After an interval of about a year, the line of German pontiffs was continued in the person of Gebhardt, Bishop of Eichstedt (Victor II.), whose appointment by the emperor was owing in no small degree to the influence of Hildebrand—an influence which was daily making itself more felt. Installed in the pontifical seat by Godfrey, Duke of Tuscany, his efforts to continue the reformation commenced by his predecessors aroused a stubborn resistance. There may be no foundation for the legend of his being saved by a miracle from a sacramental cup poisoned by a vengeful subdeacon, nor for the rumors that his early death was hastened by the recalcitrant clergy who sought to escape the severity of his discipline. There is some probability in the stories, however, for, during his short pontificate, interrupted by a lengthened stay in Germany and the perpetual vicissitudes of the Neapolitan troubles, he yet found time to hold a synod at Florence, where he degraded numerous prelates for simony and licentiousness; but, whether true or false, the existence of the reports attests at once the sincerity of his zeal and the difficulties of the task.[471]
His death in July, 1057, was followed after but a few days’ interval by the election of Frederic, Duke of Lorraine—the empire having passed in 1056 from the able hands of Henry III. to the feeble regency of his empress, Agnes, as guardian of the unfortunate infant Henry IV.—thus releasing the Roman clergy from the degrading dictation of a Teutonic potentate. That Frederic should have abandoned the temptations and ambitions of his lofty station to embrace the austerities of monastic life in the abbey of Monte Casino, is a sufficient voucher that he would not draw back from the work thus far hopelessly undertaken by his predecessors. Notwithstanding the severity of the canons promulgated during the previous decade, and the incessant attempts to enforce them, Rome was still full of married priests, and the battle had to be recommenced, as though nothing had yet been done. Immediately on his installation, as Stephen IX., he addressed himself unshrinkingly to the task. For four months, during the most unhealthy season, he remained in Rome, calling synod after synod, and laboring with both clergy and people to put an end to such unholy unions,[472] and he summarily expelled from the church all who had been guilty of incontinence since the prohibitions issued in the time of Leo.[473] One case is related of a contumacious priest whose sudden death gave him the opportunity of striking terror into the hearts of the reckless, for the mutilated funeral rites which deprived the hardened sinner of the consolation of a Christian burial it was hoped would prove an effectual warning to his fellows.[474] Feeling the necessity of support in these thankless labors, he forced Damiani to leave the retirement of the cloistered shades of Avellana, and to bear, as Bishop of Ostia, his share of the burden in the contest which he had done so much to provoke—but it was all in vain.
In little more than half a year Stephen found refuge from strife and turmoil in the tomb. The election of his successor, Gerard, Bishop of Florence, was the formal proclamation that the church was no longer subjected to the control of the secular authority. January 18th, 1058, saw the power of the emperor defied, and the gauntlet thrown for the quarrel which for three centuries was to plunge Central and Southern Europe in turmoil and bloodshed. Henry III. had labored conscientiously to rescue the papacy from the disgrace into which it had fallen. By removing it from the petty sphere of the counts of Tusculum and the barons of the Campagna, and by providing for it a series of highminded and energetic pontiffs, he had restored its forfeited position, and indeed had conferred upon it an amount of influence which it had never before possessed. His thorough disinterestedness and his labors for its improvement had disarmed all resistance to the exercise of his power, but when that power passed into the hands of an infant but five years old, it was natural that the church should seek to emancipate itself from subjection; and if almost the first use made of its new-found prerogatives was to crush the hand that had enabled it to obtain them, we must not tax with ingratitude those who were undoubtedly penetrated with the conviction that they were only vindicating the imprescriptible rights of the church, and that to them was confided the future of religion and civilization.
In the revolution which thus may date its successful commencement at this period the two foremost figures are Damiani and Hildebrand. Damiani the monk, with no further object than the abolition of simony and the enforcement of the austerities which he deemed indispensable to the salvation of the individual and to the purity of the church, looked not beyond the narrow circle of his daily life, and sought merely to level mankind by the measure of his own stature. Hildebrand, the far-seeing statesman, could make use of Damiani and his tribe, perhaps equally fervent in his belief that the asceticism of his fellow laborer was an acceptable offering to God, but yet with ulterior views of transcendently greater importance. In his grand scheme of a theocratic empire, it became an absolute prerequisite that the church should hold undivided sway over its members; that no human affection should render their allegiance doubtful, but that their every thought and action should be devoted to the common aggrandizement; that they should be separated from the people by an impassable barrier, and should wield an influence which could only be obtained by those who were recognized as superior to the weaknesses of common humanity; that the immense landed possessions of the church should remain untouched and constantly increasing as the common property of all, and not be subjected to the incessant dilapidations inseparable from uxorious or paternal affections at a time when the restraints of law and of public opinion could not be brought to bear with effect. In short, if the church was to assume and maintain the position to which it was entitled by the traditions of the canon law and of the False Decretals, it must be a compact and mutually supporting body, earning by its self-inflicted austerities the reverence to which it laid claim, and not be diverted from its splendid goal by worldly allurements or carnal indulgences and preoccupations. Such was the vision to the realization of which Hildebrand devoted his commanding talents and matchless force of will. The temporal success was at length all that he could have anticipated. If the spiritual results were craft, subtlety, arrogance, cruelty, and sensuality, hidden or cynical, it merely proves that his confidence in the strength of human nature to endure the intoxicating effects of irresponsible power was misplaced. Meanwhile he labored with Damiani at the preliminary measures of his enterprise, and together they bent their energies to procure the enforcement of the neglected rules of discipline.
The new pope, Nicholas II. by name, entered unreservedly into their views. Apparently taught by experience the fruitlessness of additional legislation when the existing canons were amply sufficient, but their execution impossible through the negligence or collusion of the ecclesiastical authorities, he assembled, in 1059, a council of a hundred and thirteen bishops, in which he adopted the novel and hazardous expedient of appealing to the laity, and of rendering them at once the judges and executioners of their pastors. A canon was promulgated forbidding all Christians to be present at the mass of any priest known to keep a concubine or female in his house.[475] This probably remained, like its predecessors, a dead letter for the present, but we shall see what confusion it excited when it was revived and put effectually in force by Gregory VII. some fifteen years later. Meanwhile I may observe that it trenched very nearly on the Donatist heresy that the sacrament was polluted in polluted hands, and it required the most careful word-splitting to prevent the faithful from drawing a conclusion so natural.[476]
In addition to this, the council ordered, under pain of excommunication, that no priest who openly took a concubine (or rather a wife), or who did not forthwith separate himself from such a connection already existing, should dare to perform any sacred function, or enjoy any portion of ecclesiastical revenue.[477] Hildebrand, who was all-powerful at the papal court—his enemies accused him of keeping Nicholas like an ass in the stable, feeding him to do his work—has the credit of procuring this legislation.[478] Nicholas, whether acting under the impulsion of Hildebrand and Damiani, or from his own convictions, followed up the reform with vigor. During the same year he visited Southern Italy, and by his decided proceedings at the council of Melfi endeavored to put an end to the sacerdotal marriages which were openly practised everywhere throughout that region, and the Bishop of Trani was deposed as an example and warning to others.[479] Damiani was also intrusted with a mission to Milan for the same purpose, of which more anon.
Nor did Nicholas confine his efforts to Italy. His legates in other countries endeavored to enforce the canons, and apparently had little difficulty in obtaining the adoption of stringent regulations—the more easily acceded to that they were utterly disregarded. Thus his legate Stephen, early in 1060, held councils at Vienne and Tours, where the prohibitions of the synod of Rome were agreed to, and those who did not at once abandon either their women or their benefices were declared to be degraded forever, without hope of restitution.[480]
In practice, however, all these measures of reform were scarcely felt except by the lower grades of the ecclesiastical body. The prelates, whose lives were equally flagitious, and far more damaging to the reputation and purity of the church, were enabled virtually to escape. The storm passed beneath them, and with few exceptions persecuted only those who were powerless to oppose anything but passive resistance. The uncompromising zeal of Damiani was not likely to let a temporizing lenity so misplaced and so fatal to the success of the cause remain unrebuked; and he calls to it the attention of Nicholas, stigmatizing the toleration of episcopal sins as an absurdity no longer to be endured.[481] The occasion of this exhortation was a commission intrusted by the pope to Damiani, to hold a friendly conference with the prelates, and to induce them to reform their evil ways without forcing the authorities to the scandal of public proceedings. The fear of such results and the fiery eloquence of Damiani were alike unheeded. The bishops confessed themselves unequal to the task of preserving their chastity, and indifferent to the remote contingency of punishment which had so often been ineffectually threatened that its capacity for exciting apprehension had become exhausted. With all the coarseness of monastic asceticism, Damiani describes the extent of the evil, and its public and unblushing exhibition; the families which grew and increased around the prelates, the relationships which were ostentatiously acknowledged, and the scandals perpetrated in the church of God. In the boldest strain he then incites the pope to action, blames his misplaced clemency, and urges the degradation of all offenders, irrespective of rank, pointing out the impossibility of reforming the priesthood if the bishops are allowed full and undisturbed license.[482]
This shows that even if the machinery of ecclesiastical authority was at work to correct the errors of the plebeian clergy, it was only local and sporadic in its efforts. In some favored dioceses, perhaps, blessed with a puritan bishop, the decrees of the innumerable councils may have been put in force, but in the great body of the church the evil remained unaltered. During this very year, 1060, Nicholas again found it necessary to promulgate a decretal ordering priests to quit their wives or resign their position, and this in terms which prove how utterly futile had been all previous fulminations. He also manifested some consideration for temporal necessities by allowing the discarded wives to live with their husbands under proper supervision.[483]