[275] Matthew Paris affords some very curious details upon the council of Lyons; Le Père Labbe may also be consulted.
[276] We find in the great theology of Tournely (Traité de l’Eglise, tom. ii.) a very learned dissertation upon this deposition of the emperor Frederick II. at the first council of Lyons. This theologian asserts that the council had nothing at all to do with this great act of authority of Innocent IV., and brings several reasons to support his opinion. We will quote some of them, leaving our readers to appreciate their value.
“Whilst all the bulls of the pope, published in council, begin by these words: ‘We have decreed, with the approbation of the council, according to the advice of the sacred council, &c. (sacro approbante concilio, ex communi concilii approbatione, statuimus),’ we read at the head of the bull in question: ‘Sentence pronounced against the emperor Frederick by the pope, Innocent IV., in presence of the council (sacro præsente concilio),’ an essential difference, which is likewise observable in the body of the bull, when the sovereign pontiff only speaks in his own name, and as holding the place of Jesus Christ upon earth. All the fathers of the council, says Matthew Paris, on hearing the sentence, were struck with surprise and horror, sentiments they certainly would not have felt if they had had any part in the judgment.
“All the historians of the time attribute this act of authority to the pope, without even mentioning the council; and Frederick II., when accusing the incompetence of the judge, his partiality, his blindness, and his ingratitude, when writing to the kings of France and England and the barons of his kingdom on the subject, only complains of the pontiff, and does not attach the least reproach to the prelates who composed the assembly. The sentence was considered as so completely the work of the pope, that the Church, which received the decisions of the council, attached little importance to the bull, and that this bull became absolutely a party affair. It was rejected by a great number of the churches of Germany and Italy. The kings of France and England considered it as injurious to sovereign majesty, and continued to treat Frederick as legitimate emperor. It only rendered the wars between the Guelphs and Ghibellines more active and more inveterate.
“The pope said truly that he had deliberated with the fathers of the council; but he adds, that the deliberation turned upon no other object but the excommunication of the emperor; that he did not at all speak of the article of the deposition, and that thence came the surprise and horror which the prelates manifested.
“It is nevertheless objected that the pope and the fathers of the council, after the reading of the sentence, turned down the waxlights which they held and extinguished them, and that afterwards the pope gave out the Te Deum, in which the prelates assisted; but Matthew Paris believes that the circumstances are here not exact. He thinks that some priests only, attached to the court of Rome, lent themselves to the passion of the pope against Frederick, and performed the ceremony of the waxlights, which may still further only relate to the excommunication; otherwise how can we reconcile this passage of the historian with the surprise and horror that were manifested, according to him, in the assembly at the reading of the sentence.
“The pope did not even endeavour to persuade anybody that he was supported by the authority of the council. He declared that he should know how to maintain irrevocably all that he had done relative to Frederick.”
After having discussed all these points, Tournely raises doubts upon the œcumenicity of the first council of Lyons.
“The council of Florence,” says this theologian, “which makes an enumeration of the general councils held before that period, passes by that of Lyons in silence, and in fact several countries, as Germany, Italy, Spain, Brittany, Sweden, and Poland, had no bishops there; there were few prelates from France or England.”
“In the same way the council of Constance, enumerating in a formula, that the pope about to be elected was to sign all the œcumenic councils which had preceded, only mentions one council of Lyons. Now, this could only be the second, for that was very solemn. There were more than five hundred bishops at it, as well from the East as the West, and the Greeks in it acknowledged the divine filiation.”