The Emperor, on hearing of this, was inflamed with violent anger, and with oft-repeated reproaches accused the Church and its rulers of ingratitude to him, and of returning evil for good. He recalled to their recollection how he had exposed himself and his property to the billows and to a thousand kinds of danger for the advancement of the Church's welfare and the increase of the Catholic faith, and affirmed that whatever honors the Church possessed in the Holy Land had been acquired by his toil and Frederick accuses the Pope of ingratitude and jealousy industry. "But," said he, "the Pope, jealous at such a happy increase being acquired for the Church by a layman, and who desires gold and silver rather than an increase of the faith (as witness his proceedings), and who extorts money from all Christendom in the name of tithes, has, by all the means in his power, done his best to supplant me, and has endeavored to disinherit me while fighting for God, exposing my body to the weapons of war, to sickness, and to the snares of his enemies, after encountering the dangers of the unsparing billows. See what sort of protection is this of our father's! What kind of assistance in difficulties is this afforded by the vicar of Jesus Christ"!...[555]
"Besides, he is united by a detestable alliance with the Saracens,—has ofttimes sent messages and presents to them, and in turn received the same from them with respect and alacrity...; and what is a more execrable offense, he, when formerly in the country beyond sea, made a kind of arrangement, or rather collusion, with the sultan, and allowed the name of Mahomet to be publicly proclaimed in the temple of the Lord day and Further accusation of an alliance with the Saracens night; and lately, in the case of the sultan of Babylon [Cairo], who, by his own hands, and through his agents, had done irreparable mischief and injury to the Holy Land and its Christian inhabitants, he caused that sultan's ambassadors, in compliment to their master, as is reported, to be honorably received and nobly entertained in his kingdom of Sicily. He also, in opposition to the Christians, abuses the pernicious and horrid rites of other infidels, and, entering into an alliance of friendship with those who wickedly pay little respect to and despise the Apostolic See, and have seceded from the unity of the Church, he, laying aside all respect for the Christian religion, caused, as is positively asserted, the duke of Bavaria, of illustrious memory, a special and devoted ally of the Roman Church, to be murdered by the assassins. He has also given his daughter in marriage to Battacius, an enemy of God and the Church, who, together with his aiders, counsellors, and abettors, was solemnly expelled from the communion of the Christians by sentence of excommunication. Rejecting the proceedings and customs of Catholic princes, neglecting his own salvation and the purity of his fame, he does not employ His neglect of pious and charitable works himself in works of piety; and what is more (to be silent on his wicked and dissolute practices), although he has learned to practice oppression to such a degree, he does not trouble himself to relieve those oppressed by injuries, by extending his hand, as a Christian prince ought, to bestow alms, although he has been eagerly aiming at the destruction of the churches, and has crushed religious men and other ecclesiastical persons with the burden and persecution of his yoke. And it is not known that he ever built or founded either churches, monasteries, hospitals, or other pious places. Now these are not light, but convincing, grounds for suspicions of heresy being entertained against him."...
When the Emperor Frederick was made fully aware of all these proceedings [i.e., his excommunication at Lyons] he could not contain himself, but burst into a violent rage and, darting a scowling look on those who sat around him, he thundered forth: "The Pope in his synod has disgraced me by depriving me of my crown. Whence arises such great audacity? Whence proceeds such rash presumption? Where are my chests which Frederick's wrath at his excommunication contain my treasures?" And on their being brought and unlocked before him, by his order, he said, "See if my crowns are lost now;" then finding one, he placed it on his head and, being thus crowned, he stood up, and, with threatening eyes and a dreadful voice, unrestrainable from passion, he said aloud, "I have not yet lost my crown, nor will I be deprived of it by any attacks of the Pope or the council, without a bloody struggle. Does his vulgar pride raise him to such heights as to enable him to hurl from the imperial dignity me, the chief prince of the world, than whom none is greater—yea, who am without an equal? In this matter my condition is made better: in some things I was bound to obey, at least to respect, him; but now I am released from all ties of affection and veneration, and also from the obligation of any kind of peace with him." From that time forth, therefore, he, in order to injure the Pope more effectually and perseveringly, did all kinds of harm to his Holiness, in his money, as well as in his friends and relatives.
72. The Golden Bull of Charles IV. (1356)
The century following the death of Frederick II. (1250) was a period of unrest and turbulence in German history, the net result of which politically was the almost complete triumph of the princes, lay and clerical, over the imperial power. By 1350 the local magnates had come to be virtually sovereign throughout their own territories. They enjoyed the right of legislation and the privileges of coining money and levying taxes, and in many cases they had scarcely so much as a feudal bond to remind them of their theoretical allegiance to the Empire. The one principle of action upon which they could agree was that the central monarchy should be kept permanently in the state of helplessness to which it had been reduced. The power of choosing a successor when a vacancy arose in the imperial office had fallen gradually into the hands of seven men, who were known as the "electors" and who were recognized in the fourteenth century as possessing collective importance far greater than that of the emperor. Three of these seven—the archbishops of Mainz, Trier, and Cologne—were great ecclesiastics; the other four—the king of Bohemia, the margrave of Brandenburg, the duke of Saxony, and the count palatine of the Rhine—were equally influential laymen. This electoral college first came into prominence at the election of Rudolph I. (of the House of Hapsburg) at the end of the Interregnum in 1273. From that time until the termination of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 these seven men (eight after 1648 and nine after 1692) played a part in German history not inferior to that of the emperors. They imposed upon their candidates such conditions as they chose, and when the bearer of the imperial title grew restive and difficult to control they did not hesitate to make war upon him, or even in extreme cases to depose him. It has been well said that never in all history have worse scandals been connected with any sort of elections than were associated repeatedly with the actions of these German electors.
The central document in German constitutional history in the Middle Ages is the Golden Bull of Emperor Charles IV. (1347-1378), promulgated in 1356. For a century prior to the reign of Charles the question of the imperial succession had been one of extreme perplexity. The electoral college had grown up to assume the responsibility, but this body rested on no solid legal basis and its acts were usually regarded as null by all whom they displeased, with the result that a civil war succeeded pretty nearly every election. Charles was shrewd enough to see that the existing system could not be set aside; the electors were entirely too powerful to permit of that. But he also saw that it might at least be improved by giving it the quality of legality which it had hitherto lacked. The result of his efforts in this direction was the Golden Bull, issued and confirmed at the diets of Nürnberg (Nuremberg) and Metz in 1356. The document, thenceforth regarded as the fundamental law of the Empire, dealt with a wide variety of subjects. It confirmed the electorship in the person of the king of Bohemia which had long been disputed by a rival branch of the family;[556] it made elaborate provision for the election of the emperor by the seven magnates; it defined the social and political prerogatives of these men and prescribed the relations which they should bear to their subjects, to other princes, and to the emperor; and it made numerous regulations regarding conspiracies, coinage, immunities, the forfeiture of fiefs, the succession of electoral princes, etc. In a word, as Mr. Bryce has put it, the document "confessed and legalized the independence of the Electors and the powerlessness of the crown."[557] Only a few selections from it can be given here, particularly those bearing on the methods of electing the emperor.
Source—Text in Wilhelm Altmann und Ernst Bernheim, Ausgewählte Urkunden zur Erläuterung der Verfassungsgeschichte Deutschlands im Mittelalter ["Select Documents Illustrative of the Constitutional History of Germany in the Middle Ages">[, 3rd ed., Berlin, 1904, pp. 54-83. Adapted from translation in Oliver J. Thatcher and Edgar H. McNeal, Source Book for Mediæval History (New York, 1905), pp. 284-295 passim.
I. 1. We decree and determine by this imperial edict that, whenever the electoral princes are summoned according to the ancient and praiseworthy custom to meet and elect a king of the Romans and future emperor, each one of them shall be bound Guarantee of safety of travel for the electors to furnish on demand an escort and safe-conduct to his fellow electors or their representatives, within his own lands and as much farther as he can, for the journey to and from the city where the election is to be held. Any electoral prince who refuses to furnish escort and safe-conduct shall be liable to the penalties for perjury and to the loss of his electoral vote for that occasion.
2. We decree and command also that all other princes who hold fiefs from the Empire, by whatever title, and all counts, barons, knights, clients, nobles, commoners, citizens, and all corporations of towns, cities, and territories of the Empire, shall furnish escort and safe-conduct for this occasion to every electoral prince or his representatives, on demand, within their own lands and as much farther as they can. Violators of this decree shall be punished as follows: princes, counts, barons, knights, Penalties for violation of the safe-conduct of the electors clients, and all others of noble rank, shall suffer the penalties of perjury, and shall lose the fiefs which they hold of the emperor or any other lord, and all their possessions; citizens and corporations shall also suffer the penalty for perjury, shall be deprived of all the rights, liberties, privileges, and graces which they have received from the Empire, and shall incur the ban of the Empire against their persons and property. Those whom we deprive of their rights for this offense may be attacked by any man without appealing to a magistrate, and without danger of reprisal; for they are rebels against the state and the Empire, and have attacked the honor and security of the prince, and are convicted of faithlessness and perfidy.