[503] Gualvaneo Flamma, Chron. Mag. c. 763.—Landulph. Senior. Mediolan. Hist. Lib. III. c. 2.
[504] Landulf. Senior. L. II. c. 35.
The writer was a partisan of the married clergy; but his description is confirmed by the testimony which Damiani bears (ante, p. 203) to the good character of the married clergy of Savoy. Still, there may be some truth in the counter statement of an opponent, S. Andrea of Vallombrosa, a disciple of S. Arialdo—“Nam alii cum canibus et accipitribus huc illucque pervagantes, suum venationi lubricæ famulatum tradebant; alii vero tabernarii et nequam villici, alii impii usurarii existebant; cuncti fere aut cum publicis uxoribus sive scortis, suam ignominiose ducebant vitam.... Universi sic sub simoniaca hæresi tenebantur impliciti.”—Vit. S. Arialdi c. I. No. 7.
The Milanese defended their position not only by Scripture texts, but also by a decision which they affirmed was rendered by St. Ambrose, to whom the question of the permissibility of sacerdotal marriage had been referred by the pope and bishops. Of course the story was without foundation, but singularly enough, the Milanese clung to it long after the subject had ceased to be open to discussion. Puricelli has investigated the matter with his usual conscientious industry, and shows the repetition of the legend not only by Datius and Landulfus Senior in the eleventh century, but by Gualvaneo Flamma in the thirteenth, by the author of the Flos Florum, by Pietro Agario and by Bernardino Corio in the fifteenth, and by Tristano Calco in the sixteenth century—the two latter falling in consequence under the revision of the Index. (Script. Rer. Ital. V. 122-3.)
[505] Milan long retained its bad preeminence as a nest of heresy. When Frederic II., in 1236, delayed his promised crusade to subdue the rebellious Milanese, his excuse to the pope was that he ought not to leave behind him unbelievers worse than those whom he would seek across the seas. “Cum ... jam zizania segetes incipiant suffocare per civitates Italicas, præcipue Mediolanensium, transire ad Saracenos hostiliter expugnandos, et illos incorrectos pertransire, esset vulnus infixo ferro fomentis superficialibus delinire, et cicatricem deformam non medelam procurare,” and Matthew Paris calls Milan “omnium hæreticorum, Paterinorum, Luciferanorum, Publicanorum, Albigensium, Usurariorum refugium ac receptaculum.”—Hist. Angl. ann. 1236.
[506] Arnulf. Gest. Archiep. Mediolan. Lib. III. c. 9.—Landulf. Sen. Lib. III. c. 10.
Benzo, the uncompromising imperialist, always alludes to the papal party when he speaks of the Patarini—that term not having yet assumed the significance which it subsequently obtained. He accuses Anselmo di Badagio of being the author of the troubles—“primitus Patariam invenit, arcanum domini sui archiepiscopi cui juraverat inimicis aperuit. Abusus est etiam quædam monacha, cum Landulfino suo proprio consobrino.”—Comment. de Reb. Henric. IV. Lib. VII. c. 2.—The latter accusation can no doubt be set down as one of the baseless scandals so freely cast from one party to the other in those turbulent times.
[507] Arnulf. Lib. III. c. 10.—Landulf. Sen. Lib. III. c. 9.
[508] Arnulf. Lib. III. c. 11.
[509] Landulf. Sen. Lib. III. c. 13.