[Sidenote: The Fourth Lateran Council.]
Innocent's pontificate ended in a blaze of glory. After the settlement of the strife in Germany he called together a Council which is distinguished as the Fourth Lateran or the Twelfth OEcumenical Council. It met in 1215, and was composed of more than two thousand persons, including envoys from all the chief nations of Europe. Its resolutions were embodied in seventy canons dealing with a vast variety of subjects in the endeavour to bring about a drastic reformation of the Church. This is perhaps Innocent's most solid claim to the name of a great ruler. But it only serves to emphasise the wholly external nature of his rule. And subsequent ages have recognised this limitation to his claims for honour in that, while they have freely accorded to him the name of a great man and a great Pope, if not the greatest of the pontiffs, the Church has never added his name to the rôle of Christian saints.
CHAPTER X
THE PAPAL POWER IN THE CHURCH
[Sidenote: The basis of papal claims.]
The interest of the period with which we are dealing is largely concerned with the attempted definition of the relations between Church and State. The peculiar form of mediaeval thought resolved this into a struggle of the papal power to make itself supreme over all temporal rulers. But scarcely less important or interesting is the concomitant effort of the Papacy to gather up into itself the whole immediate authority of the Church.
This effort was very materially helped by the fact that various national churches which had retained their own customs were gradually brought into communion with Rome. William the Conqueror put an end to the schism which had cut off the Anglo-Saxon Church from Rome, and drew the Church in England into closer contact with Rome than she had enjoyed since the days of Archbishop Theodore. Through Queen Margaret, the Anglo-Saxon wife of Malcolm Canmore, Roman customs superseded those of the Celtic Church in Scotland. Gregory VII prevailed on the Spanish churches to accept the Roman for the Mozarabic liturgy. Alexander III attracted to Rome the long-isolated Church in Ireland, and Innocent II reconciled the Milanese at last to the papal supremacy. The foundation for the high claims on the part of the Papacy rested on what are known as the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals. Decretals are answers to questions referred to the Bishop of Rome from other churches. The earliest of these was of date 385. Compilations of the Canons of the Church, in which these answers were included, were put out in the sixth and the seventh centuries, the latter under the name of Bishop Isidore of Seville. In the middle of the ninth century appeared a third compilation, also published under the name of Isidore, and containing fifty-nine additional letters and decrees of earlier date than 385. Inasmuch as the Latin edition of the Bible, which St. Jerome did not translate until about the year 400, is quoted in some of these, this compilation has not unnaturally been styled the False or Forged or Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals. The object of this forgery was the exaltation of the Papacy as "the supreme lord, lawgiver, and judge of the Church," since all previous claims were brought together and were referred back to the foundation of Christianity. Two centuries later another document of doubtful authenticity, called Dictatus Papae, sets forth in a sufficiently true spirit the principles proclaimed by Gregory VII. This states, among other things, that the Roman pontiff can alone be called Universal, that his name is unique in the world, that he ought to be judged by none; and it ascribes to him, without the intervention of any intermediary, the supreme and immediate power in all executive, legislative, and judicial matters.
[Sidenote: The Pope: the sole authority in the Church.]
The history of the Church during the two succeeding centuries is merely an exemplification of these claims. It was in the spirit of this document that Innocent II, in the speech with which he opened the Second Lateran Council in 1139, reminded his hearers that Rome was the head of the world, and that the highest ecclesiastical offices were derived from the Roman pontiff as by a kind of feudal right, and could not he lawfully held without his permission. Innocent III, we have seen, describes himself as the Vicar of God or of Jesus Christ. Thus, although the Pope is potentially present everywhere in the Church, he cannot exercise the great power belonging to the office personally, so that he has called in his brethren, the co-bishops, to share in the care of the burden entrusted to himself; but in doing so he has subtracted in no whit from the fulness of power which enables him to enquire into individual cases and to assume the office of judge at will. Others, then, may be admitted to a share in the care of the Church (pars solicitudinis); but to the Pope has been given the fulness of power (plenitudo potestatis). Thomas Aquinas shows how bishop and archbishop equally derive their authority from the Pope, and finds parallels to the relationship between the Pope and the other officers of the Church in the dependence of all things created upon God and the subordination of the proconsul to the Emperor. This deliberate policy on the part of the Papacy to absorb into itself the whole spiritual authority of the Church may be traced in its attempts to set itself up as supreme administrator, supreme lawgiver, and supreme judge.
Before the Pope could claim to be supreme administrator within the Church it was necessary to deprive all other ecclesiastical officers of their independence. The custom of the gift of the pall to archbishops who exercised the office of Metropolitans had already made these highest officers of all into little more than delegates of the Papacy. Gregory VII failed in his attempt to force them to come in person to Rome in order to receive the pall. He succeeded, however, in imposing upon them an oath which, founded upon the oath of fealty, made their position analogous to that of a feudal vassal. By this a Metropolitan swore to be faithful to St. Peter and the Pope and his successors who should have been canonically elected; that he would be no party to violence against the Pope; that he would attend in person or by representatives at every synod to which the Pope summoned him; that, saving the rights of his Order, he would help to defend the Papacy and all its possessions and honours; that he would not betray any trust reposed in him by the Pope; that he would honourably treat the papal legate; that he would not knowingly communicate with excommunicates; that when asked he would faithfully help the Roman Church with a force of soldiers. To this was often added an undertaking that he would appear at Rome himself or by a representative at stated intervals; that he would cause his suffragans at their consecration to take an oath of obedience to the Roman pontiff; that he would not part with anything belonging to his official position without the knowledge of the Roman See.