Chapter 6

FOOTNOTES:[140]Ep., lxxxiii., xcii., and cviii.[141]Ep., lxv.[142]Ep., lxxix.[143]Ep., vi.[144]Ep., xii.[145]Ep., cxxxv.[146]Ep., cxv.[147]An excellent analysis of his ideas is given in Dr. A. Greinacher'sDie Anschaungen des Papstes Nikolaus I. über das Verhältniss von Staat und Kirche(1909).[148]Ep., iv.[149]Ep., xii. and xiii.[150]Ep., xlvi.[151]Ep., lxxxvi.[152]Ep., ii.[153]The best account is in theAnnals of St. Berlin, in theMonumenta Germaniæ Historica, vol. i.[154]Ep., lxxxiii.[155]It is, at least, generally believed that Hincmar wrote this part of theBertinian Annals.[156]Bertinian Annals, year 865.[157]Ep., xxxiii.[158]Ep., xxxiv.[159]XLI., xlii., and xliii.[160]CVIII.[161]CVII.[162]Ep., cxv.[163]Ep., cxxxv.[164]Ep., cxxvii.[165]Ep., xxxix.[166]The famous collection which bears the name of Isidorus Mercator contains about sixty spurious Decretals in the first part, covering the first three centuries, and about thirty in the third part; the second part contains the canons of councils. The author makes an adroit use of older documents, and his work is largely a mosaic of genuine fragments (of Papal letters, chronicles, etc.) so pieced together and ante-dated as to father later developments of Papal authority on the earlier Popes. The best edition is that of P. Hinschius (1863), and the best survey of recent study is the article "Pseudoisidor" in Herzog'sReal-Encyclopädie für Protestantische Theologie. There is a useful chapter inThe Age of Charlemagne(1898), by C.L. Wells. The ablest Catholic study of the relation of Nicholas to the collection is Jules Roy'sSaint Nicholas(1901). See alsoLes Fausses Décrétales(1879), of Father Ch. de Smedt. On the general question of the Pope's use of spurious documents see the able Old Catholic work of J. Richterich,Papst Nikolaus I.(1903).[167]SeeEp., cxxx., of Servatus Lupus.[168]Ep., xxv.[169]It is not easy to regard Rothrad as the author of the forgery, as he was not deposed until 862. A more probable source of origin is the group of clerics ordained by Ebbo and suspended by Hincmar in 853. Even this seems too late, however, as such a compilation was not the work of a day. But it is very probable that Rothrad took the book to Rome, if it were not already there.[170]Ep., xxxiii.[171]The modern writers who have contended that thesetot et talia decretalia statutaare not the Isidorean Decretals seem not to have read the whole letter.[172]Saint Nicholas, Appendix II. (followed by Dr. Mann, vol. iii.). See also F. Rocquain'sLa Papauté au Moyen Âge(1881). Hefele (bd. iv., p. 292) admits that Nicholas relied on the forgery.[173]Papst Nikolaus I.(1903).[174]P. 116.[175]Epp., lxxxii. and cxxxv.[176]P. 131.[177]Ep., lxv.

FOOTNOTES:

[140]Ep., lxxxiii., xcii., and cviii.

[141]Ep., lxv.

[142]Ep., lxxix.

[143]Ep., vi.

[144]Ep., xii.

[145]Ep., cxxxv.

[146]Ep., cxv.

[147]An excellent analysis of his ideas is given in Dr. A. Greinacher'sDie Anschaungen des Papstes Nikolaus I. über das Verhältniss von Staat und Kirche(1909).

[148]Ep., iv.

[149]Ep., xii. and xiii.

[150]Ep., xlvi.

[151]Ep., lxxxvi.

[152]Ep., ii.

[153]The best account is in theAnnals of St. Berlin, in theMonumenta Germaniæ Historica, vol. i.

[154]Ep., lxxxiii.

[155]It is, at least, generally believed that Hincmar wrote this part of theBertinian Annals.

[156]Bertinian Annals, year 865.

[157]Ep., xxxiii.

[158]Ep., xxxiv.

[159]XLI., xlii., and xliii.

[160]CVIII.

[161]CVII.

[162]Ep., cxv.

[163]Ep., cxxxv.

[164]Ep., cxxvii.

[165]Ep., xxxix.

[166]The famous collection which bears the name of Isidorus Mercator contains about sixty spurious Decretals in the first part, covering the first three centuries, and about thirty in the third part; the second part contains the canons of councils. The author makes an adroit use of older documents, and his work is largely a mosaic of genuine fragments (of Papal letters, chronicles, etc.) so pieced together and ante-dated as to father later developments of Papal authority on the earlier Popes. The best edition is that of P. Hinschius (1863), and the best survey of recent study is the article "Pseudoisidor" in Herzog'sReal-Encyclopädie für Protestantische Theologie. There is a useful chapter inThe Age of Charlemagne(1898), by C.L. Wells. The ablest Catholic study of the relation of Nicholas to the collection is Jules Roy'sSaint Nicholas(1901). See alsoLes Fausses Décrétales(1879), of Father Ch. de Smedt. On the general question of the Pope's use of spurious documents see the able Old Catholic work of J. Richterich,Papst Nikolaus I.(1903).

[167]SeeEp., cxxx., of Servatus Lupus.

[168]Ep., xxv.

[169]It is not easy to regard Rothrad as the author of the forgery, as he was not deposed until 862. A more probable source of origin is the group of clerics ordained by Ebbo and suspended by Hincmar in 853. Even this seems too late, however, as such a compilation was not the work of a day. But it is very probable that Rothrad took the book to Rome, if it were not already there.

[170]Ep., xxxiii.

[171]The modern writers who have contended that thesetot et talia decretalia statutaare not the Isidorean Decretals seem not to have read the whole letter.

[172]Saint Nicholas, Appendix II. (followed by Dr. Mann, vol. iii.). See also F. Rocquain'sLa Papauté au Moyen Âge(1881). Hefele (bd. iv., p. 292) admits that Nicholas relied on the forgery.

[173]Papst Nikolaus I.(1903).

[174]P. 116.

[175]Epp., lxxxii. and cxxxv.

[176]P. 131.

[177]Ep., lxv.

CHAPTER VII

JOHN X. AND THE IRON CENTURY

Thenext great stride in the development of the Papacy is taken by Gregory VII., the true successor of Nicholas I. and Gregory I. Europe seemed, indeed, entirely prepared for that last development of the Papal system which we connect with the name of Hildebrand, and a student of its essential growth may be tempted to pass at once from the ninth to the eleventh century. But to do so would be to omit one of the most singular phases of the story of the Papacy and leave in greater obscurity than ever one of its most interesting problems. How comes it that a Century of Iron, as Baronius has for ever branded the tenth century, falls between the work of Nicholas and the still greater work of Gregory? May we trust those modern writers who contend that the devout father of ecclesiastical history was gravely unjust to the Papacy, and that we may detect the play of a romantic or a malicious imagination in the familiar picture of Theodora and Marozia controlling the chair of Peter and investing their lovers or sons with the robes of the Vicar of Christ? Some consideration must be given to this phase, and it will be convenient to take John X. as its outstanding and characteristic figure.

I have already observed that few really unworthymen sat in the chair of Peter until the close of the ninth century. Among the hundred Popes who preceded Nicholas I. there had been, it is true, few men of commanding personality, but there had been still less men of ignoble character. They had been, on the whole, men whose real mediocrity is not obscured by the fulsome praises of their official panegyrists, yet, for the most part, men of blameless life. In the ninth century we see a gradual deterioration. Hadrian II. tries, with equal sincerity though less personality, to play the great part of Nicholas, and it is from no fault of character that he fails to coerce princes and prelates. John VIII. plays a not ignoble human part during the calamitous decade of his Pontificate, though there is more soldierly ardour than religious idealism in his defence of the Papacy. After him, in quick succession, come five Popes of little-known character, and then we have that famous Stephen VI. who digs the half-putrid body of a predecessor, Formosus, from its grave and treats it with appalling outrage. In the gloom which now descends on Rome, we follow with difficulty the passionate movements of the rival parties, but we know that after Formosus there were nine Popes in eight years (896-904). With Sergius III. (904-911), the Century of Iron fitly opens, and his name and that of John X., who became Pope in 914, are chiefly associated with the names of Theodora and Marozia.

The general causes of this deterioration are easily assigned. In that age of violent character, uncontrolled by culture, a multiplication of small princedoms was sure to lead to bloody rivalries. To this the dissolution of the Empire of Charlemagne and the feebleness of his descendants had led, especially in Italy, where the weakness of a sacerdocracy—that is to say, itsliability, if not obligation, to use temporal resources for religious rather than military and civic purposes—soon became apparent. The Papacy had the further weakness that, being nominally independent yet unable to defend itself, it was ever on the watch for another Pippin—a monarch who would protect it and not govern it—and it dangled its tawdry imperial crown before the eyes of the kings of Italy, France, and Germany, to say nothing of the smaller princes of Italy. Hence arose the factions which rent a degraded Rome. We must remember, too, that this was a fresh period of invasion and devastation: the waves of Saracen advance lapped the walls of Rome from the south and the fierce Hungarians reached it from the north.

These general causes of decay are substantial, yet we must not be too easily contented with them. Some day a subtler or more candid science will tell the whole story of the making of the Middle Ages. I need note only that the disorder existed in Rome, and often burst its bonds, long before the time of Stephen VI. Even under Hadrian I. we saw relatives and friends of the Pope promoted to high office, yet in the end betraying characters of revolting brutality. We remember also a certain legate of Nicholas I., Bishop Arsenius, who handled anathemas with such consummate ease. This man's nephew abducted the daughter of Pope Hadrian II., and, when he was pursued, murdered her and the Pope's wife. There was some taint in the blood—or the brain—of this new Roman aristocracy which gathered round the Lateran. Under John VIII., the strongest successor of Nicholas, they broke into appalling disorders. "Their swinish lust," says one of the most conservative and most reticent of recent writers on the Popes, speaking of the leading Papalofficials of the time, "was only second to their cruelty and avarice."[178]Hadrian II. had the widow of one of these officials whipped naked through the streets of Rome, and had another official blinded. Under Stephen VI. and Sergius III. these corrupt Roman families come into clearer light, and the domination of Theodora and Marozia is merely one episode in this lamentable development, which has been recorded more fully because of the piquancy of this feminine ascendancy in a nominal theocracy.

The period with which we are concerned really opens with Pope Formosus, a not unworthy man, who looked for support to Arnulph of Germany. The Italian faction, which looked to Guido of Spoleto and Adalbert of Tuscany, regarded this "treachery" with the bitterest rancour and imprisoned the Pope. One of the leaders of this section was the deacon (later Pope) Sergius. Arnulph came to Rome, and swept the Tuscan-Spoletan faction, including Sergius, out of the city. Formosus died in 896, his gouty successor followed him within a fortnight, and Stephen VI. was elected. As soon as Arnulph had left Rome, the Pope surrendered to the Italian faction, and the Lateran witnessed that ghastly outrage of the trial of the mouldering corpse of Formosus: on the nominal charge of having exercised his functions after being deposed and having passed from another bishopric to that of Rome. There seems to be some lack of sense of moral proportion in historians who, knowing these far graver things, make elaborate efforts to disprove the love-affairs of one or two Popes of the period. Three not unworthy Popes filled, and soon quitted, the Roman See after Stephen. The last of these, Leo V., was dethroned and imprisonedby the cardinal-priest Christopher, who seized the Papacy. Sergius and his friends in exile now entered into correspondence with the dissatisfied Romans, mastered the city with an army, and threw Christopher in turn into a dungeon. This was the rise to power of Sergius III.; the beginning of what has been called, with more vigour than accuracy, the Pornocracy.[179]

With the weakening of the Empire, the Roman nobles had wrested from the Popes the political control of the city, and we gather from the titles assigned to them that there was a debased restoration of the old republican forms. The head of one of the leading families, Theophylactus, is described as Master of the Papal Wardrobe, Master of the Troops, Consul, and Senator. His wife, Theodora, called herself the Senatrix: their elder and more famous daughter Marozia is named the Patricia. The family belonged, of course, to the Tuscan-Spoletan faction which triumphed with Sergius. Culture had now fallen so low at Rome that there is no writer of the time able or willing to leave us a portrait of these remarkable ladies; the nearest authority, the monk Benedict of Soracte, is so far from artistic feeling that it would be literally impossible to write a grosser and more barbarous Latin than he does. From some documents of the time it appears that there were ladies of this great family who could not write their names, and we may presume that this was their common condition. But it is uniformly stated that they were women of great beauty and ambition: it is certain that Marozia was the mother of John XI., and that she put him on the Papal throne: and it is claimed that Sergius was the father of John XI., and that John X. was the lover of Theodora.

These stories of amorous relations would not in themselves deserve a severe historical inquiry, but they have been made a test of the accuracy or inaccuracy of our authorities. The older ecclesiastical historians admitted them without demur. In the pages of Baronius Theodora is "that most powerful, most noble, and most shameless whore" and Sergius is the lover of that "shameless whore" Theodora. Pagi and Mansi reproduce these words, and they are complacently prefixed to the collection of John's letters in the Migne edition.[180]More recent writers like Duchesne and Dr. W. Barry admit the charge against Sergius; but the learned Muratori boldly questioned the whole tradition, and various modern Italian writers have attempted to support his case.[181]

The claim that we have discovered, since the days of Baronius, new documents which materially alter the evidence, must at once be set aside. Of the Formosian writers of the time whose pamphlets have been recovered, the priest Auxilius throws no light on this subject and the grammarian Vulgarius is unreliable. We have letters and poems in which Vulgarius hails Pope Sergius as "the glory of the world" and "the pillar of all virtue," and professes a profound regard for the matchless virtue and the "immaculate bed" of Theodora.[182]The fact is that Vulgarius had previously indicted Sergius in lurid terms and had been significantly summoned to Rome by that vigorous Pontiff. His charges of murder and outrage then changed into the most fulsome flattery, to which we cannot pay the slightest regard. His earlier charges are more serious, as, writing only six years after the events, he appeals to the still fresh recollection in the minds of the Romans that Sergius had had his two predecessors murdered in prison.[183]

We have no serious reason to differ from Baronius. Liutprand, Bishop of Cremona, is the chief accuser. As servant of the court of Berengar II. and then of Otto I., he often visited Rome in the first half of the tenth century, and he knew the city well during the Pontificate of John XI., the son of Marozia. He says that Theodora, "a shameless whore," was all-powerful at Rome: that she was the mistress of John X., whom she promoted to the See of Ravenna and then to that of Rome: that her daughters Marozia and Theodora were more shameless than she: and that John XI. was the son of Sergius and Marozia.[184]Liutprand would hardly scruple to reproduce gossip, and he is often wrong, so that one reads him with caution. Yet his statement about Sergius is so far confirmed that so careful a writer on the Popes as Duchesne is compelled to accept it.[185]

Benedict of Soracte, a very meagre and confused chronicler, gives Marozia a dark character in hisChronicle.[186]Her son Alberic was, he says, born out of wedlock: presumably before she married the father, Alberic I. Flodoard, the most respectable chronicler of the time, tells us in hisAnnals(year 933) that John XI. was the son of Marozia and the brother of Alberic II.; but neither there nor elsewhere does he mention the father, and the omission is significant. Flodoard, a deeply religious monk, under personal obligations to the Papacy, was not the man to repeat scandalous Roman gossip; yet in his long poetic history of the Papacy he brands Marozia as an incestuous woman united to an adulterer, and he describes John XI., whom he disdains, as so puny a thing that we can scarcely conceive him as a son of the vigorous Alberic.[187]Lastly, the one-line notice of John XI. in theLiber Pontificalissays that he was "the son of Sergius III." We do not know when or by whom this was written, but recent attempts to represent it as an echo of Liutprand have failed. We must agree with Duchesne that it is a distinct testimony and "more authoritative" than that of Liutprand.

I have analyzed afresh the original evidence on this not very important point merely in order to show the futility of recent attempts to rehabilitate the age of John X. Pope Sergius, the chief ecclesiastic of the Italian faction to which John belonged, was a violent and unscrupulous man. He resigned a bishopric, and returned to the rank of deacon, in order that he might have a better chance of the Papacy. He was Anti-Pope to John IX. in 898, and was excommunicated and driven from Rome; and he forced his way back at the point of the sword. The charge that he was responsible for the death of his two predecessors cannot be disregarded, and he certainly dealt violently with his opponents. The charge of loose conduct is not more serious than these things, and it rests on strong evidence.

To this party John X. belonged. His early career is not very plain, but he appears first as a deacon at Bologna. He was chosen to succeed Bishop Peter of that city, but, before he was consecrated, Archbishop Kailo of Ravenna died, and John passed to Ravenna and occupied its See. Nine years later, in 914, he was elected Bishop of Rome. It was scarcely thirty years since his party had foully treated the body of Formosus, partly on the charge of passing from another bishopric to that of Rome. One naturally suspects ambition in John and powerful influence in his favour at Rome. We know, in fact, that he was on excellent terms with Theophylactus and Theodora,[188]and no one now doubts that they secured his election. We are therefore not wholly surprised, considering the age, when Liutprand assures us that he was a charming man, and that Theodora, meeting him during one of his missions to Rome, conceived a passion for him.

It is neither possible nor profitable to linger over the subject, and the impartial student will probably neither assent to nor dissent from this unconfirmed statement of the Bishop of Cremona. Liverani ridicules it on the ground that Theodora must have been far from young, since her daughter Marozia married Albert of Camerino about the year 915. It is curious to find a native of Italy, where girls are often mature at twelve, and were in the old days often mothers at thirteen, raising such an objection. Theodora may quite well have been still in her thirties in 915. I would, however,rather call attention to the moral condition of Europe at the time. The pious Bishop of Verona, Ratherius, gives us an extraordinary picture of the life of some of his episcopal colleagues.[189]They rush through their mass in the morning, don gorgeous dresses and gold belts, and ride out to hunt on horses with golden bridles: they return at night to rich banquets, with massive goblets of good wine, and dancing girls for company, and dice to follow: and they retire, too often with their companions, to beds that are inlaid with gold and silver and spread with covers and pillows of silk. Bishop Atto of Vercelli gives us a corresponding picture of the lives of the lower clergy and their wives and mistresses.[190]The proceedings of the Council of Troslé, in the year 909, confirm and enlarge this remarkable picture.[191]Assuredly no historian who knows the tenth century will find the charges against Sergius and John implausible.

Whatever may be their value, John was no idle voluptuary. He found the Saracens still devastating southern Italy and he helped, in 915, to form a great league against them. When the Duke of Capua led out his troops, and the Spoletans and Beneventans fell into line at last, and even the Greeks sent a fleet, the Roman militia was marshalled, and John rode at their head beside the fiery young Alberic of Camerino. He was not the first of the many fighting Popes: John VIII. had built a Papal navy and dealt the Saracens some shrewd blows. But John X. was the first Pope to take the field in person, and we lament that the wretched scribes of the time have left us no portrait of the consecrated warrior. We know from his lettersthat he exposed himself on the field, and from the chronicles that he fired the troops. The Saracens were at last pinned in their camp on a hill near the mouth of the Garigliano, and, after a long blockade, were annihilated.

John and the Marquis Alberic enjoyed a splendid ovation at Rome, and it was probably at this date that the hand of Marozia was bestowed on Alberic. But the victory had its price. John had to surrender some of his patrimonies to the Duke of Gaeta and to confer the imperial crown on King Berengar for his assistance. When Berengar came to Rome, and promised to maintain all the rights and properties of the Papacy as other Emperors had done, and received the crown from the hand of the Pope, it must have seemed that a brighter day had dawned at last on Italy. But the restless factions murmured, and in a few years Rudolph II. of Burgundy was invited to come and seize the crown. Berengar brought the half-civilized Hungarians to his aid, and a fresh trail of blood and fire marred the face of Italy. He lost, and was assassinated (924); but Rudolph, who won only the crown of Italy, was not left long in peaceful possession of it, and the next movement of Italian politics shows John in a singular situation at Rome.

An earlier chapter of this history was enlivened by the amours of Lothair of Lorraine and Waldrada. They left behind them an illegitimate daughter, Bertha, who had all the spirit and more than the ambition of her mother. There were many women of commanding personality (and, usually, little scruple) in the early Middle Ages, and the story of Theodora and Marozia must not be regarded as very exceptional. Bertha made vigorous efforts to win Italy for her favouriteson, Hugh of Provence, and, when she died in 925, his sister, Irmengard, a fascinating woman who maintained the domestic tradition, won the bishops and nobles of Lombardy for him by an unsparing use of her charms. He was presently invited to come and drive the Burgundians out of Italy. John X. joined in the invitation and went to Mantua to meet him.

It is recorded that the Pope made some obscure bargain with him at Mantua, and there can be little doubt that he asked Hugh's aid against Marozia. Theophylactus and Theodora were dead, and Marozia was at deadly feud with the Pope. Her first husband seems to have died about 925, and she had married Guido of Tuscany. Whether her quarrel with John began before her marriage we do not know, but Liutprand tells us that she and Guido wanted to depose the Pope. Both Liutprand and Benedict[192]make the cause of the quarrel clear. John had called his brother Peter to his side at Rome, and the power he gave to his brother, and therefore withdrew from the lay nobles, infuriated his earlier supporters. He turned, as so many Popes had done, to a distant prince, and his career soon came to a close.

The chronicle is crude and meagre, but it suggests elementary and unbridled passions. "The Marquis Peter," says Benedict, "so infuriated the Romans that he was compelled to leave the city." He fortified himself in Horta and summoned the dreaded Hungarians to his aid: than which there could hardly be a graver crime in an Italian of the time. They came in large numbers and trod the life out of the Roman province. When Peter concluded that his opponents were sufficiently weakened, he returned to Rome and gatheredtroops about him. There must have been sombre days in the city in that year 928. One day, however, when it was observed that few of Peter's men had accompanied him to the Lateran, a band of Marozia's followers burst into the palace and laid him dead at the Pope's feet. John himself was taken from the palace and imprisoned, and he died in prison in the following year (929). Whether he was murdered or died a natural death is uncertain.[193]

Such was the not unnatural termination of one of the longest Pontificates in the history of Rome, and we have no reason to suppose that, if we had fuller narratives than those I have quoted, they would redeem the character of John X. His desertion of Bologna for Ravenna, and his transfer to Rome within twenty years of the time when his party had foully treated a dead man for just such an irregularity: his alliance with the unscrupulous house of Theophylactus: his quite superfluous appearance on the battlefield: his easy distribution of royal and imperial crowns: and, above all, the maintenance of his unprincipled brother in the teeth of deadly hostility, sufficiently indicate his character. He was an accomplished adventurer. He writes a very good Latin for the period, and may well have been a charming and handsome and brave man. It is recorded that he richly decorated the Lateran Palace. But he was a child of his age, and the historian finds it easier to respect the sad and sincere reflection of the older ecclesiastical writers—that Christ then slumbered in the tossing barque of Peter—than thestrained efforts of a few modern writers to convince us that the chosen Pope of an aristocracy which they depict in the darkest colours was merely the victim of calumny.

The little Pontifical work which John did during his fourteen years as Pope does not dispose us to alter this estimate. The score of his letters which survive generally relate to privileges of abbeys or prelates which he was asked to grant or confirm. He gave support to the monks of Fulda,[194]of St. Gall,[195]and of Cluny.[196]He sent legates on a vague mission to Spain and granted a pallium to the Bishop of Hamburg, who was converting the far north. He intervened in the religious troubles of Dalmatia, at the invitation of the local prelates, and wrote them many letters[197]for the regulation (or Romanization) of their Slav liturgy and discipline. Even to Constantinople, which had one of its rare moods of affection for Rome, he sent legates to assist the Greeks in obliterating the effects of their latest quarrel.

His work in Bulgaria is not wholly clear, or it might be interesting. King Simeon quarrelled with the Eastern Church and turned to Rome, and John naturally encouraged him. He sent legates to Bulgaria, and we learn from a letter of Innocent III., long afterwards, that they presented Simeon with a golden crown from John. It looks as if the Pope gave Simeon some kind of imperial rank, but he did not secure the adhesion to Rome of the Bulgarian Church.

A few letters to France and Germany are hardly more instructive. Heribert of Vermandois seized the person of Charles the Simple, and, when he was threatened with excommunication, hoodwinked the Pope. Heribert then, in 925, conferred the rich See of Rheims on his five-year-old son, and John—either in order to secure the release of the King or dreading worse things—acquiesced.[198]In Germany John sent his brother to assist in the restoration of discipline at the Synod of Altheim (916). A few years later he summoned Herimann, Archbishop of Cologne, and Hilduin and Richer, rival bishops of Liège, to the bar of Rome. But in this apparent assertion of authority he was really acting under pressure of the Emperor Berengar, and the sequel is not flattering. There was a complicated quarrel about the bishopric of Liège, and, when the litigants refused to come to Rome, John laid down a principle which would have seemed to Nicholas I. or Gregory VII. an outrage. He rebuked Herimann on the ground of "an ancient custom that none save the King, to whom the sceptre is divinely committed, shall confer a bishopric on any cleric."

These letters, a poor record of official work for so long a Pontificate and in so disordered a world, do not alter our impression of John. Rome shared the gloom which lay over Europe, and it is foolish to suppose that the degenerate nobles who ruled the Papacy would put on its throne a man who would rebuke their vices or resent their domination. Indeed, it will be useful to follow the lamentable story a little further, as an introduction to the revival which culminates in Gregory VII.

Marozia crowned her adventurous life in 932 by marrying the step-brother of her late husband—the licentious Hugh of Provence whom John had helped to put on the throne of Italy. In the preceding year she had put in the chair of Peter her son, John XI., amere shadow of a Pope. But the disgusted Romans flew to arms, imprisoned John and Marozia, and sent the brutal Hugh flying for his life. Alberic II. then controlled the city and the Papacy for twenty years, and a series of obscure, though apparently not unworthy, men were appointed to discharge the scanty spiritual duties which Popes could or would perform in that darkest of the dark ages. Alberic bequeathed his power to his illegitimate son Octavian, and compelled the nobles and clergy to swear to make him Pope at the next vacancy. John XII., as he called himself, proved the worst Pope yet recorded: more at home in the helmet than the tiara, and more expert in the cultivation than in the suppression of vice. When his own sword proved incapable of securing his rights, he summoned Otto I., with the customary bribe of the imperial crown. Otto at length deposed him, after six years of scandalous abuse of the Papacy, and he disappears from history in a singular legend; he died, it was said, of a blow on the temples given him by the devil—possibly in the person of the injured husband—during one of his amorous adventures.

Ten Popes and Anti-Popes, generally men of no distinction either in vice or virtue, succeeded each other in the next thirty years. The factions at Rome became more and more violent, and Europe sank deeper and deeper into the corruption from which Gregory VII. would endeavour to rouse it. The Iron Century closed, oddly enough, with the appearance on the Papal throne of one of the first scholars of Christian Europe, the famous Gerbert (Silvester II.), but his brief and premature Pontificate made no impression on that dark age. Under Sergius IV. the Roman faction was at length destroyed, but the counts of Tusculum nowdragged the unhappy Papacy to a lower depth. Two sons of the first Count, Benedict VIII. and John XIII., successively purchased the votes of the electors, and, by their venality and violence, added fresh stains to the Papal chronicle. The third son of the Count then placed his own youthful offspring in the chair of Peter, and, under the name of Benedict IX., this youth degraded it with crimes and vices so well authenticated that even the most resolute apologist cannot challenge the indictment. Pope Victor III., a few years later, shudders to mention the "murders and robberies and nameless vices" of Benedict,[199]and his vague charges, supported by Raoul Glaber and other authorities, suggest that the Lateran Palace must have recalled to the mind of any sufficiently informed Roman some of the scenes which had been witnessed in Nero's Golden House in the lowest days of paganism. At length, after being twice expelled from Rome, he wearied of the Papacy—one authority says that he wished to marry—and sold it to his uncle John Gratian for one or two thousand pounds of gold. By this time there was a certain young Hildebrand studying in the Lateran School, and the story of his life will tell us the sequel of this extraordinary chapter of Papal history.

FOOTNOTES:[178]Dr. Mann, iii., 285.[179]Inaccurate because, however many lovers Theodora and Marozia may have had, they were certainly not courtesans.[180]See Baronius, year 912, and Mansi, xviii., 314 and 316.[181]Barry'sPapal Monarchy(1902), pp. 146 and 150. For criticism of the tradition see F. Liverani's study of John X. in vol. ii. of hisOpere(1858) and P. Fedele's "Ricerche per la Storia da Roma e del Papato nel Secolo X." in theArchivi della R. Società Romana di Storia Patria(vols. xxxiii. and following). Dr. Mann follows these critics in his chapters on Sergius and John (vol. iv.).[182]Published by E. Dümmler in hisAuxilius und Vulgarius(1866), pp. 139-146. Dr. Mann (iv., 139 and 141) thinks it incredible that if Theodora were a vicious woman any man should write thus; but two pages later he recollects that Vulgarius has accused Pope Sergius of murdering his two predecessors, and he advises us to place no reliance on the word of such a "wretched sycophant."[183]De Causa Formosiana, c. 14.[184]Antapodosis, ii., 48.[185]In the notes to his edition of theLiber Pontificalis.[186]C. 29.[187]De Christi Triumphis apud Italiami, xii., 7.[188]See a letter from him at Ravenna to them in Liverani,Opere, iv., 7.[189]Præloquia, v., 7.[190]Ep., ix.[191]Mansi, xviii., 263.[192]Antapodosis, iii., 43;Chronicon, c. 29.[193]Benedict merely records his death. Flodoard (Annals, year 929) says that "some attributed his death to violence, but the majority to grief." Liutprand (iii., 43) affirms that he was smothered with a pillow.[194]Ep., ii.[195]Ep., iv.[196]Ep., xiv.[197]Published by Liverani, iv., 76-79.[198]Flodoard,Ecclesiæ Remensis Historia, iv., 20.[199]Dialogues, bk. iii.

FOOTNOTES:

[178]Dr. Mann, iii., 285.

[179]Inaccurate because, however many lovers Theodora and Marozia may have had, they were certainly not courtesans.

[180]See Baronius, year 912, and Mansi, xviii., 314 and 316.

[181]Barry'sPapal Monarchy(1902), pp. 146 and 150. For criticism of the tradition see F. Liverani's study of John X. in vol. ii. of hisOpere(1858) and P. Fedele's "Ricerche per la Storia da Roma e del Papato nel Secolo X." in theArchivi della R. Società Romana di Storia Patria(vols. xxxiii. and following). Dr. Mann follows these critics in his chapters on Sergius and John (vol. iv.).

[182]Published by E. Dümmler in hisAuxilius und Vulgarius(1866), pp. 139-146. Dr. Mann (iv., 139 and 141) thinks it incredible that if Theodora were a vicious woman any man should write thus; but two pages later he recollects that Vulgarius has accused Pope Sergius of murdering his two predecessors, and he advises us to place no reliance on the word of such a "wretched sycophant."

[183]De Causa Formosiana, c. 14.

[184]Antapodosis, ii., 48.

[185]In the notes to his edition of theLiber Pontificalis.

[186]C. 29.

[187]De Christi Triumphis apud Italiami, xii., 7.

[188]See a letter from him at Ravenna to them in Liverani,Opere, iv., 7.

[189]Præloquia, v., 7.

[190]Ep., ix.

[191]Mansi, xviii., 263.

[192]Antapodosis, iii., 43;Chronicon, c. 29.

[193]Benedict merely records his death. Flodoard (Annals, year 929) says that "some attributed his death to violence, but the majority to grief." Liutprand (iii., 43) affirms that he was smothered with a pillow.

[194]Ep., ii.

[195]Ep., iv.

[196]Ep., xiv.

[197]Published by Liverani, iv., 76-79.

[198]Flodoard,Ecclesiæ Remensis Historia, iv., 20.

[199]Dialogues, bk. iii.

CHAPTER VIII

HILDEBRAND

Thehistorian might almost venture to say that the Papacy was not evolved, but created. It has assuredly, in its varying fortunes, reflected as faithfully as any other institution the changes of its human environment, yet for each new adaptation to favouring circumstances it has had to await the advent of a great Pope. Seven men, one might say, created the Papacy: Gelasius I., Leo I., Gregory I., Hadrian I., Nicholas I., Gregory VII., and Innocent III. Each one of these deepened the foundations and enlarged the fabric of the great religious principality. They have had illustrious successors, and, in some respects, the frame of the Papacy has been further strengthened; but, on the whole, the last five hundred years have been filled with a mighty and unavailing struggle against disintegration.

Of the seven men I have enumerated Gregory VII., or Hildebrand as historians still like to call him, was the most romantic and the most singularly creative. He was born about the year 1025, of humble parents, in a Tuscan village near Sovana. An uncle of his was abbot of a monastery on the Aventine at Rome, and young Hildebrand was at an early date sent to be educated under his direction. We recognize in this accident the chief clue to the personality and achievementsof Gregory VII. A century earlier a group of monks at Cluny had reformed their ways, and their stricter ideas had slowly spread from one isolated monastery to another. The monastery of St. Mary on the Aventine was one of these rare centres of sincere asceticism, and in it the boy would hear talk of the appalling degradation which had come over the Church of Christ. It seems, however, very doubtful whether he ever made the vows of a monk. He certainly wore the monk's habit, and no epithet is more common on the lips of his opponents than "vagabond monk"; while, on the other hand, his admirers accept the monastic title, and justify the "vagabondage," by various unreliable stories about his connexion with the Benedictines. But he never describes himself as a monk, and he is not so described in the most reliable documents. The point is of slight importance, since Hildebrand certainly adopted the sentiments of the monastic reformers, and I will not linger over the extensive and conflicting evidence.[200]Gregory's fiery and aggressive nature would not suffer him to contemplate the triumph of evil from the remote impotence of a monastery, but he learnedhis lesson from monks and would rely on them throughout life.

He went also to the Lateran School, where John Gratian, whom we described in the last chapter as buying the Papacy from his nephew Benedict IX., was a teacher. Gratian marked the ecclesiastical promise of the dark and ill-favoured little Tuscan, and, when he bought the title of Gregory VI., made him one of hiscapellani: at that time a body of lay officials. The work suited Hildebrand, who was even more of a soldier than a monk. The road to Rome was lamentably beset by brigands; the houses of many of the nobles in the city itself were, in fact, little better than the fortified dens of wealthy banditti, and the crowds of pilgrims might have their gifts torn from their hands at the very steps of Peter's altar. So Hildebrand organized a militia and made some impression on the robbers.

Gregory VI. was a more religious man than his purchase of the See would suggest. He was conspicuous for chastity at a time when, a caustic contemporary said, it was regarded at Rome as an angelic virtue. There is every reason to believe that he bought the Roman See with the best of intentions. Unhappily, Benedict IX. exhausted his treasury and returned to claim his dignity; while another faction of the Romans set up a pretender under the name of Silvester II. Gregory ruled his flock—there was very little Papal ruling of theworldin those days—from Sta. Maria Maggiore: Silvester controlled St. Peter's and the Papal mansion on the Vatican: Benedict held the Lateran. This squalid spectacle must have sunk deep into the soul of the young reformer. But there were religious men in Rome, and the virtuous Henry III. was summoned from Germany. The remedy was almost ashumiliating as the disorder. Henry scattered the rivals and, observing that there was no member of the Roman clergy fit to occupy the See, he put into it one of his German bishops, with the title of Clement II.

Hildebrand went with his patron, in the King's train, to Germany, but the more rigorous climate soon made an end of John Gratian. It is said, but is by no means certain, that Hildebrand then went to Cluny for a time. It is at all events certain that in 1049, the Roman climate having killed two German Popes in two years, Hildebrand returned to Italy in the train of Bishop Bruno. Under the name of Leo IX. this handsome, stately, and deeply religious Pontiff spent the next six years in a devoted effort to reform the Church. The magnitude of his task may be measured by that appalling indictment of clerical and monastic vice, theBook of Gomorrha, which Peter Damiani wrote under Leo IX., and with his cordial approval. Leo visited the chief countries of Europe, but he could make little impression on that stubborn age and he died almost broken-hearted. Under him Hildebrand served his apprenticeship. He became a cardinal-subdeacon, a guardian of St. Peter's, and rector of the monastery of St. Paul: in which, to his fine disgust, he found women serving the monks. He went also as legate to France, where he dealt leniently with and learned to esteem the chief heretic of the age, Bérenger. Hildebrand had little insight into character and less into speculative theology. To the end of his life he befriended Bérenger.

Leo died in 1055, and Hildebrand was sent to ask Henry III. to choose a successor. Henry in turn died in 1056, and, as the Roman See was again vacant in the following year and the Romans were emboldened to choose their own Pope, Hildebrand was sent to conciliate the Empress Agnes. We must not exaggerate his influence at this time, but undoubtedly the new Pope, Stephen X., and his fanatical Cardinal, Peter Damiani—both monks of the reforming school,—regarded him as one of their most ardent lieutenants. Indeed from that time we trace the adoption at Rome of a policy which is clearly due to Hildebrand. The Papacy began to look to the Normans, who had conquered southern Italy, to save it from the overlordship of the German court, and to wage a stern war against simony and clerical incontinence. Hildebrand, who had a strange fascination for pious women, easily won the Empress Agnes, but she was surrounded or controlled by simoniacal prelates and nobles. Rome must once more change its suzerain, or its sword-bearer.

In the campaign for enforcing celibacy on the clergy the monastic reforming school provided fresh allies. There was in the city of Milan a young priest named Anselm of Baggio, who had studied under Lanfranc at Bec. This enthusiast for the new ideas began a notable campaign against clerical marriage, and, when his archbishop genially transferred him to the remote bishopric of Lucca, he left his gospel in charge of two other enthusiasts named Ariald and Landulph. It must be recollected that clerics did not at that time take any vow of chastity, and there were only a few disciplinary decrees of earlier Popes to curtail their liberty. Most of the priests of every country were legally married, though in some places the law of celibacy was enforced and they simply had mistresses. Against both wives and mistresses a furious campaign was now directed by the Patarenes.[201]The vilest nameswere showered on the unhappy wives and children: the priests, who said that they would rather desert their orders than their wives, were torn from the altars: the most lamentable excesses in the cause of virtue were committed in the churches. Hildebrand, and afterwards Damiani, were sent to enforce what is described as the "pacifying policy" of Rome, and we read that Milan approached the verge of civil war.

While Hildebrand was still inflaming the enthusiasts of the north, Stephen X. died, and the party opposed to the Puritans at Rome at once elected a Pope of their own school. The young subdeacon now plainly showed his character and masterfulness. He persuaded the virtuous archbishop of Florence to accept the title of Nicholas II., begged a small army from the Duke of Tuscany, entered Rome at the head of his soldiers, and swept "Benedict X." and his supporters out of the city. The cause of virtue was to be sustained, at whatever cost: the key-note of his life was sounded. We may also confidently see the action of Hildebrand in a very important decision of a Lateran synod held under Nicholas that year (1059). In future the choice of a Pope was to be confined to the cardinal-bishops, who would submit their decision to the cardinal-priests and deacons.[202]The rest of the clergy and the people were merely to signify their assent by acclamation, and the decree contains a vague expression of respect for "the rights of the Emperor." A sonorous anathemawas laid on any who departed from this decree; and I may add at once that Hildebrand, who was probably its author, entirely ignored it in making the next Pope and in his own election. It was the first phase in the struggle with the Empire. The German court was distracted by the intrigues of rival prelates to secure the control of the Empress and her son, while the Papacy now had the support of the Norman Richard of Capua (whom Hildebrand induced to swear fealty to the Papacy), the troops of Tuscany, and the staves of the Patarenes. The German court replied by refusing to acknowledge Nicholas II.

Hildebrand rose to the rank of deacon, then of archdeacon: the straightest path to the Papacy. Had he willed, he could have become Pope in 1061, when Nicholas died, but the time was not ripe for his colossal design. The anti-Puritans now sought alliance with the German court against him, but he summoned a band of Normans and, with the aid of their spears, put Anselm of Lucca on the Papal throne: completely ignoring the decree of 1059. The anti-Puritans of Rome and Lombardy now united with the Imperialists, and Bishop Cadalus of Parma was made Anti-Pope. The war of words which followed was disdainfully left by Hildebrand to Damiani, who, in a page of almost indescribable invective, assures us that Cadalus was "the stench of the globe, the filth of the age, the shame of the universe," and that his episcopal supporters were better judges of pretty faces than of Papal candidates. The Imperialist Bishop Benzo of Albi, a genial Epicure who united an equal power of invective with a more polished culture, retorted heavily on the "vagabond monks" (Damiani and Hildebrand). At last it came to blows, and Hildebrand acted. Cadalus descended on Rome with German and Lombard troops: Hildebrand summoned the Normans, and a fierce battle was waged for the tiara under the very shadow of St. Peter's. Then Godfrey of Tuscany appeared on the scene with his army, and the decision was remitted to a synod at Augsburg. Hildebrand was content, for a revolution had occurred at the German court, and Damiani was sent to win the verdict at Augsburg by the ingenious expedient of being himself counsel for both sides.

The way was now rapidly prepared for the Pontificate of Hildebrand. Godfrey of Tuscany died, and his pious widow Beatrice and still more impressionable daughter Mathilda were prepared to put their last soldier at his disposal. The Patarenes were reinforced by the knight Herlembald (whose lady-love had been seduced by a priest), and were dragging the married priests from their churches and destroying their homes in many parts of north Italy. At Florence the monks of Vallombrosa lent their fiery aid, even against the troops, and one of their number passed unscathed through the ordeal of fire before an immense concourse of people. In the south Robert Guiscard was expelling the last remnants of the Saracens and founding a powerful Norman kingdom. All these forces marched under banners blessed and presented by the Pope. One banner advanced by the side of the ferocious Herlembald: one shone at the head of the Norman troops in Calabria: one was seen in the ranks of William of Normandy when he made his successful raid upon England.[203]

Alexander closed his short and earnest Pontificate on April 21, 1073. Hildebrand, in his capacity of archdeacon, took stringent measures for the preservation of order, or the coercion of the Imperialist faction; yet, when the voice of the people demanded thatheshould be Pope, his troops made no effort to secure an election according to the decree of 1059. He was conducting the funeral service over the remains of Alexander, on April 22d, when the cry, "Hildebrand bishop," was raised. He protested, but Cardinal Hugh Candidus, one of the most versatile clerical politicians of the time and afterwards the Pope's deadly enemy, stood forth and insisted that the cry was just. Hildebrand was seized and conducted, almost carried, to the church of St. Peter in Chains, where he was enthroned, as he afterwards wrote to Abbot Didier,[204]by "popular tumult." It is not certain, but is entirely probable, that he sought the imperial ratification. We may conclude that he did this, since, when he was consecrated on June 30th, the Empress Agnes and the imperial representative in Italy were present.

In the letters which Gregory issued to his friends throughout Europe immediately after his election he observes that the strain and anxiety have made him ill. We can well believe that when the hour arrived for him to mount the throne of Peter, instead of standing behind it, he felt a grave foreboding. No man had ever yet ascended that throne with so portentous anidea of its prestige and responsibility, and no Pope had ever confronted a more disordered Christendom. There had been good men at the Lateran for thirty years, yet in the eyes of Hildebrand they must have seemed idle, timid, and ineffective. A Pope must wear out his body and lay down his life in the struggle with triumphant evil: must smite king or prelate or peasant without a moment's hesitation: must use every weapon that the times afforded—excommunication or imprecation, the spear of the Norman or the sword of the Dane, the staff of the ignorant fanatic or the tender devotion of woman. "The Blessed Peter on earth," as Hildebrand called himself, had a right to implicit obedience from every man on earth, on temporal no less than on spiritual matters. Kings were of less consequence than the meanest priests. If kings and dukes resisted his grand plan of making the whole of Christendom "pure and obedient," why not make their kingdoms and duchies fiefs of the Holy See, to be bestowed on virtuous men? Why not make Europe the United States of the Church, governed despotically by the one man on earth who was "inspired by God"? If anathemas failed, there were swords enough in Europe to carry out his plan. That, literally, was the vision which filled the feverish imagination of Gregory VII. when he looked down from his throne over the world.

It was the dream of a soldier-monk, unchecked by understanding of men or accurate knowledge of history. Such reformers as Cardinal Damiani and Abbot Didier resented Gregory's aims and procedure: they were most appreciated by women like the Countess Mathilda. Hildebrand is said to have been a learned man, but we have cause to take with reserve mediæval compliments of this kind. He knew the Bible well, and was steepedin the congenial atmosphere of the Old Testament. He knew Church-history and law well: as they were told at the Lateran. Döllinger has shown that his principal lieutenants in the work of reform—Bishop Anselm of Lucca (a second Anselm), Bishop Bonitho, and Cardinal Deusdedit—were unscrupulous in their use of historical and canonical documents, and that Gregory relied on these as well as on the older forgeries.[205]I am, however, chiefly concerned with the limitations of his knowledge, and will observe only that his letters, written in robust and inelegant Latin, give no indication of culture beyond this close acquaintance with very dubious history and law. The Arab civilization had by this time enkindled some intellectual life in Europe: men were not far from the age of Abélard. But in this new speculative life Gregory had no share. If we find him, with apparent liberality, acquitting Bérenger in 1049 and 1079, we must ascribe it rather to incapacity and disinclination for speculative matters.

This restriction and inaccuracy of culture strengthened Gregory in his peculiar ideal, and it was much the same with his poor judgment of character, which brought many a disaster on him. Probably men like Hildebrand and Damiani enjoyed a physical debility in regard to sex-life, and sincerely failed to realize thatthe abolition of clerical marriage would inevitably lead to worse evils. The ideal they worked for—the establishment of a spiritual army dead to every human affection, and therefore incorruptible—was magnificent but impossible. Similarly, in the campaign against simony, Gregory never realized the roots of the evil. Bishops were politicians, the supporters or thwarters of the counsels of princes; intellectual culture was, in fact, almost confined to bishops and abbots, and their advice was (apart from their wealth, their troops, and their feudal duties) needed as much as that of unlettered soldiers. Hence princes had a real and deep interest in their appointment. The intrigue for political power at that very time of the great prelates of Germany was notorious. If Gregory had at least confined his strictures to simony in the strict sense, he might have had some prospect of success, for his cause was obviously just. But by his attack on "investiture"[206]he would take away from princes the control of some of their most powerful, and often most mischievous, vassals.

Yet, instead of seeking to deprive bishops and abbots of wealth and troops and political influence, Hildebrand wanted them to have more. He encouraged Anselm of Lucca to lead the Tuscan troops; he proposed in person to lead the Christian armies against the Turks. Throughout life he called for more men and more money, and he never hesitated an instant to set swords flying if he could gain his religious aim by that means.He was as warlike as a full-blooded Norman. Bishop Mathew calls him "truculent," and reminds us how, before he became Pope, Abbot Didier wanted to punish an abbot, who had gouged out the eyes of some of his monks for their sins, but Hildebrand protected the man and afterwards made him a bishop. Didier and Damiani were equally shocked at his political activity. He scorned the distinction between spiritual and temporal things—except when he was endeavouring to keep laymen in their proper place—and argued repeatedly that, if a Pope had supreme power in matters of religion, he very clearly had it in the less important concerns of earth: if a Pope could open and close the gates of heaven, he could most assuredly open and close the gates of earthly kingdoms. He went so far as to say that "all worldly things, be they honours, empires, kingdoms, principalities, or duchies," he could bestow on whomsoever he wished.[207]On this ground he, as we shall see, grasped the flimsiest pretexts for claiming a kingdom as a fief of the Roman See, relying often on forged or perverted texts, and he quite clearly aimed at bringing all the countries in Christendom under the feudal lordship of the Papacy, to be bestowed for "obedience" and withdrawn for "disobedience" at the will of the Pope. I do not admit that he was ambitious, even ambitious for his See. He believed that this sacerdocracy was willed by God and was the only means of maintaining religion and morality in Europe. But there were human aspects of these questions which Gregory ignored, and his bitter and numerous opponents retorted that he was a fool or a fanatic.

This ideal did not merely grow in Gregory's mind inthe heat of his combats. It is seen in his earliest letters. Before he was consecrated he wrote to remind "the Princes of Spain" that that country belonged to the Roman See; that the Popes had never abandoned their right to it, even when it was held by the Moors: and that the kings who were now wresting it from the Moors held their kingdoms "on behalf of St. Peter" (ex parte S. Petri) and on condition that they rendered feudal military service when summoned to do so.[208]A few weeks later he wrote to Duke Godfrey, referring to Henry IV.: "If he returns hatred for love, and shows contempt for Almighty God for the honour conferred on him, the imprecation which runs, 'Cursed is he that refraineth his sword from blood,' will not, with God's help, fall onus."[209]In June he told Beatrice and Mathilda that he would resist the King, if necessary, "to the shedding of blood."[210]In the same month he compelled Landulph of Benevento and Richard of Capua to swear fealty to the Roman See. In November he told Lanfranc, the greatest prelate of England, that he was astounded at his "audacity" (frons) in neglecting Papal orders.[211]In December he wrote to a French bishop that if King Philip did not amend his ways he would smite the French people with "the sword of a general anathema" and they would "refuse to obey him further."[212]A remarkable record for the first nine months of his Pontificate.

I shall not in the least misrepresent his work if I dismiss other matters briefly and enlarge on his attempts to realize his sacerdocratic ideal: especially his struggle with Henry IV. His campaign against simony and clerical incontinence fills the whole period of his Pontificate, but cannot be described in detail. Year byyear his handful of Italian bishops—remoter bishops generally ignored his drastic orders to come to Rome—met in Lenten synods at Rome, held their lighted candles while he read the ever-lengthening list of the excommunicated, and shuddered at his vigorous imprecations. Then his legates went out over Europe, but few prelates were willing or able to promulgate the decrees they brought, and the campaign succeeded only where it could rely on the staves of the Patarenes or the swords of the Pope's allies. Other episcopal functions, such as settlements of jurisdiction, occupy a relatively small part of his correspondence. It is enough to say that his eye ranged from Lincoln to Constantinople, from Stockholm to Carthage.

In Italy, his chief concern was to concentrate the southern States under his lead and form a military bulwark against the northerners. The Roman militia was strengthened: the petty princes of Benevento and Capua were persuaded that their shrunken territories were safer from the aggressions of Robert Guiscard if they paid allegiance to St. Peter: Mathilda of Tuscany did not even need to be persuaded to hold her troops at his disposal. It would be safe to say that Italy alone would have wrecked Gregory's policy but for the lucky accident of Tuscany passing to the pious Mathilda. She clung to Gregory so tenaciously that his opponents affected to see a scandal in the association.

The chief thorn in his side was Robert Guiscard, who had founded a kingdom in southern Italy and refused to do homage. He laid waste the territory of the Pope's allies, and smiled at the anathema put on him. Gregory, as usual, turned to the sword. The Eastern Emperor had asked aid against the Turks, and Gregory summoned all Christian princes to contribute troops.He would lead the army in person, he said: supported by the aged Beatrice and the tender Mathilda. The northern princes smiled, and the plan of a crusade came to naught. But it was not merely concern for Constantinople which made Gregory dangerously ill when his plan miscarried. Historians generally overlook his letter to William of Burgundy,[213]in which he plainly states that he wants the troops for the purpose of intimidating—if not conquering—Robert: "perhaps," he says, they may afterwards proceed to the East. He was still more irritated when Robert himself entered into an alliance with Constantinople. Gregory angrily wrote to ask the King of Denmark to send his son with an army and wrest the south of Italy from the "vile heretics" who held it.[214]

He was similarly thwarted in nearly every country in Europe, and his anathemas were terrible to hear. I have already referred to his haughty language to Lanfranc, yet the English bishops continued, year after year, to ignore the imperious summons to attend his Roman synods. In 1079 Gregory wrote to Lanfranc that he understood that the King prevented them from coming, and was surprised that the "superstitious love" or fear of any man should come between him and his duty.[215]Lanfranc still evaded, almost fooled, him, and, when Gregory threatened to suspend him, affected to be engaged in examining the claims of an Anti-Pope whom Henry IV. had set up. With William himself Gregory was bitterly disappointed. When, in 1080, he ordered the King to collect the arrears of Peter's Pence and acknowledge his feudal obligations to Rome, William somewhat contemptuously replied that he would forward the money, but would pay allegiance tono man. Gregory was so angry that he told his legates that the money was no use without the "honour."[216]

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