[7] Le cronache italiane del medio evo descritte, Balzani (translated).
CHAPTER IX
THE REVIVAL OF THE PAPACY (962-1056)
This Roman Empire (it did not receive its full title of Holy Roman Empire until later) deserved the name Roman because it rested on the Roman tradition of the political unity of the civilized world. This tradition, by means of the ecclesiastical unity of Europe, had survived the Barbarian invasions, had gained strength through Charlemagne's Empire, and now joined together two nations so fundamentally different as Germany and Italy. The Germans were big blond men, beer-drinkers, huge eaters, rough, ill-mannered, arrogant, phlegmatic and brave; the Italians were little, dark-skinned men, wine-drinkers, lettuce-eaters, with pleasant manners, gesticulating, excitable, and unwarlike. Their union affords the strongest testimony to the strength of the Roman tradition. This ill-assorted pair, married in obedience to the will of dead generations, could not live together in peace. The theory of a world conjointly ruled by a supreme secular sovereign and a supreme ecclesiastical sovereign could not be put into successful practice. The Empire was German, the Papacy Italian, and by their very natures they were antagonistic.
Otto's empire was by no means universal, but its suzerainty was acknowledged by Bohemia, Moravia, Poland, Denmark, perhaps by Hungary, and sometimes by France; and therefore, as eastern Europe was either Greek or barbarian, Britain an island, and Spain practically Mohammedan, it sustained fairly well the idea of a universal (i. e., European) empire. The essential parts were Germany to give strength, and Italy to give title and tradition. In theory the process of royal and Imperial election and coronation was as follows. The German electors (the greater nobles), whose number was not limited to seven for two centuries and more, elected a king, who was crowned with a silver crown at Aachen, and, by virtue of his coronation, received the title, King of the Romans. This king then took the iron crown of Lombardy at Pavia, and became King of Italy; and, when he received the gold Imperial crown from the Pope at Rome, became Emperor. The election of the son of the late Emperor to succeed was the custom, but was not obligatory. Germany was not a strongly centralized state, but was composed of several dukedoms, which often fell out among themselves. Italy was still less a political unit. It had no marks of nationality, except its geographical position, its ancient tradition, and a tardily forming language; but even this lingua volgare, which in Otto's time began to have an Italian sound, and to touch the degenerate written Latin with an Italian look, did not prevail throughout the peninsula. In the south Greek was still spoken, and the Holy Roman Empire never had more than the shadow of a title south of Benevento till after Barbarossa's time. The Emperor's authority rested at bottom on the German military power; and as this depended on the obedience of wayward and jealous dukedoms, it was uncertain and intermittent.
The Papacy was far more stable, for fundamentally it was a moral power, and got its energy from men's consciences. It was far better organized than the Empire. The ecclesiastical system spread all over Europe, into every city, village, hamlet, and monastery; countries which reluctantly acknowledged the suzerainty of the Empire, bowed unquestioningly to papal rule. Moreover, the power of the Papacy did not merely consist in spiritual weapons, terrible as the ban of excommunication was in those days, but also in its ability to raise up enemies against its enemy, and to put the cloak of piety over war and rebellion.
The ironical element in the situation was that the Empire itself lifted the Papacy to the position in which it was able to turn and defy the Empire, fight it, and finally destroy it. The Emperors, who entertained no doubts that the Papacy was subject to them, that they were responsible for its conduct and must secure the election of worthy Popes, took the Papacy out of the hands of the Roman faction, purified it, and appointed honest, capable, upright Popes.
A contemporary account of Otto's dealings with that young scamp, Pope John XII, who in morals resembled his grandmother, Marozia, gives a good picture of the nature of the benefits which the Empire conferred on the Papacy: "While these things were taking place, the constellation of Cancer, hot from the enkindling rays of Ph[oe]bus, kept the Emperor away from the hills around Rome, but when the constellation of Virgo returning brought back the pleasant season he went to Rome upon a secret invitation from the Romans. But why should I say secret when the greater part of the nobility burst into the Castle of St. Paul and invited the holy Emperor, and even gave hostages? The citizens received the holy Emperor and all his men within the city, promised allegiance, and took an oath that they would never elect a Pope, nor consecrate him, without the consent and the sanction of the Lord Emperor Otto, Cæsar, Augustus, and of his son, King Otto.