Gregory VII. saw that to realise his theocracy the Church must have an open, democratic, priestly caste. Marriage would make that caste exclusive and hereditary, hence corrupt and worldly, and would thus cripple the Church from priest to Pope.[453:1] He believed that the enforcement of celibacy would cut the clergy free from the state and wed them to the Church. They would live with the Church as her protectors and not with the world. The Church would be both their bride and their heir. Hence he had the severe measure of 1074 passed and was resolved to enforce it all over Christendom. But the endeavour to execute this radical canon—to destroy an institution which many justified on both moral and natural grounds—to rend asunder ties of the tenderest nature on earth—"to make wives prostitutes and children bastards"—to break up families—was strongly resisted all over Europe.
In Germany the Pope was called a heretic and a madman for setting up such an insane dogma against the teaching of St. Paul. To make men live like angels was childish, it was declared, and would plunge the clergy into worse habits. The churchmen declared that they would be men and give up their priestly offices sooner than desert their families. Several of the bishops headed the anti-celibacy party and openly defied the Pope to enforce his law. The Archbishop of Mainz, as primate, called a council at Erfurt. When he read the decree he was greeted with howls and threats, and nearly lost his life. Other bishops who tried to
promulgate the act were treated in a similar manner. The threats of Gregory availed nothing.[454:1] The laity, however, probably incited by the Pope, made several outbreaks against the married priests, but without any decisive results, and the evil went on. In France the opposition exceeded that in Germany. A Paris synod repudiated the decree and an abbot who defended the Pope was beaten, spit upon, and dragged to prison.[454:2] The Archbishop of Rouen attempted to enforce celibacy but was stoned and compelled to flee.[454:3] The Pope fairly foamed with anger in letters to the French prelates,[454:4] but the hated edict was not enforced. In England the Pope made no special effort to enforce this reform measure.[454:5] Lanfranc held a council to reform the Church, but nothing further was done.[454:6] In Spain the papal legate was menaced and outraged by the clergy, when he tried to enforce celibacy.[454:7] In Hungary there was shown the same refusal to conform to the new order of things.[454:8] In Italy, Guiscard, the Norman ruler, led the anti-celibacy party in the south and prevented the execution of the order. In Lombardy, Florence, and Ravenna the hostility was very fierce. Milan defiantly quoted St. Ambrose as authority for a married priesthood.[454:9] Even in Rome itself the decree was executed only with the greatest difficulty. But in the face of all this opposition Gregory did not waver. Many of the reform party likewise
laboured incessantly with him to cure the evil. Ultimately, but not in his life time, the principle he fought for was to dominate.
Simony, one of the most wide-spread evils of the Middle Ages, originated with Simon Magnus who wished to buy the power of the Holy Spirit with money.[455:1] The term was gradually extended in its meaning from the buying or selling of the power of ordination to the purchase or sale of any ecclesiastical office or privilege. As early as the third century a rich matron bought the bishopric of Carthage for her servant.[455:2] This evil practice slowly grew in the Church, until Charles the Great made Church offices objects of eager desire to the worldly, then the crime spread to a fearful extent. The feudalisation of the Church made the evil very common from the Pope to priest and even gave it the appearance of legality.[455:3] Conrad II. openly offered bishoprics and abbeys for sale to the highest bidders.[455:4] In the time of Hildebrand the papal office itself was openly bought and sold. His own teacher, Gregory VI., had purchased the empty honour for one thousand pounds of silver. Archbishops purchased their sinecures and in turn compensated themselves by selling minor benefices to their subordinates. Bishoprics and abbacies were commonly sold to the highest bidders by the kings and nobles. The most ordinary ecclesiastical positions and even consecrations to the priesthood were sold. So wide-spread indeed was the practice that it was generally viewed as normal and legitimate.[455:5]
Opposition to the evil early appeared and, from the fourth century, councils and synods denounced it. In 829 the Council of Paris asked the King to destroy "this heresy so detestable, this pest so hateful to God."[456:1] All of the good Popes from Gregory I. to Gregory VII. attacked the abuse. Even the Emperor Henry III. attempted to root it out.[456:2] The corpus juris canonicis supplemented by the civil law made it a crime and designated the penalties. Priests were to be deprived of their benefices and deposed from orders; monks were to be confined in stricter monasteries; and laymen were to be subjected to penance. Every reformer and reform movement began by making an attack on simony. But simony was too deeply rooted as a part of the social, political, and religious world to be materially affected before the time of Gregory VII., who knew that it would be impossible to realise his earthly theocracy so long as this sin demoralised and secularised the clergy, and subjected them to worldly control. The edict of 1074, therefore, threw down the gauntlet and declared war.[456:3] This had often been done before, but Gregory now attacked the chief sinners in selling Church offices, namely, the King of France, who gave excuses and promised amendment,[456:4] and the King of Germany, who confessed his sin and declared his intention to repair the evil.[456:5] But this edict like that prohibiting celibacy was not enforced simply because the secular rulers and the clergy alike were infected with the disease. The Pope resolved, therefore, to
wage the war in person and to strike at the very source of all simony. For success he relied upon the thunderbolts of his office.
The investiture strife next engaged the attention of Gregory VII. and tested his power and ability to the utmost. Lay investiture, like so many other practices in the Church, had its origin back in the formative period of the ecclesiastical organisation. Under the Roman Empire the Emperor exercised much power in the appointment of Popes and bishops.[457:1] The Merovingians and the Carolingians, following the earlier precedents, both exercised the right of nominating bishops in the Frankish kingdom.[457:2] Under Charles the Great and his descendants, prelates became identified with barons—the hierarchical governors of the Church with the feudal dignitaries of the Empire,—hence arose the universal custom of ratifying the episcopal elections by regal investiture. The bishop, or abbot, when elected, gave pledges of fidelity and devotion and later paid the feudal fee. The king then invested him with the emblems of the office, namely, the sacerdotal ring signifying his marriage to the Church, and the pastoral staff indicating his protection of his flock. Then he was consecrated by the metropolitan. When the bishop died, the ring and staff were returned to the king, or to the local secular authority. In Germany the bishoprics and abbacies almost ceased being ecclesiastical and became little more than political divisions of the kingdom. They bore the same relation to the sovereign as did the secular feudal fiefs. The holders had the rights of coinage, toll, market, and jurisdiction; they attended court and exercised military
powers like nobles. By the time of Hildebrand the vast ecclesiastical states all over Europe were feudalised and kings and nobles controlled the appointment of all bishops and abbots. The higher clergy were recruited mostly from the worldly nobility, who united their religious with their civil duties. This lay investiture was the cause of the wide-spread, brutalising sin of simony and must be annihilated if the Church was to be purified, and to fulfil her high mission on earth.[458:1] The French king and the favourites of Henry IV. had filled their pockets through the most notorious simoniacal dealings.[458:2]
Before the time of Hildebrand, simony, but not lay investiture, had been attacked. In 1063 a Roman synod forbade the clergy receiving churches from the laymen. Milan and the German court in 1068 came into collision about the appointment of a bishop. Hildebrand, immediately upon his election, found occasion to praise Anself for refusing installation from Henry IV. In 1075 he called a council at Rome and had this famous revolutionary decree passed: