Monks, Popes, and their Political Intrigues

by John Alberger

The barbarity and usurpations of which Charlemagne was guilty, in the enlargement of his vast empire, naturally made him suspicious of the loyalty of his subjects; and the frequent outbursts which disturbed the peace of certain sections excited his most painful fears for the stability of his throne. To prevent the disorganization of a power which he had constructed with so much labor, but endangered with so much crime, he imprudently scorned the wisdom of adopting concessionary measures, and had recourse to the artifices of priestcraft. Dividing the empire between two of his sons, he had them crowned and anointed with the celestial oil, in expectation that these superstitious ceremonies would excite in the minds of his subjects such reverence for the imperial dignity as would secure in its favor their devout allegiance. But this arrangement excluding his eldest son—the issue of a divorced wife—from an equal participation with his brothers in the administration of the government, excited him to rebel against the authority of his father. His attempt to obtain by arms the justice denied by parental authority was, in consequence of the loyalty of the papal political machinery, unsuccessful; and the injured son was obliged to expiate the guilt of his unfilial insubordination by serving the church in the capacity of a monk, and passing the remainder of his days in a monastic dungeon.

This conspiracy was not the only result that was produced by the policy of Charlemagne, in substituting superstition in the place of justice in his efforts to conciliate popular dissatisfaction. While it lent a prop to the governmental structure, it furnished an instrument for undermining its foundation. The division of the monarchy gave occasion, after Charlemagne's death, to fraternal disputes and civil conflicts; and as these disorders favored the pope's ambitious desire to succeed to the crown and dominion of the Caesars, they were kept active by his machinery until the empire was disintegrated.

The last survivor of the Carlovingian dynasty was Charles, Duke of Lorraine. The subjects of the realm at that period had become greatly dissatisfied concerning the oppressive privileges which the clergy enjoyed, as well as with the impoverishing exactions which they extorted from their industry. With these popular grievances the temper and disposition of Charles engaged his warmest sympathies. Pope John XVI., elected in 986, perceiving that the heir presumptive to the throne would, when he acceded to power, listen to the complaints and lessen the burdens of his subjects; and acting on the historic motive of the Holy See, in making rulers its tools, and changing dynasties to suit its purposes, induced the Frankish nobility to proclaim Hugh Capet King of France. But before this sycophantic papal favorite could be crowned king, and anointed with the holy oil, he was obliged to swear to preserve the clergy in all the privileges and immunities which they enjoyed. Against this formidable conspiracy Charles found himself powerless; and after making some demonstrations against the usurper, retired to Lyons, which place was capable of withstanding a vigorous siege. With great skill and energy, but without any flattering success, his adversary assailed the strong-built fortifications. The success which valor denied was, however, accorded by treachery. The bishop of the city having entered into secret negotiations with Capet, the gates were thrown open at midnight; and the usurper entering the precincts amid the stillness of the hour captured the royal family, surprised Charles in bed and threw him into prison, from which he was never liberated. The Capitian dynasty, thus founded in fraud, violence and usurpation, and unsupported by a shadow of legal right, stands forth in history as the grand champion of the legitimacy of kings, or their divine right to rule by virtue of their descent, independent of the consent of the governed. The dynasties of empires and the political events of nations are so intimately connected with the domestic affairs of royal families, that in order to control the one, papal intrigue has constantly intermeddled with the other, Robert II., who became king of France in 997, married Bertha, his cousin, a lady of inestimable qualities. The royal pair were a model of connubial loveliness and felicity; but when an heir had completed the perfection of their happiness the pope interfered, and by the exercise of his sacred authority, embittered the remainder of their existence. Robert not having purchased of the church an indulgence for marrying a cousin, Pope Sylvester II. pronounced the conjugal union illegal, and commanded the king to abandon his wife. To be guilty of an offence of such a henious character against the most amiable of women; to act in violation of all his matrimonial vows and obligations; to spurn his lawful wife as a prostitute, and to declare his children bastards, was a complication of iniquity which Robert declared to the pope that he would rather die than commit. But the obdurate and savage-hearted holy father, whom the view of no misfortune could move, in order to reduce the king to obedience proceeded to pronounce a sentence of excommunication against him. This act was designed to call into requisition all the appliances of the pope's machinery in blasting the happiness of two persons, whose worth was unequaled in the kingdom, and perhaps unsurpassed in the records of history. Accordingly the churches were draped in mourning; the pictures of the images of the saints shrouded in black; the bells were tolled night and day; religious worship was suspended in the kingdom; and no funeral ceremony allowed to be performed. The immaculate Bertha was declared polluted; stories were circulated that she had given birth to a monster, which had the head of a savage and the tail of a serpent; the poor, on whom she had been accustomed to bestow charity, now fled at her approach; her domestics broke the costly vases which adorned the palace, and taking the viands from the royal table dashed them into the fire. Consternation seized the populace; and priests, courtiers and people fled alike from the sight of the amiable couple, as if they were destructive monsters. At length, through the repeated requests of Bertha, Robert agreed to a separation, and allowed her to retire to a convent. This act, by which he placed his wife at the mercy of licentious priests, conciliated the vengeance of the sacerdotal monster.

During the reign of Philip II., who became king of France in 1180, the province of Languedoc enjoyed an eminent degree of liberty and prosperity. The charters which the subjects had obtained from their princes secured them in the enjoyment of many important civil rights, fortified by such jealous guards as effectually protected them against the encroachments of executive power. This liberality in their political constitution encouraged liberality in religious inquiry, which consequently led to doubts of the pope's right to temporal power. At the flourishing city of Albi these progressive ideas assumed a definite shape in an organization of the people, which received the appellation of the Albigenses. The pope finding this sectary increasing in numbers and popularity, in spite of the vigorous counteracting efforts of his appliances of bishops, priests and monks, ordered Raymond VI., Count of Toulouse, to compel the Albigenses, by force of arms, to change their religious views. As Raymond of Rogers, Count of Beziers, nephew of Raymond VI., had declared in favor of the reformer, the Count of Toulouse refuse to oblige the pope by taking up arms against the Count of Beziers. On account of this determination, dictated by a high and delicate sense of duty and honor, the pope pronounced sentence of excommunication against him. In addition to this insulting manifesto, he commissioned his legate to raise an army of the cross, for the purpose of exterminating the reformers and their allies. This authorized desperado, through the energetic co-operation of the pope's political machinery, soon collected a numerous army of crusaders; and imposing on them a horrible oath that they would exterminate the Albigenses without pity for the cries or tears of their wives or children, immediately commenced the work of blood and devastation. As this army of murderers approached the city of Carcassonne, an order was given not to leave one stone upon another, and to put to death every man, woman, youth and infant. The butchery was frightful, and mixed with the most fiendish acts. To arrest the horrible work Raymond of Rogers offered to resign his authority. With execrable treachery the legate pretended to be willing to negotiate; but no sooner had he betrayed the Count into his power than he incarcerated him in a dungeon, where he died after experiencing years of suffering. After the removal of Raymond by this base treachery, Carcasonne fell; and thirty thousand men, women and children were butchered in one day. Tired of the terrible carnage, or disgusted at its atrociousness, the chiefs of the army of the cross declared to the legate, that among the crowd they could not distinguish the heretic from the Catholic. "Kill on," replied the holy legate, "God will know those which are his." The murderous army moved on; blood flowed at every step; at Beziers sixty thousand were put to death; nor did the carnage cease until the inhabitants of almost every town in Languedoc, without distinction of age, sex or creed, were weltering in their gore. As an express reward to Simon de Monfort for having surpassed all others in hardihood and cruelty on those days of blood, the pope bestowed upon him the devastated domains as a fief of the church. But the soil sown with the bones of heroes, and enriched with the blood of patriots, was prolific of formidable avengers; who constantly shook the throne, and rendered it a calamity to its blood-stained occupant. His son succeeded him; but not being able to defend it against the uprising of the people, it was incorporated into the French empire; but still the war raged, until 1226, when a peace was concluded with Raymond IV., upon condition of his purchasing absolution at an enormous price, and ceding the greater portion of his domains to France.

In 1285, when Philip IV. ascended the throne of France, the despotism of Rome had perpetually encroached on the rights of the sovereignty of the government, and by an insidious policy subjected it more and more to its influence. Among the privileges which the popes arrogated was the right to arbitrate the controversies which arose between independent sovereignties. A dispute having sprung up between Philip IV., of France, and Edward I., of England, Pope Boniface VIII., wishing to enjoy the advantage of dictating the terms of adjustment, arbitrarily attempted to interfere in the controversy. This officious intermeddling in the affairs of a sovereign state was resisted by Philip with patriotic firmness. The irascible pope, transported with rage at the irreverence and independence of Philip, and at the recollection of his liberal governmental views and measures, interdicted all religious worship in his dominions, and suspended the dispensation of the means of grace. But the policy of Philip, in introducing the "third estates," or deputies of the people, which had been instituted by Charlemagne, but discontinued by Hugh Capet, and in his extending the jurisdiction of parliament over the crowned heads, had fortified him in the affections of his subjects, while the papal establishments, in extracting the life-blood from the industrial classes, had weakened popular attachment to the Holy See. The liberality of the king nullified the virtue of the Vatican thunder; and the generous support which he commanded from the people, and from a faction of the priests, enabled him to resist the intermeddling of the pope with the rights of the crown; nay more, as the tyranny of the holy father had rendered him unpopular in Italy, it placed him at the mercy of a prince whom he had insulted and exasperated, and who was capable of taking revenge. Accordingly, emissaries were sent to Rome who, seizing the holy father while he was defiantly seated in the apostolic chair, dragged him from his despotic throne, and cast him into prison. From this ignominious predicament he was, however, shortly afterwards released; but as his character was black with crime, it was determined to summon a council for his deposition. Depressed with the expectation of certain degradation, chagrined and mortified at the loss of his dignity and the insults to his holiness, and having refused all sustenance in confinement for fear of being poisoned, his constitution broke down, and he died in a paroxysm of rage and fear before arrangements could be completed for his trial. According to Catholic authority, "he entered like a fox, reigned like a tiger, and died like a dog." His condition after his death may be variously conjectured by theologians according to their different creeds; but Dante, who was a Catholic, places him in hell between Pope Nicholas III. and Pope Clement V.

During the reign of Louis XII., who became King of France in 1498, the duplicity and treachery which has in general characterized the history of the papal intrigues obtained an illustration in the conduct of the popes, which would have disgraced the chiefs of barbaric nations. Louis, upon receiving the royal diadem, pardoned the wrongs which had been done to him while he was duke, relieved the industry of his subjects by reducing the burden of their taxation, elevated the literary standard of the nation by the introduction of scientific collections, and displayed a nobleness of disposition, and a capacity for the exercise of the governmental functions prophetic of the highest degree of national prosperity and greatness. Pope Julius II. before his election, had professed the warmest friendship for Louis, and secured his influence in gaining the sacerdotal crown. Having succeeded in this strategic measure, his ambition led him to grasp at another object which he conceived Louis's friendship might be made accessory in realizing. That object was the obliteration of the Venitian republic. He accordingly formed a holy league, called the "League of Cambray," with France, Spain and Germany, for the accomplishment of his object. Faithful to his obligations, Louis fought with distinguished bravery in the pope's cause. His heroism won encomiums from all but from the holy father, who was too jealous not to hate superiority, too selfish for sincere friendship, and too sagacious not to perceive that in the further developments of his aggressive designs he was bound to encounter in the heroism and honor of Louis a powerful antagonist. The formidable valor of the Venitian republicans in the defence of their government, the mutual distrust among the allies, which they managed to excite, and the conflicting interpretations of the terms of the compact eventually dissolved the holy league. But the finesse of the pope, and the adroitness with which he engineered his machinery, gave him the ability to conciliate his difficulties with the republicans, and of inducing that republic to unite with him in a league with Spain, England and Switzerland, against France. Germany and France then called a council at Pisa, for reformation in the head and body of the church; at the bar of which they summoned the pope, to explain his conduct.

But scorning the mandate of the synod, he convened a council at the Lateran; and causing a decree to be passed declaring Louis to have forfeited his crown, excommunicated him, and interdicted the celebration of religious worship in his kingdom. Louis was now assaulted by the English at Guingate, by the Spanish at Navarre, by the Swiss at Dijon, while his kingdom was internally convulsed by treacherous priests, crafty spies, false friends, and unpatriotic Catholics. Unable to contend against these formidable antagonists, he had to surrendered all his possessions beyond the Alps and the Pyrenees.

Pope Leo X., who succeeded Julius II., governed by motives of nepotism and ambition, concocted a scheme for obtaining for his family the kingdom of Naples and the duchies of Ferrara and Urbino. At the same time Louis entertained a design of reconquering Milan, which he inherited from his grandmother, Valentina Visconti. The success of these schemes depended on the mutual friendship of the projectors. The pope, in order to secure the confidence of Louis, entered into a secret alliance with him, and pretended to favor all his plans. But while he was flattering his hopes, he was preparing to ruin his cause. To weaken his resources he secretly sent Bambo, his legate, to Venice to detach its alliance from France; and though this treacherous mission was unsuccessful, yet when the French appeared on the confines of Italy, he increased his power by the purchase of Modena, and finally reduced Louis to a formal submission.

In 1515 Francis I, ascended the throne, and immediately commenced preparations for the re-conquest of Milan. Pope Leo X., to defeat this enterprise formed an alliance with Milan, Florence, Artois, Germany and Switzerland. A bloody battle ensued in which tigers and giants seemed to struggle with each other, and which was protracted without intermission for two days and nights. France recovered Milan; the pope was reduced to the last extremity; yet the prudence or superstition of Francis concluded a concordat with him, upon such liberal terms as excited the dissatisfaction of France, and the surprise of the world.

After this signal and generous triumph the belligerent powers became reconciled. This event was hailed by the friends of humanity with united acclamations. But the Holy See, whose policy has ever been to foster wars and controversies between governments, that it might improve the consequent confusion and disorder in aggrandizing its power, received the news of pacification with chagrin and disappointment.