[210] The appointment of the Archbishop of Lyons to be Metropolitan over Tours, Rouen, and Sens, by Hildebrand, in spite of the opposition of the bishops of those Metropolitan sees; and the elevation of Toledo into the Metropolitan see of Spain, by Urban II., without in any way consulting the wishes of the Spanish clergy, may be quoted as instances. The state of the Papacy in the early part of the eleventh century had been scandalous. In 1012 Benedict VIII. obtained the see through the influence of his kinsman the Marquis of Toscanella, one of a family which had influenced the elections of the bishops of Rome for upwards of a century. His brother John XIX. fairly bought the Papacy, and was in the same day a layman and the head of the Roman Church. Similar means obtained the election of his nephew, Benedict IX., a mere child, who after scandalizing Rome with his excesses, retired in favour of Gregory VII., who was in turn deposed for simony on account of the bribe by which he procured the abdication of Benedict. The latter then again reappeared to contest the popedom with two German bishops, Clement II. and Damascus II.; and after their deaths the Romans appealed to the emperor against the threatened intrusion of Benedict for the third time, and the papacy was conferred upon Leo IX. In allusion to the influence of Hildebrand, his great friend the Bishop of Ostia wrote the following lines:—
Papam rite colo, sed te prostratus adoro;
Tu facis hunc Dominum, te facit ille Deum.
[211] The reply of William was very characteristic of the great Norman: “Homage neither have I sworn, nor will I swear it, for I never promised it, nor can I find that my predecessors ever performed it to yours.” Though perfectly respectful to the Pope, he said, “If ever monk of my land carry plaint against his sovereign lord I’ll have him hanged on the tallest tree in the forest.”
[212] “Il n’y avoit pas de Royaume qu’il ne prétendit être tributaire du saint Siege, et pour le prouver, il ne craignoit point d’alléguer des titres qui se conservoient, disoit-il, dans les Archives de l’Eglise Romaine, mais qu’il n’osa jamais produire.” Such are the words of the Benedictine editor of “L’Art de verifier les Dates.” The Donation of Constantine was first openly brought forward in the letter of Leo IX. to Michael Patriarch of Constantinople, written in 1054, and it was one of the causes of the separation of the Greek Church. It is a fair specimen of the supposed contents of “the Archives of the Roman Church.”
[213] The manner of choosing a bishop, and the abuses which had sprung up in such elections, are nowhere better described than in a letter of Apollinaris Sidonius, written about 470. (Epist. l. 4. Ep. 25.)
[214] The “Pharoahs” of the age of Innocent were the temporal princes, whom the same Pope elsewhere describes as subordinate moons revolving round the papal sun, and deriving all their light from that luminary.
[215] Sim. Dun. de Gestis 1074 (p. 207). Like Boece, Stubbs, a stout partizan of York, writing at the close of the fourteenth century, was far better informed than the contemporary chronicler of all the circumstances of this dispute. Twysden, p. 1712, et seq.
[216] The deprecatory answer of Thomas to Anselm is very characteristic of the age, “The money which I had collected for coming to you—and it was a large sum for my means—was all spent at Winchester, where I stopped too long. I then hurried home to scrape together some more to send to Rome for my pallium,” adding, “and I am still seeking for money, but very little can I find, except at a grievous rate of interest,”—a complaint alas! common to those in the Archbishop’s circumstances in every age. Ead. Hist. Nov., p. 98.
[217] Sim. Dun. de Gestis 1109.