CHAP. VII. explanation. No one, however, who examines mediaeval writings can fail to perceive, sometimes from direct words, oftener from allusions or assumptions, that such ideas as these are present to the minds of the authors. That which stands out most clearly is the connection of the Empire with religion. From every record, from chronicles and treatises, proclamations, laws, and sermons, passages may be adduced wherein the defence and spread of the faith, and the maintenance of concord among the Christian people, are represented as the function to which the Empire has been set apart. The belief expressed by Lewis II, 'Imperii dignitas non in vocabuli nomine sed in culmine pietatis gloriosae consistit,' appears again in the address of the archbishop of Mentz to Conrad II, as Vicar of God; is reiterated by Frederick I, when he writes to the prelates of Germany, 'On earth God has placed no more than two powers, and as there is in heaven but one God, so is there here one Pope and one Emperor. Divine providence has specially appointed the Roman Empire to prevent the continuance of schism in the Church;'

е

is

d See especially Peter de Andlau (De Imperio Romano); Dante (De Monarchia); Engelbert (De Ortu Progressu et Fine Imperii Romani); Landolfo Colonna (De translatione Imperii Romani); Marsilius Patavinus (De translatione Imperii Romani); Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (De Ortu et Authoritate Imperii Romani); Zoannetus (De Imperio Romano atque eius Iurisdictione); and the writers in Schardius's Sylloge Tractatuum, and in Goldast's Collection of Tracts, entitled Monarchia Imperii.

e Letter of Lewis II to Basil the Macedonian, in Chron. Salernit. in Pertz, M. G. H., Script. iii. p. 521 (c. 106), also given by Baronius, Ann. Eccl., ad ann. 871.

f'Ad summum dignitatis pervenisti: Vicarius es Christi.'- Wippo, Vita Chuonradi, ap. Pertz, M. G. H., Script. ii. p. 260 (c. 3).

8 Letter in Radewic or Rahewin, ap. Pertz, M. G. H., Script. xx. p. 476 (bk. iv. c. 56).

h Lewis IV is styled in one of his proclamations, 'Gentis humanae, orbis Christiani custos, urbi et orbi a Deo electus praeesse.' - Pfeffinger, Vitriarius Illustratus.

echoed by jurists and divines down to the days of Charles CHAP. VII. V. It was a doctrine which we shall find the friends and opponents of the Holy See equally concerned to insist on

the one party to make the transference (translatio) of the imperial dignity 'from the Greeks to the Germans' appear entirely the Pope's work, and thereby to establish his right of overseeing or cancelling the election of an Emperor; the others, by setting the Emperor at the head of the whole congregation of Christians, to reduce the bishop of the capital to a place in the world-realm similar to that held by the primate in each of the countries of Christendom.' The Emperor's headship was deemed to stand out and be exerciseable chiefly in the two duties already noticed. As Defender of the Faith-the counterpart of the Musulman Commander of the Faithful he was leader of the Church militant against her infidel foes, was in this capacity summoned to conduct crusades, and in later times recognized chief of the confederacies against the conquering Ottomans. As representative of the whole Christian people, it belonged to him to convoke General Councils, a right not without importance even when exercised concurrently with the Pope, but far more weighty when the object of the Council was to settle a disputed election, or, as at Constance, to depose reigning pontiffs themselves.

No better illustrations can be desired than those to

1 In a document issued by the Diet of Speyer (A.D. 1529) the Emperor is called 'Oberst Vogt, und Haupt der Christenheit.' Hieronymus Balbus, writing about the same time, puts the question whether all Christians are subject to the Emperor in temporal things, as they are to the Pope in spiritual, and answers it by saying, 'Cum ambo ex eodem fonte perfluxerint et eadem semita incedant, de utroque idem puto sentiendum.'

j'Non magis ad Papam depositio seu remotio pertinet quam ad quoslibet regum praelatos, qui reges suos prout assolent, consecrant et inungunt.'Letter of Frederick II (lib. i. c. 3).

CHAP. VII.

The coronation ceremonies.

The rights

the Bible.

be found in the Office for the imperial coronation at Rome, too long to be transcribed here, but well worthy of an attentive study. The rites prescribed in it are rites of consecration to a religious office: the Emperor, besides the sword, globe, and sceptre of temporal power, receives a ring as the symbol of his faith, is ordained a subdeacon, assists the Pope in celebrating mass, partakes as a clerical person of the communion in both kinds, is admitted a canon of St. Peter and St. John Lateran. The oath to be taken by an elector begins, 'Ego N. volo regem Romanorum in Caesarem promovendum, temporale caput populo Christiano eligere.' The Emperor swears to cherish and defend the Holy Roman Church and her bishop: the Pope prays after the reading of the Gospel, 'Deus qui ad praedicandum aeterni regni evangelium Imperium Romanum praeparasti,' praetende famulo tuo Imperatori nostro arma coelestia.' Among the Emperor's official titles there occur these: Head of Christendom,' 'Defender and Advocate of the Christian Church,' 'Temporal Head of the Faithful,' 'Protector of Palestine and of the Catholic Faith.' m

Very singular are the reasonings by which the necessity of the Empire and divine right of the Empire are proved out of the proved from Bible. The mediaeval theory of the relation of the civil power to the priestly was profoundly influenced by the account in the Old Testament of the Jewish theocracy, in which the king, though the institution of his office is described as being a derogation from the purity of the older system, appears divinely chosen and com

Liber Ceremonialis Romanus, lib. i. sect. 5; with which compare the Coronatio Romana of Henry VII, in Pertz, M. G. H., Legg. ii. 1, pp. 528-537, and Muratori's Dissertation in vol. i. of the Antiquitates Italiae Medii Aevi. 1 See, for another prayer, Note VII at end.

m See Goldast, Collection of Imperial Constitutions; and Moser, Römische Kayser.

missioned, and stood in a peculiarly intimate relation CHAP. VII. to the national religion. From the New Testament the authority and eternity of Rome herself was established. Every passage was seized on where submission to the powers that be is enjoined, every instance cited where obedience had actually been rendered to imperial officials, a special emphasis being laid on the sanction which Christ Himself had given to Roman dominion by pacifying the world through Augustus, by being born at the time of the taxing, by paying tribute to Caesar, by saying to Pilate, 'Thou couldest have no power at all against Me except it were given thee from above.'

More attractive to the mystical spirit than these direct arguments were those drawn from prophecy, or based on the allegorical interpretation of Scripture. Very early in Christian history had the belief formed itself that the Roman Empire-as the fourth beast of Daniel's vision, as the iron legs and feet of Nebuchadnezzar's imagewas to be the world's last and universal kingdom. From Origen and Jerome downwards it found unquestioned acceptance," and that not unnaturally. For no new power had arisen to extinguish the Roman, as the Persian monarchy had been blotted out by Alexander, as the realms of his successors had fallen before the conquering republic herself. Every Northern conqueror, Goth, Lombard, Burgundian, had cherished her memory and preserved her laws; Germany had adopted even the name of the Empire 'dreadful and terrible and strong exceedingly, and diverse from all that were before it.' To these predictions, and to many others from the Apocalypse, were added those which in the Gospels and Epistles foretold the advent of Antichrist." He was to succeed the Roman dominion, and the Popes are more than once warned that by weakening

n See Note VIII at end.

CHAP. VII.

the Empire they are hastening the coming of the enemy and the end of the world. It is not only when groping in the dark labyrinths of prophecy that mediaeval authors are quick in detecting emblems, imaginative in explaining them. Men were wont in those days to interpret Scripture in a singular fashion. As it did not occur to them to ask what meaning words had to those to whom they were originally addressed, so they were quite as careless whether the sense they discovered was one which the language used would primarily and naturally bear to any reader at any time. No analogy was too faint, no allegory too fanciful, to be drawn out of a simple text; and, once propounded, the interpretation acquired in argument all the authority of the text itself. Melchizedek is both priest and king; therefore the Pope has regal as well as ecclesiastical authority. The two swords of which Christ said, 'It is enough,' are the spiritual and temporal powers, and the grant of the spiritual to Peter involves the supremacy of the Papacy." Thus one writer proves the eternity of Rome from the seventy-second Psalm, 'They shall fear thee as long as the sun and moon endure, throughout all generations; the moon being of course, since Gregory VII, the Roman Empire, as the sun, or greater light, is the Popedom. Another quoting, 'Qui tenet teneat donec auferatur (he who now letteth will let until he be taken out of the way),'P with Augustine's explanation thereof," says, that when he who letteth' is removed, tribes and

• Papalists often insisted that both swords were given to Peter, while Imperialists assigned the temporal sword to John. Thus a gloss to the Sachsenspiegel says, 'Dat eine svert hadde Sinte Peter, dat het nu de paves: dat andere hadde Johannes, dat het nu de keyser.'

p 2 Thess. ii. 7.

a St. Augustine, however, though his commentary states the view (applying the passage to the Roman Empire) which was thereafter generally received, is careful not to commit himself positively to it.