the Papacy and the Their relations were, however, no longer the same. If CHAP. X. the Frank vaunted conquest, the priest spoke only of free gift. What Christendom saw was that Charles was crowned Relations of by the Pope's hands, and undertook as his principal duty the protection and advancement of the Holy Roman Empire. Church. The circumstances of Otto the Great's coronation gave an even more favourable opening to sacerdotal claims, for it was a Pope who summoned him to Rome and a Pope who received from him an oath of fidelity and aid, as it had been through the action of successive pontiffs that the fleeting Emperors of the preceding hundred years had each obtained the crown. In the conflict of three powers, the Emperor, the pontiff, and the people represented by their senate and consuls, or by the demagogue of the hour- the most steady, prudent, and far-sighted was sure eventually to prevail. The Popedom had no minorities, as yet few disputed successions, few revolts within its own army- the host of churchmen through Europe. The conversion of Germany by the English Wilfrid (St. Boniface), under its direct sanction, gave it a hold on the rising hierarchy of the greatest European state; the extension of the rule of Charles and Otto diffused in the same measure its emissaries and pretensions. The first disputes turned on the right of the prince to confirm the elected pontiff, which was afterwards supposed to have been granted by Hadrian I to Charles, in the decree quoted as 'Hadrianus Papa.' This 'ius eligendi et ordinandi summum pontificem,' which Lewis I appears as abandoning by the 'Ego Ludovicus,' was claimed by the Carolingians whenever they felt themselves strong enough, and having fallen into desuetude in the troublous times of the Italian Emperors, was formally renewed to Otto • Corpus Iuris Canonici, Dist. lxiii. c. 22. a Dist. lxiii. c. 30. This decree is, however, probably spurious. CHAP. X. the Great by his nominee Leo VIII. We have seen it used, and used in the purest spirit, by Otto himself, by his grandson Otto III, last of all, and most autocratically, by Henry III. Along with it there had grown up a bold counter-assumption of the papal chair to be itself the source of the imperial dignity. In submitting to a fresh coronation by the Pope, Lewis the Pious tacitly admitted the invalidity of that previously performed by his father: Charles the Bald did not scout the arrogant declaration of John VIII, that to him alone the Emperor owed his crown; and the council of Pavia, when it chose that monarch king of Italy, repeated the assertion. Subsequent Popes knew better than to apply to the chiefs of Saxon and Franconian chivalry language which the feeble Neustrian had not resented; but the precedent remained, the weapon was only hid behind the pontifical robe to be flashed out with effect when the moment should come. There were also two other great steps which papal power had taken. By the invention or adoption of the False Decretals & it had provided itself with a legal system suited to any emergency, and which gave it unlimited authority through the Christian world in causes spiritual and over persons ecclesiastical. Canonistical ingenuity found it easy in one way or another to make this include all causes and persons whatsoever: for crime is always, and wrong is eNos elegimus merito et approbavimus una cum annisu et voto patrum amplique senatus et gentis togatae,' &c., ap. Baron. Ann. Eccl., ad ann. 876. f 'Divina vos pietas B. principum apostolorum Petri et Pauli interventione per vicarium ipsorum dominum Ioannem summum pontificem . . . ad imperiale culmen S. Spiritus iudicio provexit.' — Concil. Ticinense, in Mur. S. R. I. ii. part i. p. 150. These decrees attributed to early Councils and Popes were forged, probably in Gaul, about the middle of the ninth century, and before the eleventh had become accepted as authentic. The collection which passed under the name of Isidore contains some genuine matter with a great deal more palpably invented. often, sin, nor can aught be anywhere done which may CHAP. X. not affect the clergy. On the gifts of Pipin and Charles, Temporal repeated and confirmed by Lewis I, Charles II, Otto I, power of the Popes. and Otto III, and now made to rest on the more venerable authority of the first Christian Emperor, it could found claims to the sovereignty of Rome, Tuscany, and all else that had belonged to the exarchate. Indefinite in their terms, these grants were not meant by the donors to convey full political authority over the districts bestowed that belonged to the head of the Empirebut only, as in the case of other church estates, a sort of perpetual usufruct, a beneficial enjoyment which did not carry sovereignty, but might be deemed to carry a sort of feudal lordship over the tenants who dwelt upon the soil. They were, in fact, what we should call endowments. Nor had the gifts been ever actually reduced into possession: the Pope had been hitherto more frequently the victim than the lord of the neighbouring barons. The grants were, however, not denied, and might be made a formidable engine of attack. Appealing to them, the Pope could brand his opponents as unjust and impious; and could summon nobles and cities to defend him as their liege lord, just as, with no better original right, he subsequently invoked the help of the Norman conquerors of Naples and Sicily. The attitude of the Roman Church to the imperial power at Henry the Third's death was externally respectful. The title of a German king to receive the crown of the city was not seriously disputed and the Pope was his lawful subject. Hitherto the initiative in reform had come from the civil magistrate. But the secret of the pontiff's strength lay in this: he, and he alone, could confer the crown, and had therefore the right of imposing conditions on its recipient. Frequent interregna, while CHAP. X. Hildebran they had enabled the Pope to assume upon each occasion a more and more independent position, had prevented the power of the Transalpine sovereigns from taking firm. root. None of them could claim to reign by hereditary right none could deny that the holy Church had before sought and might again seek a defender elsewhere. And since the need of such defence had originated the 'transference of the Empire from the Greeks to the Franks,' since to render such defence was the Emperor's chief function, the Pope might surely hold it to be his duty as well as his right to see that the candidate was capable of fulfilling his task, to reject him if he neglected or misperformed it. The first step was to remove a blemish in the constitudine reforms. tion of the Church, by fixing a defined body to choose the supreme pontiff. This Nicholas II did in A.D. 1059, under the counsel and impulse of the archdeacon Hildebrand. His decree vested the election in the college of cardinals, while it contemplated the subsequent assent of the clergy and people of Rome and reserved the rights of Henry IV and more vaguely of his successors." Then the reforming spirit, kindled by the abuses and depravity of the last century, advanced apace. Directed by Hildebrand, who after having exerted a predominant influence during two pontificates himself became Pope as Gregory the Seventh in A.D. 1073, it strove for two main objects -the enforcement of celibacy, especially on the secular clergy, who enjoyed in this respect considerable freedom; and the extinction of simony. In the former, the Em h Even Hildebrand when elected recognized these rights. It was at this time (A.D. 1059) that the same Pope, by investing the Norman Robert Wiscard with the title of duke of Apulia and Calabria as a fief of the Holy See, provided for his successors in the chair of Peter an ally whose help was to prove invaluable to them. i The sin of Simon (Acts viii. 18-24) was deemed to include the employment of any corrupt means to obtain preferment to an ecclesiastical office. perors and part of the laity were not unwilling to join: CHAP. X. the latter no one dared to defend in theory. But when A.D. 1075. Gregory declared that it was sin for the ecclesiastic to receive his benefice under conditions from a layman, and so condemned the whole system of the feudal investitures of land to the clergy, he aimed a deadly blow at the authority of every secular ruler. Half of the land and wealth of Germany was in the hands of bishops and abbots, who would now be freed from the Emperor's control to pass under that of the Pope. In such a state of things government itself would be impossible. and Gre gory VII. Henry and Gregory already mistrusted each other: Henry IV after this decree war was inevitable. The Pope cited his opponent to appear and be judged at Rome for his vices and misgovernment. The Emperor' replied by convoking a synod, which deposed and insulted Gregory. At once the dauntless monk pronounced Henry excommunicate, and fixed a day on which, if still unrepentant, he should cease to reign. Supported by his own princes, the monarch might have defied a command backed by no external force; but the Saxons, never contented since the first place had passed from their own dukes to the Franconians, only waited the signal to burst into a new revolt, whilst through all Germany the Emperor's tyranny and irregularities of life had sown the seeds of disaffection. Shunned, betrayed, threatened, he rushed into what seemed the only course left, and Canosa saw Europe's mightiest A.D. 1077. prince, titular lord of the world, a suppliant before the successor of the Apostle. Henry soon found that his humiliation had not served him; driven back into opposition, he defied Gregory anew, set up an anti-pope, overthrew the rival whom his rebellious subjects had raised, j Strictly speaking, Henry was at this time only king of the Romans: he was not crowned Emperor at Rome till 1084. |