Council of Bari. October 1, 1098. Then came the meeting at Bari, the disputation against the Greeks, the excommunication of Rufus stopped by Anselm’s intercession.[1670] That Anselm was playing an arranged part we cannot believe for a moment; but we may believe, without breach of charity, that Urban threatened the excommunication of Rufus in the full belief that Anselm would intercede for him. Anselm at Rome. Urban and Anselm then went back to Rome; and thither presently came the messenger from Normandy, who had to tell of the King’s frightful threats towards himself. William of Warelwast and Urban. Soon after came William of Warelwast, with a message from the King to the Pope. The diplomacy of the future bishop of Exeter was at least straightforward. “My lord the King sends you word that he wonders not a little how it can have come into your mind to address him for the restitution of the goods of Anselm.” He added, “If you ask the reason, here it is. When Anselm wished to depart from his land, the King openly threatened him that, if he went, he should take the whole archbishopric into his demesne. Since Anselm then would not, even when thus threatened, give up his purpose of going, the King deems that his own acts were right, and that he is now wrongfully blamed.”[1671] The Pope asked whether the King had any other charge against Anselm. “None,” answered the envoy. Urban had gained an advantage. Urban’s answer. He poured forth his wonder at a thing so unheard of in all time as that a king should spoil the primate of his kingdom of all his goods merely because he would not refrain from visiting the Roman Church, the mother of all churches.[1672] Excommunication threatened. William of Warelwast might go back to his master, and might tell him that the Pope meant to hold a council at Rome in the April 12, 1099. Easter-week next to come, and that, if by that time Anselm was not restored to all that he had lost, the sentence of excommunication should go forth.[1673]
Brave words were these of Pope Urban, but William the Red knew how to deal with mere bravery of words, even in the Pope whom he had acknowledged. Walter of Albano had once outwitted William and his counsellors; but Walter of Albano had in the end yielded to William’s most powerful argument. William of Warelwast’s secret dealings with Urban. William of Warelwast was not the least likely to outwit Urban; but he had it in commission from his master to overcome the Pope by the same logic by which his Legate had been overcome. We may copy the words of our own Chronicler four-and-twenty years later; “That overcame Rome that overcometh all the world, that is gold and silver.”[1674] To Urban’s well conceived speech the answer of William of Warelwast was pithy and practical; “Before I go The excommunication respited. away, I will have some dealings with you more in private.”[1675] He went to work prudently, as the Red King’s clerks knew how to do; he made friends here and there; the Pope’s advisers were blinded; the Pope himself was blinded; April-September, 1099. a respite from Easter to Michaelmas was granted to King William of England.[1676]
Position of Anselm. This adjournment was a heavy blow for Anselm. He had in no way stirred up the Pope to any action against the prince whom he still acknowledged as his sovereign. At Bari, when no answer had as yet been received from the King, Anselm had pleaded for him; it was indeed only common justice to give him that one more chance. But, when the answer had come, and had proved to be of such a kind as we have seen, Anselm most likely thought that the time for action had come. He might indeed fairly deem that the excommunication would in truth be an act of kindness towards William. All other means of reclaiming the sinner had failed; that final and most awful means might at last succeed. At all events, Anselm’s soul was grieved to the quick at the thought that the Pope’s sentence, whatever it might be, could be changed or delayed by the power of filthy lucre. Urban’s treatment of Anselm. He had borne every kind of grief, he had borne insults and banishment and the spoiling of his goods, for the sake of Rome and the Pope, and he had now found out what Rome and the Pope were. He had found that the master was no better than his servants. He had found Rome to be what Rome was ever found to be by every English bishop, by every Englishman by birth or adoption, who ever trusted in her. Urban proved the same broken reed to Anselm which Alexander in after days proved to Thomas. Anselm had gone through much in order to have the counsel and help of the Pope. But no counsel or help had he found in him.[1677] Anselm made to stay for the Council of Lateran, April 12, 1099. He craved leave to depart from Rome, and again to tarry at Lyons with a friend in whom he could better trust, the Primate of all the Gauls.[1678] The request was refused. Urban had still to make use of Anselm for his own purposes. He had to show his guest and the Church’s confessor—the guest and confessor whom he had sold for William’s gold—to the whole world in his Lateran Council. The special honours which were there paid to Anselm must have been felt by him as little more than a mockery. Protest of Reingar of Lucca. It may have been a preconcerted scene, it may have been a burst of honest indignation, when Reingar, Bishop of Lucca, bore an emphatic witness on Anselm’s side. Reingar, chosen on account of his lofty stature and sounding voice to announce the decrees of the Council, broke forth in words of his own declaring the holiness and the wrongs of the Archbishop of the English, and thrice smote his staff on the floor with quivering lips and teeth gnashed together.[1679] The Pope checked him; Reingar protested, and renewed his protest. Anselm simply wondered; he had never said a word to the Bishop of Lucca on any such matter, nor did he believe that any of his faithful followers had done so either.[1680]
End of the Council. The council broke up. The great general anathema was pronounced which would take in William along with the other princes of the earth;[1681] but nothing was said or done directly for Anselm or his cause.[1682] Anselm goes to Lyons. Anselm now at last left Rome for Lyons. He there heard of the deaths both of him who was to issue the excommunication and of him against whom it was to be issued. Death of Urban. July. 29, 1099. Urban did not live to hear how his preaching at Clermont was crowned by the deliverance of the Holy City. Yet the work was done while he still lived. Fourteen days after the storm of Jerusalem, seven days after the election William’s words on his death. of King Godfrey, Pope Urban died. The news of his death was brought to William while he was in the midst of his last warfare for Le Mans. Let God’s hate, he answered, be upon him who cares whether he be dead or alive.[1683] Battle of Ascalon. August 12, 1099. Fourteen days after Urban’s death, the hosts of Egypt were smitten at Ascalon; and the city which had just been won was again made safe. The next day a fresh Pope was chosen, Paschal, who, in the course of a long reign, had to strive alike with a Henry of Germany and Paschal the Second, Pope. August 13, 1099-January 21, 1118.with a Henry of England. The news of his election was brought to William, and he asked what manner of man the new Pope might be. He was told that he was a man in many things like Archbishop Anselm. “Then by God’s face,” said the Red King, “if he be such an one, he is no good.” But William felt that his wished for time was now William’s words on Paschal’s election.come. Now at least there should be no trouble about acknowledging Popes against his will. “Let the Pope be what he will, he and his popedom shall not this time come over me by little and little. I have got my freedom again, and I will use it.”[1684] The time fixed for the excommunication passed unmarked over the head of the living Rufus. But before a full year had passed from Paschal’s election, the dead Rufus was excommunicated by the voice of his own kingdom.
We leave Anselm at Lyons; we shall meet him again when he comes back in all honour to crown and to marry a king and a queen who filled the English throne by the free call of the English people. Meanwhile we must take up the thread of our story, and see more fully what has been happening in the other lands which come within the Red King’s world, while Anselm was so long and so wearily striving for righteousness. The tale of Normandy, the tale of Jerusalem, so far as it concerned us to tell it, could hardly be kept apart from the tale of Anselm. But we have still to tell the tale of Scotland, of Northumberland, of Wales, of France, above all the tale of Maine and its noble Count, during the years through which we have tracked the history of Anselm. We have to go back to the beginning of the story through which we have just passed, and to begin afresh while Rufus in his short day of penitence lies on his sick-bed at Gloucester.
FOOTNOTES.
[1] See N. C. vol. iv. p. 692.
[2] Will. Malms. iv. 306.
[3] Tac. Hist. iv. 59.