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.