Military and religious life in the Middle Ages and at the period of the Renaissance

by P. L. Jacob

Gregory possessed too much foresight not to have thought of naming an heir capable of pursuing his vast designs. Amongst those whom he had named, Danfier, Abbot of Monte-Cassino, was ultimately selected, and, though it was not without hesitation that he accepted so heavy a burden, he was made pope with the title of Victor III. The new pontiff came to Rome, and occupied with his troops the Faubourg of Transtevere and the Castle of St. Angelo, while the anti-pope Clement III. held the other bank of the Tiber. This state of things could not, however, be of long duration. Victor, overcome with grief, died soon after at Monte-Cassino, and was succeeded by Eudes de Châtillon, who took the name of Urban II. (1087). Of French origin, and brought up in the Metropolitan Cathedral of Rheims, he had for twenty-eight years been prior of the famous abbey of Cluny. It was there that Gregory, whose unbounded confidence he had enjoyed, first knew him, and, under these circumstances, he naturally wished to continue the policy of that pontiff. But the Emperor Henry IV. frustrated this project by suddenly invading Italy, capturing Rome, and setting up a new anti-pope, Guibert, to rule in the Holy City, under the protection of the German soldiery. Urban, forced to abandon the Castle of St. Angelo, which was besieged by the imperial troops, transported his seat of government to Benevento, where he displayed more resolution than before, crowning Conrad, son of the emperor, King of the Romans, after getting him to abjure the schism, and excommunicated Philip I., who had sent away his wife in order to marry his concubine. After this, he returned to Rome in time to celebrate the Christmas services. He expelled the anti-pope, Guibert, and his followers, recovered the independence of the tiara, and assembled at Placentia, amidst the schismatical Lombards, a council which was attended by two hundred prelates, four thousand clerks, and thirty thousand laymen. This was an imposing protest on behalf of the peace of the Church, to which the presence of delegates from the Empires of Germany and the East, and from the Kings of France and England, lent additional significance. Urban went, in the course of the same year, to Clermont, in Auvergne (Fig. 211), to preside, under the auspices of Philip I., over another council, at which the first crusade (1095), preached by him throughout France, was decided upon; he afterwards returned in triumph to Rome (1096), happy in the thought that he had realised the wishes of Gregory, who first conceived the idea of the Holy War.

Fig. 211.—Pope Urban II. presiding over the Council of Clermont, in 1095, and calling the Christian peoples to the First Crusade for the deliverance of the Holy Land.—Fac-simile of a Wood Engraving from the “Grand Voyage de Hiérusalem,” printed by François Regnault in 1522 (in the Library of M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot).

The Council of Rome, at which the sovereign right of the Church to confer the investiture of ecclesiastical dignities was proclaimed, marked the close of his reign. He died in 1099, upon the eve of that century of strife and confusion over which his spirit and that of Gregory VII., as well as of several other popes and learned doctors who had come from Cluny, were destined, as it were, to hover, for the investiture quarrel was far from being settled. Pascal II. imitated the firmness of his predecessors, and the King of France gave way; but the Emperor Henry V., in spite of the formal engagements entered into by his father, revived his claim to appoint the bishops and the abbots, and to induct them into their charge. After entering Rome with his troops, and after having given the pope the kiss of peace, he had him arrested, together with several of his cardinals, and, by means of a long captivity, by threats, and by violence, he induced him to issue a bull, in which the pontiff acknowledged the emperor’s right to annul the canonical elections of bishops and abbots, and likewise promised not to excommunicate him for the future. Pascal II. had no sooner regained his liberty than he convoked a council at Rome, at which he confessed that he had failed in his duty, whereupon the council, with his consent, condemned afresh the ecclesiastical investitures conferred by the civil power. Another council, held in France, excommunicated the emperor, who succeeded in taking Rome. Pascal being dead, Gelasius II. had to take refuge at Cluny, and Henry V. appointed an anti-pope, who assumed the title of Gregory VIII.

At the death of Gelasius II., the cardinals who had followed him into France elected as his successor a Frenchman—Calixtus II., to whom belongs the renown of having put an end to the quarrel as to investiture. The emperor, finding that the irritation of the Germans, weary of his despotism, was growing perilous to his throne, convoked a diet at Würtzburg, when it was decided by him and the princes of the empire that ambassadors should be sent to negotiate with the pope, who had returned to Rome amidst the acclamations of the inhabitants.

Fig. 212.—Public and Solemn Functions of the Sovereign-Pontiff.—From a Roman Engraving of the Seventeenth Century.

1. Solemn mass celebrated in St. Peter’s by the Pope.—2. Celebration of the sacred services in which the Pope takes part, especially those of the Sundays in Advent and Lent.—3. Coronation of the Sovereign-Pontiff at St. John of Lateran.—4. The newly-elected Pope seated upon the altar of the Clementine Chapel and receiving the homage of the cardinals.—5. Solemn benediction which the Pope gives to the people.—6. Tribute of the white horse, formerly paid to the Pope each year, on St. Peter’s day by the King of Naples in token of his vassalship.—7. Solemn cavalcade of the Pope upon his first journey from St. Peter’s to the Lateran Church.—8. Public consistory for the reception of the ambassadors.—9. The Pope carrying the Holy Sacrament in the procession of the Fête-Dieu.—10. Opening of the holy gate by the Pope, for the twenty-five years’ jubilee.—11. Solemn procession on the days when the Pope, clad in the sacred decorations, goes to the Basilica of St. Peter to celebrate mass.]

According to the Concordat drawn up and adopted by Henry V. at the Diet of Worms, the emperor finally renounced his claim to investiture by the ring and the crozier, which were symbols of ecclesiastical dignity; he acknowledged the right of the dioceses and abbeys to elect their bishops and abbots, and the investiture of the elected dignitaries into their domains was to be conferred by the emperor, in Germany, before their consecration, and in the kingdoms of Italy and Burgundy after it. This Concordat was confirmed at the œcumenical council which Calixtus II. assembled at Rome in 1125.

We have dwelt at some length upon these matters, but it was necessary in order to show what was the action of the popes in the Middle Ages, and it was at this point that their influence reached its apogee. The two conceptions of Gregory VII. had been realised: in accordance with the idea generally received at that time, the kings or emperors, in the eyes of the people, only possessed authority as long as they were orthodox, and obstinacy, under the ban of excommunication, amounted to heresy; hence the pope was regarded as the supreme chief of the Christian republic, and was entrusted with the duty of making princes respect morality, the faith, the rights of the Church, and the rights of the people. The election of the head of the Church had, therefore, to be free from the influence of the temporal power, since that head would be called upon to be its judge. This was the point which Hildebrand caused to be recognised in respect to the election of the popes, beginning with Leo IX.; and the perseverance of his successors got the principle extended to that of the bishops, during the reign of Calixtus II.