Thereupon the synod pronounced judgment: Ebbo was to cease to discharge the functions of a bishop. Ebbo’s adversaries considered his declaration as an authentic and valid form of resignation.
It is a striking fact that this declaration was acted upon and that no successor to Ebbo was appointed. It was considered sufficient to entrust the duties of the office to a presbyter. The resignation was not regarded as sufficiently valid to enable the synod to declare the see vacant. The emperor had negotiations with Pope Gregory IV on the point. Let us record the characteristic features of these events. Manifold claims, extending from the present to the future, were in conflict, and the territorial shape that the great empire should eventually adopt was involved. Everything was in a state of unrest; not only were property and authority constantly changing hands, but the highest principles of government were involved in questions as to whether the emperor could be deposed or not, and whether the clergy could maintain their autonomy under the emperor now restored to power, or whether they must again surrender it. The pope, closely as the matter affected him, hesitated to deliver an opinion on the point. He refused to identify himself with the excommunication, but from sympathy for the clergy would not endorse the sentence passed by the emperor upon one of his chief adversaries.
As the fundamental doctrine, according to which the clergy could not be cited before a secular tribunal, had initiated the proceedings against the emperor Louis, so it was kept in view at the restoration of the imperial power. The emperor had contrived to have that excommunication declared null and void. He was unable to punish the chief instigator by formal judgment of the court, but he managed to have him deprived of his office. As in the conflict with his sons, so also in his struggle with the bishops, he was able to regard himself as victor. Wala likewise yielded; he had energetically promoted Lothair’s submission.
[837-840 A.D.]
The emperor Louis was permitted to enjoy a few years of peace, during which he was the object of general respect. His chief care was to leave his youngest son an adequate competence. To this son was appointed in the year 837 a realm composed of north German and Roman elements extending from the Weser to the Loire, having Paris for its centre, so that we have four realms to take into account, namely, Germania, Italy, Aquitania, and the territory appointed for Charles, which must properly be regarded as Frankish. The death of Pepin, which took place in December, 838, was, therefore, an event of paramount importance. Neither the emperor nor his magnates were inclined to recognise his sons as his heirs. Lothair, who had not only been promised the reversion of the empire in his own person, but also the participation with Charles in the remaining provinces, was won over to this view. Aquitania was now apportioned to Charles, but with the prospect of a fresh division of the realm to the prejudice of the German Ludwig, whom the emperor wished again to deprive of the trans-Rhenish provinces he had hitherto possessed. The result was a violent dispute between them tending towards a bloody issue.
At this moment, when everything appeared to be culminating in a fresh crisis, Louis the Pious (or Débonnaire) died, on the 20th of June, 840. A striking example of contrast between a great father and a less gifted, though by no means an incapable, son.
Louis had won his spurs as a sort of viceroy to Charles, and certain merits were his, particularly his conduct with regard to the mark of Spain, though he always acted in dependence upon the higher controlling authority. But the task of independently wielding the supreme power after his father’s death was beyond his powers. He lacked the living imagination which alone could weld together divergent elements, and thus maintain the supreme power and secure the existence of the empire for the future. At first he followed the impulses he received from Charlemagne’s old advisers, but afterwards was guided by the contrary influences of the second family, with which he had surrounded himself.
So he found himself entangled in the machinations of the factions which were arising around him at the very outset of the conflict. He came into open feud with his nearest relatives, of whom some followed one direction and the others another. It is not probable that he failed through excessive good nature; we have seen how he recoiled from the pressure of hostile elements, calmly bore everything and yielded; but he never yielded in the main point, but awaited the moment when he could reassert his rights. Moreover, he never ceased thinking how to mete out punishment to his enemies; he identified the empire with his own person.
But less important than the secular was the ecclesiastical complication in which he became entangled. By not keeping the arrogance of the secular magnates within proper limits, he aroused the pretensions of the ecclesiastical hierarchy which, under his rule, reached their full development. They were aimed not only at the existence but at the very idea of empire. And perhaps one might be allowed to say everything happened just as it was bound to happen. The elements that were striving for independence were in existence. Louis was not the man to repel and curb them to their old obedience. In attempting to do so he found that he was the weaker, and he had, consequently, to experience the tortures that disputed authority has to endure in times of faction. He was not able to harmonise the tenure of supreme power with the claims of the right of succession.
The epoch is characterised by the complication of the disputes for succession and an attempt to raise the ecclesiastical power to a position of preponderating prestige in the empire. It is Louis’ merit, that neither in one case nor the other did he permit his authority to succumb. He never allowed his jurisdiction over the clergy to be wrested from him, and relying upon the good will of his people always managed to maintain his tenure of the imperium. At his death he bequeathed the insignia of the realm to his eldest son.[c]