The Makers of Modern Rome, in Four Books

by Mrs. Oliphant

And then again Rome saw one of those sights which from age to age had become familiar to her, the triumph of arms and overwhelming force under the very eyes of the imprisoned ruler of the city. The Lateran Palace, so long deserted, awoke to receive a royal guest. The sober courts of the papal house blazed with splendid costumes and resounded with all the tumult of rejoicing and triumph. The first of the great ceremonies was the coronation of the Archbishop Guibert as Clement III., which took place in Passion Week in the year 1084. Four months before Gregory had descended from his stronghold to hold the council in which Henry had still hoped to persuade or force him to complaisance, flinging Guibert lightly away; but the king's hopes had failed and Guibert was again the temporary symbol of that spiritual power without which he could not maintain himself. On Easter Sunday following, three great processions again streamed over the bridge of St. Angelo under the eyes, it may be, of Gregory high on the battlements of his fortress, or at least penetrating to his seclusion with the shouts and cheers that marked their progress—the procession of the false Pope, that of the king, that of Bertha the king's wife, whom it had required all the efforts of Gregory and his faithful bishops to preserve from a cruel divorce: she who had set her maids with baton and staff to beat the life half out of that false spouse and caitiff knight in his attempt to betray her. The world had triumphed over the Church, the powers of darkness over those of light, a false and treacherous despot, whose word even his own followers held as nothing, over the steadfast, pure, and high-minded priest, who, whatever we may think of his motives—and no judgment upon Gregory can ever be unanimous—had devoted his life to one high purpose and held by it through triumph and humiliation, unmoved and immovable. Gregory was as certain of his great position now, the Vicar of Christ commissioned to bind and to loose, to judge with impartiality and justice all men's claims, to hold the balance of right and wrong all over the world, as he watched the gay processions pass, and heard the heralds sounding their trumpets and the anti-pope, the creature of Henry's will, passing by to give his master (for the third time) the much-longed-for imperial crown, as when he himself stood master within the battlements of Canossa and raised that suppliant king to the possibilities of empire from his feet.

It is a curious detail adding a touch to the irony which mingles with so many human triumphs and downfalls, that the actual imperial crown seems at one time at least to have been in Gregory's keeping. During the abortive council, for which, for three days he had returned to the Lateran, he offered, though he refused to place it on his head, to give it up to Henry's hands, letting it down with a cord from a window of St. Angelo. This offer, which could scarcely be other than ironical, seems to have been refused; but whether Gregory retained it in St. Angelo, or left it to be found in the Lateran treasury by the returning king, there is no information. If it was a fictitious crown which was placed upon Henry's head by the fictitious Pope, the curious travesty would be complete. And history does not say even why the ceremony performed before by the same hands on the banks of the Tiber, should have dropped out of recollection as a thing that had not been.

During all this time nothing had been heard of Robert Guiscard who had so solemnly taken upon him the office of champion of the Holy See and knight of St. Peter. He had been about his own business, pursuing his conquests, eager to carve out new kingdoms for himself and his sons: but at last the Pope's appeals became too strong to be resisted. Henry, whose armies had doubtless not improved in force during the desultory warfare which must have affected more or less the consciences of many, and the hot summers, unwholesome for northerners, did not await the coming of this new and formidable foe. Matilda's Tuscans were more easily overcome than Guiscard's veterans of northern race. He called in his men from all the petty sieges which were wearing them out, and from that wall which he had forced the Romans with their own pitiful hands to build as a base of attacks against St. Angelo, and withdrew in haste, leaving the terrified citizens whom he had won over to his party, as little apt to arms as their forefathers had been, and in the midst of a half-ruined city—the strong positions in which were still held by the friends of the Pope—to do what they could against the most dreaded troops of Christendom. The catastrophe was certain before it occurred. The resistance of the Romans to Robert Guiscard was little more than nominal, only enough to inflame the Normans and give the dreadful freedom of besiegers to their armed hordes. They delivered the Pontiff, but sacked the town which lay helpless in its ruins at their feet; not even the churches were spared, nor their right of sanctuary acknowledged as six hundred years before Attila had acknowledged it. And all the fault of the Pope, as who could wonder if the sufferers cried? It was he who had brought these savages upon them, as it was he who had exposed them before to the hostility of Henry. Gregory had scarcely come forth from his citadel and returned to his palace when Rome was filled with scenes of blood and carnage, such as recalled the invasions of Huns and Vandals. The flames of the burning city lighted up the skies as he came forth in sorrow, delivered from his bondage, but a sad and burdened man. The chroniclers tell us that he flung himself at the feet of Guiscard to beg him to spare the city, crying out that he was Pope for edification and not for ruin. And though his prayer was to some extent granted, there is little doubt that here at the last the heart of Gregory and his courage were broken, and that though his resolution was never shaken, his strength could bear little more. This was the greatest, as it was the most uncalled for, misfortune of his life.

He held a strange council in desolate Rome in the few days that followed, in which he repeated his anathema against Henry, Guibert, and all the clergy who were living in rebellion or in sin. But it would seem that even at such a moment the council was not unanimous and that the spirit of his followers was broken and cowed, and few could follow him in the steadfastness of his own unchangeable mind. And when this tremulous and disturbed assembly was over, held in such extraordinary circumstances, fierce Normans, wild Saracens forming the guard of the Pontiff, fire and ruin, and the shrieks of victims still disturbing the once peaceful air—Gregory, sick at heart, turned his back upon the beloved city which he had laboured so hard to make once more mistress of the world. Perhaps he was not aware that he left Rome for ever; but the conditions of that last restoration had broken his heart. He to bring bloodshed and rapine! he who was Pope to build up and not to destroy! It was more than the man who had borne all things else could endure. No doubt it was a crowning triumph for Guiscard to lead away with him the rescued Pontiff, and pose before all the world as Gregory's deliverer. The journey itself, however, was not without perils. The Campagna and all the wilder country beyond, about the Pontine marshes, was full of freebooting bands, Henry's partisans, or calling themselves so, who harassed the march with guerilla attacks. In one such flying combat a monk of Gregory's own retinue was killed, and the Pope had to ride like the men-at-arms, now starting at daybreak, now travelling deep into the night. At Monte Cassino, in the great convent where his friend Desiderius, who was to be his successor reigned, there was a welcome pause, and he had time to refresh himself among his old friends, the true brethren and companions of his soul. The legends of the monks—or was it the pity of the ages beginning already to awaken and rising to a great height of human compunction by the time the early historians began to write his story?—accord to him here that compensation of divine acknowledgment which the heart recognises as the only healing for such wounds. Some one among the monks of Monte Cassino saw a dove hovering over his head as he said mass. Perhaps this was merely a confusion with the legend of Gregory the Great, his predecessor, to whom that attribute belongs; perhaps some gentle brother whose heart ached with sympathy for the suffering Pope had glamour in his eyes and saw.

Gregory continued his journey, drawn along in the army of Robert Guiscard as in a chariot, which began now to be, as he reached the south Italian shores, a chariot of triumph. All the towns and villages on the way came out to greet the Pope, to ask his blessing. The bishop of Salerno, with his clergy, came forth in solemn procession with shining robes and sacred standards to meet him. Neither Pope nor prince could have found a more exquisite retreat from the troubles of an evil world. The beautiful little city, half Saracenic, in all the glory of its cathedral still new and white and blooming with colour like a flower, sat on the edge of that loveliest coast, the sea like sapphire surging up in many lines of foam, the waves clapping their hands as in the Psalms, and above, the olive-mantled hills rising soft towards the bluest sky, with on every point a white village, a little church tower, the convent walls shining in the sun. It is still a region as near Paradise as human imagination can grasp, more fair than any scene we know. One wonders if the Pope's heart had sufficient spring left in it to take some faint delight in that wonderful conjunction of earth and sea and sky. But such delights were not much thought of in his day, and it is very possible he might have felt it something like a sin to suffer his heart to go forth in any such carnal pleasure.

But at least something of his old energy came back when he was settled in this wonderful place of exile. He sent out his legates to the world, charged with letters to the faithful everywhere, to explain the position of affairs and to assert, as if now with his last breath, that it was because of his determination to purify the Church that all these conspiracies had risen against him—which was indeed, notwithstanding all the developments taken by the question, the absolute truth. For it was Gregory's strongly conceived and faithfully held resolution to cleanse the Church from simony, to have its ministers and officers chosen for their worth and virtue, and power to guide and influence their flocks for good, and not because they had wealth to pay for their dignity and to maintain it, which was the beginning of the conflict. Henry who refused obedience and made a traffic of the holiest offices, and those degenerate and rebellious priests who continued to buy themselves into rich bishoprics and abbacies in defiance of every ecclesiastical law and penalty, were the original offenders, and ought before posterity at least to bear the brunt.

It is perhaps indiscreet to speak of an event largely affecting modern life in such words, but there is a whimsical resemblance which is apt to call forth a smile between the action of a large portion of the Church of Scotland fifty years ago, and the life struggle of Gregory. In the former case it was the putting in of ministers to ecclesiastical benefices by lay authority, however veiled by supposed popular assent, which was believed to be an infringement of the divine rights of the Church, and of the headship of Christ, by a religious body perhaps more scornful and condemnatory than any other of everything connected with a Pope. It was not supposed in Scotland that the humble candidates for poor Scotch livings bought their advancement; but the principle was the same.

In the case of Gregory the positions thus bought and sold were of very great secular importance, carrying with them much wealth, power, and outward importance, which was not the case in the other; but in neither case were the candidates chosen canonically or for their suitableness to the charge, but from extraneous motives and in spite of the decisions of the Church. This was to destroy the headship of Peter, the authority of his representative, the rights of the sacred Spouse of Christ. Both claims were perfectly honest and true. But Gregory, as in opposition to a far greater grievance, and one which overspread all Christendom, was by far the more distinguished confessor, as he was the greater martyr of the Holy Cause.

For this was undoubtedly the first cause of all the sufferings of the Pontiff, the insults showered upon him, the wrongs he had to bear, the exile in which he died. The question has been settled against him, we believe, in every country, even the most deeply Christian. Scotland indeed has prevailed in having her own way, but that is because she has no important benefices, involving secular rank and privilege. No voice in England has ever been raised in defence of simony, but the congé d'élire would have been as great an offence to Pope Gregory, and as much of a sin to Dr. Chalmers, as the purchase of an archbishopric in one case, or the placing of an unpopular preacher in another. The Pope's claim of authority over both Church and world, though originally and fundamentally based upon his rights as the successor of Peter, developed out of this as the fruit out of the flower. From a religious point of view, and if we could secure that all Popes, candidates for ecclesiastical offices, and electors to the same, should be wise and good men, the position would be unassailable; but as it is not so, the question seems scarcely worth risking a man's living for, much less his life. But perhaps no man since, if it were not his successors in the popedom, had such strenuous reasons to spend his life for it as Gregory, as none has ever had a severer struggle.

This smaller question, however, though it is the fundamental one, has been almost forgotten in the struggle between the Pope and the Emperor—the sacred and the secular powers—which developed out of it. The claim to decide not only who was to be archbishop but who was to be king, rose into an importance which dwarfed every other. This was not originated by Gregory, but it was by his means that it became the great question of the age, and rent the world in twain. The two great institutions of the Papacy and the Empire had been or seemed to be an ideal method of governing the world, the one at the head of all spiritual concerns, the other commanding every secular power and all the progress of Christendom. Circumstances indeed, and the growth of independence and power in other nations, had circumscribed the sphere of the Empire, while the Papacy had grown in influence by the same means. But still the Empire was the head of the Christian world of nations, as the Pope was the head of those spiritual princedoms which had developed into so much importance. When the interests were so curiously mingled, it was certain that a collision must occur one time or another. There had been frequent jars, in days when the power of the Empire was too great for anything but a momentary resistance on the part of the Pope. But when the decisive moment came and the struggle became inevitable, Gregory—a man fully equal to the occasion—was there to meet it. His success, such as it was, was for later generations. To himself personally it brought the crown of tragedy only, without even any consciousness of victory gained.