Sources

FOOTNOTES:

[289:1] Justinian, Inst., i., ii., 6.

[290:1] Eph. vi., 5; Col. iii., 22; Tit. ii., 9; 1 Pet. ii., 18.

[290:2] Rom. xiii., 1-7; cf. Heb. xiii., 17; 1 Pet. ii., 13.

[290:3] Rom. xiii., 6-7.

[290:4] See Tertullian, Lib. ad Scap., for a later recognition of the divine right theory.

[290:5] 1 Peter ii., 13, 14.

[290:6] Tertullian, Apol., c. 5 and 26.

[291:1] Tertullian, Apol., c. 34; c. 42; De Corona Milit., c. 11; De Idololatria, c. 17. See Milman, bk. ii., ch. 7.

[291:2] Milman, ii., 231; Gibbon, ch. 16.

[292:1] Ranke, Hist. of the Popes.

[292:2] The title was used down to the time of Gratian in 380.

[293:1] Lea, Stud. in Ch. Hist., 15.

[293:2] See Schaff, iii., § 13.

[293:3] Ibid., § 22, 23.

[294:1] Harduin, i., 543; Lea, Stud. in Ch. Hist., 13 ff.

[294:2] Cod. Theod., lib. xvi, tit. ii., 1, 15.

[294:3] Harduin, i., 1538.

[294:4] Ib., ii., 559.

[294:5] Lea, Stud. in Ch. Hist., 15.

[295:1] Theodoret, v., 3.

[295:2] Socrates, iv., 29.

[295:3] Goldast, Const. Imp., iii., 587; Harduin, i., 1238.

[295:4] Harduin, i., 842.

[295:5] The laws relating to the Church passed between the time of Constantine and the promulgation of the Theodosian Code in 438 are mostly contained in the sixteenth book of that code. The laws passed between 438 and 534 are found in the Justinian Code which was published in revised form in that year. See Lea, Stud. in Ch. Hist., 16.

[296:1] Goldast, iii., 95, 615.

[296:2] Cassiodorus, Varior., ix., 15.

[297:1] These laws are found in the Justinian Code and in the Novellæ, and cover the period from 534 to 565. Excellent translation by Moyle, Oxf. 1889.

[297:2] Novellæ, 42.

[297:3] The 134th Novella is a small code in itself.

[298:1] Greenwood, Cathedra Petri, ii., 163.

[298:2] Baronius, Ann., 587, § 5.

[299:1] Bk. ii., letters 62, 65.

[299:2] Bk. iii., letter 65. Comp. bk. v., letter 40. Greenwood, Cathedra Petri, ii., 233.

[299:3] Bk. vi., letter 2.

[299:4] Anastasius, Biblioth., No. 81.

[300:1] Lea, Stud. in Ch. Hist., 31.

[302:1] See [Ch. XII.]

[303:1] Hardwick, Hist. Christ. Ch. in M. A., 54.

[303:2] Lea, Stud. in Ch. Hist., 84-87.

[303:3] Richter, 36.

[303:4] Robinson, Readings, i., 120.

[303:5] Bede, v., 10; Migne, vols. 86-88.

[303:6] Waitz, iii., 23, note 3.

[303:7] Cf. Thatcher and McNeal, No. 43.

[304:1] Richter, i., 200.

[304:2] Robinson, Readings, i., 120; Ogg, Source Book, § 14; Pertz, i., 136.

[305:1] Ogg, Source Book, § 14; Thatcher and McNeal, No. 6.

[305:2] Robinson, Readings, i., 122.

[305:3] Pertz, i., 293; Thatcher and McNeal, No. 44.

[305:4] Ib., No. 6; Robinson, Readings, i., 122; Migne, lxxi., 911. The title of "patrician" was introduced by Constantine. It was the name of a rank, not of an office, and was next to that of Emperor and consul. Hence it was usually conferred upon governors of the first class, and even upon barbarian chiefs whom the Emperor might wish to win. Thus, Odoacer, Theodoric, and Clovis had all received the title from the eastern court. Later it was even given to Mohammedan princes. It was very significant now that the Pope assumed the imperial right to confer it, because it was plainly an illegal usurpation. It made Pepin practically the viceroy of Italy and the protector of the Papacy. (See Smith and Cheetham.)

[306:1] Migne, lxxxix., 1004; see Robinson, Readings, i., 122; Greenwood, Cathedra Petri, iii., 388.

[306:2] Muratori, iii., 96; Migne, cxxviii., 1098.

[306:3] Thatcher and McNeal, No. 45. (Baronius, Ann., 755; Migne, cxxviii., 1099.) See Wiltsch, Geog. and Statistics of the Ch., i., 264.

[306:4] Gibbon, ch. 59.

[306:5] See "Donation of Constantine" in Henderson, 319.

[306:6] Waitz, iii., 364.

[306:7] Pertz, Leg., i., 24; Mansi, xii.; Migne, xcvi., 1501.

[307:1] Adams, Mediæval Civilisation, 127.

[307:2] The best account of Charles the Great in English is Mombert's.

[308:1] Robinson, Readings, i., 129; Ogg, Source Book, § 16, 17. See Mombert, ch. 3, 4.

[308:2] Mombert, ch. 11.

[308:3] Ibid., ch. 5.

[308:4] Ibid., ch. 7.

[308:5] See Waitz. Ogg, Source Book, § 18, 19.

[309:1] Thatcher and McNeal, No. 46; Wiltsch, Geog. and Statistics of the Ch., i., 265; Greenwood, Cathedra Petri, ii., 415.

[309:2] See Thatcher and McNeal, No. 47.

[309:3] Döllinger, Empire of Charles the Great.

[310:1] Cf. Thatcher and McNeal, No. 48.

[310:2] Ibid., No. 49. Robinson, Readings, i., 131.

[310:3] Ibid., i., 134. Thatcher and McNeal, No. 48; Ogg, Source Book, § 20; Mombert, ch. 14.

[310:4] Eginhard, § 28.

[311:1] Muratori, ii., 312; Waitz, iii., 174, note.

[311:2] Döllinger, Empire of Charles the Great.

[311:3] See Thatcher and McNeal, No. 13, 14. Bryce, 61-62.

[311:4] Waitz, iii., 184, note.

[312:1] Ludwig II. was led to admit that right in 871. Thatcher and McNeal, No. 51, 52.

[312:2] Döllinger, Empire of Charles the Great.

[313:1] Gratian, Decret., Dist. 63, Can. 22; Lea, Stud. in Ch. Hist., 81, 89, 90.

[313:2] Lea, Stud. in Ch. Hist., 63.

[313:3] Thatcher and McNeal, No. 47.

[313:4] Hincmari Inst. Reg., ch. 34 and 35.

[314:1] Harduin, iv., 1006.

[314:2] Lea, Stud. in Ch. Hist., 64-65.

[314:3] Bryce, Holy Rom. Emp., 65.

[314:4] Ogg, Source Book, § 22; Robinson, Readings, i., 136.

[314:5] This is now regarded by some authorities as a forgery. Lea, Stud. in Ch. Hist.

[314:6] Lea, Stud. in Ch. Hist., 38; Gratian, Decret., Dist. 63, Can. 28.

[315:1] Ann. Laur., 188.

[315:2] Milman, Hist. of Lat. Christ., ii., 459.

[315:3] Emerton, Med. Europe, 7; Robinson, Readings, i., 140.

[315:4] Charta Divisionis, 806.

[315:5] Robinson, Readings, i., 135-137.

[316:1] Translations and Reprints? Henderson, 189.

[316:2] Lecky, ii., 259.

[316:3] Ogg, Source Book, § 21; Thatcher and McNeal, No. 9; Robinson, Readings, i., 139.

[317:1] Eginhard, Ann., 813. Read the case of Louis and Lothair 817. Lea, Stud. in Ch. Hist., 42.

[317:2] Ogg, Source Book, § 23; Thatcher and McNeal, No. 10, 11, 12.

[317:3] Robinson, Readings, i., 144, 145; Transl. and Reprints; Mullinger, Schools of Charles the Great.

[317:4] Mombert, ch. 10.

[318:1] Ogg, Source Book, § 15; Thatcher and McNeal, No. 7; Mombert, ch. 6.

[318:2] See Eginhard for the best pen picture of the personal appearance and habits of this wonderful man. Robinson, Readings, i., 126.

[319:1] Louis, the youngest, had Aquitaine, Gascony, Septimania, Provence, and a part of Burgundy. Pepin, the second son, had Italy, Bavaria, Almania, and a part of the Alpine country. Charles, the eldest, received all the rest—old France, Thuringia, Saxony, and Frisia.

[319:2] Henderson, 201.

[319:3] Emerton, 18, 19.

[319:4] Thatcher and McNeal, No. 50.

[320:1] Ogg, Source Book, § 27; Thatcher and McNeal, No. 15, 20; Robinson, Readings, i., 150-155, 157, 163.

[320:2] Thatcher and McNeal, No. 21.

[320:3] Ogg, Source Book, § 26, 28; Robinson, Readings, i., 158.

[320:4] Thatcher and McNeal, No. 17, 18; Ogg, Source Book, § 25.

[321:1] Thatcher and McNeal, No. 16; Ogg, Source Book, § 24; Robinson, Readings, i., 433.

[321:2] Emerton, Med. Europe, 26-28.

[321:3] Thatcher and McNeal, No. 19.

[321:4] Thatcher and McNeal, No. 22, 23, 24, 25.

[321:5] He did insist, however, upon his dominion over Rome and over the Pope as his vassal. Pope Stephen IV. at once caused the Romans to swear fealty to the Emperor and ordained that the consecration of the Pope must take place in the presence of the imperial ambassadors. His son Lothair was crowned Emperor in Rome and repeatedly repaired thither to protect the Holy See. Another son, Louis, was also anointed king by Pope Sergius in Rome. This act strengthened the papal claim to control elections to secular power. In 871 Louis II. acknowledged his divine right to imperial rule to be derived from papal sanction. Another step was taken when the council of Aix-la-Chapelle deposed Emperor Lothair (842).

CHAPTER XV
THE PSEUDO-ISIDORIAN DECRETALS AND THE PAPAL CONSTITUTION

Outline: I.—What were the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals? II.—Condition of Europe when the Decretals appeared. III.—Purpose of the forgery. IV.—Character and composition. V.—Time, place, and personality, of authorship. VI.—Significance and results. VII.—Nicholas I. and papal supremacy. VIII.—Decline of spirituality in the Church. IX.—Sources.

The Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals[326:1] were a curious collection of documents, both genuine and forged, which appeared in western Europe about the middle of the ninth century under the name of Isidore Mercator, to give the Church a definite, written constitution. They were a stupendous forgery—the most audacious and pious fraud ever perpetrated in the history of the Church—worked out with admirable skill and consummate ingeniousness. Forgery was a common thing in those days, and it was generally believed that all things which upheld the doctrines and prerogatives of the Church of God were allowable.[326:2]

When these false letters appeared, the Empire of Charles was falling to pieces under his wrangling

grandsons. Anarchy and confusion were rampant; might was the only recognised law. Feudalism with its decentralising influences was rapidly prevailing throughout Europe. The Church also reflected this sad state of affairs. The Pope was reduced to a vassal of the Emperor. Metropolitans were in league with the political rulers and even helped to plunder the bishoprics and oppress the priests. The bishops were masterly secular princes and landed nobles; hence their persons had lost their sanctity, and they were persecuted by their archbishops and robbed by their sovereigns. The Bishop of Lyons wrote: "No condition of man whether free or unfree is so insecure in the possession of his property as the priest. . . . Not only the estates of the Church, but even the churches themselves are sold." The lower clergy suffered from the tyranny and lawlessness of the day; the laity were similarly demoralised. The synod of Aachen in 836 protested against the contempt into which the clergy had fallen with the ungodly laity. The age, too, was not critical. In fact, it was an impious thing to disbelieve anything connected with the Bible, the Church, or with sacred tradition. It was an era of superstitions and legends. No period, therefore could have been better adapted than that for the promulgation of such a magnificent system of fabrications.

There are divergent theories as to the purpose of these falsified epistles: (1) Some maintain that the sole object was to give the Church a constitution of a definite form and character. (2) Others hold that the intention was to present unquestionable proof of the papal theory of supremacy by filling in the fatal gap between the time of Jesus and Constantine. It was dangerous to make the origin of the Church dependent

upon an Emperor's fiat; hence, it was necessary to elevate the See of Rome by clothing the Pope with antiquity, spiritual majesty, and supreme authority.[328:1] Venerable Rome was made to furnish the necessary documents from St. Peter onward to supplement the Bible and the Church Fathers with manufactured tradition. (3) Still others assert that the object was to give the Church a general code of discipline in the anarchy and confusion of the time.[328:2] (4) Most scholars believe, however, that the real motive was to free the bishops from their dependence upon the state, upon the metropolitans, and upon the provincial synods which were under the control of the rulers.[328:3]

The motive for the publication of this code of decretals is thus stated by the authors themselves:

Many good Christians are reduced to silence, and compelled to bear the sins of others against their own better knowledge, because they are unprovided with documents by which they might convince ecclesiastical judges of the truth of what they know to be the law; seeing that though what they allege may be altogether right, yet it is not heeded by the judges unless it be confirmed by written documents, or by recorded decisions, or made to appear in the course of some known judicial proceeding.

The object of the compilation may be found also in these words:

We have likewise inserted the decretal epistles of certain apostolic men—that is, of Clement, Anacletus, Evaristus, and others who are their successors, indeed as many as we have been able to find, down to Pope Sylvester; after these

we have annexed the rest of the decretals of the Roman prelates down to Gregory the Great, together with certain epistles of that pontiff; in all which, by virtue of the dignity of the Apostolic See, resides an authority equal to that of the councils; so that, the discipline of the ecclesiastical order being thus by our labours reduced and digested into one body of law, the holy bishops may be instructed in the entire "rule of the fathers"; and thus obedient ministers and people may be imbued with spiritual precedents, and be no longer deceived by the practices of the wicked. For there are many who by reason of their wickedness and cupidity bring accusations against the priests of the Lord, to their great oppression and ruin. Therefore the Holy Fathers did institute laws, which they called holy canons, which, however, the evil-minded have often made the instruments of unjust charges, or even possessed themselves of the goods of the innocent.

The canons were insufficient to meet the evils of the day. Some remedy must be found of equal if not greater authority. The decretals of the Roman Pontiffs were seized for this holy purpose. Many such decretals were known to the Church. But there was a fatal hiatus of two centuries and a half after the founding of the See of Peter. That chasm must be bridged over by documents which would prove that the divine headship of Peter was consciously exercised by all his successors. With such indisputable evidence the supremacy of Rome would be established beyond question, and the entire hierarchy would be benefited. The ascendancy of the Church over the state would be established. Papal sovereignty would be acknowledged. Episcopal independence of secular control would be secured.

The sources of the Isidorian Decretals, now

satisfactorily determined, were: the writings of the Church Fathers, particularly Rufinus (d. 410); the works of Cassiodorus (b. 470); Jerome's Vulgate; the Liber Pontificales; the general theological literature down to the ninth century; various collections of laws like Breviarium Alaricianum, the Lex Visigothorum, and the Frankish capitularies; the genuine archives of the Church like papal letters and decretals, Church canons, and minutes of Church councils; the correspondence of Archbishop Boniface (d. 754); and the forgeries.

Before this collection appeared there had been several others formed in the Western Church:[330:1]

1. Dionysius Exiguus, a Scythian, who lived at Rome as a monk in the sixth century, made a collection of the fifty Apostolic Canons; decrees of the Eastern and African Church councils from 375 to 451; and letters of Popes from 314 to 498. This collection was used by Charles the Great as a basis in part for the Frankish laws.

2. Isidore of Seville, early in the seventh century, made a second collection, very much like the first one just described.

3. Then Isidore Mercator, about the middle of the ninth century put out a third collection which embraced those by Exiguus and Isidore of Seville and included all the forgeries. This last collection opens with a preface, then has a spurious letter from Aurelius to Damasus, and a forged answer; a selection from the fourth council of Toledo; a list of councils; and two spurious letters from Jerome to Damasus, with replies. After these documents the collection proper begins. It consists of three parts. The first includes the fifty

Apostolic Canons; fifty-nine spurious decretals from Clement to Melchiades (90-314); a treatise On the Primitive Church and the Council of Nicæa; and the spurious "Donation of Constantine."[331:1] The second part opens with a genuine quotation from the Spanish collection of the decretals of the Greek, African, Gallic, and Spanish councils down to 683. The third part also begins with a quotation from the Hispania and then gives the decretals of the Popes from Sylvester (d. 335) to Gregory II. (d. 731), of which thirty-five are forged and others contain many interpolations; and, finally, the Capitula Angilramni.

Evidences of fraud are to be found in the uniformity of language, the impurity of style, the use of words of a late origin for an earlier period, many clumsy anachronisms, the total absence of all proof of the authenticity of the early decretals, the evident effort to meet contemporary prejudice, and the fact that there is no knowledge of the existence of the forged letters until incorporated in this collection. Many absurdities also appear: for instance, Roman bishops of the second and third centuries write in Frankish Latin of the ninth century in the spirit of post-Nicene orthodoxy and about the mediæval relationship of the Church and state. These early bishops quote the Vulgate of Jerome as amended under Charles the Great. Pope Victor (202) writes a letter to Bishop Theophilus of Alexandria (383) about a second-century controversy. Pope Anacletus speaks of patriarchs, metropolitans, and primates long before they arose. Pope Melchiades, who died in 314, mentions the Nicene Council which was held in 325. Pope Zephyrinus (218) appeals to the laws of Christian Emperors before Constantine was born.

Just how soon they were discovered to be forgeries, is a question that has aroused considerable discussion. Pope Nicholas I. must have known that they were false, but they suited his purpose so well that he sanctioned them. Some of the Latin bishops saw through the forgery, but, for various reasons, kept silent. A few of the Frankish bishops denounced them and objected to their reception as law. Even Hincmar, although he did so much to establish them, declared them to be spurious and called them a "mouse-trap" and a "cup of poison with the brim besmeared with honey." The synod of Rheims in 991 opposed the Isidorian principles. Stephen of Tournai (d. 1203) called them into question. Peter Comester in his Historia Scholastica (twelfth century) granted the ingeniousness of the author. Dante alluded to the fiction and grumbled about the "Donation of Constantine" in these words:

Ah, Constantine! of how much ill the cause—

Not thy conversion, but those rich domains

That the first wealthy Pope received of thee.[332:1]

Nicholas of Cusa questioned their authenticity.[332:2] Chancellor Gerson of the University of Paris, boldly asserted that the Papacy was founded on fraud.[332:3] Marsiglio of Padua[332:4] and Wiclif took the same view. Johannus Turrecrenta was skeptical about them.[332:5] Erasmus pronounced against them. The authors of the Magdeburg Centuries conclusively proved in detail their

fraudulent character. Calvin took the same view,[333:1] and De Moulin and Le Conte helped to establish the fact of forgery. David Blondel, a Reformed divine, made the exposure unquestionable against the attempted vindication of the Jesuit, Torres. Still since it is so difficult to separate the true from the false, their influence was perpetuated beyond this period. It was not an easy thing for an infallible Church to abandon ground once assumed. The fruits of the forgery could not be surrendered. Catholic and Protestant historians alike now agree, however, that they were for the most part fictitious.

There has been a wide divergency of view as to the place, time, and authorship. A few earlier scholars[333:2] held that they originated in Rome. This is now rejected by all modern scholars, because their arrival in Rome is almost exactly known. One year Pope Nicholas I. is ignorant of them, the next he asserts their authenticity.[333:3] They were probably carried to Rome by Rathod in 864.[333:4] Many contemporaries believed that they came from Spain as the work of Isidore of Seville, but it is generally acknowledged now that they were created in the Frankish Empire because the language swarms with Gallicisms, the style, phrases, and words are of the Frankish period, and the frequent use of the correspondence of Boniface shows that the archives of Mayence were consulted. It is probable that the first collection was made at Mayence, and the later and larger collection may have been made at Rheims.

In matter of time, they seem to have been an

evolution beginning with the collection of Dionysius Exiguus in the sixth century, increased by Isidore of Seville in the seventh century, amplified by Isidore Mercator (Pseudo Isidore) with forgeries in the ninth century, and appeared in their final form in the eleventh century.[334:1] Their frequent contradiction and disregard of well-known history suggests a composition covering years. Some of the forgeries were undoubtedly used by Charles the Great, and the Donation of Constantine is perhaps still older.[334:2] Passages from the Council of Paris held in 829 are literally quoted, hence the collection by Isidore Mercator must have been made after that date. On the other hand, the collection was used in 857 by the French synod of Chiersy,[334:3] in 859 by Hincmar of Rheims, and in 865 by Pope Nicholas I.[334:4] The conclusion can be drawn, then, that the collection of Isidore Mercator must have appeared sometime between 829 and 857. Furthermore, the frequent complaint about ecclesiastical disorders, the deposition of bishops without trial, frivolous divorces, and frequent sacrilege, best fit the period of civil war and confusion among the grandsons of Charles the Great.

There is likewise divergence of opinion as to the authorship. The name of the compiler, Isidore Mercator, led to the early erroneous belief that Isidore of Seville, the eminent canonist, was the author; and, consequently, when the mistake was established, the author was dubbed "Pseudo Isidore," a name used to the present day. Scholars differ widely in their efforts to identify this "Pseudo Isidore" and suggest

Benedictus Levita, a deacon of Mayence, whose capitularium of 847 agrees in certain passages with the decretals[335:1]; Rathod of Soissons[335:2]; Otgar, Archbishop of Mayence (d. 847), who led the clerical rebellion against Louis the Pious[335:3]; Ebo, Archbishop of Rheims, also a clerical rebel against the Emperor[335:4]; Riculfus,[335:5] Archbishop of Mayence (784-814); and Aldrich.[335:6] The authorship, it is apparent, is not established beyond question. Indeed there are many reasons for believing that these documents were the product not of a single individual, but of a joint effort. The constant repetitions, the frequent contradictions, the lack of unity, the differences in style and phrases suggest this conclusion. It is quite probable that the leading churchmen in Germany and France in the middle of the ninth century shared the authorship.[335:7] Gieseler holds that Riculfus (784-814) brought the genuine Isidorian collections from Spain, that Otgar enlarged and corrupted them at Mayence (826-847), that Benedictus Levita copied them; and this may have been the case.

They were eagerly received by the Church, and for various reasons Pope Nicholas I. (853-867) gave them papal sanction and used them to extend his power. He led the Church to believe that they were among the most venerable and carefully preserved documents of the papal archives. Backed up by them, he asserted his jurisdiction over both East and West; in fact, the whole world. To the eastern Emperor he

wrote, "We by the power committed to us by our Lord through St. Peter, restore our brother Ignatius to his former station, to his see [at Constantinople], to his dignity as patriarch and to all the honours of his office."[336:1] At the same time he exalted the power of excommunication and used it to humble both princes and prelates; he forced Lothair II. to restore his divorced wife; he humbled the great Hincmar by reinstating the deposed Bishop Rathod of Soissons; he subjected both metropolitans and bishops to his rule; he deposed the archbishops of Cologne and Trier and made the Pope ubiquitous through the system of legates. Well could the old chronicler say: "Since the days of Gregory I. to our own time, sat no high priest on the throne of St. Peter to be compared to Nicholas. He tamed kings and tyrants, and ruled the world like a sovereign. To holy bishops and the clergy he was mild and gentle; to the wicked and unconverted a terror, so that we might truly say a new Elias arose in him."

It is evident [wrote the great forerunner of Hildebrand] that Popes can neither be bound nor unbound by any earthly power, nor even by that of the Apostle if he were to return upon earth; since Constantine the Great has recognised that the pontiffs held the place of God on earth, the Divinity not being able to be judged by any man living. We are then infallable and whatever may be our acts, we are not accountable for them but to ourselves.[336:2]

This is generally held to be spurious now, but the spirit of it may be said to be true. The archbishops eagerly accepted the decretals because they hoped to profit by their doctrines. Instead, however, through them they were subjected to the Pope and largely lost

their independence. They were gladly received by the bishops, since by them they hoped to gain independence both of the tyrannical metropolitans and of the state. They were welcomed by the lower clergy and laity in general without a question because they came from a source so high in authority as the Pope and the bishops.

These forged decretals gave the Papacy a definite constitution; the Petrine theory was now proved by indisputable historical evidence—the ideal Papacy was made a fact from the very first. In fact the charge given by Peter to Clement, when the primate Apostle transmitted his power to a successor, is found in very characteristic language. The powers and relations of the whole dogmatic hierarchy from top to bottom were defined. The Popes from St. Peter on were made the parents and guardians of the faith of the world, and the legislators for it, and also the supreme judges in all cases of justice. In short this constitution logically completed the Petrine theory. The metropolitans were curtailed in their prerogatives and subjected to the Pope. Metropolitan courts were reduced to committees of inquiry. All original jurisdiction in ecclesiastical causes was transferred to Rome. No metropolitan could call a synod now without the Pope's consent. The metropolitans' power over the bishops was greatly decreased and they were separated from the Pope by newly created primates. The bishops, in their turn, as ambassadors of God were made independent of both the state and the metropolitans, but subjected to the Pope. Peter and the other Apostles furnished the example for this arrangement. All episcopal cases were taken out of secular courts[337:1]; all secular cases could

be carried to episcopal courts[338:1]; all laymen as well as lower clergy were excluded from episcopal synods. Bishops were made practically immune by the great difficulty of bringing accusations. In the trial of a bishop, the accuser had to have seventy-two duly qualified witnesses and if he failed to prove his case he and not the bishop was liable to punishment. At any time the bishop could break off proceedings by appealing the case directly to the Pope. The priesthood was definitely separated from the laity as the familiares Dei. They were the spiritales; the laity the carnales.[338:2] Priests were also freed from secular control and placed above it. They, in like manner, enjoyed certain immunities which made it no easy matter to proceed against them.

At the same time, the relations of Church and state were defined more clearly. Ecclesiastical power was now held to be supreme over secular power and that change was a pronounced revolution. "All the rulers of earth," it was dogmatically affirmed, "are bound to obey the bishop and to bow the neck before him."[338:3] Imperial control of the Church, exercised for eight centuries, was declared to be a usurpation which entailed disputes and wars. The state was represented as unholy, the Church as holy. That proposition struck the sword of justice out of the hand of the temporal prince and removed the clergy from the reach of the secular law. Clergy were freed from political courts and the laymen were excluded, in theory at least, from participation in Church legislation. In short these decretals carried the papal theocracy

far beyond any claims made up to that time by the Popes themselves. It was left to Gregory VII. and Innocent III. to make the claim a living reality.

These decretals formed a part of the Corpus Juris Canonici for six hundred years and supplied a complete set of laws concerning Church lands, usurpation and spoliation, ordinations, sacraments, fasts, festivals, relics of the cross and of the Apostles, schism and heresy, the use of holy water and the chrism, the consecration of churches, the blessing of the fruits of the field, sacred vessels, garments, etc. In this way society was influenced and modified in all its ramifications. Both the civil and ecclesiastical polity of Europe was affected for centuries to follow. Over and over again they were quoted to prove papal omnipotence against temporal authority. For the purpose of illustration, the decretals were replete with personal incidents and had in them many beautiful axioms of sincere and vital religious truth. The whole tone of the composition was pious and reverential. Pope, bishop, and lower clergy all gained by this shrewd and specious defence of the Papacy. The priesthood actually constituted the Church.

In this period of ignorance and lawlessness, while the Empire established by Charles the Great was disintegrating, the Papacy rapidly forged to the front as the champion of united Christendom; and to this end the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals contributed powerfully. How much was contributed that was actually new may be a question. Whether the history of the Church would have been the same had they not appeared is a disputed point. Whether the Pope without them could have become the greatest ruler of western Europe by the middle of the ninth century is not clear.

Whether the Papacy would have had a world-wide political interest from this time on without them is a question still unsettled.

Nothing better illustrates the immediate fruits of the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals than the pontificate of Nicholas I. In the year 858 he was unanimously chosen Pope by the Emperor, and the clergy and people of Rome. He had been the friend and minister of Sergius II. and Leo IV. amid all their dangers and difficulties. His trying experiences qualified him for the responsible office. His personal qualities had won him many friends. Consequently there was general rejoicing when, in the presence of the Emperor and the Romans, he was inaugurated. Three days after the solemnity, the Emperor Louis II. entertained Pope Nicholas I. at a state-banquet and then withdrew a short distance from the city walls to receive the return-visit on the following day. As the Pope, escorted by the clergy and nobility, approached the imperial camp, Louis met him, dismounted from his horse, and conducted the Pope's palfrey the length of a bow-shot, after the ordinary custom of a bridle-groom. A sumptuous feast was then served in the imperial tents, and the Emperor again escorted Nicholas a like distance on his return. The Pontiff, on parting, descended from his horse, embraced Louis, and kissed him. "And thus," says the chronicler, "they lovingly took leave of each other."

This imperial self-humiliation had beneath it a purpose. Louis II. hoped to extend his dominion beyond the borders of Italy, to which his brothers had reduced him, and desired the assistance of Rome. Nicholas I. was not averse to meddling in worldly affairs. Backed up by the false decretals, with

precedents created by his sainted predecessors, with political confusion and secular wrangling as his ally, with his own boldness and clear intellect as his guides, he plunged into mundane affairs without hesitation. Ability and opportunity won for him one success after another. The first conquest he made was in humiliating the Italian primates of Milan, Aquileia, and Ravenna, and in making the Italian clergy directly dependent upon Rome. Emperor Louis II. was forced to bow to papal authority in this matter, although hitherto the creation of new bishoprics had rested with the temporal lord.

Again when the bishopric of Hamburg was destroyed by the Normans, King Louis of Germany translated the dispossessed Bishop Anschar to Bremen. Now the Archbishop of Cologne claimed jurisdiction over Bremen and declared that the temporal power could not dismember an ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Both parties agreed to refer the case to Rome. Nicholas I. confirmed the separation and ratified the transference of Anschar. Charles the Great would have settled the case himself. Another victory was thus won in the name of Pseudo-Isidore. The policy of breaking down all interposition between the successor of Peter and the episcopacy had been clearly set forth.

A test of this principle came in the case of Hincmar, the able and powerful Archbishop of Rheims. In 861 he summarily suspended Rathod, Bishop of Soissons, for disobeying the sentence of a provincial synod in reinstating a priest whom he had unjustly expelled. Rathod at once appealed to the Pope and asked permission of Hincmar to go to Rome to present his suit. Hincmar refused the request and called Rathod before a second synod for contempt, when he was degraded

from his office and imprisoned in a monastery. Once more Rathod made a touching appeal to Nicholas I.[342:1] who forthwith rebuked Hincmar and ordered him to restore Rathod to his see, and to send him to Rome. King Charles the Bald was ordered, "by his love to God and his duty to the Holy See," to see that the order was enforced. Both Hincmar and Charles refused and Rathod remained a prisoner for two years. Papal power was on trial, but Nicholas I. was equal to the situation. At last Charles was persuaded to intervene. Rathod was released and sent to Rome, but was not reinstated in his bishopric. The Pope reinstated him to office. To prove his authority he quoted the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals, which the Frankish clergy had framed to insure their own independence.[342:2] Hincmar remonstrated, but in the end was forced to apologise and obey. "Thus," complained Hincmar, "was a criminal, solemnly deposed by the unanimous judgment of five ecclesiastical provinces of this realm, reinstated by the Pope, not by ordinary canonical rule, but by an arbitrary act of power, in a summary way, without inquiry, and against the consent of his natural judges." Metropolitan independence was crushed, the royal power was forced to obey by the awful threat of excommunication, and papal supremacy was triumphant. Truly a new epoch had appeared in the rise of the mediæval Church, when the Pope could proudly declare that "the privileges of the Holy See are the panoply of the Church and title-deeds of him who is the supreme lord of the priesthood for the government of all in authority under him and for the comfort of every one that shall suffer wrong or injury from

subordinate powers"[343:1]; that "the action of synods, general or provincial, might be peremptorily arrested by a simple appeal to Rome . . . at any stage of the proceeding"; that every bishop must give lawful obedience to the "King of Bishops"; and that "any one, without exception of person, who shall disobey the doctrine, mandates, interdicts, or decretals, published by the Apostolic Bishop on behalf of the Catholic faith, the discipline of the Church, the correction of the faithful, the reformation of evil-doers, and the discouragement of vice, let him be accursed."[343:2]

In dealing with the schismatic, heretical Eastern Church, however, all careful reserve vanished and without fear or caution the Roman Pontiffs assert their prerogatives in a clear, decisive, and peremptory tone. In the Photian schism at Constantinople, Nicholas I. assumed the right to decide which of the two claimants to the patriarchate was legitimate. To Photius, who had secured the office by imperial aid, the Roman pontiff wrote a letter which up to that time was unsurpassed for supreme papal arrogance:

Our Lord and Saviour . . . established the foundations of his church upon the Rock Peter. . . . Now upon this foundation the appointed builders have from time to time heaped many precious stones, till by this unwearied diligence the whole building has been perfected into indissoluble solidity. . . . Since this church of Peter is the head of all churches, it is imperative upon all to adopt her as their model in every matter of ecclesiastical expediency and institution. . . . From her all synods and all councils derive their power to bind and to loose.[343:3]

The pontificate of Nicholas I., who died in 867, marks the acme of papal power during this period. The history of the Western Church, controlled by Rome, during the latter part of the ninth and the tenth century, covers a period of unparalleled corruption and debility—"a death-sleep of moral and spiritual exhaustion." The Papacy as a constructive spiritual force almost disappears from view. The lofty ideas of Leo I., Gregory I., and Nicholas I.—their magnificent ambitions for the Church, their imperial rule, and their commanding, aggressive spirit—all disappeared. The causes may be found in weak, wicked, worldly Popes, in anarchy and political confusion in Italy, and in feudalism. The Church was reaping the reward of a close alliance with the state. All the gains made by the Church during this epoch were of a secular character. The moral and spiritual powers of Latin Christianity lay dormant beneath a mass of corruption, self-seeking, and worldly passions which covered them and nearly extinguished them. The marvellous vitality of the organisation of the Church alone saved her from disintegration in that period of decentralisation. The spirit of the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals, from this standpoint, had become the saviour of the Church. The next force that appeared in western Europe to rescue the Church from the low state of spiritual degeneration to which she had fallen was, strange to say, the Holy Roman Empire under the guidance of another mighty German ruler.