On Christmas eve, 1046, Suidger, Bishop of Bamberg, was proposed by the emperor to the Roman clergy and people, and by them elected pope, taking the name of Clement II. He was enthroned on Christmas day, and on the same day crowned the emperor and empress, and, as a safeguard against the abuse of the power of the Roman patrician by the Italian barons, it was transferred to the emperor, who was thus made the recognized head of the Roman aristocracy, with a special right of superintending the election of the sovereign pontiffs. From this moment commenced the dawn of better and brighter days for Rome. The great work of reformation was begun by Clement; and, although his reign lasted but one year, and his successor, another German prelate of high character—Poppo, Bishop of Brixen, who became Damasus II.—survived his enthronization but twenty-three days, a saint was waiting to inaugurate the glorious series of the Hildebrandine popes.
Bruno, Bishop of Toul, who was St. Leo IX., having after long resistance been persuaded by the emperor and the most eminent prelates to consent to assume the tiara, stopped at Cluny to see Hildebrand, a young monk, who became St. Gregory VII. With difficulty he induced him to accompany him to Rome, on the condition that he would make the journey in pilgrim’s garb, and submit the imperial nomination without reserve to the free election of the clergy and people of the Roman Church. He was enthroned on the 12th of February, which was the first Sunday of Lent, 1049. The eleventh century was at its zenith, and the bright sun of a new era shed its rays upon Christendom, as a new St. Leo sat upon the throne of St. Peter, St. Leo the Great, St. Gregory, and St. Nicholas, chasing away the darkness and the clouds of the tenth century, and putting an end to the period of the obnubilation of the Roman Church.
We have confined our attention almost entirely to the local history of the popes, without noticing their administration of the universal church. The general ecclesiastical history of the whole period between St. Nicholas I. and St. Gregory VII. furnishes abundant proof of the universal recognition and continuous exercise of the papal supremacy in the East as well as in the West. Adrian II. celebrated the eighth œcumenical council at Constantinople in 870. John VIII., John X., and John XV. exercised throughout Europe the same spiritual authority which was exercised by Nicholas the Great. The local difficulties of the popes, and even the scandals which disturbed the Roman Church, had no effect throughout Christendom to diminish the authority of the Roman See. During the general anarchy and chaos caused by the new irruption of barbarians the unity and common life of Christendom was oppressed and enfeebled, and the corporate, organic action of the universal church could not manifest itself so vigorously as it had done before and did afterwards. When all the evils which had attacked the church and Christendom at the very centre of life in Rome reached their crisis in the pontificate of Benedict IX., it was certainly felt by all good and honest men that the very existence of the Papacy and the Catholic Church, of the whole European society, and of all civilization, morality, and order on the earth, was in imminent danger. The spectacle of a youth who was no better in morals, and no stronger in intellectual or princely qualities, than the weakest and most dissolute of the Carlovingian monarchs, seated on the throne of St. Peter, shocked and scandalized Christendom to such an extent that the loud outcry has not yet ceased to resound in our ears. Yet we perceive in the action of the Council of Sutri, and of the emperor, Henry III., in respect to Gregory VI., one of the most signal and splendid testimonies to the undoubting and unshaken faith of that age in the supremacy of the pope. Sylvester was judged and condemned to perpetual imprisonment as an intruder and a pseudo-pope. Benedict was set aside, not because the council pretended to judge him for his conduct while pope, but because he had executed a legal and valid abdication of his office. In respect to Gregory, the council examined and judged of nothing except the validity of his election, and, this being ascertained, left the judgment of his own case to his own supreme authority, to his conscience, and to Almighty God.
Just one rapid and parting glance we must cast over Christendom, to take in by a general view its movement through this segment of the great cycle of time, and the state into which it had grown in the middle of the eleventh century. The great barbarian and heathen irruption into Christian Europe was like the casting of an immense mass of fresh coals upon a glowing but gradually-expiring fire in a great foundry furnace. The general aspect was black and dead, and the momentary effect was a suspension of the great works commenced, but the result was a rapid kindling from the burning bed beneath, a stronger and hotter fire, and a more vigorous resumption of operations. The threatened Mohammedan conquest of Europe was averted, the Hungarian invasion completely and finally repelled, the Scandinavian eruptions changed into a most beneficial colonization and infusion of a new element of strength. Many other most remarkable and salutary political and social transformations were effected. The Scandinavians, Hungarians, Russians, and other Sclavonian nations were converted and added to the church. A beginning was made with the Prussians, even, by the martyrdom of their first apostle, St. Adalbert, although the work was not completed until near the close of the thirteenth century and proved to be short-lived. Since they have resumed the persecution of bishops, there may be, perhaps, a hope of their reconversion.
The calendars of the two centuries from 850 to 1050 are crowded with the names of great saints and other illustrious men and women. Among the popes flourished St. Leo IV., founder of the Leonine City, St. Nicholas I., John X., Benedict VIII., and Sylvester II. Among the emperors and kings we may single out Berenger, Henry the Fowler, Otho the Great, St. Henry II., Hugh Capet, Robert, Alfred, Canute, Edward the Confessor; Edward and Edmund, martyrs; Brian Boroihme, Ferdinand, St. Stephen, St. Olaf, Rollo, and Wladimir. In the brilliant group of Christian empresses and queens shine with special lustre Theodora, St. Adelaide, St. Cunegunda, St. Matilda, Theophania, and Olga. As illustrious specimens of the great number of bishops and abbots of high virtue and merit, we mention St. Anscharius, St. Methodius, St. Ignatius of Constantinople, St. Dunstan, St. Odo of Cluny, and St. Romuald. These two centuries contributed but little to the treasury of literature. There is, nevertheless, a considerable list of authors, among whom are worthy of mention Nithart, Flodoard, Suidas, Pascharius Radbert, Wuthikind the German annalist, and John Scotus Erigena. One of the most gifted and clever of the Latins, Luitprand, and the most intelligent and erudite of the Greeks, Photius, were unhappily both so morally despicable that they reflect disgrace rather than honor upon their age.
The epoch we are considering was more remarkable for action than for writing. The vast and strong foundations were laid for the future superstructure. Empires and kingdoms, smaller states, cities, towns, universities, monasteries, and great churches, rose in majesty during the latter part of this epoch upon the ruins made during its earlier period, or upon heretofore waste and desert land. The glorious orders of Cluny and Camaldoli, the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Cordova, several of the great minsters, and the first efforts of the new school of Christian art date from this period. It made scanty records of its own history, but it is crowded with the richest materials for the student and the literary artist. M. Ozanam projected a course of lectures at the Sorbonne covering the whole space from the fifth to the fourteenth centuries, but executed only the first and last part of his programme. The middle portion still lies open to any one worthy to complete his work. The Iron Age is worthy of more study than has been given to it, and, when it is carefully examined, there are many great discoveries to be made concerning the ages which preceded as well as those which have followed this hard era. When will intelligent Englishmen and Americans begin to read history and find out how they have been duped? When will the wretched little manuals such as Mrs. Markham’s History of England be driven out of our schools and children’s libraries and replaced by books which tell the truth? Let us lay bare history and search for the hard foundations of society and civilization, and we shall see with ocular evidence that the converging and diverging lines of all the centuries have but two centres, Jerusalem and Rome. The rocky height of Jebus, which David carried by craft and valor; the Capitoline Hill, where Romulus and Numa laid the foundations of Rome, are in the cycle of history what the two foci are in an ellipse. When the fortunes of Juda are at their lowest point, the supernatural providence of God over that royal tribe and the house of David is most signally manifested. It is impossible to read intelligently the history of the Roman See and the popes without perceiving a providence of a higher order, working on a more sublime plane, in the disasters as well as in the glories and triumphs of the New Jerusalem and its line of priestly kings, the vicegerents of David’s royal Son and Lord. The supernatural providence manifest in the destinies of Rome and its dependent Christendom makes also the supernatural end toward which God is conducting mankind equally manifest. The search after natural causes without regard to the first cause being proved absurd, the search for natural effects without respect to the final cause is equally absurd. The ideal kingdom on earth is not to be found. Not only are we unable to find it realized, we cannot even find a tendency toward a future realization. Royal power, national greatness, the achievements of art and science, the external order and splendor of the church, are all, manifestly, only means, and the end is in the spiritual order, in the souls of individual men. Everything external and temporal is built on the shifting, unstable sand of human free-will, and is therefore evanescent and changeable. The only permanent and eternal result is in the great, unknown mass of human beings who have found the gate and the way to the kingdom of heaven, and in the élite of the human race who have found the way to its highest places and wear its brightest crowns. The earth is only a palæstra, a school, an ingenious contrivance of divine art for the acquisition and exercise of virtue, for gaining merit, for nurturing the childhood of the destined citizens of the true and eternal city of God—Cœlestis Urbs, Jerusalem. The whole order of divine Providence in the church and the world, and its chief intention, must be changed, if any ideal and stable state of perfection is established on the earth; for this would require that no longer free scope should be given to the liberty of the human will. We conclude, therefore, that future ages will not differ essentially from those which are past. As the fourth and the seventh centuries differ, as the tenth and thirteenth, the fifteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries mutually differ, so there are possible cycles of change from worse to better, or the reverse, so long as the world continues. There is a perpetual progress toward that consummation which God has in view. But there is no change in the militant state of the Catholic Church. We are informed by divine revelation that the earthly sovereignty of Jesus Christ will continue only so long as he has enemies to conquer, and that when his conquest is completed he will give up this kingdom to the Father, that God may be all in all. His eternal reign, in which all the elect will share, consists in the glory won by merit. All the rest is only scaffolding to be torn down and thrown away for fire-wood; it is scenery and stage-costume, of no use when the play is over. The lessons of history teach us to discern all the illusions which have deceived past ages; if we are wise we shall learn also not to make new illusions for the future. We shall fear nothing for the eternal cause of truth and right, and we shall have no fanciful hopes of a coming millennium. We shall learn the one needful and useful maxim that all effort is a waste of time, except the one effort to make ourselves and others better and more virtuous.
SIX SUNNY MONTHS.
BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE HOUSE OF YORKE,” “GRAPES AND THORNS,” ETC.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE RAVEN AND THE DOVE.
CONCLUSION.
The morning they started for Monte Cassino the Signora had a Mass said for her intention, and the intention was that she might be enabled to decide speedily on her state of life, and to decide so clearly and wisely as never again to have a doubt about it. Never had she been nearer to accepting Mr. Vane, and never had she been more tremblingly afraid of doing so. The suspense and trouble were becoming intolerable. She felt that it must be settled within these three days.
But no sooner was the journey begun than all else was lost sight of. It was impossible to pass with a preoccupied mind amid all that beauty; impossible not to feel one’s individual life dwindle in view of the life of centuries there made visible. The Campagna slipped past like an old monotonous song that has been sung over one’s cradle, and heard in quiet intervals all up the years, till every note has grown to be something more than a simple sound, and is rather a long series of octaves caught along the heart-strings. Then
“The old miraculous mountains heaved in sight,”