The differences which arose and lasted so long between the popes and the emperors of Germany are constantly misrepresented by writers adverse to the Church. Their origin lay in the attachment of the Roman pontiffs to principles which they can never abandon. The investiture quarrel was a long struggle of spiritual authority against imperial aggression, and the apparent compromise in which it issued left the divine prerogatives of the Holy See intact. Simony was one great plague of the middle ages, and but for the popes the princes of Europe would have filled the Lord's temple with impious traffic. But for the popes, too, many of them would have been unchecked in their proud dreams of universal empire, which, if realized, would have been as injurious to the liberties of mankind as to the free action of the church. Frederick II., who was born in Italy, and lived to spend long years in its delicious climate, without once visiting his German domains, desired to establish in her the throne of the Caesars. This was the secret of all his disputes with the pope, and this ambitious project every successor of St. Peter felt bound to resist. But amid all these struggles, from Gregory VII. to Calistus II., the life of the church was a continual child-bearing, and while the popes battled with crowned princes, they labored also for the souls of the poor. If you would find the inexhaustible mine of that salt which keeps the whole world from corruption, you must seek it in the hill where Paul was buried, and Peter expired on his inverted cross. Proceeding thus by regular stages in the work of improvement, the Roman Church had the satisfaction of seeing every formula of enfranchisement signed by prince or baron in the name of religion. It was [{649}] always with some Christian idea, some hope of future recompense, some recognition of the equality of all men in the sight of God, that the strong voluntarily loosened the bonds of the weak. Absurd and barbarous legislation was gradually reformed under the same influence; and trials by single combat, oaths without evidence, and passing through fire or cold water as a test of innocence, were supplanted by more rational processes. M. Gnizot has pointed out the great superiority of the laws of the Visigoths over those of other barbarous people around them; and he ascribes this difference to their having been drawn up under the direction of the Councils of Toledo. They laid great stress on the examination of written documents in all trials, accepted mere affirmation on oath only as a last resource, and distinguished between the different degrees of guilt in homicide, with or without premeditation, provoked or unprovoked, and the like. If M. Guizot's observation is well founded in the case of an Arian code, how much more weight would it have, if made in reference to laws framed under Catholic influence. Civilization and theology went hand in hand. Every question was considered in its theological bearing. The habits, the feelings, and the language of men continually bespoke religious ideas. Barbaric wisdom was guided by the Star of the East to Bethlehem, and matured in the school of Christ. The public penances imposed by the church became the form to which penal inflictions were moulded by the law; the repentance of the culprit, and the fear of offending inspired in bystanders, being the twofold object kept in view. The progress made by the nations under such tutelage has been allowed by many Protestant historians, and it would be easy to cite the testimony of Robertson, Sismondi, Leibnitz, Coquerel, Ancillon, [Footnote 155] and De Muller, [Footnote 156] to the truth of our statements. Duels in the middle ages, and even down to the time of Louis XIV., raged like an epidemic, produced deadly feuds between families, abolished all just decision of disputes, and gave the advantage to the more agile and skilful of the combatants. From 1589 to 1607 no less than 4000 French gentleman lost their lives in duels. [Footnote 157] The genius of Sully and Richelieu was unequal to the task of crushing this two-fold crime of suicide and murder. But the church had never ceased to denounce it, and, in the Council of Trent especially, launched all her thunders against it. [Footnote 158] At length temporal princes were guided by her voice in this matter. Charles V. forbade it in his vast dominions; in Portugal it was punished with confiscation and banishment to Africa; and in Sweden it was visited with death.
[Footnote 155: Tableau des Révolutions.]
[Footnote 156: Hist. Universelle.]
[Footnote 157: Bell on Feudalism.]
[Footnote 158: Sess. xxv. c. 19.]
The pitiless character of human legislation was exhibited for ages in the practice of refusing those who were condemned to death the privilege of confession; and it was not till the reign of Philip the Bold, in 1397, that this cruel restriction was removed. The church had always protested against it, and her remonstrances at last prevailed. Chivalry itself owed something to her inspiration. Mingled as it was with rudeness and violence, it had also many noble elements, which religion encouraged. It was a step toward higher civilization, because it vindicated the dignity of womankind; true gallantry sprang from honest purposes and virtuous conduct, and if Sir Galahad said--
"My good blade carves the casques of men,
My tough lance thrusteth sure,"
he added--
"My strength is as the strength of ten,
Because my heart is pure. "
Sir James Stephen, in a paper on St. Gregory VII., [Footnote 159] has avowed his conviction that the centralization of the ecclesiastical power did more than counterbalance the isolating tendency of feudal oligarchies. But for the [{650}] intervention of the papacy, he says, the vassal of the west, and the serf of eastern Europe would, perhaps to this day be in the same state of social debasement, and military autocrats would occupy the place of paternal and constitutional governments. Feudal despotism strove to debase men into wild beasts or beasts of burden, while "the despotism of Hildebrand," whether consistent or no, sought to guide the human race by moral impulses to sanctity more than human. If the popes had abandoned the work assigned them by Providence, they would have plunged the church and world into hopeless bondage. St. Gregory VII. found the papacy dependent on the empire, and he supported it by alliances with Italian princes. He found the chair of the apostles filled, when vacant, by the clergy and the people of Rome, and he provided for less stormy elections by making the pope eligible by a college of his own nomination. He found the Holy See in subjection to Henry, and he rescued it from his hands. He found the secular clergy subservient to lay influence, and he rendered them free and active auxiliaries of his own authority. He found the highest dignitaries of the church the slaves of temporal sovereigns, and he delivered them from this yoke, and bound them to the tiara. He found ecclesiastical functions and benefices the spoil and traffic of princes, and he brought them back to the control of the sovereign pontiff; He is justly celebrated as the reformer of the profane and licentious abuses of his time, and we owe him the praise also of having left the impress of his giant character on the history of the ages that followed. Such are the candid admissions of a professor in the University of Cambridge. The highest eulogies of Rome are often to be found in the writings of aliens.