not to ordain married men. But William's expedition to England had been undertaken with the approval of Hildebrand, he did not practise simony, and he acknowledged the principle of a celibate clergy, while he promised the payment of the tribute of Peter's Pence from England. Moreover, William was not a man to be trifled with: he was a valuable friend and would certainly be a dangerous enemy. Consequently no question of the lawfulness of investiture was mooted during his lifetime. Gregory contented himself with threats against Lanfranc. But the English Archbishop owed a grudge to Gregory, who had treated with a culpable indulgence the great heresiarch Berengar after Lanfranc had vanquished him and convicted him of heresy; and Lanfranc knew that under William's sheltering favour he was safe from the papal ban.

Thus, while in France Gregory would have to face an united people, in England he shrank before the personality of the King. In Germany, on the other hand, he found a blameworthy King and a discontented people. All the elements were present for the successful interference of an external power. Moreover, the peculiar relations in which this external power—the Papacy—stood towards the German King, the prospective Emperor, gave every excuse, if any were needed, for such interference. Finally and most especially, since these imperial prospects made the German King the first among the monarchs of Western Europe, a victory over him would carry a prestige which lesser potentates would be bound to acknowledge.

CHAPTER III THE END OF THE QUARREL

[Sidenote: A momentary peace.]

It remained to be seen whether Gregory's failure implied Henry's success. The Emperor returned to Germany, where a strong desire for peace had grown up and was taking practical shape. In some dioceses the Truce of God was proclaimed, which, under heavy ecclesiastical penalties, forbade hostilities during certain days of the week and certain seasons of the year. Henry took up this idea, which as yet was too partial to be effective, and in 1085, in a Synod at Mainz under his presidency, it was proclaimed for the whole kingdom. The unfortunate anti-King Herman found himself deserted, and died, a fugitive, in 1088. Henry's moderation concluded what the desire for peace had begun, and even Saxony seemed to be reconciled to his rule.

[Sidenote: Urban II (1088-99).]

But his triumph was short-lived. Between him and any lasting peace stood the anti-Pope Clement III; for all who had received consecration at Clement's hands were bound at all hazards to maintain the lawfulness of his election. Moreover, Clement's opponent now was a man to be reckoned with. The first choice of the Gregorian party, Desiderius, Abbot of Monte Cassino, could not be consecrated for a year after his election, and four months later he was dead (September, 1087). The partisans of Clement were too strong in Rome, and the next election was carried out with total disregard of the decree of Nicholas II. It took place at Terracina in March, 1088, and was made by a large number of clergy in addition to the Cardinals. The choice fell upon Otto, Bishop of Ostia, a Frenchman of noble family and a monk of Cluny; but it was some years before Urban II could regard Rome as his headquarters.

[Sidenote: His policy against Henry.]

In some ways Urban was more uncompromising than his master Gregory. He upheld the papal legates in their strict treatment of the French bishops; he actually launched against Philip I of France the excommunication which Gregory had only threatened; to the prohibition of lay investiture he added an explicit command that bishops and clergy should not do homage to any layman. But while he showed himself thus in thorough sympathy with his predecessor, in his power of dealing with circumstances he proved himself by far the superior. A succession of clever if thoroughly unscrupulous measures restored the fortunes of the papal party. Henry had succeeded for the moment in dividing and isolating his enemies. Urban set himself to unite the chief opponents of Henry on both sides of the Alps. He planned a marriage between the middle-aged widow, the Countess Matilda of Tuscany, and the eighteen-year-old son of Welf, Duke of Bavaria (1089). Matilda was ready to sacrifice herself for the good of the cause. The Welfs, ignorant of Matilda's gift of her lands to the Papacy, eagerly accepted the bait; but soon discovering that they were being used as tools, they ceased to give any help, and in fact became reconciled to the Emperor. But meanwhile the Pope had discovered other more deadly weapons with which to wound the Emperor. The deaths of the anti-Kings had left the papal party without a leader in Germany. Events had shown the firm hold of the hereditary claim and the Salian House upon a large portion of the Empire. The only acceptable leader would be a member of Henry's own house. Henry's actions played into their hands. His eldest son, Conrad, had been crowned at Aachen in 1087 and sent into Italy to act as his father's representative. He is described as a young man of studious and dreamy character, unpractical and easily influenced. In 1087 Henry lost his faithful wife Bertha, and a year later he married a Russian Princess, Praxedis, who was the widow of the Count of the Northern March. The marriage was unhappy; each accused the other of misconduct; and Henry, suspecting the relations of Conrad with his stepmother, put them both in prison. Perhaps Conrad had already been worked upon by the papal party. He escaped, took refuge with the Countess Matilda, and was crowned King of Italy (1093). But he was only the tool of others. Far more immediately dangerous was the escape of Praxedis (1094), who laid before the Pope the foulest charges against Henry. To her lasting shame the Countess Matilda was the chief agent in these family revolts. The effect on Henry's position in Italy was disastrous. Pope Urban finally recovered Rome, and Conrad, having won the cities of Lombardy, took an oath of fealty to the Papacy in return for a promise of the Empire.

[Sidenote: Beginning of the Crusades.]

And just as if the success of these diabolical schemes was not a sufficient triumph, fortune at this moment gave the Pope a chance of superseding the Emperor in the eyes of all Europe, by inaugurating a great popular movement of which under different circumstances the Emperor would have been the natural leader. In 1085 the Eastern Emperor Alexius had appealed to Henry against the Normans, but now Henry was a negligible quantity—excommunicated, crowned Emperor by an anti-pope, not likely to undertake a distant expedition. In 1095, therefore, when Alexius needed aid against the Seljuk Turks, it was to the Pope that he sent his envoys, who appeared at the Synod of Piacenza. Those late converts to Mohammedanism had established their kingdom of Roum over the greater part of Asia Minor with its capital at the venerable city of Nicæa, and had captured Jerusalem, which thus passed out of the hands of the tolerant Caliphs of Cairo into those of the most fanatical section of Mohammedans. Pilgrims returning from Jerusalem spread through Europe tales of the harsh treatment to which they were subjected. Then in 1087 a new tribe of Saracens, the Almoravides, crossed from Africa to Spain and inflicted a severe defeat upon a Christian army. It seemed almost as if a combined movement of the Mohammedan world had begun for the final extinction of Christendom. If Gregory had been free he would have wished to promote the reunion of the Churches by sending help to the Eastern Empire; so that it was no novel idea that was suggested to the assembled magnates at Piacenza. Urban II no doubt saw the opportunity offered for asserting the leadership of the western world. Alexius' envoys were heard with sympathy; but Urban felt the need of appeal to a larger public, and summoned a great Council to Clermont-Ferrand in Auvergne, where he would be among his own countrymen. Here in November, 1095, he delivered before a vast concourse of persons assembled in the open air an impassioned appeal on behalf of the suffering Christians of the east. The result answered his utmost expectation, and the cry of the assembled multitude, "God wills it," was the ratification of the papal leadership. All methods were taken to stir the feelings of the west. The vast ecclesiastical organisation was used in order to transmit invitations to possible crusaders; the penitential system of the Church was brought to bear on those already conscious of a sinful life; popular preachers, such as Peter the Hermit, were employed to rouse the interest of the masses; the Pope himself spent the succeeding months in a tour through Southern France; and arrangements were made for the start of the first expedition from the Italian ports at the end of the summer of 1096, under the leadership of a legate appointed by the Pope.

[Sidenote: The first Crusade.]

It is not