It is observable from this transaction that Milan was completely independent of Rome. The sovereignty of the distant emperor, absorbed in the dissensions of Germany, could press but lightly on the powerful and turbulent city. Rome was not even thought of in creating the archbishop, whose spiritual and temporal power were granted by the imperial investiture. But when, soon after, the German popes had rescued the papacy from the contempt into which it had fallen, its domination over Milan became a necessary step in its progress to universal supremacy, and lent additional vigor to the desires of the reformers to restore the forgotten discipline of the church in a city so influential.
Marriage, at this time, was a universal privilege of the Milanese clergy. If we may believe the testimony of one who was almost a contemporary, the candidate for holy orders was strictly examined as to his learning and morals. These being satisfactory, he was, if unmarried, asked if he had strength to remain so, and if he replied in the negative, he could forthwith betroth himself and marry with the ordinary legal and religious ceremonies. Second marriages were not allowed, and the Levitical law as to the virginity of the bride was strictly observed. Those who remained single were objects of suspicion, while those who performed their sacred functions duly, and brought up their families in the fear of God, were respected and obeyed by their flocks as pastors should be, and were eligible to the episcopate. Concubinage was regarded as a heinous offence, and those guilty of it were debarred from all promotion[504]—in this reversing the estimate placed upon the respective infractions of discipline by the Roman church.
The see of Lucca consoled Anselmo di Badagio for the failure of his aspirations towards the archiepiscopate, and the other disappointed candidates for a while cherished their mortification in silence. Landolfo and Arialdo were inclined to asceticism, and a visit which Anselmo paid to Milan stimulated them to undertake a reform which could not but prove a source of endless trouble to their successful competitor Guido. Leaders of the people, and masters of the art of inflaming popular passion, they caused assemblies to be held in which they inveighed in the strongest terms against the irregularities of the clergy, whose sacraments they stigmatized as the foulest corruption, whose churches they denounced as dens of prostitution, and whose property they assumed to be legitimate prey for the spoiler. Guido in vain endeavored to repress the agitation thus produced, argued in favor of the married clergy, and was sustained by the party of the nobles. In a city like Milan, it was not difficult to excite a tumult. Besides the influence of the perennial factions, ever eager to tear each other’s throats, the populace were ready to yield to the eloquence of the bold reformers. The Manichæan heresy had taken deep root among the masses, who, afraid to declare their damnable doctrines openly, were rejoiced in any way to undermine the authority of the priesthood, and whose views were in accordance with those now broached on the subject of marriage.[505] While these motives would urge forward the serious portion of the citizens, the unthinking rabble would naturally be prompt to embrace any cause which promised a prospect of disturbance and plunder. Party lines were quickly drawn, and if the reformers were able to revive a forgotten scandal by stigmatizing their opponents as Nicolites, the party of the clergy and the nobles had their revenge. The meetings of Landolfo and Arialdo were held in a spot called Pataria, whence they soon became known as Paterins—a term which for centuries continued to be of fearful import, as synonymous with Manichæans.[506]
Matters could not long remain in this condition. During an altercation in the church of San Celso, a hot-headed priest assaulted Arialdo, whom Landolfo extricated from the crowd at considerable personal risk. Thereupon the reformers called the people together in the theatre; inflammatory addresses speedily wrought up the popular passions to ungovernable fury; the priests were turned out of the churches, their houses sacked, their persons maltreated, and they were finally obliged to purchase a suspension of oppression by subscribing a paper binding themselves to chastity. The nobles, far from being able to protect the clergy, finding themselves also in danger, sought safety in flight; while the rabble, having exhausted the support derivable from intramural plunder, spread over the country and repeated in the villages the devastations of priestly property which they had committed in Milan.[507]
The suffering clergy applied for relief to the bishops of the province, and finding none, at length appealed to Rome itself. Stephen IX., who then filled the papal chair, authorized the archbishop to hold a synod for the purpose of restoring peace. It met, in the early part of 1058, at Fontaneto, near Novara. The prelates were unanimous in sustaining their clergy, and the reformers Landolfo and Arialdo were excommunicated without a dissentient voice. They disregarded the interdict, however, redoubled their efforts with the people, whom they bound by a solemn oath to adhere to the sacred cause, and even forced the priests to join in the compact. Arialdo then proceeded to Rome, where he developed in full the objects of the movement, and pointed out that it would not only result in restoring purity and discipline, but might also be used to break down the dangerous independence of the Ambrosian church and reduce it to the subjection which it owed and refused to the Apostolic see. The arguments were convincing, the excommunication was removed, and Arialdo returned to his work with zeal more fiery than ever.[508]
Meanwhile the nobles had taken heart and offered armed resistance to the Patarian faction, resulting in incessant fights and increasing bloodshed. Nicholas II., who by this time had succeeded Stephen IX., sent Hildebrand and Anselmo di Badagio on a mission to Milan, with instructions to allay the passions which led to such deplorable results, and, while endeavoring to uphold the rules of discipline, to pacify if possible the people, and to arrange such a basis of reconciliation as might restore peace to the distracted church. The milder Anselmo might perhaps have succeeded in this errand of charity, but the unbending Hildebrand was not likely to listen to aught but unconditional subjection to the canons and to Rome. The quarrel therefore waxed fiercer and deadlier; the turmoil became more inextricable as daily combats embittered both parties, and the missionaries departed, leaving Guido with scarcely a shadow of authority over his rebellious city, and the seeds of discord more widely scattered and more deeply planted than ever.[509]
Again, in 1059, a papal legation was sent with full authority to force the recalcitrant clergy to submission. Anselmo again returned to his native city, accompanied this time by Peter Damiani. Their presence and their pretensions caused a fearful tumult, in which Damiani and Landolfo were in deadly peril.[510] An assembly was at length held, where the legates asserted the papal preëminence by taking the place of honor, to the general indignation of the Milanese, who did not relish the degradation of their archbishop before the representatives of a foreign prelate. The question in debate hinged upon the authority of Rome, which was stoutly denied by the Lombards.[511] Peter, in a long oration, showed that Rome had christianized the rest of Western Europe, and that St. Ambrose himself had invoked the papal power as superior to his own. The pride of the Ambrosian church gave way, and the supremacy of St. Peter was finally acknowledged. This granted, the rest followed as a matter of course, and the heretical errors of simony and marriage had to be abandoned. Peter thought himself merciful in his triumph; where all alike were guilty, punishment for the past became impossible, and he restricted himself to provisions for the future. The archbishop and his clergy signed a paper expressing their contrition in the most humiliating terms, and binding themselves and their successors, under penalty of eternal damnation, to render simony thereafter unknown. As regards the Nicolitan heresy, a significant caution was observed, for its extirpation was only promised in as far as it should be found possible;[512] and when Arnolfo, the nephew of Guido, swore for his uncle that in future monks should be the only persons ordained without a preliminary oath that no money had been paid or received, it is observable that the maintenance of chastity was discreetly passed over. Then the archbishop and his clergy swore, in the hands of Damiani at the altar, their faithful observance of the pledge to destroy the simoniacal and Nicolitan heresies, under penalties the most tremendous; and Guido prostrating himself on the ground, humbly deplored his negligence in the past, imposed on himself a penitence of a hundred years (redeemable at a certain sum per annum), and vowed a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella to atone for his sin. Not content with this, Damiani mounted the pulpit and made both priests and people take an oath to extirpate both heresies; and the clergy, before being reconciled to the church and restored to the positions which they had forfeited by their contumacy, were forced individually under oath to anathematize all heresies, and especially those of simony and marriage. A penance was imposed on every one involved in simony—no allusion being made to those who were married; some, who were manifestly unfit for their sacred duties, were suspended, and the legates returned, after triumphantly accomplishing the objects of their mission.[513]
If Damiani fancied that argumentative subtlety and paper promises, even though solemnly given in the name of God and all his saints, were to settle a question involving the fiercest passions of men, the cloistered saint knew little of human nature. The pride of the Milanese was deeply wounded by a subjection to Rome, unknown for many generations, and ill endured by men who gloried in the ancient dignity of the Ambrosian church. When, therefore, in 1061, their townsman, Anselmo di Badagio, was elevated from the episcopate of Lucca to that of the Holy See, Milan, in common with the rest of Lombardy, eagerly embraced the cause of the anti-pope Cadalus. One of Anselmo’s earliest acts as pope was to address a letter to the Milanese, affectionately exhorting them to amendment, and expressing a hope that his pontificate was to witness the extinction of the heresies which had distracted and degraded the church.[514] He could scarcely have entertained the confidence which he expressed, for though Landolfo and Arialdo endeavored, with unabated zeal, to enforce the canons, the Nicolitan faction, regardless of the pledges given to Damiani, maintained the contest with equal stubbornness. Landolfo, on a mission to Rome, was attacked at Piacenza, wounded, and forced to return. Soon after this he was prostrated by a pulmonary affection, lost his voice, and died after a lingering illness of two years.[515] The Paterins, thus deprived of their leader, found another in the person of his brother, Erlembaldo, just then returned from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Gifted with every knightly accomplishment, valiant in war, sagacious in council, of a commanding presence, and endowed with eloquence to sway the passions of the multitude, he was the impersonation of a popular leader; while, in the cause to which he was now called, his deep religious convictions lent an attraction which was heightened by an unpardonable personal wrong—for, early in life, he had been betrothed to a young girl, who fell under the seductive wiles of an unprincipled priest. Yet Erlembaldo did not embark in civil strife without a hesitation which reflects honor on his character. He refused, at first, but was persuaded to seek counsel of the pope. Arialdo accompanied him to Rome, and urged Alexander to adopt him as military leader in the war against sacerdotal marriage. Alexander, too, shrank from the responsibility of authorizing war in such a cause, but Arialdo sought the assistance of Hildebrand, and the scruples of the pope were removed by the prospect of asserting the authority of Rome. When Erlembaldo heard the commands of the Vicegerent of God, and received a sacred banner to be borne through the expected battles, he could no longer doubt as to his duty. He accepted the mission, and to it he devoted his life.[516]
Returning to Milan with this sanction, the zeal and military experience of Erlembaldo soon made themselves felt. He enrolled secretly all the young men whom persuasion, threats, or promises could induce to follow his standard, and thus supported by an organized body, he endeavored to enforce the decretals inhibiting simony and marriage. All recalcitrant priests presuming to officiate were torn from the altars. The riots, which seem to have ceased for a time, became, with varying fortune, more numerous and alarming than ever, and the persecution of the clergy was greatly intensified. Guido, at length, after vainly endeavoring to uphold and protect the sacerdotal body, was driven from the city, and the popular reformers seemed at last to have carried their point, after a civil war which had now lasted, with short intervals, for nearly ten years.[517]