It has likewise been said that the crusades very much increased the authority of the popes; we shall soon see what truth there is in that assertion. Among the causes which contributed to the growth of the pontifical authority, we may name the invasion of the barbarians of the North, who overthrew the empire of the West, and the progress of the Saracens, who would not allow the emperors of the East leisure to turn their attention towards Italy, or even to preserve any domination over that country. The popes thus found themselves freed from two powers upon which they depended; and remained in possession of the city of Rome, which appeared to have no other master. Other circumstances added from that time to the authority of the successors of St. Peter. However it may be, everybody knows that this authority had already made immense progress before the crusades; the head of the most powerful monarchs had already bowed before the thunders of the Vatican; and Christendom seemed to have already adopted the maxim of Gregory VII., that “the pope, in quality of Vicar of Jesus Christ, ought to be superior to every human power.”
It cannot be doubted that a religious war was calculated to favour the development of the pontifical authority. But this war itself produced events, and gave rise to circumstances which were less a means of aggrandizement for the power of the popes, than a rock against which that power was dashed and injured. But it is positive, that the end of the crusades left the sovereign pontiffs less powerful than they had been at the commencement of the holy wars.
Let us, in the first place, say a few words of the advantages which the heads of the Church derived from the expeditions against the infidels. Recourse was always had to the sovereign pontiffs when the question of a crusade was agitated; the holy war was preached in their name, and carried on under their auspices. Warriors enrolled under the banners of the cross, received from the pope privileges which freed them from all other dependence but that of the Church; the popes were the protectors of the Crusaders, the support of their families, the guardians of their properties; it was to the popes the Crusaders submitted all their differences, and confided all their interests.
The sovereign pontiffs were not at first aware of the advantages they might derive from the crusades. In the first crusade, Urban, who had enemies to contend with, did not think of asking the assistance of the warriors he had persuaded to take the cross; it was not till the second crusade that the popes perceived the ascendancy the holy wars must give them. At this period a king of France and an emperor of Germany were, in a manner, lieutenants of the Holy See; in the third crusade, the pope compelled Henry II. to take the cross, to expiate the murder of Thomas à Becket. After the death of Henry, his son Richard set out for the East, at the signal of the sovereign pontiff. In consequence of this crusade, great disorders, as we have related, disturbed the kingdom of England; the popes took advantage of them to give laws to the English people, and a few years after the death of Richard, his brother and successor acknowledged himself the vassal of the court of Rome.
The crusades were for the popes a pretext to usurp, in all the states of Europe, the principal attributes of sovereignty; they became possessed, in the name of the holy war, of the right of levying everywhere both armies and imposts; the legates they employed in all the countries of Christendom exercised supreme authority in their name; the presence of these legates inspired respect and fear; their wills were laws. Armed with the cross, they commanded all the clergy as masters; and as the clergy, among all Christian nations, had the greatest ascendancy, the empire of the popes had no longer any opposition or limits.
It may be perceived that we have forgotten none of the advantages the heads of the Church found in the crusades: here are the obstacles and the rocks they met with in the exercise of their power.
It must be allowed that the empire of the popes received but very little increase in Asia during the holy wars; the quarrels and disputes which constantly disturbed the Christian colonies in the East, and in which they were obliged to interfere, multiplied their embarrassments, without adding to their power.
Their voice was not always listened to by the multitude of the Crusaders; sometimes even the soldiers of the cross resisted the will and despised the counsels of the pontiffs. The legates of the Holy See were frequently in opposition to the leaders of the army, and their character was not always respected in camps. As the popes were supposed to direct the crusades, they were, in some sort, responsible for the misfortunes and disorders they had no power to prevent: this moral responsibility exposed them sometimes to be judged with rigour, and was injurious to their reputation for wisdom and ability.
By an abuse of the spirit of the crusades, the popes were dragged into wars in which their ambition was often more interested than religion; they then thought of their temporal power, and that was their weakest point; they were never strong but when they depended upon a higher support; the crusades became for them as a lever, which they employed to elevate themselves; but it must be allowed that they depended upon it too much, and when this lever failed them, their authority trembled. Seeking to regain what they had lost, the popes made, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, incredible efforts to revive the spirit of the crusades; the question then being no longer to go and fight the Saracens in Asia, but to defend Europe against the invasion of the Turks. Amidst the perils of Christendom, the conduct of the popes merited the greatest praise, and the zeal they displayed has not been sufficiently appreciated by historians. But the time of the fervour for crusades was past. The success obtained by the sovereign pontiffs was never proportionate with their efforts, and the uselessness of their attempts necessarily weakened the idea entertained of their ascendancy and their power.
The crusade against the Albigeois procured them very little advantage; the intolerance which gave birth to that war proceeded from the crusades; the Inquisition, which arose from it, awakened more passions than it suppressed. By the Inquisition, the Church assumed in this world a jurisdiction which partook too strongly of humanity; her decrees were much more respected when they were referred to heaven or to a future life.