The history of the papacy during this period represents it in its deepest shame and degradation. But after this state of matters was put an end to by the founding of the Holy Roman Empire of German nationalities, it sprang up again from its deep debasement, and reached the highest point of power and influence. With the German empire, to which it owed its salvation, it now carried on a life and death conflict; for it seemed that it was possible to escape enslavement under the temporal power of the emperor only by putting the emperor under its spiritual power. In the conflict with the Hohenstaufens the struggle reached its climax. The papacy won a complete victory, but soon found that it could as little dispense with as endure the presence of a powerful empire. For as the destruction of the Carolingian empire had left it at the mercy of the factions of Italian nobles at the time when this period opens, so its victory over the German empire brought the papacy under the still more degrading bondage of French politics, as is seen in the beginning of the next period. It had during this transition time its most powerful props and advisers in the orders of Clugny and Camaldoli (§ [98, 1]). It had a standing army in the mendicant orders, and the crusaders, besides the enthusiasm, which greatly strengthened the papal institution, did the further service of occupying and engrossing the attention of the princes.
§ 96.1. The Romish Pornocracy and the Emperor Otto I., † A.D. 973.—Among the wild struggles of the Italian nobles which broke out after the Emperor Arnulf’s departure (§ 82, 8), the party of the Margrave Adalbert of Tuscany gained the upperhand. His mistress Theodora, a well born and beautiful, ambitious and voluptuous Roman, wife of a Roman senator, as well as her like-minded daughters Marozia and Theodora, filled for half a century the chair of St. Peter with their paramours, sons and grandsons. These constituted the base and corrupt line of popes known as the pornocracy.Sergius III., A.D. 904-911, Marozia’s paramour, starts this disgraceful series. After the short pontificates of the two immediately following popes, Theodora, because Ravenna was inconveniently distant for the gratification of her lust, called John, the archbishop of that place, to the papal chair under the title of John X., A.D. 914-928. By means of a successful crusade which he led in person, he destroyed the remnant of Saracen robbers in Garigliano (§ 81, 2), and crowned the Lombard king Bernard I., A.D. 916-924, as emperor. But when he attempted to break off his disgraceful relations with the woman who had advanced him, Marozia had him cast into prison and smothered with a pillow. The two following popes on whom she bestowed the tiara enjoyed it only a short time, for in A.D. 931 she raised her own son to the papal throne in the twentieth year of his age. His father was Pope Sergius, and he assumed the name of John XI. But her other son Alberich, who inherited the temporal kingdom from A.D. 932, restricted this pope’s jurisdiction and that of his four successors to the ecclesiastical domain. After Alberich’s death his son Octavianus, an arch-profligate and blasphemer, though only in his sixteenth year, united the papacy and the temporal power, and called himself by the name of John XII. A.D. 955-963—the first instance of a change of name on assuming the papal chair. He would sell anything for money. He made a boy of ten years a bishop; he consecrated a deacon in a stable; in hunting and dice playing he would invoke the favour of Jupiter and Venus; in his orgies he would drink the devil’s health, etc. Meantime things had reached a terrible pass in Germany. After the death of Louis the Child, the last of the German Carolingians, in A.D. 911, the Frankish duke Conrad I., A.D. 911-918, was elected king of the Germans. Although vigorously supported by the superior clergy, the Synod of Hohenaltheim in A.D. 915 threatening the rebels with all the pains of hell, the struggle with the other dukes prevented the founding of a united German empire. His successor, the Saxon Henry I., A.D. 919-936, was the first to free himself from the faction of the clergy, and to grant to the dukes independent administration of internal affairs within their own domains. His greater son, Otto I., A.D. 936-973, by limiting the power of the dukes, by fighting and converting heathen Danes, Wends, Bohemians and Hungarians, by decided action in the French troubles, by gathering around him a virtuous German clergy, who proved true to him and the empire, secured after long continued civil wars a power and reputation such as no ruler in the West since Charlemagne had enjoyed. Called to the help of the Lombard nobles and the pope John XII. against the oppression and tyranny of Berengarius [Berengar] II., he conquered the kingdom of Italy, and was at Candlemas A.D. 962 crowned emperor by the pope in St. Peter’s, after having really held this rank for thirty years. Thus was the Holy Roman Empire of German Nationalities founded, which continued for centuries to be the centre around which the history of the church and the world revolved. The new emperor confirmed to the pope all donations of previous emperors with the addition of certain cities, without detriment, however, to the imperial suzerainty over the patrimony of St. Peter, and without lessening in any degree the imperial privileges maintained by Charlemagne. The Privilegium Ottonis, still preserved in the papal archives, and claiming to be an authentic document, was till quite recently kept secret from all impartial and capable investigators, so that the suspicion of its spuriousness had come to be regarded as almost a certainty. Under Leo XIII., however, permission was given to a capable Protestant scholar, Prof. Sickel of Vienna, to make a photographic facsimile of the document, the result of which was that he became convinced that the document was not the original but a contemporary official duplicate, a literally faithful transcript on purple parchment with letters of gold for solemn deposition in the grave of St. Peter. Its first part describes the donations of the emperor, the second the obligations of the pope in accordance with the Constitutio Romana, § 82, 4.—But scarcely had Otto left Rome than the pope, breaking his oath, conspired with his enemies, endeavoured to rouse the Byzantines and heathen Hungarians against him, and opened the gates of Rome to Adalbert the son of Berengarius [Berengar]. Otto hastened back, deposed the pope at the synod of Rome in A.D. 963, on charges of incest, perjury, murder, blasphemy, etc., and made the Romans swear by the bones of Peter never again to elect and consecrate a pope, without having the emperor’s permission and confirmation. Soon after the emperor’s departure, however, the newly elected pope Leo VIII., A.D. 963-965, had to betake himself to flight. John XII. returned again to Rome, excommunicated his rival pope, and took cruel vengeance upon the partisans of the emperor. On his death soon afterwards, in A.D. 964, the Romans elected Benedict V. as his successor; but he, when the emperor conquered Rome after a stubborn resistance, was obliged to submit to humiliating terms. Leo VIII. had in John XIII., A.D. 965-972, a virtuous and worthy successor. A new revolt of the Romans led soon after his election to his imprisonment; but he succeeded in making his escape in A.D. 966. Otto now for the third time crossed the Alps, passed relentlessly severe sentences upon the guilty, and had his son, now thirteen years of age, crowned in Rome as Otto II., A.D. 967.
§ 96.2. The Times of Otto II., III., A.D. 973-1002.—After the death of Otto I., since Otto II., A.D. 973-983, was restrained from a Roman campaign in consequence of Cisalpine troubles, the nobles’ faction under Crescentius, son of Pope John X. and the younger Theodora, again won the upperhand. This party had in A.D. 974 overthrown Pope Benedict VI., A.D. 972-974, appointed by Otto I., and cast him into prison. But their own anti-pope Boniface VII. could not maintain his position, and fled with the treasures of St. Peter to Constantinople. By means of a compromise of parties Benedict VII., A.D. 974-983, was now raised to the papal chair and held possession in spite of manifold opposition, till the arrival of the young emperor in Italy in A.D. 980 obtained for him greater security. Otto II. again restored the imperial prestige in Rome in A.D. 981, but in A.D. 982 he suffered a complete defeat at the hand of the Saracens. He died in the following year at Rome, after he had in John XIV., A.D. 983-984, secured the appointment of a pope faithful to the empire. His son Otto III., three years old, was at the council of state, held at Verona, by the princes of Germany and Italy, there gathered together, elected king of both kingdoms. During the German civil wars under the regency of the Queen-mother Theophania, a Byzantine princess, and the able Archbishop Willigis, of Mainz, who, through his firmness and penetration saved the crown for the royal child Otto III., A.D. 983-1002, and maintained the existence and integrity of the German empire, Rome and the papacy fell again under the domination of the nobles, at whose head now stood the younger Crescentius, a son of the above mentioned chief of the same name. In A.D. 984 the anti-pope Boniface VII., who had fled to Constantinople, made his appearance in Rome, won a following by Greek gold, got possession of John XIV. and had him cast into prison, but was himself soon afterwards murdered. The new pope John XV., A.D. 985-996, who was thoroughly venal, was an obedient tool of the tyranny of Crescentius, which, however, soon became so intolerable to him, that he yearned for the restoration of imperial rule under Otto III. At this same time great danger threatened the imperial authority from France. Hugh Capet had, after the death of the last Carolingian, Louis V., in A.D. 987, taken possession for himself of the French crown. He insisted upon John XV. deposing the archbishop Arnulf of Rheims, who had opened the gates of Rheims to his uncle Charles of Lorraine, the brother of Louis V.’s father. The pope, who was then dependent upon German power, hesitated. Hugh then had Arnulf deposed at a synod at Rheims in A.D. 921, and put in his place Gerbert, the greatest scholar (§ [100, 2]) and statesman of that age. The council quite openly declared the whole French church to be free from Rome, whose bishops for a hundred years had been steeped in the most profound moral corruption, and had fallen into the most disgraceful servitude, and Gerbert issued a confession of faith in which celibacy and fasting were repudiated, and only the first four œcumenical councils were acknowledged. But the plan was shattered, not so much through the apparently fruitless opposition of the pope as through the reaction of the high church party of Clugny and the popular esteem in which that party was held. Gerbert could not maintain his position, and was heartily glad when he could shake the dust of Rheims off his feet by accepting an honourable call of the young emperor, Otto III., who in A.D. 997 opened new paths for his ambition by inviting the celebrated scholar to be with him as his classical tutor. Hugh’s successor Robert reinstated Arnulf in the see of Rheims. John XV. called in Otto III. to his help against the intolerable oppression of the younger Crescentius, but died before his arrival in A.D. 996. Otto directed the choice of his cousin Bruno, twenty-four years of age, the first German pope, who assumed the name of Gregory V., A.D. 996-999, and by him he was crowned emperor in Rome. Gregory was a man of an energetic, almost obstinate character, thoroughly in sympathy with the views of the monks of Clugny. The emperor having soon returned home, Crescentius violated his oath and made himself again master of Rome. Gregory fled to Pavia, where he held a synod in A.D. 997, which thundered an anathema against the disturber of the Roman church. Meanwhile Crescentius raised to the papal throne the archbishop John of Piacenza, formerly Greek tutor to Otto III., under the title of John XVI. It was not till late in autumn of that year that the emperor could hasten to the help of his injured cousin. He then executed a fearfully severe sentence upon the tyrant and his pope. The former was beheaded, and his corpse dragged by the feet through the streets and then hung upon a gallows; the latter, whom the soldiers had cruelly deprived of his ears, tongue, and nose, was led through the streets seated backward on an ass, with the tail tied in his hands for reins.—From Pavia Gregory had issued a command to Robert, the French king, to put away his queen Bertha, who was related to him in the fourth degree, on pain of excommunication. But he died a suspiciously sudden death before he could bring down the pride of this king, which, however, his successor accomplished.
§ 96.3. Otto III. now raised to the papal chair his teacher Gerbert, whom he had previously made Archbishop of Ravenna, under the title of Sylvester II., A.D. 999-1003. Already in Ravenna had Gerbert’s ecclesiastical policy been changed for the high church views of his former opponents, and as pope he developed an activity which marks him out as the worthy follower of his predecessor and the precursor of a yet greater Gregory (VII.). He energetically contended against simony, that special canker of the church, and by sending the ring and staff to his former opponent, Arnulf, made the first effort to assert the papal claim to the exclusive investiture of bishops. But he had previously, as tutor of Otto, by flattering his vanity, inspired the imaginative, high-spirited youth with the ideal of a restoration of the ancient glory of Rome and its emperors exercising universal sway. And just with this view had Otto raised him to the papal chair in order that he might have his help. The pope did not venture openly to withdraw from this understanding, for in the condition of Italy at that time in a struggle with the emperor, the victory would be his in the first instance, and that would be the destruction of the papal chair. So there was nothing for it but by clever tacking in spite of contrary winds of imperial policy, to make the ship of the church hold on as far as possible in the high church course and surround the emperor by a network of craft. The phantom of a Renovatio imperii Romani with the mummified form of the Byzantine court ceremonial and the vain parade of a title was called into being.On a pilgrimage to the grave of his saintly friend Adalbert in Gnesen (§ [93, 13]) the emperor emancipated the Polish church from the German metropolitanate by raising its see into an archbishopric. He also, in A.D. 1000, released the Polish duke Boleslaw Chrobry (§ [93, 7]), the most dangerous enemy of Germany, who schemed the formation of a great Slavic empire, from his fealty as a vassal of the German empire, enlisting him instead as a “friend and confederate of the Roman people” in his new fantastic universal empire. In the same year, however, Sylvester, in the exercise of papal sovereignty, conferred the royal crown on Stephen the saint of Hungary (§ [93, 8]), appointed the payment by him of a yearly tribute to the papal vicar with ecclesiastical authority over his country, and made that land ecclesiastically independent of Passau and Salzburg by founding a separate metropolitanate at Gran. Though Otto let himself be led in the hierarchical leading strings by his papal friend, he yet made it abundantly evident by bestowing upon his favourite pope eight counties of the States of the Church, that he regarded these as merely a free gift of imperial favour. He also lashed violently the extravagances as well as the greed of the popes, and declared that the donation of Constantine was a pure fabrication (§ 87, 4). The emperor, however, had meanwhile thoroughly estranged his German subjects and the German clergy by his un-German temperament. The German princes denounced him as a traitor to the German empire. Soon all Italy, even the much fondled Rome, rose in open revolt. Only an early death A.D. 1002 saved the unhappy youth of twenty-two years of age from the most terrible humiliation. With him, too, the star of the pope’s fortunes went down. He died not long after in A.D. 1003, and left in the popular mind the reputation of a dealer in the black art, who owed his learning and the success of his hierarchical career to a compact with the devil.
§ 96.4. From Henry II. to the Synod at Sutri, A.D. 1002-1046.—After the death of Otto III., Henry II., A.D. 1002-1024, previously duke of Bavaria, a great-grandson of Henry I. and as such the last scion of the Saxon line, obtained the German crown—a ruler who proved one of the ablest that ever occupied that throne. A bigoted pietist and under the power of the priests, although pious-hearted according to the spirit of the times and strongly attached to the church, and seeking in the bishops supports of the empire against the relaxing influence of the temporal princes, yet no other German emperor ruled over the church to the same extent that he did, and no one ventured so far as he did to impress strongly upon the church, by the most extensive appropriation of ecclesiastical property, especially of rich monasteries, that this was the shortest and surest way of bringing about a much needed reformation. Meanwhile in Rome, after the death of Otto III., Joannes Crescentius, the son of Crescentius II., who was beheaded by order of Otto, assumed the government, and set upon the chair of Peter creatures of his own, John XVII., XVIII., and Sergius IV. But as he and his last elected pope died soon after one another in A.D. 1012, the long subjected faction of the Tusculan counts, successors of Alberich, came to the front again, and chose as pope a scion of one of their own families, Benedict VIII., A.D. 1012-1024. The anti-pope Gregory, chosen by the Crescentians, was obliged to retire from the field. He sought protection from Henry II. But this monarch came to an understanding with the incomparably nobler and abler Benedict, received from him for himself and his Queen Cunigunda, subsequently canonized by Innocent III., the imperial crown, in A.D. 1014, and continued ever after to maintain excellent relations with him. These two, the emperor and the pope, were on friendly terms with the monks of Clugny. They both acknowledged the need of a thorough reformation of the church, and both carried it out so far as this could be done by the influence and example of their own personal conduct, disposition, and character. But the pope had so much to do fighting the Crescentians, then the Greeks and Saracens in Italy, and the emperor in quelling internal troubles in his empire and repelling foreign invasions, that it was only toward the close of their lives that they could take any very decided action. The pope made the first move, for at the Synod of Pavia in A.D. 1018, he excommunicated all married priests and those living in concubinage, and sentenced their children to slavery. The emperor entertained a yet more ambitious scheme. He wished to summon a Western œcumenical council at Pavia, and there to engage upon the reformation of the whole church of the West. But the death of the pope in A.D. 1024, which was followed in a few months by the death of the emperor, prevented the carrying out of this plan. After the death of the childless Henry II., Conrad II., A.D. 1024-1039, the founder of the Franconian or Salic dynasty, ascended the German throne. To him the empire was indebted for great internal reforms and a great extension of power, but he gave no attention to the carrying out of his predecessor’s plans of ecclesiastical reformation. Still less, however, was anything of the kind to be looked for from the popes of that period. Benedict VIII. was succeeded by his brother Romanus, under the name of John XIX., A.D. 1024-1033, as void of character and noble sentiments (§ 67, 2) as his predecessor had been distinguished. When he died, Count Alberich of Tusculum was able by means of presents and promises to get the Romans to elect his son Theophylact, who, though only twelve years old, was already practised in the basest vice. He took the name of Benedict IX., A.D. 1033-1048, and disgraced the papal chair with the most shameless profligacy. The state of matters became better under Conrad’s son, Henry III., A.D. 1039-1056, who strove after the founding of a universal monarchy in the sense of Charlemagne, and by a powerful and able government he came nearer reaching this end than any of the German emperors. He was at the same time inspired with a zeal for the reformation of the church such as none of his predecessors or successors, with the exception of Henry II., ever showed. Benedict IX. was, in A.D. 1044, for the second time driven out by the Romans. They now sold the tiara to Sylvester III., who three months after was driven out by Benedict. This pope now fell in love with his beautiful cousin, daughter of a Tusculan count, and formed the bold resolve to marry her. But the father of the lady refused his consent so long as he was pope. Benedict now sold the papal chair for a thousand pounds of silver to the archdeacon Joannes Gratian. This man, a pious simple individual, in order to save the chair of St. Peter from utter overthrow, took upon himself the disgrace of simony at the bidding of his friends of Clugny, among whom a young Roman monk called Hildebrand, son of poor parents of Soana, in Tuscany, was already most conspicuous. The new pope assumed the name of Gregory VI., A.D. 1044-1046. He wanted the talents necessary for the hard task he had undertaken. Benedict having failed in carrying out his matrimonial plans, again claimed to be pope, as did also Sylvester. Thus Rome had at one and the same time, three popes, and all three were publicly known to be simonists. The Clugny party cast off their protégé Gregory, and called in the German emperor as saviour of the church. Henry came and had all the the three popes deposed at the Synod at Sutri, A.D. 1046. The Romans gave to him the right of making a new appointment. It fell upon Suidger, bishop of Bamberg, who took the name of Clement II., and crowned the king emperor on Christmas, A.D. 1046. The Romans were so delighted at having order restored in the city, that they gave over to the emperor with the rank of patrician the government of Rome and the right of papal election for all time, and swore never to consecrate a pope without the emperor’s concurrence. Henry took the ex-pope Gregory along with him, back to Germany, where he died in exile, at Cologne. Hildebrand, his chaplain, had accompanied him thither, and after his death retired into the monastery of Clugny.
§ 96.5. Henry III. and his German Popes, A.D. 1046-1057.—With Clement III., 1046-1047, begins a whole series of able German popes, who, elected by Henry III., wrought under his protection powerfully and successfully for the reform of the church. All interested in the reformation, the brethren of Clugny, as well as the disciples of Romuald and the settlers in Vallombrosa (§ [98, 1]), agreed that at the root of all the corruption of the church of that age were simony, or obtaining spiritual offices by purchase or bribery (Acts viii. 19), and Nicolaitanism (§ 27, 8), under which name were included all fleshly lusts of the clergy, marriage as well as concubinage and unnatural vices. These two were, especially in Italy, so widely spread, that scarcely a priest was to be found who had not been guilty of both. Clement II., in the emperor’s presence, at a synod in Rome in A.D. 1047, began the battle against simony. But he died before the end of the year, probably by poison. While Roman envoys presented themselves at the German court about the election of a new pope, Benedict IX., supported by the Tusculan party, again laid claim to the papal chair, and the emperor had to utter the severest threats before the man of his choice, Poppo, bishop of Brixen, was allowed to occupy the papal chair as Damasus II. Twenty-three days afterwards, however, he was a corpse. This cooled the ardour of German bishops for election to so dangerous a position, and only after long persuasion Bishop Bruno of Toul, the emperor’s cousin and a zealous friend of Clugny, accepted the appointment, on the condition that it should have the approval of the people and clergy of Rome, which, as was to be expected, was given with acclamation. He ascended the papal throne as Leo IX., A.D. 1049-1054. According to a later story conceived in the interests of Hildebrandism, Bruno is said not only to have made his definite acceptance of the imperial call dependent upon the supplementary free election of people and clergy of Rome, but also to have been prevailed upon by Hildebrand, who by his own request accompanied him, to lay aside his papal ornaments, to continue his journey in pilgrim garb, and to make his entrance into the eternal city barefoot, so that the necessary sanction of a formal canonical election might be given to the imperial nomination. Leo found the papal treasures emptied to the last coin and robbed of all its territorial revenues by the nobles. But Hildebrand was his minister of finance, and soon improved the condition of his exchequer. Leo now displayed an unexampled activity in church reform and the purifying of the papacy. No pope travelled about so much as he, none held as many synods in the most distant places and various lands. The uprooting of simony was in all cases the main point in their decrees. By bonds of gratitude and relationship, but above all of common interests, he was attached to the German emperor. He could not therefore think of emancipating the papacy from the imperial suzerainty. Practically Leo succeeded in clearing the Augean stable of the Roman clergy, and filled vacancies with virtuous men brought from far and near. In order to chastise the Normans, put by him under ban because of their rapacity, he himself took the field in A.D. 1053, when the emperor refused to do so, but was taken prisoner after his army had been annihilated, and only succeeded, after he had removed the excommunication, in getting them to kiss his feet with the most profound devotion. He demanded from the Greek emperor full restitution of the donation of Constantine, so far as this was still in the possession of the Byzantines, and his envoys at Constantinople rendered the split between the Eastern and Western churches irreparable (§ 67, 3). Leo died in A.D. 1054, the only pope for centuries whom the church honours as a saint. A Roman embassy called upon the emperor to nominate a new pope. He fixed upon Gebhardt, bishop of Eichstädt [Eichstadt], who now ascended the papal throne as Victor II., A.D. 1055-1057. Here again monkish tales have transformed a single matter of fact into a romance in the interests of their own party. The Romans wished Hildebrand himself for their pope, but he was unwilling yet to assume such a responsibility. He put himself, however, at the head of an embassy which convinced the emperor of the sinfulness of his former interferences in the papal elections, and persuaded him to set aside the tyrannical power of his patrician’s rank and to resign to the clergy and people their old electoral rights. As candidate for this election, Hildebrand himself chose bishop Gebhardt, the most trusted counsellor of the emperor. After long opposition Henry’s consent was won to this candidature, he even urged the bishop to accept it, who at last submitted with the words: “Now so do I surrender myself to St. Peter, soul and body, but only on the condition that you also yield to him what belongs to him.” The latter, however, seems not mere beating of the air, for the emperor restored to the newly elected pope the patrimony of Peter in the widest extent, and bestowed on him besides the governorship of all Italy.—Henry died in A.D. 1056, after he had appointed his queen Agnes to the regency, and had recommended her to the counsel and good offices of the pope. But the pope’s days were already numbered. He died in A.D. 1057. Hildebrand could not boast of having dominated him, but the position of the powerful monk of Clugny under him had become one of great importance.
§ 96.6. The Papacy under the Control of Hildebrand, A.D. 1057-1078.—After Victor’s death the cardinals without paying any regard to the imperial right, immediately elected Cardinal Frederick of Lorraine, at that time abbot of Monte Cassino, and Hildebrand travelled to Germany in order to obtain the post factum approval of the empress. Stephen IX., A.D. 1057-1058, for so Frederick styled himself, died before Hildebrand’s return. The Tusculan party took advantage of his absence to put forward as pope a partisan of their own, Benedict X., A.D. 1058. But an embassy of Hildebrand’s to the empress secured the succession to bishop Gerhard of Florence. Benedict was obliged to withdraw, and Gerhard ascended the papal throne as Nicholas II., A.D. 1058-1061. With him begins the full development of Hildebrand’s greatness, and from this time, A.D. 1059, when he became archdeacon of Rome, till he himself mounted the papal chair, he was the moving spirit of the Romish hierarchy. By his powerful genius in spite of all hindrances he raised the papacy and the church to a height of power and glory never attained unto before. He thus wrought on, systematically, firmly, and irresistibly advancing toward a complete reformation in ecclesiastical polity. Absolute freedom of the church from the power and influence of the state, and in order to attain this and make it sure, the dominion of the church over the state, papal elections independent of any sort of temporal influence, the complete uprooting of all simoniacal practices, unrelenting strictness in dealing with the immorality of the clergy, invariable enforcement of the law of celibacy, as the most powerful means of emancipating the clergy from the world and the state, filling the sacred offices with the most virtuous and capable men, were some of the noble aims and achievements of this reformation. Hildebrand sought the necessary secular protection and aid for the carrying out of his plans among the Normans. Nicholas II., on the basis of the donation of Constantine, gave as a fief to their leader, Robert Guiscard (§ [95, 1]), the lordship of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, out of which the Saracens had yet to be expelled, and exacted from him the oath of a vassal, by which he bound himself to pay a yearly tribute, to protect the papal chair against all encroachments of its privileges, and above all to maintain the right of papal elections by the “meliores cardinales.” Yet again, Nicholas, when, at a later period, by the help of the Normans, he had broken the power of the Tusculan nobles, issued a decree at a Lateran synod at Rome, in A.D. 1059, by which papal elections (§ 82, 4) were regulated anew. Of the two extant recensions of this decree, which are distinguished as the papal and the imperial, the former is now universally acknowledged to be the more authentic form. According to it the election lies exclusively with the Roman cardinal priests (§ [97, 1]); to the rest of the clergy as to the people there is left only the right of acclamation, that brought no advantage, and to the emperor, according to Boichorst, the right of concurrence after the election and investiture, according to Granert, the right of veto before the election. This decree, and not less the league with the Normans, were open slights to the imperial claims upon Italy and the papal chair. The empress therefore convened about Easter, A.D. 1061, a council of German bishops, at which Nicholas was deposed, and all his decisions were annulled. Soon after the pope died. The Tusculan party, now joined with the Germans under the Lombard chancellor Wibert, asked a new pope from the empress. At the Council of Basel in A.D. 1061, bishop Cadalus of Parma was appointed. He assumed the name of Honorius II., A.D. 1061-1072. But Hildebrand had already five weeks earlier in concert with the Margravine Beatrice of Canossa, wholly on his own responsibility, chosen bishop Anselm of Lucca, and had him consecrated as Alexander II. A.D. 1061-1073. Honorius advanced to Rome, accompanied by Wibert, and frequently in bloody conflicts conquered the party of his opponent. Duke Godfrey the Bearded of Lorraine, the husband of Beatrice, now appeared as mediator. He made both popes retire to their dioceses and gave to the empress the decision of the controversy. But meanwhile a catastrophe occurred in Germany that led to the most important results. Archbishop Anno of Cologne, standing at the head of a rising of the princes, decoyed the young king of twelve years of age on board a ship at Kaiserswerth on the Rhine, and took him to Cologne. The regency and the conduct of government were now transferred to the German bishops collectively, but lay practically in the hands of Anno, who meanwhile, however, since A.D. 1063, found himself obliged to share the power with Archbishop Adalbert of Bremen. At a council held at Augsburg in A.D. 1062, Alexander was acknowledged as the true pope, but Honorius by no means resigned his claims. With a small army he advanced upon Rome in A.D. 1064, seized fort Leo, which had been built and fortified by Leo IV. for defence against the Saracens, entrenched himself in the castle of St. Angelo, and repeatedly routed his opponent’s forces. But Hildebrand reminded the Normans of their oath of fealty. At a council held at Mantua in A.D. 1064 (or 1067?) Alexander was once again acknowledged, and Honorius, whose party the council sought in vain to break up by force of arms, was again deposed. The proud, ambitious and self-seeking priest of Cologne had meanwhile been obliged to transfer to his northern colleague, Adalbert of Bremen, the further education and training of the young king, who, though only fifteen years old was now proclaimed of age in A.D. 1065, as Henry IV., A.D. 1056-1106. If the bishop of Cologne injured the disposition of the royal youth by his excessive harshness and severity, the bishop of Bremen did him irreparable damage by allowing him unrestrained indulgence in his evil passions.
§ 96.7. Gregory VII., A.D. 1073-1085.—Hildebrand had at last brought the papacy to such a height of power that he was able now to put the finishing stroke to his own work in his own name, and so now he mounted the chair of the chief of the apostles, as Gregory VII., elected and enthroned by a disorderly mob. The Lombard and German bishops appealed to the emperor to have the election declared invalid. But he being on all sides threatened with wars and revolution, thought it advisable to forego the assertion of his rights and to win the favour of the pope by a letter full of devotion and humility. At the Roman Fast Synod of A.D. 1074, Gregory renewed the old law of celibacy and rendered it more strict, deposed all married priests or those who got office through simony, and pronounced their priestly acts invalid. The lower clergy, who were generally married, violently opposed the measure, but Gregory’s stronger will prevailed. Papal legates visited all lands, and, supported by the people, insisted upon the strict observance of the papal decree. At the next fast synod in A.D. 1075, the pope began the contest against the usual investiture of the higher clergy by the temporal princes, with ring and staff as symbols of episcopal office. Whoever should accept ecclesiastical office from the hand of a layman was to be deposed, and any potentate who should give investiture should be put under the ban of the church. Here too he thundered his anathema against the counsellors of Henry who should meanwhile prove guilty of the sale of ecclesiastical offices. Henry, whose hands were fully occupied with the rebellious Saxons, at first dismissed his counsellors, but after the close of the wars he reinstated them, and quite ignored the papal prohibition of investiture. Gregory had for a while quite enough to do in Italy. Cencius, the head of the nobles opposed to reform, fell upon him on Christmas, A.D. 1075, during Divine service, and made him prisoner, but the Romans rescued him, and Cencius had to take to flight. On New Year’s Day, A.D. 1076, there appeared at the royal residence at Goslar a papal embassy which threatened the king with excommunication and deposition should he not immediately break off all relations with the counsellors under the ban, and reform his own infamous life. The king burst out in furious rage. He heaped insults upon the legates, and at the Synod of Worms, on 24th January, had the pope formally deposed as a perjured usurper of the papal chair, a tyrant, an adulterer and a sorcerer. The Lombard bishops, too, gave their consent to this decree (§ [97, 5]). At the next Roman Fast Synod on 22nd February, the pope placed all bishops who had taken part in these proceedings under ban, and at the same time solemnly excommunicated and deposed the king, and released all his subjects from the obligation of their oaths of allegiance. Moreover he had the king’s ambassadors, whose life he had preserved from the fury of those present at the meeting of synod by his personal interference, cast into prison, and then in the most contemptuous manner led through the streets. The papal ban made a deep impression upon the German people and princes. One bishop after another gave in, the Saxons raised a new revolt, and at the princes’ conference at Tribur, in October, A.D. 1076, the pope was invited to come personally to Augsburg on 2nd February, to meet and confer with the princes about the affairs of the king. It was resolved that if Henry did not succeed by 22nd February, the first anniversary of the ban, to get it removed, he should for ever forfeit the crown, but that meanwhile he should reside at Spires and continue in the exercise of all royal prerogatives.
§ 96.8. It was for the pope’s advantage to have the business settled upon German soil with the greatest possible publicity. Therefore he scornfully refused the humble petition of the king to send him absolution from Rome, and hastened his preparations for travelling to Augsburg. But Henry went forth to meet him on the way. Shortly before Christmas he escaped from Spires with his wife and child, and in spite of a severe winter crossed Mount Cenis. The Lombards protected him in defying the pretensions of the pope. But Henry’s whole attention was now directed to overturning the machinations of the hostile German princes. So he suddenly appeared at Canossa, where Gregory was staying with the Margravine Matilda, daughter of Beatrice, a princess enthusiastically attached to him and his ideal. This meeting was unexpected and undesired by the pope. There during the cold winter days, from 25th to 27th January, A.D. 1077, stood the son of Henry III. barefoot in the courtyard of the castle of Canossa, wearing a sackcloth shirt, fasting all day and supplicating access to the proud monk. With inflexible severity the pope refused, until at last the tears, entreaties, and reproaches of the margravine overcame his obduracy. Henry promised to submit himself to the future judgment of the pope in regard to his reconciliation with the German princes, and was absolved. Nevertheless the princes at the Assembly at Forcheim in March, with the concurrence of the papal legate, elected a new king in the person of Rudolph of Swabia, Henry’s brother-in-law. Roused to fury, Henry now hastened back to Germany, where soon he gathered round him a great army. Notwithstanding all pressure brought to bear upon him, Gregory maintained for three years a position of neutrality, but at last, in A.D. 1080, at the Roman Fast Synod, where the envoys of the contending kings presented their complaints, he renewed the excommunication and deposition of Henry. Then the bishops of Henry’s party immediately met at Brixen, and hurled the anathema and pronounced sentence of deposition against Gregory, and elected as anti-pope Wibert, formerly chancellor, then archbishop of Ravenna, who assumed the title of Clement III., A.D. 1080-1100. After the death of Rudolph in battle, at Merseburg, in A.D. 1080, Henry marched across the Alps and appeared at Pentecost before the gates of Rome, which were opened to him after a three years’ siege. Clement III. then at Easter, A.D. 1084, set upon him and his queen the imperial crown. Gregory had withdrawn to the Castle of St. Angelo. Henry, however, was compelled by the appearance of a new rival for the crown, Henry, Count of Luxemburg, to return to Germany, and Robert Guiscard, the Norman duke, hastened from the south to deliver the pope, which he accomplished only after Rome had been fearfully devastated. Gregory died in the following year, A.D. 1085, at Salerno. Gregory VII. also took the field against the dissolute and prodigal king of France, Philip I., and threatened him, because of simony, with interdict and deposition. His success here, however, was comparatively small. Philip avowedly submitted to the papal decree, but did not in the least alter his conduct, and Gregory felt that it was not prudent to push matters to an extremity. He showed himself more indulgent toward the powerful William the Conqueror of England, although this prince ruled the church of his dominions with an iron hand, pronounced all church property to be freehold, and was scarcely less guilty of simony than the kings of Germany and France. Yet the pope himself, who hoped to secure the aid of his arms against Henry IV., and sought therefore to dazzle him with the prospect of the imperial throne, winked at his delinquencies, and loaded him with expressions of his good-will. The primate of England, too, the powerful Conqueror’s right-hand supporter, Lanfranc of Canterbury, who bore a grudge against Gregory because of his patronage of the heretic Berengarius [Berengar] (§ [101, 2]), showed no special zeal for the reforms advocated by the pope.At a synod held at Winchester in A.D. 1076, the law of celibacy was enforced, with this limitation, however, that those of the secular clergy who were already married should not be required to put away their wives, but no further marriages among them were to be permitted.[275]
§ 96.9. The Central Idea in Gregory’s Policy was the establishment of a universal theocracy, with the pope as its one visible head, the representative of Christ upon earth, who as such stands over the powers of the world. Alongside of it, indeed, the royal authority was to stand independently as one ordained of God, but it was to confine itself strictly to temporal affairs, and to be directed by the pope in regard to whatever might be partly within and partly without these lines. All states bearing the Christian name were to be bound together as members of one body in the great papal theocracy which had superior to it only God and His law. The princes must receive consecration and Divine sanction from the spiritual power; they are “by the grace of God,” not immediately, however, but only mediately, the church as the middle term stands between them and God. The pope is their arbiter and highest liege lord, whose decisions they are under obligation unconditionally to obey. Royalty stands related to the papacy as the moon to the sun, from which she receives her light and warmth. The church, which lends to the power of the world her Divine authority, can also withdraw it again when it is being misused. When this is done, the obligation of subjects to obey also ceases. Gregory began this gigantic work, not so much to raise himself personally to the utmost pinnacle of power, but rather to save the church from destruction. He certainly was not free from ambition and the lust of ruling, but with him higher than all personal interests was the idea of the high vocation of the church, and to the realizing of it he enthusiastically devoted all the energies of his life. On the other hand, he cannot escape the reproach of having striven with carnal weapons for what he called a spiritual victory, of having meted out unequal measures, where his interests demanded it, in the exercise of his assumed function as judge of kings and princes, and of having occupied himself more with political schemes and intrigues than with the ministry of the church of Christ. His whole career shows him to have been a man of great self reliance, yet, on the other hand, he was able to preserve the consciousness of the poor sinner who seeks and finds salvation only in the mercy of Christ. The strict morality of his life has been admitted even by his bitterest foes.Not infrequently too did he show himself in advance of his time in humanity and liberality of sentiment, as e.g. in the Berengarian controversy (§ [101, 2]), and in his decided disapproval of the prosecution of witches and sorcerers.[276]