In 1056 Henry IV. ascended the throne of Germany. The Papal See, bitterly groaning under the jealous restraint which had been imposed on it by the secular authority, eagerly watched, and artfully intrigued for an opportunity to remove them. The impolitic and tyrannical conduct of Henry IV. appeared, perhaps in its eye, as a providential circumstance designed to aid the success of its long cherished design. The emperor, governed by the advice of Archbishop Adelbert, attempted, by building castles, and committing brutal and violent acts, to rule his people through the terror of his authority. Neglecting to guard popular interests, which alone can secure popular attachment, his efforts to overawe his subjects produced only dissatisfaction and insurrection. In an outburst of popular violence provoked by his imprudence, considerable damage was done to some churches in Saxony and Thuringia. These disorders gave Henry the opportunity of gratifying his revengeful feelings in accusing the inhabitants before the pope of sacrilege, and of entering their territory and perpetrating the most barbarous cruelty. The consequences of this proceeding eventuated in such a favorable crisis to the papal designs, that, had the ablest pope projected and engineered them they could not have culminated more propitiously. The injured and exasperated inhabitants appealed to the pope. Pope Gregory VII., having ascended the papal throne without the consent of the German court, eagerly embraced a cause which enabled him to assert his claim claim to independent sovereignty, and supremacy over all secular authority. Fully aware that the tyranny of Henry had deprived him of the affections and support of his subjects, he commanded the unpopular monarch to appear before him, under pain of excommunication. In punishment for this ferocious warrant the emperor summoned a council of bishops at Worms, and obliged them to renounce their allegiance to Gregory. This daring act so irritated the pope that he began to lavish, with unsparing liberality, anathemas on the head of the monarch. Henry at first treated this display of arrogated divinity with scornful indifference, but his vices had too much disembarrassed the action of the papal machinery not to allow it to disable his power and revenge. His subjects disowned their allegiance to him; his friends deserted him; his soldiers disobeyed his orders; and he found himself helplessly at the mercy of a revengeful and irritated priest. With a refinement of malice that seems to do credit to papal ingenuity, at least, the emperor was required to dress in penitential robes, formally to solicit for three days an interview with the sacerdotal despot, and then to promise unconditional obedience to him in all things. But the acts of tyranny carry with them the seeds of retribution. The tyrant who could impose such conditions on a fallen foe, could also have been guilty, in the exercise of his power, of inflicting injuries on his subjects which would be calculated to excite a disposition to revolt and retaliation, This was precisely the case with Pope Gregory VII. He had oppressed the Italian provinces to such a degree that the inhabitants longed for an opportunity to depose him; and now the misfortunes of Henry appearing to render him an available agent in the accomplishment of their designs, they proposed a coalition with him. The pope becoming acquainted with this secret machination, set about to counteract it. By the operation of his skilful machinery he was enabled suddenly to create a conspiracy in the heart of Germany, for the deposition of the emperor; but the vigilance and valor of the latter defeated the revolutionary movement. Having in vain exhausted all resources to subject the incorrigible monarch to his absolute authority, he now sought to beguile the mortification of his defeat by hurling anathemas at his obstinate head. But the temper of Henry not disposing him to indulge the chagrined pope in insolent sports, summoned a council of German and Italian bishops at Brixen, and by proving to their satisfaction that Pope Gregory VII. was a heretic, a sorcerer, and had dealings with the devil, effected his degradation, and placed Clement III. in the papal chair.
The spirit and pretensions of Catholicism are so inimical to secular authority that, to whatever extent they obtain a controlling influence in a government they tend to abridge its sovereignty, and threaten its subversion. This tendency, so clearly indicated by the principles of the papal monarchy, and so fearfully illustrated in its history, is incapable of being restrained by any sense of gratitude, or by any obligation of oaths, A knowledge of this unhappy truth will prevent surprise that the munificent favors which Henry bestowed on Pope Clement III., in elevating him to the papal dignity, should not have caused the repeal of the anathemas and excommunications which had been pronounced against him, nor arrested the papal machinery in its insidious and treacherous operations, in fostering the elements of discord which existed in the empire. Nothing but the surrender of the principles of sovereignty will ever conciliate a pope to the authority of a secular government. The prudence, courage, and talents of the king were hence constantly called into requisition to defeat the secret machinations of his enemies. His eldest son was instigated to rebel against him. After he had subdued him, his second son, whom he had crowned as his successor, obliged him to surrender into his hands the imperial authority. By the implacable revenge of the Papal See, operating through its varied machinery, he was deprived of power, reduced to scorn and neglect, and after it had murdered him by degrees, prohibited the interment of his anathematized corpse in consecrated ground.
After Henry V., in 1106, had wrung from his father's hand the imperial sceptre, he sought to have this atrocious act sanctified in the eyes of his subjects by being crowned at Rome by the pope—Paschal II. This sanction of unfilial conduct the pope was willing to accord; but as it seemed to present an opportunity for making a good speculation, he exacted, as the only condition on which the favor could be granted, a concession to the Holy See of all the rights and privileges which had been claimed for it by Pope Gregory VII.
This proposition startled Henry; he saw the ambitious designs of the pope, and he felt the importance of checking them. Boldly denying the papal pretensions, and rejecting with indignant contempt the proposition of Paschal, he marched his army on Rome, dragged the pope from the altar while he was celebrating mass, and casting him into prison, determined that he should there remain until he consented to crown him without any condition. To be restored to liberty and luxury the pope acceded to all the terms dictated to him by the emperor, but with a secret disposition to render them nugatory at the first opportunity. Disturbances occurring in Germany, the pope was agreeably relieved of the embarrassing restraints of the emperor's presence. To suppress the Germanic revolution the skill and valor of Henry was occupied for two years. In the meantime the pope, in order to nullify the concessions which he had made, organized an Italian conspiracy against the emperor. Soon as Henry had quelled the insubordination in Germany, he therefore returned to Italy to punish the author of the calamities of his reign. But Pope Paschal evaded the designed chastisement by absconding to Apulea, where he shortly afterwards died.
Pope Galatius II., an enemy of Henry, having obtained the papal dignity, the latter deposed him, and caused Bourden, under the name of Gregory VIII., to be substituted in his place. The deposed pope and his cardinals, having the control of the papal machinery, were enabled to oppose, with great success, the policy of Henry in every part of his dominion. Galatius assembled a council of bishops at Vienna and excommunicated him; Calaxtus II. convened one at Rheims, and repeated the sentence; the nobles broke out in frequent rebellion; and finally such insubordination prevailed in the empire, and such violent outbursts so frequently disturbed the public peace, that in order to restore tranquillity Henry was compelled to subscribe to a concordat at Worms, in which he renounced the right of investiture, and to any interference in the consecration of bishops.
Frederic I. succeeded to the imperial throne in 1152. The increasing opulence and power of the Italian and Lombardine cities owing allegience to Germanic authority, the ambitious aspirations of the Papal See for illimitable dominion, and the insidious operations of its machinery in producing public taste and opinion in harmony with its desires, had, at the beginning of the reign of Frederic I., produced revolts and usurpations in Lombardy and Italy, which obliged the emperor to visit and chastise the insurrectionary districts. Pope Alexander III., the chief source of the public discord, fled on the approach of Frederic to France, and excommunicated him. A league was then formed between the pope, Venice, and the Greek empire against Frederic; and for twenty years the calamities of war were protracted. The cruelty which the emperor had exercised towards the rebellious cities created a desperate opposition to his authority, and exercised an important influence in stimulating the valor and energy of the people, by which their freedom was finally achieved in the treaty of Venice in 1177.
The spiritual and temporal crown of the world which the Roman See attempted to manufacture out of the fishhooks of St. Peter, however visionary it might originally have appeared, assumed in the progress of the papal political intrigues, the appearance of a stubborn, formidable and frightful reality. With the profound policy which it elaborated, and the systematic course of measures which it adopted, accommodated to all exigencies and pursued through all periods, and at all places; with its' machinery ramifying the political, social, and literary institutions of Christendom; with its confessors transmitting to Rome every important fact; with its inquisition extorting from victims an admission of every false charge of which ecclesiastical interests required the establishment; with its preachers and spiritual guides manufacturing, private and public opinion suitable to its demands by perverted facts and false statements; and with its army of monks, knights, sycophant princes, servile kings, and deluded devotees; it had at the period of Pope Innocent III. subjugated Christendom under its despotic authority. During the progress of its aggressive course the voice of reason and patriotism had often lifted up remonstrances against its advancement; but the eloquent tones died away unheeded amid the clamorous chaunts of superstitious rites. But now, after supineness had allowed it to amass supreme and despotic power, and fortify itself by every means of defence, the antagonism of the people began to be energetically manifested. It is the fate of despotism of every form, when it has developed the full strength of its all-blasting power, to awaken another power destined to trample it in the dust. That power is the strength which slumbers in the popular arm. When the papal despotism was no more a pretension, but a fact, when it stood distinctly before the world clotted with the blood of generations, surrounded by broken sceptres and crushed thrones, with its feet on the neck of kings and people, and its usurping hand grasping at the crowns of earth, heaven and hell, a murmur of horror broke from the lips of the world. Then learning began to scoff at its claims, research to expose its frauds, wit to ridicule its pretensions; and then religious liberty, through the Albigenses and Waldenses uttered that memorable peal, which is destined to reverberate as an undying tone through all future ages. Then arose the free cities from their long degradation, and began to perfect their internal organizations by the establishment of corporations; then appeared the first universities, arousing the dormant spirit of free inquiry and investigation; then the abrogation of the system of violence began to restore public security; and then the separate members of the empire began to be assembled and deliberate on public affairs, originating the principle of the provincial diets.
Frederic II., son of the emperor Henry VI., was born at this illustrious period of German history. Philip, Duke of Suabia, was nominated regent during Frederic's minority, but the pope, wishing a more pliant instrument, substituted Berthold. Finding this scheme impracticable he recommended Otho, and Philip being murdered, the papal policy succeeded. But the pope soon found that his intrigue had vested with power a mortal foe to the Papal See. For Otho clearly manifested a design of not only wresting Sicily from Frederic, which the latter inherited from his mother, princess of Constance, but of establishing the authority of Germany over certain possessions of Italy which it claimed as an inheritance. To counteract the mistake of his policy the pope took Frederic under his protection, and called into requisition all the power of his machinery. At the age of twenty-one years he crowned his protege Emperor of Germany; but in order to bind him to his interests he exacted a coronation oath that he would undertake a crusade in behalf of the church. Frederic, enjoying the favor and influence of the pope, and the advantageous co-operation of his machinery, soon defeated Otho, and became sole sovereign of the empire.
With a grasp of intellect, and versatility of talent that rarely have sprung from a royal cradle, Frederic II. elaborated projects which, although they transcended the liberality and enlightenment of his age, yet laid the foundation for their development in a future period. The possession of the German and Sicilian crowns led him to hope that he would be able to repress the powerful hierarchy of Rome, and reduce the pope to the dignity of a bishop. Impressed with the importance of this object, and the difficulty of its accomplishment, he slowly and cautiously removed obstacle after obstacle, and selected the elements for his great enterprise. As a preliminary measure he caused his son to be crowned King of Rome. This act alarmed the jealousy of Pope Honorious III., who desired to be acquainted with the motive of it. The emperor replied that his coronation oath required him to undertake a crusade, and the fulfilment of it rendered it necessary to invest his son with regal authority. However ungratifying this reasoning was to the pope, he could not refute it, and as the emperor promised to deal severely with the heretics, and to exclude them from offices of trust or profit, he became greatly pacified. In maturing his measures for the restoration of the Italian empire, the emperor procrastinated for twelve years the fulfilment of his undertaking, a crusade; and though the pope frequently reminded him of the solemnity of his obligation, yet his apologies were so plausible that they seemed fully to justify the delay. The inexplicable mystery of Frederic's conduct, however, excited the apprehensions of Pope Gregory IX.—and to get rid of his presence in Europe he peremptorily demanded that he should undertake the promised crusade. With a show of obedience to the pope's injunction, he commenced preparing for the enterprise, but upon such an extensive scale, and so interruptedly and slowly that it damped the fire, consumed the provisions, and thinned the ranks of the pilgrims. At length he set sail with his fleet, but becoming indisposed after three days' voyage returned home. The return of his formidable army alarmed the fears of the pope, who appears to have equally dreaded the success of his arms abroad and of his presence at home. Adopting the customary policy of the popes in their emergency, he endeavored to embarrass the designs of Frederic by pronouncing sentence of excommunication on him, and suspending all religious services in his dominions. The justice of this sentence being attempted to be supported by the failure of the emperor to fulfil his coronation oath, Frederic endeavored to nullify it, if not in the eyes of the pope, yet in those of the people, by undertaking a vigorous crusade. But the infallible pope who had excommunicated him for not becoming a crusader, now excommunicated him for becoming one. During the emperor's absence the pope preached a crusade against him in his own dominions, organized a conspiracy against him, and devastated his empire with his own troops. That he might weaken the power and popularity of the emperor abroad, he ordered the bishops and knights of the army of the cross in Palestine to dispute his command and oppose his designs. But the remarkable genius of Frederic, undaunted by difficulties, and unimpressible by discouragement and reverses, made him victorious, as well over the arms of the Turks as over the intrigues of the pope. He entered Jerusalem in triumph; and, not finding a bishop who would incur the papal anathemas by crowning him, he performed the ceremony himself. The success of Frederic filled Christendom with joy, but the pope with indignation. He declared every church into which he entered profaned; interdicted the celebration of divine worship in Jerusalem; and such was his influence with the chivalrous knighthood, that among its members were found persons base enough to secretly inform the Sultan how he might dispose of his victor, by assassination, in his customary visits to the river Jordan. But the magnanimity of the Sultan rejected the proposition with contempt, and communicated the matter to the emperor to place him on his guard.
While Frederic exacted from the pope what justice and self respect demanded, he was so far from being disposed to treat him with unnecessary rigor that, when his vices and tyranny had excited his subjects into a rebellion, he interposed in his behalf and restored tranquillity, An act so generous in the emperor should have awakened in the pope an equal degree of magnanimity, but so far was he incapable of any sense of gratitude, that he instigated the emperors son to conspire against him, and assured him of the assistance of the Lombards. This conspiracy was detected, and defeated in its bud; and, the emperor regarding his son more as the victim of sacerdotal craft than as a real foe to his authority, pardoned his disloyalty. The sense of gratitude naturally arising from this act of clemency, added to the weight of filial affection, should have been sufficient to form a disposition which would have subjected the son to the most affectionate subordination to the father. But the dispensations and absolutions with which the church pretends to nullify social and civil obligations, unhappily interfered with the natural instincts of the son's mind, and led him to add to the guilt of his treason, the ignominy of attempting to assassinate his father. This atrocious act cancelling every obligation of nature, would have justified the emperor in proceeding to extremes; but his native magnanimity prevailed, and he sentenced his son to perpetual banishment.