This threw the people into an ecstasy of excitement, and the voice of the priest was drowned in the clamour of their tongues. The priest finished mass, and laid aside his chasuble. Holding the cross, in alb and stole and maniple, he came forth, followed by St. John Gualberto and the monks, chanting. Suddenly a silence fell on the tossing concourse, and a monk appointed by the abbot stood forth, and in a clear voice said to the people, "Men, brethren, and sisters! we do this for the salvation of your souls, that henceforth ye may learn to avoid the leprosy of simony, which has infected nearly the whole world; for the crime of simony is so great, that beside it every other crime is as nothing."
The two piles were burning vigorously. The priest Peter prayed, "Lord Christ, I beseech Thee, if Peter of Pavia, called Bishop of Florence, has obtained the episcopal throne by money, do Thou assist me in this terrible ordeal, and deliver me from being burned, as of old Thou didst deliver the three children in the midst of the burning furnace." Then, giving the brethren the kiss of peace, he stepped fearlessly between the burning pyres, and came forth on the farther side uninjured.
His linen alb, his silken stole and maniple, were unburnt. He would have again rushed through the flames in the excess of his confidence, but was prevented by the pious vehemence of the people, who surrounded him, kissed his feet, clung to his vestments, and would have crushed him to death in their eagerness to touch and see him, had he not been rescued by the strong arms of burly monks.
In after years he told, and talked himself into believing, that as he passed through the fire, his maniple fell off. Discovering his loss ere he emerged, he turned back, and deliberately picked it up. But of this nothing was said at the time.[37]
A letter was then drawn up, appealing to the Pope in the most vehement terms, to deliver the sheep of the Florentine flock from the ravening wolf who shepherded them, and urging him, not obscurely, to use force if need be, and compel by his troops the evacuation of the Florentine episcopal throne. Peter of Pavia, the bishop, a man of gentle character, yielded to the storm. He withdrew from Florence, and was succeeded by another Peter, whom the people called Peter the Catholic, to distinguish him from the Simoniac. But Muratori adduces evidence that the former continued to be recognised by the Pope some time after his supposed degradation. Thus ended the schism of Florence in the entire triumph of the Patarines. Hildebrand was not unobservant; he proved afterwards not to be forgetful of the lesson taught by this schism,—the utilization of the rude mob as a powerful engine in the hands of the fanatical or designing. It bore its fruit in the canons of 1074.
II.
Anselmo de Badagio, Bishop of Lucca, had succeeded Nicholas II. to the Papal throne in 1061. Cadalus of Parma had been chosen by the German and Lombard prelates on October 28th, and he assumed the name of Honorius II. But no Roman Cardinal was present to sanction this election. Cadalus was acknowledged by all the simoniacal and married clergy, when he entered Italy; but the Princess Beatrice and the Duke of Tuscany prevented him from advancing to Rome. From Parma Cadalus excommunicated Alexander, and from Rome, Alexander banned Honorius. The cause of Alexander was that of the Patarines, but the question of marriage and simony paled before the more glaring one, of which of the rival claimants was the actual Pope.
The voice of Landulf Cotta was silenced. A terrible cancer had consumed the tongue which had kept Milan for six years in a blaze of faction. But his room was speedily filled by a more implacable adversary of the married clergy—his brother, Herlembald, a stern, able soldier. An event in Herlembald's early life had embittered his heart against the less rigid clergy. His plighted bride had behaved lightly with a priest. He was just returned from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, his zeal kindled to enthusiasm. He went to Rome, where he was well received by Alexander II. He came for authority to use his sword for the Patarines. The sectaries in Milan had said to him, "We desire to deliver the Church, besieged and degraded by the married priests; do thou deliver by the law of the sword, we will do so by the law of God." Alexander II., in a public consistory, created Herlembald "Defender of the Church," gave him the sacred banner of St. Peter, and bade him go back to Milan and shed blood—his, if necessary, those of the anti-Patarines certainly—in this miserable quarrel.
The result was that the Patarines were filled with new zeal, and lost all compunction at shedding blood and pillaging houses. Herlembald established himself in a large mansion, which he fortified and filled with mercenaries; over it waved the consecrated banner of St. Peter. From this stronghold he issued forth to assail the obnoxious clergy. They were dragged from their altars and consigned to shame and insult. The services of the Church, the celebration of the sacraments, were suspended, or administered only by the one or two priests who adhered to the Patari. It is said that, in order to keep his rude soldiery in pay, Herlembald made every clerk take a solemn oath that he had ever kept innocence, and would wholly abstain from marriage or concubinage. Those who could not, or would not, take this oath were expelled the city, and their whole property confiscated to support the standing corps of hireling ruffians maintained by the Crusader. The lowest rabble, poor artisans and ass-drivers, furtively placed female ornaments in the chambers of the priests, and then, attacking their houses, dragged them out and plundered their property. By 1064, when a synod was held at Mantua by the Pope, Milan was purged of "Simoniacs and Nicolaitans," and the clergy who remained were gathered together into a house to live in common, under rule.
Guido of Milan and all the Lombard prelates attended that important synod, which saw the triumph of Alexander, his reconciliation with the Emperor, and the general abandonment of the anti-Pope, Cadalus.