Chapter 7

The bishops of France were equally deaf to his annual summons to his Lenten synods and his orders that they should punish their King. He threatened, not only to pronounce an interdict, but that he would "endeavourin every wayto take the kingdom of France from him."[217]A similar threat of military action was sent to Spain. King Alphonso of Leon married a relative, and Gregory wrote to the abbot of Cluny that if the King did not obey his orders and dismiss her he would "not think it too great a trouble to go ourselves to Spain and concert severe and painful action [evidently military action] against him."[218]This policy of promoting or blessing invasions and usurpations was carried out in the case of smaller kingdoms. King Solomon was ejected from Hungary and appealed to Rome. Gregory blessed the usurper (who craftily promised to be a good son of the Church) and told Solomon that he had deserved the calamity by receiving his kingdom, which had been given to St. Peter by the earlier King Stephen, at the hand of Henry IV.[219]Then Ladislaus of Hungary seized Dalmatia and sought to strengthen his position by paying fealty to the Pope for it; so that, when the Dalmatians attempted to recover their independence, Gregory denounced them as "rebels against the Blessed Peter."[220]Lastly, when the Russian king was displaced by his brothers, and promised to acknowledge the feudal supremacy ofRome if he were restored, Gregory induced Boleslaus of Poland to restore him.

If this kind of procedure incurred the censure of Gregory's great friend and successor, Abbot Didier, we can easily understand the violent language of his opponents. These are usually writers of the Lombard-German faction, and we must now endeavour to disentangle from the contradictory narratives of the partisan writers the truth about his relations with Henry IV. The facts I have hitherto given are taken from the authentic letters of Gregory.

Henry IV. was a boy at the time of his father's death, and it is beyond dispute that the prelates and nobles who quarrelled for power shamefully neglected, or consciously misdirected, his education. When he came to the throne he was a wilful, loose-living, and imperious young man, forced into marriage with a woman whom he disliked. Exhortations to abandon simony and avoid evil companions fell lightly on such ears, and, as we saw, Gregory's early letters threatened war. Five of Henry's favourites were under sentence of excommunication, yet the young King would not part with them. Gregory turned to the bishops, but they flatly refused to allow his legates to call a synod in Germany, and his excommunication of the Archbishop of Hamburg only embittered them. Suddenly, however, before the end of 1073, Gregory was delighted to receive a most humble and submissive letter from Henry, and legates were sent to absolve him.

The cause of this action of the imperious young King gives us at once a most important clue to what is called the later triumph of Gregory at Canossa. The popular impression that that famous scene represented a triumph of spiritual power over the passions of man iswholly wrong. It was an episode in a political struggle. Henry's kingdom embraced Saxony and Swabia; and the Saxons cherished a sombre memory of their recent incorporation, while Rudolph of Swabia had a mind to make profit by the troubles of his suzerain and astutely courted the favour of the Pope. Gregory could not fail to grasp the situation, and his struggle against Henry is a series of attempts by the Pope to foment and take advantage of Henry's difficulties with his vassals, ending in the complete triumph of the King.

Henry's submission in 1074 meant that there was a dangerous rebellion in Saxony. The King did not, in fact, part entirely with his excommunicated favourites, and the anathema on them was renewed at the synod of 1075, which also laid a heavy censure on "any emperor, duke, marquis, count, or any temporal lord, or any secular person whatsoever," who claimed the right of investiture. Henry remained friendly: the Saxon war dragged on. In October Henry was sending legates to Rome to confer with the Pope, who had hinted at compromise on the subject of investitures. But the Saxon rebellion suddenly came to an end, and three legates were now sent with a less pleasant message: probably a peremptory claim of the imperial crown. Henry had not only a united Germany, but a strong party in Lombardy. Herlembald was killed, and the Patarenes held in check. Moreover, the recalcitrant bishops were now joined by the Archbishop of Ravenna (who had been hastily excommunicated by Gregory for not attending the Lenten synod) and Cardinal Hugh Candidus. Elated with this support, the young King acted wilfully. He sent one of his excommunicated nobles to Lombardy,crushed the Patarenes, and set up a third Archbishop of Milan, Tedald.[221]

Gregory was alarmed at this combination and at first temporized. He invited Tedald to come to Rome for a polite discussion of his claims; he sent Henry a "doubtful blessing" and would compromise on investitures and consider his further demands, if he abandoned the excommunicated nobles.[222]But he gave Henry's envoys, to whom he handed the letter, a verbal message of a more drastic nature. He threatened to depose Henry for his "horrible crimes," and there is good reason to suppose that these "crimes" were, in part at least, the slanderous fictions of Henry's enemies.[223]Both were men of fiery and indiscreet impulses, and this impolitic act of Gregory kindled the conflagration.

Meantime a remarkable experience befell Gregory at Rome, and it is not unlikely that he held Henry responsible for it; though it is practically certain that Henry was wholly innocent. The increasing difficulties of the Pope encouraged the anti-Puritans at Rome, and one of them, Cenci, a notorious bandit, burst into the church of Sta. Maria on the Esquiline while Gregory was saying midnight mass there on Christmas day (1075). His men scattered the attendants, and one of them struck the Pope with a sword, causing a wound on the forehead. Gregory was stripped of his sacerdotal robes, thrust on a horse behind one of thesoldiers, and hurried to Cenci's fortified tower. Some noble matron was taken with him—one of the strangest circumstances of the whole mysterious episode—and she bound his wounds as he lay in the tower, while Cenci threatened to kill him unless he handed over the keys of the Papal treasury. It is fairly clear that the motive was robbery. Meantime the bells and trumpets had spread the alarm through Rome, and the militia beset the tower and relieved the Pope. This remarkable picture of a winter's night in the capital of Christendom ends with Gregory, who cannot have been severely wounded, calmly returning to the altar and finishing his mass.

Henry's envoys had left Rome before Christmas, and it is therefore a mistake to suppose that the message they brought from Gregory had any reference to the violence of Cenci. They reached the court at Goslar on January 1, 1076, and we can easily believe that they would not moderate the offensiveness of the oral message. Gregory had a deliberate policy of preferring oral to written messages. There may at times have been an advantage in this, but in the present instance it was gravely imprudent. Henry's friends urged him to avenge the insult, and three weeks later a synod of twenty-six German bishops, with a large number of abbots, met at Worms and declared Gregory deposed. The irregularity of his election, the despotism of his conduct, and what was described as his scandalous association with women, were the chief reasons assigned for this action. The decree was sent to the insurgent bishops of north Italy, who met in council and endorsed it, and a priest of the church of Parma volunteered to serve the sentence on Gregory. He reached Rome at a moment when Gregory was presiding at alarge synod in the Lateran Palace, and boldly read the sentence to the assembled bishops. Lay nobles drew their swords upon the audacious priest, but Gregory restrained them and bade them hear the words of Henry. His intemperate and insulting letter—so intemperate that the Pope could easily remain calm and dignified—could receive only one reply. The King and all his supporters were excommunicated, and Gregory issued a not unworthy letter "To All Christians"[224]informing them that the subjects of King Henry of Germany were released from their allegiance.

There can be no doubt that Henry IV. had merited a sentence of excommunication, and it is a nice point whether a King could continue to rule his territory when he was thus cut off from communication with his subjects. We may, at all events, gravely question whether the Pope was either politic or just in going on formally to depose the King, and, as the news of this unprecedented action spread through Christendom, even religious prelates shook their heads. Throughout the rest of his life Gregory had repeatedly to defend his conduct, not against the partisans of Henry, but against some of his own supporters. His chief apology is contained in a letter to the Bishop of Metz[225]and is invalid and illogical. He relies on a forged letter of St. Peter, and he appeals to the excommunication of Theodosius by St. Ambrose and the "deposition" of Childeric by Pope Zachary in 753; the former was in no sense a precedent, and in the latter case the Pope merely confirmed the design of Pippin and the Franks. There was no precedent whatever for deposition, and Gregory is severely censured even by modern writersfor not observing the canonical forms in his excommunication of Henry.[226]

Gregory at once prepared for war. The Duchess Beatrice died in April, and the devoted Mathilda, who was so pointedly insulted, though not named, in her royal cousin's manifesto, put the troops of Tuscany at the Pope's disposal. Gregory also tried to reconcile the Normans with each other and weld them into a common army for the defence of Rome. But his chief reliance was on the Germans themselves. He knew well, when he excommunicated Henry, that the embittered Saxons would leap with joy at the fresh pretext of rebellion, and the intriguing Swabians would secretly welcome the censure. Henry found himself very soon on the road to Canossa. He summoned two councils in rapid succession, but their defiance of the Pope brought him little pleasure when he noted the small number of his supporters. Saxony threw off his yoke at once, and prelates and nobles began to fall away from his cause. Gregory pressed his advantage with fiery energy, showering letters upon the German clergy and people, and in the middle of October a large body of the nobles and prelates (chiefly Saxon and Swabian) met at Tribur, near Darmstadt, to consider the position of the kingdom. Two Papal legates and Rudolph of Swabia presided, and Henry watched the proceedings from the other side of the river.

From this stage onward we are compelled to consult the contemporary chroniclers, and it is almost impossible to disentangle the truth from their contradictory and mendacious statements. It is clear that for sevendays the Diet held long debate on the situation. Undoubtedly they wished to depose Henry, but, apparently, they were unwilling to recognize in the Pope this dangerous power of deposing kings, and the Diet seems to have ended with an injunction to Henry to make peace with the Pope. According to the monk Lambert of Hersfeld, who seems to have gathered into hisChronicleall the wild cloister-gossip of the time, the Diet decided that, according to the "Laws of the Palace,"—there were no such laws at that time,—Henry forfeited his crown if he remained excommunicated a year and a day, and commanded him to retire into private life at Spires until Gregory should come to Germany and decide the case. The Gregorian writer, Bishop Bonitho,[227]contrives in this instance to improve on Lambert; he tells us that, if Henry submitted, the nobles would accompany him to Rome, where he would receive the imperial crown, and they would then sweep the Normans out of south Italy. One suspects that in this the Bishop of Sutri is betraying a design of Gregory which was certainly not endorsed by the Diet.

The most authentic evidence is thePromissio(or Letter of Apology) which, at the dictation of the Diet, Henry submitted to the Pope.[228]He expressed regret for any affront he may have put on the dignity of the Pope, promised obedience on spiritual matters, and declared that on certain other grave matters he would vindicate his innocence. When this short and dry letter was eventually handed to the Pope by one of the chief prelates of Germany, Gregory was outraged to find that its concluding sentence ran: "But it befitteththy Holiness not to ignore the things repeated about thee which bring scandal on the Church, but to remove this scruple from the public conscience and provide in thy wisdom for the tranquillity of the Church and the kingdom." Gregorian writers insist that this was added by Henry to the draft approved by the Diet, but this is by no means certain. Henry was not a broken man. He had a considerable force with him, and Rudolph of Swabia evidently found that it would be no easy task to displace him. The edict which Henry published at the same time, declaring that he had been misled when he obtained a censure of the Pope, gives one the same impression. He had still a powerful following, and it was agreed to avert civil war by reconciliation and by inviting Gregory to preside at a Diet at Augsburg.

Gregory, in spite of the advice of his friends (except Mathilda, who spurred him on), at once set out for the north. His impetuous journey was, however, arrested in the north of Italy by the news that the German nobles had failed to send an escort for him, and that Henry himself was crossing the Alps with a large army. Mathilda persuaded him to retire to her impregnable fortress of Canossa, and there, about the end of January, Henry enacted his historic part of penitent.

Here the chroniclers are hopelessly discordant, and the full picturesque narrative of Lambert of Hersfeld, on which some historians still implicitly rely, has been riddled by modern critics.[229]It is clear that Henry wished to keep the Pope out of Germany, and he there-fore hastily crossed the Alps in the depth of winter. It is clear that a "vast army" (in the words of Lambert himself) gathered about him in rebellious Lombardy, but he pushed on with a few followers (incidentally admitted by Lambert) to Canossa. It is clear that Gregory, on the other hand, was desperately bent on presiding over a council in Germany, and shocked his friends by his obstinacy in refusing to be reconciled[230]; he had condemned Henry without trial, but he would not absolve him without trial. And, obviously inaccurate as the narrative of Lambert is,[231]it seems to me certain that Henry went through the form of penance on the icy platform before the gate of Canossa. In the letter written immediately afterwards to the nobles and prelates of Germany,[232]Gregory describes Henry as doing penance for three days, in bare feet and woollen robe, before the gates. However impolitic and irritating it was for Gregory to write such a letter, Dr. Dammann seems to me to fail to impeach its genuineness. Indeed in his great speech to the Roman synod of 1080, when he excommunicated Henry a second time, Gregory says that in 1076 Henry came to him "in confusion and humiliation" at Canossa to ask absolution.

Thus the scene which has ever since impressed the imagination of Europe is in substance authentic; though we are by no means compelled to think that Henry literally stood in the snow for three whole days. But the common interpretation of the scene is quitefalse. It was not a spiritual triumph, but a political pseudo-triumph. In reality, it was Henry who triumphed; and one can imagine him jesting merrily afterwards about his bare feet and coarse robe of penitence. He promised to amend his ways, and then proceeded to make a tour of Italy in light-hearted confidence and with all his old wilfulness. He refused to interfere when a Papal Legate was thrown into prison at Piacenza; and he refused to provide Gregory with an escort when the Germans invited the Pope to come and preside at their new Diet.[233]Gregory soon realized that the war had merely passed into a new and more difficult phase, and we must follow it swiftly to its tragic end in the utter defeat of the Pope.

Gregory sent two Legates to the Diet of Forchheim on March 13th, where, with their consent, Rudolph of Swabia was declared King of Germany. The Papal Legates exacted that he should not claim the succession for his family—apparently Germany was to be the next fief of the Roman See—and should abandon investiture. When Henry pressed the Pope to excommunicate Rudolph, he replied that he had not yet heard Rudolph's case—an "unworthy subterfuge," Bishop Mathew justly remarks—and Henry set out for Germany. In the three-years struggle which followed, the Pope adopted a policy which few historians hesitate to condemn. He sent Legates repeatedly, claiming that he alone was the judge: that "if the See of the BlessedPeter decides and judges heavenly and spiritual things, how much the more shall it judge things earthly and secular."[234]He even promised the crown to whichever of the combatants should respect his Legates: a remarkable test of the justice he promised to administer. He evidently hoped that Rudolph would win, but feared that the victorymightfall to Henry; and, above all, he desired to judge the princes of the earth. At last the Saxons in turn began to abuse him. His Legates, they said, were offering his verdict to the highest bidder—assuredly without his knowledge—and his policy was unintelligible. Bishops were saying that the Papacy had become "the tail of the Church."

At the Lenten synod of the year 1080 representatives of both princes came before Gregory and his bishops, and the great decision was taken. Henry was found guilty of "disobedience," and, after a long and eloquent speech, Gregory excommunicated him once more and confirmed Rudolph in the kingdom of Germany. Bishop Bonitho[235]tells us that Henry had sent an ultimatum: if Gregory did not at once condemn Rudolph he would appoint another Pope. This is, apparently, the real inspiration of the synod and of Gregory's fiery speech.[236]Henry's partisans retorted by excommunicating Gregory and consecrating Guibert of Ravenna as Anti-Pope, and, as Rudolph fell in battle in October, the Gregorian cause was in a lamentable plight. Gregory had, in his extremity, overlooked all the crimes of Robert Guiscard—"for the present" he quaintlysaid in the treaty—and made an alliance with him, but Robert was still engaged in the East, and Henry's troops made great havoc in Mathilda's dominions. Yet Gregory repeated his excommunication of the King, and wrote letters all over Europe to defend his action and obtain money and troops.

Several years passed in this indecisive warfare, Henry wearing down the Tuscan troops and cutting off supplies from Rome. At length, toward the end of March, 1084, the Romans, weary of the long siege, opened their gates to Henry, and Gregory shut himself in the impregnable fortress of Sant' Angelo. From the windows, for two dreary months, Gregory had to watch the progress of the victorious Imperialists and the triumph of the Anti-Pope, Clement III. In May he was elated by the message that Henry had fled and Robert Guiscard was marching to Rome with a large force. But his joy was brief. A brawl with the Romans let loose the half-barbaric Normans, and the city was visited with one of the most pitiless raids in its eventful history. Thousands of the Romans were sold into slavery: sacred virgins and matrons were savagely raped: large districts of the city were burned to the ground. For this the infuriated Romans cast the whole blame on the Pope, and he was forced to retire with Robert. In penury and impotence he rode into the abbey of Monte Cassino, where Abbot Didier would hardly fail to remind him that they who appeal to the sword are apt to perish by the sword, and then on to Salerno. Surrounded by the shrunken remains of his supporters he made a last appeal to the Christian world to espouse his cause, and he feebly cast forth his last anathemas. But the fight was lost, and he wearily drew his last breath on May 25, 1085. "Ihave loved justice and hated iniquity, therefore I die in exile," he said. It was not wholly true. He was exiled by the people of Rome, whose devastated homes made them heap curses on his iron policy. History honours the purity of his ultimate aim, the heroism with which he pursued it, the greatness, with all its defects, of his character; it sternly condemns the means he employed, the tortuous and dangerous character of his reasoning, the appalling claim that kingdoms were toys in his hand. He failed; but he had, in reality, so strengthened the frame of the Papacy that it would take an earthquake to shake it.

FOOTNOTES:[200]The two ablest recent writers on Hildebrand, the Right Reverend Dr. A.H. Mathew (The Life and Times of Hildebrand, 1910) and Dr. W. Martens (War Gregor VII. Mönch?, 1891, andGregor VII., 2 vols. 1894—an invaluable study), hold that he never took the vows. The chief biography of Hildebrand on the Catholic side is now the Abbé O. Delarc'sGrégoire VII. et la Réforme de l'Église au XI siècle(3 vols., 1889). Slight but excellent sketches will be found in F. Roquain'sLa Papauté au moyen âge(1881) andHildebrand and His Times(1888) by W.R.W. Stephens. Older writers like Voigt, Gfrörer, Villemain, and Bowden are now of little use. The original authorities are as numerous as they are unreliable. The partisans of Gregory (chiefly Bonitho and Donizo) are scarcely more scrupulous than the partisans of Henry (Benzo, Benno, Guido, etc.), or those of Rudolph (Lambert, Berthold, Bruno, etc.). Fortunately we have a large number of Gregory's letters, and, as usual, I rely chiefly on these.[201]The reformers of Milan worked chiefly among the poor, especially in the "old-clothes quarter," orPataria. Hence the name of the party.[202]The word "cardinal" occurs occasionally in early ecclesiastical literature in its literal meaning of "important," and is applied to clerics of various orders. After the fifth century it is restricted at Rome to the first priests of each of thetituli(quasi-parishes) into which the city was divided. They numbered twenty-eight in the eleventh century. In the course of time the name was also given to the seventeen leading deacons of Rome and the seven suburbicarian bishops.[203]In this last case we have the assurance of Hildebrand himself that he dictated the Papal policy. Years afterwards he wrote to William (Ep., vii., 23) that, when the Norman envoys came to ask Papal approval of his design, it was generally censured as an unjustifiable raid, and Hildebrand alone induced Pope Alexander to send the Normans a banner: on condition, he adds, that William secured the payment of Peter's Pence by the reluctant English and in other ways promoted the interests of Rome. But even William did not dream that his acceptance of the banner made England, in Hildebrand's opinion, a fief of the Roman See![204]Ep., i., 1.[205]Das Papstthum(1892), ch. ii., § 2. See also F. Roquain'sLa Papauté au moyen âge. Roquain observes, leniently, that Gregory was "not entirely exempt from reproach in the use of means to attain his ends" (p. 127) and fell into "excesses unworthy of his great soul" (p. 131). In his famous letter to the Bishop of Metz (viii., 21) Gregory omits an essential part of a passage which he quotes from Gelasius and materially alters its meaning. When we further find him writing (ix., 2) that "even a lie that is told for a good purpose in the cause of peace is notwhollyfree from blame," we fear that he was not far from the maxim that the end justifies the means.[206]The secular ruler had long been accustomed to bestow the crozier and ring on his nominee for a bishopric, and this was known as "investiture." The practice undoubtedly led to much simony and to the appointment of unworthy men, but, as the event proved, a compromise was possible.[207]Speech to the Roman synod of the year 1080 (Migne, vol. cxlviii., col. 816). CompareEp., viii., 21.[208]Ep., i., 7.[209]Ep., i., 9.[210]I., 11.[211]I., 31.[212]I., 35.[213]I., 46.[214]II., 51.[215]VI., 30.[216]VII., 1.[217]II., 5 and 32.[218]VIII., 2.[219]In both statements of fact Gregory was wrong. Stephen had merely accepted a consecrated banner from the Anti-Pope Silvester II.; and Solomon had voluntarily chosen Henry as his suzerain.[220]VIII., 4.[221]There was a Gregorian archbishop in exile. The actual prelate may not have been zealous enough for Henry.[222]Iii., 10.[223]A good deal of controversy has been expended on the question whether Gregory did or did not threaten at this stage to depose Henry. Gregory's letter xxvi. (not in his Register, but of undoubted authenticity) to "the German People" expressly admits, or boasts, that he did. For further evidence see Dr. Martens,Gregor VII., i., 86-91.[224]iii., 6.[225]Viii., 21.[226]See C. Mirbt's special study of the conflict,Die Absetzung Heinrichs IV.(1888), p. 103.[227]Liber ad Amicum, 1. viii.[228]A translation may be read in Delarc, iii., 252.[229]One recent student, Dr. Albert Dammann (Der Sieg Heinrichs IV. in Kanossa, 1907 and 1909), goes to the other extreme, and concludes that Henry blockaded Canossa with a large army and compelled the Pope to withdraw his censure, without a single act of penance.[230]Ep., iv., 12.[231]For instance he describes a dramatic scene in which Henry shrinks from receiving the sacred host, whereas Gregory says (Ep., iv., 12) that he admitted Henry to communion. His story is full of contradictions.[232]Iv., 12.[233]Gregorian writers said afterwards that Henry's royal dignity was not restored at Canossa. In point of fact he actually signed his promise of reform as "king" and he refused to take an oath on the express ground that the word of a king of Germany sufficed. Gregory made no complaint on this score until years afterwards, though Henry resumed his royal character the moment he left Canossa.[234]Iv., 24.[235]Bk. ix.[236]It may be read in Migne, vol. cxlviii., col. 816. It includes the imprecation on Henry, "May he gain no victory as long as he lives," and again asserts that all honours and powers are at the disposal of the Pope.

FOOTNOTES:

[200]The two ablest recent writers on Hildebrand, the Right Reverend Dr. A.H. Mathew (The Life and Times of Hildebrand, 1910) and Dr. W. Martens (War Gregor VII. Mönch?, 1891, andGregor VII., 2 vols. 1894—an invaluable study), hold that he never took the vows. The chief biography of Hildebrand on the Catholic side is now the Abbé O. Delarc'sGrégoire VII. et la Réforme de l'Église au XI siècle(3 vols., 1889). Slight but excellent sketches will be found in F. Roquain'sLa Papauté au moyen âge(1881) andHildebrand and His Times(1888) by W.R.W. Stephens. Older writers like Voigt, Gfrörer, Villemain, and Bowden are now of little use. The original authorities are as numerous as they are unreliable. The partisans of Gregory (chiefly Bonitho and Donizo) are scarcely more scrupulous than the partisans of Henry (Benzo, Benno, Guido, etc.), or those of Rudolph (Lambert, Berthold, Bruno, etc.). Fortunately we have a large number of Gregory's letters, and, as usual, I rely chiefly on these.

[201]The reformers of Milan worked chiefly among the poor, especially in the "old-clothes quarter," orPataria. Hence the name of the party.

[202]The word "cardinal" occurs occasionally in early ecclesiastical literature in its literal meaning of "important," and is applied to clerics of various orders. After the fifth century it is restricted at Rome to the first priests of each of thetituli(quasi-parishes) into which the city was divided. They numbered twenty-eight in the eleventh century. In the course of time the name was also given to the seventeen leading deacons of Rome and the seven suburbicarian bishops.

[203]In this last case we have the assurance of Hildebrand himself that he dictated the Papal policy. Years afterwards he wrote to William (Ep., vii., 23) that, when the Norman envoys came to ask Papal approval of his design, it was generally censured as an unjustifiable raid, and Hildebrand alone induced Pope Alexander to send the Normans a banner: on condition, he adds, that William secured the payment of Peter's Pence by the reluctant English and in other ways promoted the interests of Rome. But even William did not dream that his acceptance of the banner made England, in Hildebrand's opinion, a fief of the Roman See!

[204]Ep., i., 1.

[205]Das Papstthum(1892), ch. ii., § 2. See also F. Roquain'sLa Papauté au moyen âge. Roquain observes, leniently, that Gregory was "not entirely exempt from reproach in the use of means to attain his ends" (p. 127) and fell into "excesses unworthy of his great soul" (p. 131). In his famous letter to the Bishop of Metz (viii., 21) Gregory omits an essential part of a passage which he quotes from Gelasius and materially alters its meaning. When we further find him writing (ix., 2) that "even a lie that is told for a good purpose in the cause of peace is notwhollyfree from blame," we fear that he was not far from the maxim that the end justifies the means.

[206]The secular ruler had long been accustomed to bestow the crozier and ring on his nominee for a bishopric, and this was known as "investiture." The practice undoubtedly led to much simony and to the appointment of unworthy men, but, as the event proved, a compromise was possible.

[207]Speech to the Roman synod of the year 1080 (Migne, vol. cxlviii., col. 816). CompareEp., viii., 21.

[208]Ep., i., 7.

[209]Ep., i., 9.

[210]I., 11.

[211]I., 31.

[212]I., 35.

[213]I., 46.

[214]II., 51.

[215]VI., 30.

[216]VII., 1.

[217]II., 5 and 32.

[218]VIII., 2.

[219]In both statements of fact Gregory was wrong. Stephen had merely accepted a consecrated banner from the Anti-Pope Silvester II.; and Solomon had voluntarily chosen Henry as his suzerain.

[220]VIII., 4.

[221]There was a Gregorian archbishop in exile. The actual prelate may not have been zealous enough for Henry.

[222]Iii., 10.

[223]A good deal of controversy has been expended on the question whether Gregory did or did not threaten at this stage to depose Henry. Gregory's letter xxvi. (not in his Register, but of undoubted authenticity) to "the German People" expressly admits, or boasts, that he did. For further evidence see Dr. Martens,Gregor VII., i., 86-91.

[224]iii., 6.

[225]Viii., 21.

[226]See C. Mirbt's special study of the conflict,Die Absetzung Heinrichs IV.(1888), p. 103.

[227]Liber ad Amicum, 1. viii.

[228]A translation may be read in Delarc, iii., 252.

[229]One recent student, Dr. Albert Dammann (Der Sieg Heinrichs IV. in Kanossa, 1907 and 1909), goes to the other extreme, and concludes that Henry blockaded Canossa with a large army and compelled the Pope to withdraw his censure, without a single act of penance.

[230]Ep., iv., 12.

[231]For instance he describes a dramatic scene in which Henry shrinks from receiving the sacred host, whereas Gregory says (Ep., iv., 12) that he admitted Henry to communion. His story is full of contradictions.

[232]Iv., 12.

[233]Gregorian writers said afterwards that Henry's royal dignity was not restored at Canossa. In point of fact he actually signed his promise of reform as "king" and he refused to take an oath on the express ground that the word of a king of Germany sufficed. Gregory made no complaint on this score until years afterwards, though Henry resumed his royal character the moment he left Canossa.

[234]Iv., 24.

[235]Bk. ix.

[236]It may be read in Migne, vol. cxlviii., col. 816. It includes the imprecation on Henry, "May he gain no victory as long as he lives," and again asserts that all honours and powers are at the disposal of the Pope.

CHAPTER IX

INNOCENT III.: THE PAPAL ZENITH

ThatPapal policy or ideal of which we have traced the development in the minds of the greater Popes attains its fullest expansion during the Pontificate of Innocent III. Historians usually assign the year 1300 as the date of the culmination of the Papal system, but it had in reality attained its full stature under Innocent III. It did indeed make its last impressive display of world-power under Boniface VIII., but there had been no material contribution to its frame since the death of Innocent, and the thirteenth century had fostered the growth of the influences which were destined to undo it. In the fourteenth century came the demoralizing residence in Avignon and the Great Schism: in the fifteenth century the renaissance of culture and development of civic life, which enfeebled the Popes and strengthened their subjects, were completed: in the sixteenth century Luther and Calvin smote the colossus. Innocent III. is the last great maker of the Papacy.

The work of the eighteen Popes who occupied the throne between the death of Gregory VII. and the election of Innocent might not ineptly be described in a line: they sought, and failed, to wield the heavy weapons of Hildebrand. In virtue of the falsifiedletters, canons, charters, and chronicles which were now accepted throughout Europe, they proclaimed that they had the disposal of earthly kingdoms no less than of seats in heaven, and they thus brought on themselves a century of strife in which only the stronger men could find much time for strictly Pontifical duties. They were men of sober life and, generally, high character, yet the very nature of their ideal involved such struggles that the Papacy had to await a fortunate conjunction of circumstances before the ideal could be realized. The conflict with Henry IV. continued until, his two sons having been persuaded to rebel against him and his second wife encouraged to besmirch his reputation, before the assembled prelates of Christendom, with charges as foul as they were feeble in evidence, he, in 1097, quitted Italy for ever. Then Urban II., who was responsible for this gross travesty of spiritual justice, cleared Rome by means of Norman swords and rallied Christendom about him by a declaration of the First Crusade. But so tainted a legacy of peace could not last. Henry V. proved more exacting than his father, and another prolonged struggle absorbed the energy of the Popes until the fifty years' war over investiture was settled by a compromise at Worms in 1122.[237]

Bernard of Clairvaux, rather than the successive Popes, was the spiritual master of Europe in the comparative peace after Worms. During nearly the whole of the second half of the twelfth century the Papacywas distracted by the incessant revolts of the Romans. The streets, even the churches, of Rome were stained with blood, year after year, and the Popes repeatedly fled. The rise of Frederic Barbarossa complicated the struggle, and the Popes had little opportunity to exercise the powers they had won, without thinking of any extension of their claims. At last, in 1198, the Papacy once more fell to a man of commanding personality and was lifted to the zenith of its power.

Lothario de'Conti di Segni was born about the year 1160. His father was Count Trasimondo of Segni: his mother belonged to the noble Roman family of the Scotti, which included several cardinals of the anti-Imperialist school. After receiving an elementary education at Rome, he was sent to Paris for theology, and to Bologna for law. The scholastic movement was now stimulating Europe and creating great schools; indeed Pope Alexander III. had, though not from cultural motives, fostered the movement by favouring the activity of free teachers. Profane letters were, however, still little cultivated. Lothario took a degree in the liberal arts, but he was soon wholly absorbed in theology and canon law; the correct and virile Latin of his letters is very far from the classical models. Under the Pontificate of his maternal uncle, Clement III., he returned to Rome a young man of the most ascetic character and most finished ecclesiastical culture. He was made a canon of St. Peter's, and, in his twenty-ninth year, a cardinal of the Roman Church.

The Pontificate of Clement ended, apparently, the long struggle of the Popes and the Romans. The Roman nobles were as turbulent as ever, but one finds a more respectable element of dissension in the city at this time. The democratic ideas of that brilliantand too little appreciated thinker, Arnold of Brescia, had taken root in Rome, and a Republic, with a Senate of fifty-six members, had been established in the Capitol. Hadrian IV. had blighted this premature experiment by an interdict in 1155, but the struggle continued and the Popes lived little in the capital until the year 1188. Clement, a courtly and diplomatic Roman, made peace with his countrymen, and damped the democratic ardour by a shower of gold and of ecclesiastical favours. The Papacy resumed the government of the city, and the nominal power of the Senate was allowed to pass into the hands of one man, "the Senator." Clement died in 1190, and, as his successor, Celestine III., was a member of the Orsini family, which was bitterly hostile to the Scotti, there was no room in the Lateran for Lothario Conti. Nepotism was now so far accepted in the Papal palace that we shall find Innocent himself following the tradition. The leisure was fortunate in one respect, as Lothario used it for the purpose of writing a book,On Contempt of the World, which gives us a most interesting revelation of his innermost thoughts at the time when he became Pope. The book is a distillation of the extreme monastic views of the time; it is full of fables, and it depicts man as the very vilest thing in a world which was made solely for the disdain of the ascetic. It was from this morbidly tinted sanctuary that Lothario Conti surveyed the life of his time, which he was soon summoned to rule. In September, 1197, Henry VI., who had duly incurred the imperial legacy of excommunication, died and left his kingdom to his baby-boy Frederic: and on January 8, 1198, Lothario Conti, in the prime of life and the most sombre stage of his meditations, became Innocent III.

Although he occupied the Papal throne only eighteen years, we have more than five thousand letters, or parts of letters, dispatched by him to all parts of Christendom: more than five hundred of them were written in the first year of his Pontificate. Their range stretches from Ireland and Scandinavia to Cairo and Armenia. In that vast territory nothing of importance happened in which he did not intervene; and there was hardly a prince or baron whom he did not excommunicate, or any leading country which he did not place under interdict. His ideal was that of Gregory VII.: the Papal States of Europe—he wanted to add nearer Asia—trembling under the Roman rod. Writing to the Emperor of Constantinople he elaborated his famous conception of earthly empire as the moon, shining faintly by light borrowed from the spiritual power. The Papal theory had reached its culmination, and we may proceed at once to attempt to compress the portentous activity of Innocent III. into a few compartments.[238]

One naturally inquires first how this spiritual autocrat confronted the democratic faction at Rome. At the outset he showed a little of the accommodating temper which he always held in reserve behind his profession of rigour. His attendants flung showers of coin on the greedy people when he first passed between them, and, reluctantly, and on the lowest known scale, he distributed the backsheesh with which each incomingPope had to win the smiles of every official in the Palace and the city. There were murmurs, and they increased when he proceeded to compel the Prefect (who was understood to represent the Empire) and the Senator (who represented the Romans) to take oaths of allegiance to himself. By this stroke he expelled the last bit of reality out of the "free commune" of Rome, and cast off the last trace of an imperial yoke. He abolished the Noble Guard and the lay officials of the Palace: he deposed the judges appointed by the Senator and appointed less corrupt men: he drove the money-changers and merchants out of the Lateran courtyard, stamped on the parasites who fed on foreign pilgrims, and drew up a strict tariff of fees for the Papal services. He was by no means indifferent to money, as his fighting policy demanded enormous sums. No Pope could be keener on Peter's Pence, and no abbot or bishop dare approach him with a gift not proportionate to his wealth. But it is almost superfluous to say that he was a man of the most rigorous sentiment of justice, and, as long as he lived, the more selfish kind of rapacity at Rome was repressed.

The nobles who led the democratic party, chiefly Giovanni Pierleone and Giovanni Capocci, looked with concern on his tendency and, when he put a Papal governor over the Maremma and the Sabina, instead of the one appointed by the Senate, they pressed the Romans to see that their privileges were being stolen. In 1200 Innocent extricated himself from a difficult situation. Vitorchiano was threatened by Viterbo and declared itself a Papal fief. As Viterbo also was part of the patrimony, and the Romans hated it, Innocent was perplexed. The Romans took the field in spite of him, and won; but, as he happened to be sayingmass at the time of the victory, it was ingeniously ascribed to his prayers. In the following year, however, there was more serious trouble. Two small provincial nobles took possession of some estates on the Campagna, and, when Innocent ordered them to restore, they said that they held them of the democratic leaders, Pierleone and Capocci. There was an outcry, but Innocent sent his troops to lay waste the properties of the two nobles in the grimmest mediæval manner, and, in an eloquent speech at Rome, completely vanquished his critics. Then in 1202, during his customary summer absence, the feud of the Scotti and the Orsini broke out with frightful violence, and in the following year the antagonism to the Pope reached its height.

Innocent had, for his own protection, greatly enriched his brother Ricardo, and Ricardo had purchased the mortgages on the estates of one of the democrats, Oddo Poli. As far as we can see, Ricardo acted with legal correctness, but Rome was soon aroused by the sight of Poli and his friends coming naked to church, as a symbol of the "spoliation," and democratic rhetoric rose to white heat. There was a popular rising; Ricardo's towering mansion was burned, and Innocent himself had to fly to Ferentino (May, 1203). The Romans restored their Senate, and swore to have no more of this Papal nepotism and despotism, but from his retreat Innocent fostered the intestine quarrels of the victorious people, and before long the city was in a state of murderous anarchy. The two hundred mansions of its wealthier citizens were, and had been for ages, real fortresses, and during the whole summer of 1203 their castellated walls were lined with archers, and bands issued forth, with all the engines of war, to assault and burn the fortress of some neighbour. Itstill remains for some historian of the Papacy to explain this chronic violence and vice in the centre of Christendom during so many centuries. The trouble ended in the Pope resuming the government of the city, and his rule was further disturbed only by one of these popular revolts, in 1208.

We do not fully appreciate the strength of Innocent unless we realize how, while his eyes wandered over the globe, Rome itself demanded so much attention. But he was not merely concerned with its misconduct. He organized the work of charity in the city and did something to promote its commerce. He built a foundling hospital, trusting to reduce the infanticide which he found so common at Rome, and was very generous to the churches and the clergy. From his time the Popes began to use more and more the Palace beside St. Peter's, which he enlarged and fortified, and he spent large sums in adorning other churches and enhancing the splendour of the worship. But these and the other Roman reforms I have mentioned are the mere incidents of his domestic life, so to say. His work was the ruling of the world, and assuredly we must recognize a mind of high quality and prodigious energy when we read the volumes of letters that poured from the Lateran during those eighteen years, and imagine the vast crowds that came from every part of the world to do homage, to ask counsel, and to report the minutest circumstances of their abbeys or bishoprics or principalities.

Italy alone might have absorbed a weaker man during his earlier years. Papal rule was acknowledged—in the manner we have seen—only in the immediate neighbourhood of the city. Over the south and Sicily the widow of Henry VI. ruled in the name of her child:in the north were the leagues of free cities, and the isolated free cities, which had won independence: and the whole country apart from these was falling into the hands of the German generals whom Henry VI. had left there at his death. Innocent, like all the Popes after Hadrian, believed in the Donation of Constantine, to say nothing of the Donations of Pippin and Charlemagne and Otto and Mathilda. Italy belonged almost entirely to the Papacy, and must be recovered. Some historians hail Innocent as a great apostle of the "Italia Una" ideal, and he sometimes presses on particular towns "the interests of the whole of Italy." It is, however, absurd to associate his feeling with the later ideal of Italian unity. He cared for the unity of Italy only in the sense that the Pope was to be its unique ruler. Those Germans—he scorns them—must be driven out. Those free cities, always at war with each other, must be persuaded that the Papal seal will be their best protection. Even that kingdom of Naples and Sicily must somehow pass under Rome; in spite of the fact that Innocent had solemnly accepted the guardianship of the young king.

It is commonly said that the German generals in Italy, like Markwald of Anweiler, were ferocious adventurers eager only to carve little principalities for themselves out of the helpless country. This is the partisan version left us by Innocent's anonymous biographer. They were, with German troops, guarding the Empire for the successor of Henry VI.; they acknowledged Philip of Swabia; and Innocent was at a later date "warned" by an influential group of German prelates and nobles not to interfere with them. But Innocent had several advantages. Henry VI. had treated Italy with barbarity, and numbers of cities threw off theGerman yoke when he died; on the other hand, Markwald and his colleagues were under standing sentence of excommunication for occupying Papal fiefs like Tuscany. Innocent began by sending men and money to the revolted cities, and inviting them to put themselves under Rome's sacred banner. He travelled through central Italy in 1198, and received the allegiance of many towns. Markwald, the chief enemy, was driven to the south, and Innocent pressed the southerners to rise against him.

Here the Pope had the familiar advantage of Papal policy—a woman on the throne—and he made a use of it that cannot very well be defended. Henry's Norman widow, Constance, was not unwilling to break her connection with Germany, and she seems to have had little appreciation of the political meaning of making Sicily a fief of the Roman See. She was very ill and distracted, and no doubt felt that she was consulting the interest of her son in putting him and the kingdom (of Sicily and Naples) under Papal charge. She did indeed hesitate when Innocent told her the price of his protection. Sicily was to sacrifice all the privileges which William I. had wrung from the Papacy, to pay an annual tribute to Rome, and to render feudal service whenever required.[239]But Constance was forced to yield, and she died soon afterwards (November 27, 1198), appointing Innocent the guardian of her son and allotting him an annual fee of thirty thousand gold pieces.

Innocent accepted the guardianship of Frederic, and historians comment severely on his next step. In spite of all his fiery letters to the southern clergy and people—even to the Saracens[240]—inciting them to resistthe Germans, Markwald made considerable progress. Then there came to Rome a certain French adventurer named Walter de Brienne, who had married a daughter of Tancred of Sicily. Tancred had, on resigning Sicily, retained Lecce and Tarentum, and Walter claimed these as his wife's inheritance. Whether or no Innocent had actually promoted the marriage and invited Walter to Italy[241]we cannot confidently say, but it was assuredly dangerous to let such a man get a footing in southern Italy; it was probable enough that he would eventually claim the whole kingdom taken from Tancred. However Innocent blessed and financed his enterprise, on the formal condition that he would respect the rights of Frederic, and soon had a French troop waging more effective war upon the Germans. The struggle ceased with the death of Markwald in 1202, and of Walter in 1205, and Innocent then pressed a design of marrying the young Frederic to Constanza of Aragon. For the time Frederic's rights were respected, but there can be no doubt that these early years spent amidst intrigue and treachery contributed to the development of his anti-clerical spirit.

There was, in fact, a good deal of anti-clericalism growing in Italy. The development of civic and communal life and the comparative enlightenment which was spreading turned many critical eyes on the Roman system. Heresy descended the Alps and found favour in the free cities; even, at times, in Papal cities. I have described how Viterbo was crushed by the Roman troops. Innocent intervened in its favour, after its defeat, and he was then outraged to learn that Viterbo was, like many other cities, appointing heretics (theCathari) to high places. He spent the summer of 1207 in Viterbo, and enforced very stringent rules for the repression of heresy. These laws were extended to all the Papal dominions, but we shall see the Pope's attitude more clearly when we deal with the crusade against the Albigensians. Innocent was not less emphatic in denouncing the incessant wars of the rival cities, and his correspondence is largely occupied with his endeavours to secure their feudal allegiance to Rome.

A graver problem, in the solution of which his character is often obscured, was presented by the struggle of Ghibellines (or followers of Philip of Swabia) and Guelphs (supporters of Otto of Brunswick) for the imperial crown. Frederic, the son and heir of Henry, being still a boy of tender years, his uncle Duke Philip of Swabia desired to keep the crown securely in the Hohenstauffen family by wearing it himself. Otto of Brunswick also made a fantastic claim to it, got himself proclaimed Emperor at Cologne in 1198, and sought the support of the Pope. Innocent undoubtedly favoured from the start the baseless claim of Otto. The Papacy had come to regard the Hohenstauffens almost as hereditary foes, and Philip actually lay under sentence of excommunication for holding the territory bequeathed by Mathilda to the Papacy; while Otto flattered the Pope by professions of loyalty and docility. But Philip had the better prospect, if there was an appeal to the sword, and Innocent refused for some years to commit himself. He summoned Philip to surrender the Italian prisoners and the Papal provinces taken by Henry, and sent the Bishop of Sutri to absolve him if he complied. To his extreme annoyance the not very clear-headed Bishop gave Philip an unconditional absolution—for which Innocent promptly imprisoned the Bishop for life in a monastery—and thus surrendered the Pope's chance of profiting by the situation.

The rivals appealed to the sword, and Innocent bitterly complained that Philip did not ask his arbitration.[242]He alone, he declared to the princes and prelates of Germany, was the judge of such high causes: to which the princes and prelates replied, in very firm and dignified language, that they would have no Papal interference in the secular concerns of Germany.[243]As the war proceeded, Innocent made it clear that he favoured Otto. He warned the German prelates not to choose an Emperor on whom he could not bestow the crown, and in a letter to the Eastern Emperor he afterwards boasted that he alone kept Philip from the throne. But the war went in favour of Philip, and even when, in 1200, both men sent representatives to Rome, Innocent would not commit himself to more than an eloquent proof that priests were exalted above kings.[244]At the beginning of the following year, however, he declared openly for Otto. He sent Cardinal Pierleone to Germany with the BullInterest Apostolicæ Sedis, in which he drew up a violent and unjust indictment of Philip and awarded the crown to the loyal and virtuous Otto. The Bull is painfully casuistic, and would have been better if it had stopped at the bold declaration that the Papacy had created the Empire and could bestow it according to its pleasure. While, for instance, it charges Philip with treachery to the interests of his young nephew, it exonerates all others from the oath of fidelity to Henry's son on the ground that an oathto an unbaptized infant was invalid.[245]The imperial crown was, in plain terms, allotted in the interests of the Church, in defiance of the wishes of the majority of the German nation. Otto hastened to swear that he would defend the Papal possessions (including Sicily), and was proclaimed by a Papal Legate in Cologne cathedral on July 3, 1201.

Innocent now sent out a flood of letters on behalf of his candidate, but the result was irritating. Philip of France roughly refused to recognize Otto; and a letter signed by two German archbishops, ten bishops, and other clerics and nobles, sternly rebuked the Pope for his "audacity" in meddling with things which did not concern him.[246]Innocent's Legates vainly scattered threats of excommunication in Germany. Hardly a single prelate recognized Otto, and, after seven years of the most brutal civil warfare, he was driven out of the country. We are not impressed by the Pope's feverish protests that he was not responsible for this desolation. In 1208, however, Philip, who had been reconciled with Rome in the previous year, was assassinated, and Otto, with Innocent's approval, mounted the throne. To the intense indignation of the Pope, the new Emperor at once cast his oaths of fidelity to the wind and told Innocent to confine himself to spiritual matters. He annexed Tuscany and Spoleto, in spite of all the Pope's entreaties and threats, and was about to march against Naples and Apulia when Innocent launched against him a sentence of excommunication and deposition. Otto was, for the time, an excellent ruler: he had been educated in the English ideas ofgovernment. But he had refused to be subservient to the clergy, and the German prelates now summoned Frederic from Sicily. Innocent approved the election of Frederic as easily as he had approved that of Philip and of Otto, but he did not live to see how that Emperor in turn defied the Papacy and scorned its political pretensions.[247]

Next in interest and importance were Innocent's relations with England. With Richard the Lion-Heart the Pope maintained a friendly correspondence, nor did he annoy the English prelates by any inconvenient censure of the condition of the English Church. In 1199 John Lackland succeeded his brother, and Innocent was even more indulgent to that barbarous and unscrupulous monarch. Into the death of Prince Arthur he made no indiscreet inquiry; he confirmed the dissolution of John's marriage, and, for his shameful theft of the love of the betrothed of the Count de la Marche, imposed on him only the light and useful penance of a general confession and the equipment of a hundred knights for Palestinian service. During the war which followed he made earnest efforts to mediate, though even these were at times marred by his temporizing policy and his determination not to alienate the kings. When the bishops of Normandy, after the capture of that province by Philip, asked him how they were to adjust their allegiance, he weakly replied that Philip seemed to rely on some claim which he could not understand and they must judge for themselves.[248]At length a famous quarrel about the archbishopric of Canterburydrew him into a stern and triumphant conflict with John.

The Archbishop, a worldly-minded courtier of the familiar type, died in 1205, and the Canterbury monks, who claimed the right of nomination, met hastily, by night, without awaiting the royal license to proceed to an election, and nominated their sub-prior Reginald. They sent Reginald at once to Rome, enjoining on him the strictest secrecy until he was consecrated, but the monk made a parade of his high condition as soon as he reached the continent and there was great indignation in England. The Chapter, which disputed the arrogant claim of the monks, elected the Bishop of Norwich, and many of the monks, alarmed at their action or disgusted with their sub-prior, joined in the election. Sixteen monks accompanied the second deputation to Rome, and they supported the declaration of the Court and the Church that Reginald's election was invalid. As, however, the Bishop of Norwich was one of the indulgent prelates, Innocent casuistically annulled both elections and imposed Stephen Langton on the English. John furiously protested that the Pope had insulted his state and threatened to withdraw the English Church from his jurisdiction; shrewdly reminding the Pope that he received more money from England than from any other country.

John seems to have misunderstood the earlier complaisance of the Pope. Innocent was not the man to yield to a threat of financial loss, and he at once consecrated Langton and laid England under an interdict. For some years the affrighted people saw the doors of their churches closed against them and imagined the jaws of a mediæval hell gaping wide for their souls. There was no Christian marriage for their sons anddaughters, no Christian burial for their aged; and only to dying persons could the consoling sacrament be administered. In his fury John drove priests and prelates out of his kingdom, but his cruel and extortionate government had lost him the compensating strength of the affection of his people. In 1211 he was forced to seek terms, and a Papal Legate reached England. Between the arrogance of Legate Pandolpho and the passion of the King the negotiation failed, and John was deposed by the Pope. England, Rome repeated, had been a fief of the Apostolic See since William the Conqueror; it was now open to any Christian monarch to invade and possess it. This was a direct invitation to Philip of France to renew those horrors of warfare which Innocent had so eloquently denounced,[249]and, to the intense mortification of the French King, John abjectly submitted (1213). He even handed to the proud Legate a solemn declaration that England and Ireland were fiefs of the Apostolic See, and that he would pay a thousand marks a year for vassalage. The clergy were recalled and compensated, the interdict was raised, and Legate Pandolpho stalked the land with the insufferable air of a conqueror.

If, however, this conflict gives an honourable prominence to the sterner qualities of Innocent, its sequel no less illustrates the weakness which seemed inseparable from the Papal policy, even when it was embodied in a lofty character. Pandolpho behaved so wantonly in resettling the clergy that he presently fell foul of the high-minded Langton: John behaved with a ferocity which drove nobles and commoners to the step of rebellion. Yet Innocent maintained his mischievous Legate against Langton, and laid a Papal maledictionon the just aspirations of the people. He rebuked the barons for their "nefarious presumption" in taking arms against a vassal of the Roman See; he denounced Magna Charta as a devil-inspired document, and forbade "his vassal" to accede to its unjust demands. He excommunicated the barons when they refused to lay down their arms, and suspended Langton when that prelate refused, on the ground that it was dictated by false representations, to promulgate his sentence. When the barons offered the crown to Louis, son of Philip of France, he issued an anathema against Louis; and in 1216 he issued a sentence of excommunication against Philip himself for encouraging his son. He died before his sombre use of his spiritual weapons, in a carnal cause, was completed. He had, within ten years, raised Papal power in England to its supreme height and then dealt it a blow from which it would never recover. It is futile to plead that he was ill informed on the situation. He knew John, and he knew Langton; he ought to have known Pandolpho. In point of fact, there is no reason to think that he was radically misinformed. His whole action is plainly inspired by the interest, as he conceived it, of the Papacy.[250]

I must dismiss very briefly his relations with other Christian countries. Philip of France had, like John of England, discarded his wife and married a woman he loved. But the Papal microscope refused, in his case, to discover the remote affinity which, Philip said, made his first marriage void, and an interdict was laid on his kingdom. The terrified priests and people tore Philip from the arms of Agnes de Meran, the mother of three of his children, and forced him to submit.Only under the later pressure of his conflicts with Otto and John did Innocent discover that there was sufficientprima facieevidence to spend several years in negotiation about a divorce, and, by an extraordinary use of his high powers, he declared the children of Agnes legitimate.

In Spain and Portugal, Innocent found irregular marriages almost as numerous as regular, and his interventions show the same unedifying mixture of priestly rigour and political compromise. Sacerdotal legislation had by this time surrounded marriage with a portentous series of obstacles—forbidden degrees of spiritual and carnal affinity—which sacerdotal power alone could remove, yet the isolated princes of the Peninsula were compelled to marry constantly into each other's families and did not always ask the costly blessing of the Papacy. That this legislation did not improve the sex-morals of Europe, which were at least no better than they had been in pagan times, is well known. Spain was particularly lax, having contracted the gaiety of neighbouring Provence, and her kings may have felt that where unwedded love was so genially tolerated, these academic restraints on wedded love might be disregarded.

Innocent placed the kingdoms of Leon and Castile under an interdict because the King of Leon had married his cousin, Berengaria of Castile, and, when the court of Leon ignored his censures, he predicted that there would be a horrible issue of the unhallowed union. Its first fruit was St. Ferdinand; but Berengaria nervously retired after a few years and left the King to bear his excommunication with Spanish dignity. The King of Castile soon obtained the removal of the interdict, on the ground that it favoured the growth of heresy, buthe was then threatened with excommunication because he permitted the Jews to become rich while the Church was poor. Pedro of Aragon was more fortunate. In the course of a journey to Rome he married the wife of the Count de Comminges, and the Pope at once accepted her assurance that the Count had two wives living when he married her, and blessed the union. Pedro, it should be added, swore fealty and an annual subsidy of two hundred gold pieces to the Pope. The King of Navarre incurred an interdict for allying himself with the Moors. All that one can seriously put to the credit of Innocent is that he greatly aided the unification of Spain by spurring its kings to a common crusade against the Moors; if we may assume that the crusade favoured the progress of civilization in the country. Sancho of Portugal also felt, and disdained, the touch of the Papal whip. When Innocent complained of his oppression of the clergy, he threatened—in a letter which Innocent describes as the most insolent ever written to a Pope—to strip his corrupt priests of all their wealth. Innocent at once temporized, but a dangerous illness and fit of repentance soon put Sancho and the kingdom of Portugal at his feet. At his death Sancho left the kingdom wholly subject to Rome and the clergy, though it was not many years before the quarrels of his children again drew upon it the spiritual blight of an interdict.

It would be tedious to describe in detail all the similar interventions of the Pope in other countries. He refused to let Marie of Brabant marry the Emperor Otto, and refused to dissolve the marriage of the King of Bohemia; indeed, he sternly rebuked the King of Bohemia for receiving his crown at the hands of Philip of Swabia. In Hungary he scolded Prince Endre forrebelling against his brother, and he raised Bulgaria to the rank of a kingdom, on condition that it recognized Roman supremacy. He claimed, in a word, to be the king of kings, the temporal as well as religious master of Europe. But we shall more clearly appreciate the qualities of his character and shades of his standard of action if we examine more fully his connection with the Fourth Crusade and the crusade against heresy.

Tripoli, Antioch, and a few small Palestinian towns were all that remained of the European conquests from the Saracen, and Innocent's constant correspondence with the Christian prelates who lingered in the East made him eager, from the beginning of his Pontificate, to inspire Europe to make one more grand attempt to rescue the holy places. For several years he sought, by letters and Legates, to fire the Christian princes, to divert the swords of France and England to the breast of the Mohammedan, and to melt the cold calculations of Venice. But the memory of the last colossal failure—of all the blood and treasure that had been expended on the stubborn task—was too fresh in Europe. In vain he promised, to all who took the cross, a sure entry into Paradise, and hinted not obscurely at the damnation which awaited those who refused. Thin bands of zealots responded to the call, and a larger multitude were induced to take the cross by Innocent's princely declaration that the earthly debts of all who joined the Crusade would be cancelled, and the Jews would be forced to forswear their legitimate interest. The knights of Europe, to his fiery indignation, still wasted their spears on each other, or continued the more pleasant pastimes of the chase and the tournament. Innocent, in a flood of eloquent letters, taxedthe clergy, confiscated the funds of erratic monks, and forbade the lay nobles to wear costly furs or eat costly dinners or indulge in tournaments. There were murmurs that the Christians of the East needed no aid, since they were on excellent terms with the Saracens, as the Pope was painfully aware; and that the only sure effect of Crusades was to increase the power and the wealth of the Papacy which organized them. Even the clergy and the monks refused the subsidies he demanded, and he was compelled to sanction a practice which would in time prove the most terrible and destructive abuse of the mediæval Papacy: the penance imposed on confessing sinners was to take the form of a money-contribution. To this day the indulgences which are sold in Spain trace their origin to the Crusades, as the printedbuladeclares.

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