THE POPES.

Influence of the Papacy in the Reformation of Early Society.—St. Leo the Great.—Origin of the Temporal Power of the Popes.—Gregory the Great.—The Iconoclastic Emperors.—Stephen III. delivered by France.—Charlemagne crowned Emperor of the West.—Photius.—The Diet of Worms.—Gregory VII.; his Plan for a Christian Republic.—Urban II.—The Crusades.—Calixtus II.; Termination of the Dispute as to Investiture.—Innocent III.—Struggle of Boniface VIII. against Philippe le Bel.—The great Western Schism.—Council of Florence.—Battle of Lepanto.—Council of Trent.

During the Middle Ages the popes exercised an appreciable influence upon society, personifying as they did the Christian element which was destined to regenerate the old world. “A doctrine emanating from Asia was not to subjugate, but to convert Europe, to associate political and religious truth, and, by the force of conscience against idolatry, and of resignation against tyranny, to restore the human race in all its dignity under the one true God. With the power of the sword sprung up that of opinion, which, independent of its rival, sustained the cause of progress in its struggle against this same power of the sword, and prevented it from being overthrown. The Church, representing the people and opening the way to the emancipation of all who were weighed down by conquest and by force, was unable to destroy servitude, legalised violence, and rapine at one blow, but it encountered them with a reproving doctrine and a condemning God.

“Nero and Domitian soon found themselves face to face with Peter and Linus;—the first, armed masters of the world, having upon their side legality,which is so different from justice, representatives of the old world which cried out in the circus, ‘To the lions with the Christians!’—the latter, poor, weak, misunderstood, and calumniated, propagating the kingdom of God by authority, education, ceremonies, and example; declaring that unto Cæsar should be rendered the things which are Cæsar’s, but nothing more, neither worship nor the sacrifice of one’s sentiments and convictions.”—(Cantù.)

Fig. 202.—The Jewish Religion assisting at the death of Jesus Christ. The figure has a bandage over the eyes, the Decalogue is falling from its hands, and its spear is broken to pieces.—Sculpture in Strasburg Cathedral (Thirteenth Century).—From a Photograph by Charles de Winter, of Strasburg.

This struggle, begun by St. Peter, the first Bishop of Rome, and first pope, and continued by his successor St. Linus, went on for three centuries. Nevertheless the popes, unchecked by persecutions, had effected the moral conquest of the Roman world,—even the palace of the Cæsars was full of Christians when their legal existence became recognised by Constantine. The seat of the empire was transferred to Byzantium; the luxuryand effeminacy of the East enervated the degenerated race of the Cæsars, while under the influence of the Bishops of Rome, officially recognised at that date as the sovereign pontiffs of the Christians, the West continued to advance rapidly in the path of modern civilisation.

Fig. 203.—The Christian Religion assisting at the death of Jesus Christ. Crowned and triumphant, the figure holds in one hand the standard of the cross, and in the other the chalice of the eucharist.—Sculpture in Strasburg Cathedral (Thirteenth Century).—From a Photograph by Charles de Winter, of Strasburg.

The emperors, converted to Christianity, ere long became the opponents of the popes; “laying aside the sword of defence for disputations on theology.” Their weakness handed the West over to the Germanic races; primitive society, whose organization still remained heathen, despite the change in religious belief, was swallowed up by the invasion of these Northerners, whose institutions facilitated the triumph of the ideas of political liberty and equality, the germ of which was deposited in the Gospel.

Fig. 204.—The spiritual and the temporal powers dependent upon Jesus Christ, who is handing to St. Peter the keys and to Constantine the standard surmounted by the cross.—Mosaic of the Tenth Century in the Basilica of St. John of Lateran, at Rome.

The papacy of the Middle Ages was first made illustrious by Leo I., surnamed the Great. Called to be Bishop of Rome by the people and the clergy in 440, when twenty years of age, he rendered the greatest possible services to civilisation during the twenty-two years of his reign. His preachings, his writings, his decrees, aimed chiefly at the education of his clergy and his flock, at the maintenance of the Nicene Creed (Fig. 206), the moral improvement of the clergy, and the upholding of discipline. He fought the heretics with equal energy and authority; he continued the struggle of orthodoxy against the errors which attacked the dogma of the Incarnation, which is the basis of Christianity, and upheld with vigilant perseverance the primitive doctrine of the Church, so clearly defined and proclaimed during the reign of one of his predecessors at the Council of Ephesus in 431. He was, above all things, a skilful diplomatist and a great politician. He firmly maintained theapostolic pre-eminence of Rome over Constantinople—a pre-eminence which was, moreover, recognised by the Council of Chalcedon.

Fig. 205.—St. Peter.—Fac-simile of a Wood Engraving of the Old Masters, by Hans Baldung, otherwise Grum (1470–1550), in the National Library, Paris.

Fig. 206.—A Council held in the ninth or tenth century to commemorate the second Council of Nice.—From a Miniature of amenologiumin the Vatican Library (Manuscript of the Tenth Century).

The empire, like the Church, needed such a man as St. Leo in its days of adversity. The invasion of the barbarians was triumphant in the West, and nearly all of the conquerors were either Arians, who denied the divinity of Christ, or idolaters. Leo triumphed over all these calamities. Rome had already been ravished by Alaric in 410, but even he respected the churches inwhich the population had fled for refuge. Attila, at the head of seven hundred thousand men, marched on Rome for the purpose of devastating it with fire and sword; resistance seemed out of the question, and the Emperor was preparing to escape. Amidst the universal panic, Pope Leo, accompanied by a consul, went out to meet the dreaded chieftain, and induced him to turn back.

Some years later, Genseric poured his vandals into Italy, and again Leo boldly presented himself before his fierce assailant, and made him renounce his intention of burning the city and slaying the inhabitants. Thus did circumstances lead the way for the temporal power of the popes in Rome, of which they eventually became the sole guardians and defenders.

But the genius of Leo served only to defer the downfall of the Western Empire, which was doomed to disappear fifteen years after his death. His successors continued to protect Italy, so far as in them lay, against the horrors of war; and Pope Agapetus, though weighed down by years, undertook the perilous mission of going to Constantinople to make peace between the Emperor of the East and the King of the Visigoths. A few years afterwards, Pope Pelagius I. had the courage to seek an interview with Totila, and so preserve Rome from massacre and dishonour. Pelagius II., who kept within bounds the Lombards, at that time masters of Italy, was succeeded by Gregory I., surnamed Gregory the Great, one of the most illustrious of the Roman pontiffs.

Gregory, whose father was a Roman senator, and whose mother was canonised, was prætor or chief magistrate of Rome, and his administration had gained for him great popularity when, by his father’s death, he inherited a large fortune. This enabled him to found seven monasteries, and, having distributed the remainder of his money amongst the poor, he became a monk in the Abbey of St. Andrew, which he had founded previous to his entering the priesthood. Chosen as pope on September 3, 590, he, in spite of his resistance to the clergy, the senators, and the people, immediately made his profession of faith in the customary manner. He converted the Lombards, who were professed Arians, and even idolaters. This was no small triumph, for it meant the peaceful subjection, or rather the alliance of a warlike people, whose close neighbourhood to Rome had been a constant cause of alarm. It was especially in his relations with the court of Constantinople that Gregory displayed all the loftiness of his character. While he bridledthe ambition of the Lombards, so as to preserve for the emperors of the East their Italian possessions (Fig. 207), he defended with equal energy and tact the independence of the Church and the interests of the Italians against the unjust pretensions of the Byzantine Court. He rendered more distinct the rôle of the papacy in the Middle Ages, which was to uphold the purity of dogma as opposed to heresy against the theological pretensions of emperors, to protect also the Catholic population, vanquished and often persecuted by new masters, whether pagan or heretic; and, lastly, to convey the tidings of the Gospel to the most remote nations of the earth.

Fig. 207.—St Michael the Archangel, Minister of God, offering to a Byzantine Emperor the globe surmounted by the cross, the symbol of the imperial power.—A leaf of an ivory dyptic or tablet of the Sixth Century, preserved in the British Museum.—From a copy by M. J. Labarte. The second leaf of this dyptic being lost, the Greek inscription, which signifies, “Receive this object, and learning the cause,” is incomplete, and its meaning enigmatical.

To this great pope appertains the glory of having converted England by means of the missionaries whom he sent thither. “There is nothing grander in the history of Europe,” said Bossuet, “than the entry of St. Augustine into Kent with forty of his companions, who, preceded by the cross and image of the Great King our Lord Jesus Christ, prayed fervently for the conversion of England. St. Gregory, who had sent them forth, edified them by truly apostolic letters, and constrained St. Augustine to tremble with amazement at the numerous miracles which God wrought through him. Bertha, a French princess, brought her husband, King Ethelbert, over to Christianity. The kings of France and Queen Brunehild supported this new mission. The French bishops entered cordially into this good work, and, by order of the pope, they consecrated St. Augustine. The support which St. Gregory gave to the new bishop bore abundant fruit, and the Anglican Church was thus formed.”[13]

Amidst these important engagements, the activity of Gregory found time to superintend the relief of the poor and the education of the young. He built schools and hospitals in Rome, and increased the splendour of the church services by a judicious and well-conceived reform of sacred music. M. F. Clement, in his history of religious music, says, “St. Gregory, not content with regulating the antiphon for every service throughout the year, also founded a school of singing at Rome, and personally superintended the teaching there. While other masters were entrusted with the task of giving lessons in one division of the school, at St. Peter’s in the Vatican, he directed another section of St. John of Lateran. We read in the life of this pontiff, written by John the Deacon, that, compelled by his infirmities to lie at full length upon a couch, he still taught the children singing, and that the staff which he used for beating time is still preserved.”

A century after his death, two popes of the same name who succeeded each other, Gregory II. and Gregory III., recalled to mind the virtues, and above all the firmness of their glorious predecessor. They had to struggle against the extraordinary pretensions of the emperors of the East, who declared themselves iconoclasts—that is, breakers of images. Alleging certain abuses, brought about by the ignorance of some unenlightened Christians, Leo the Isaurian published in 726 an edict commanding the destruction of the images—the crucifixes and the statues—throughout the whole empire. Neither the clergy nor their flocks had ever seen any sign of idolatry in the worship of these images, which were venerated as sacred symbols and respected like family portraits. The Patriarch of Constantinople, refusing to obey this edict, was banished. This new heresy was severely rebuked by Gregory II., and after him by Gregory III. The latter replied to the emperor, who had requested him to convoke a council, in these noble words, “You have written asking us to assemble an œcumenical council; it would be futile, as you alone persecute the images; cease these evil deeds, and the world will be at peace, and scandals will come to an end. Do you not see that your crusade against the images is an act of revolt against the Church and of presumption? The churches were enjoying a period of profound tranquillity when you excited this tempest of disputes; put an end to the schism, and then there will be no need of a council.” This apostolic firmness excited the wrath of Leo, who dispatched against Rome a fleet of vessels carrying a large body of troops, but they were lost in the Adriatic.

Trasmund, Duke of Spoleto, and the Duke of Benevento, having risen in revolt against Luitprand, King of the Lombards, took refuge in Rome. Gregory received them very cordially, and refused to deliver them up to their redoubtable suzerain. Luitprand at once marched upon Rome, and Gregory demanded help from Charles Martel—which, however, he declined to give; and the good pope died just in time to be saved from witnessing the sack of the Eternal City (741).

Zachariah, a Greek by birth, accepted the succession left vacant by Gregory III. under such critical circumstances; but he negotiated so skilfully with Luitprand, that the king not only gave back to the pontifical domain four towns which he had already seized, but further added, as an irrevocable gift, the territories of the Sabines, Narnia, Ossimo, and Ancona, and consented to evacuate the exarchy of Ravenna, occupied by his troops. Zacharias enjoyed an equal amount of credit with the Emperor Constantinus Copronymus, who granted him, in the interest of the Roman Church, concessions which were more than could have been expected from an irritated suzerain. All the sovereigns of his time seemed anxious to have recourse to his advice. Charlemagne, son of Charles Martel, and Rachis, King of the Lombards, went to Rome for the purpose of seeing him, and he invited both of them to enter the monastery of Monte-Cassino.

Stephen III., elected by acclamation to succeed Zachariah (752), was carried from the public square to the Lateran Church upon the shoulders of his supporters; and this custom has since been adhered to in cases where the election has been unanimous.

He had concluded peace for forty years with Astolfo, King of the Lombards, but that ambitious monarch failed to keep his engagements, as, a short time afterwards, he drove the exarch Eutychius out of Ravenna, and then, claiming for himself all the rights of the emperor, he aspired to become master of Rome (753). This unjust warfare was fortunately carried on so slowly that the sovereign-pontiff had time to go to France and intercede with King Pepin for help against Astolfo. The French army was sent over the Alps, and Astolfo had to submit, and to hand over Ravenna to the people, and surrender the hostages. Stephen returned to Rome, accompanied by Prince Jérôme, the brother of Pepin; but in the following year Astolfo again took up arms, and Pepin, who had again crossed the Alps, this time compelled him to abandon definitely the exarchate of twenty-two towns, together with the territoriesattached to them, which he made over absolutely to St. Peter and his successors. This, with the Duchy of Rome, constituted the temporal dominion of the Church.

A few years later Adrian I., who had avoided falling into the political snares laid for him by Didier, appealed to Charlemagne for his intervention, and the latter, crossing the Alps, laid siege to Pavia, the capital of the Lombard kings, took Didier prisoner, and sent him to the monastery of Corbie. Not content with delivering Rome, Charlemagne, during the two visits which he paid to that city, during and after the war, confirmed the gift solemnly made by his father of the territories which were to be inalienably annexed to the Holy See; and, at the same time, he added the coast of Genoa, Corsica, Mantua, Venetia, Istria, the duchies of Spoleto, Benevento, and the entire exarchate over its thirty towns.

Adrian had the consolation of seeing the heresies of the iconoclasts condemned by the second Nicene Council; and the Empress Irene and her son Constantine submitted to the decision.

Adrian died in 795. His successor, Leo III., sent to the great Emperor of the Franks the standard of the city of Rome, and the keys of the Confession of St. Peter, as to the protector of the Eternal City. The emperor responded to this homage by the gift of immense treasure which he had taken from the enemy, and the pope devoted the greater part of it to the decorating of the Lateran Palace, and various churches.

Fig. 208.—Byzantine Dalmatic, said to have belonged to Leo III., but probably dating from the Twelfth Century, preserved in the Treasury of St. Peter’s at Rome. Upon this garment, which is of dark-blue silk, are several designs embroidered in gold and colours. The most remarkable is one upon the front representing Christ in his glory. Seated upon a rainbow, with his feet upon two circles of fire and the right hand stretched out, he holds in his left the New Testament, which is open at the following passage: “Come unto me, ye chosen of my Father.” Above his head is seen the cross with the crowns of thorns. Around him is a choir of angels, the Virgin, the saints, David and Solomon, the bishops and the religious orders; below, to the right and to the left, St. John the Baptist, and Abraham receiving the souls of the just; above, on the two shoulders, Jesus is giving the Holy Communion to the Apostles, the wine being administered on one side and the bread on the other.

A conspiracy, which Leo III. only escaped by climbing the walls of Rome and by taking refuge with the Duke of Spoleto, who had marched to his succour, gave him an opportunity for going to see Charlemagne at Paderborn, who promised to come himself into Italy to confound the enemies of the holy father; in the meanwhile he dispatched commissioners to Rome, who reinstated the pope in his pontifical city (November 30, 799). Charlemagne came to Rome in the following year, when, convoking an assembly of the people, he declared the object of his visit and summoned the accusers of the pope to appear before his tribunal. As they did not dare to put in an appearance, he declared that the holy father should be allowed to justify himself on oath. Then in the great cathedral of St. Peter, in the presence of a vast concourse of people, Leo, with his hand upon the books of the Evangelists, cried out, “I know nothing of the crimes with which the Romans have charged me.” His declaration was received with shouts of applause that rungthrough, the vaults of the sacred edifice. Charlemagne, who had returned to St. Peter’s on Christmas Day, for the service, knelt before the altar. The pope,upstanding before him, placed upon his forehead a golden crown studded with jewels and proclaimed him emperor, thus giving him a real supremacy over all the Christian princes and people of the West. (Figs. 208 and 209.)

Fig. 209.—The Coronation of an Emperor by the Pope, the Sovereign being represented by Maximilian I.—From “Des Sainctes Ceremonies,” a Manuscript of the Sixteenth Century, in M. Ruggieri’s Collection.

The popes who were contemporary with the successors of Charlemagne, though not of special note, governed the Church with wise moderation; and as they were all patrons of the Fine Arts, Rome is indebted to them for some of her chief embellishments. Leo IV., in 847, was compelled to make Rome secure from an attack by the Saracens, who were always making incursions up to its very walls. For this purpose he constructed around the church of St. Peter a regular town—the Leonine city—which he fortified with hightowers. He also fortified the places near Rome, and founded a new city, called Leopolis, which he surrounded with ramparts. Rome thus being out of danger, he imitated the example of his predecessors by ornamenting the churches, to which he gave paintings and other works of art of the value of 5,971 silver marks. The fabulous story of Pope Joan—who was said to have been elected pope, and to have concealed her sex, though she was shortly after expelled, after some great scandal—is placed by historians between Leo IV. and Benedict III.; but the falsity of the story is manifest, for there was no interregnum between the death of Leo, upon July 17th, 855, and the election of Benedict.

Nicholas I. (858–867), anathematized Photius, the usurping Patriarch of Constantinople. The empire having fallen to Michael III., a child of three years old, his mother Theodora, assisted by his uncle Bardas, carried on the government in his name. When this prince grew up, Bardas ousted Theodora, and, in order to maintain himself in power, pandered to the passions of his nephew. Michael gave himself up to such scandalous excesses that the Patriarch Ignatius excluded him from the church, and excommunicated Bardas. In six days, Photius, a layman who could be depended upon to do as he was told, was made patriarch in the room of Ignatius. This was the prelude to the separation of the Greek Church. Photius added heresy to his revolt against the pope, by asserting that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father only, and not from the Son. Nicholas’ successor, Adrian II., appointed his legates to preside at the council which deposed the Patriarch Photius. He also upheld the sentence of his predecessor against Lothair, whom he compelled to renounce his adulterous union with Valdrade. When that prince came before him to partake of the sacrament, the pope said in a loud tone of voice, as he presented the host, “If thou hast given up thy adultery, if thou hast broken off all connection with Valdrade, may this sacrament comfort thee! But if thy heart is still perverse, it will be for thy punishment.” This lofty firmness of speech was all the more praiseworthy because the pope, in thus maintaining the rights of morality, had to defy and admonish a prince who had delivered Rome from the Saracens. No one can tell whether the doubt expressed by Adrian, as to the sincerity of Lothair’s conversion, was well grounded or not; but it is at least certain that the latter died forty days afterwards, and that his death appeared to be a judgment from Heaven.

The legates of John VIII., the successor of Adrian, allowed themselvesto be intimidated and corrupted by Photius. Deceived by their false representations, John VIII. at first approved of what they had done; but when he learnt the truth he publicly excommunicated at Rome both Photius and the cowardly legates who had betrayed their trust in order to curry favour with this impostor (880). John VIII. was the first pope, since the fall of the Roman Empire, who had to decide between two competitors for the Imperial crown. He declared, that as the empire had been conferred upon Charlemagne by the grace of God and the authority of the pope, he transferred it to the King of the Franks, Charles the Bald.

For a century and a half the factions of powerful Italian families and the arbitrary will of the emperors interfered with the free election of the popes, whence arose great scandals, and many unworthy persons were elevated to the pontificate. On several occasions the rivalry of parties led to the creation of anti-popes, and at one time there were as many as three claimants to the Holy See. It is little short of miraculous that the papacy should have kept its place against so many causes tending to its ruin. At last, in 1049, the Romans having sent to the Emperor Henry III., asking him to appoint a successor to the pope who had just died, that monarch assembled the bishops and grandees of the empire at Worms, and upon their advice selected Bruno, Bishop of Toul.

Fig. 210.—Portrait of the great Countess Matilda.—From a Miniature in a contemporary poem of which she was the heroine (Manuscript No. 4,922 in the Vatican Library).

Before repairing to Rome, Bruno went to consult Hildebrand, the monk of Cluny, whose reputation for virtue and ability stood very high. The latter received him very cordially, but pointed out to him the impropriety of a lay election, and persuaded him to exchange the pontifical gown for that of the pilgrim, until the people and clergy of Rome should have freely elected him.

Bruno entered Rome barefooted, and thus replied to the applause of those who had gone to meet him: “The choice of the people and the clergy, supported as they are by the authority of the canons, overrides all other nominations; I am therefore ready to return to my country if my election is not approved by all your suffrages.” By Hildebrand’s advice, the ancient customs were observed. Bruno took the name of Leo IX.; he was consecrated on the 2nd of February, and enthroned ten days later. Thus did the Roman Court proclaim that the emperors and princes did not possess absolute power over the election of the pontiffs, and the right of election, after having been thus restored to the people and the clergy, was subsequently vested in the cardinals.

With a view to reforming the morals of the ecclesiastics, to re-establishing discipline and the liturgy, and to combat false doctrines and heresies, Leo IX. held a vast number of councils, some at Rome, some at Vercelli, and others at Paris; he travelled all through France, Germany, and Italy, taking note of all the abuses which he discovered, and showing himself determined to correct them. Thanks to imperial munificence, he had increased very considerably the pontifical power. Carried away by his zeal, he accompanied the troops sent him by the emperor against the Normans who were devastating Italy. His soldiers were defeated, and he himself was taken prisoner; but the Normans did homage to their captive, and begged him to accept the homage of all their possessions in Italy, so that Leo IX. actually obtained advantages greater than ever he could have expected. The nomination of his successor no longer came within the province of the emperor, and the illustrious Hildebrand, who was at that time almost supreme in the Roman Church, directed the election under the canonical form of four successive popes, who required neither the approbation nor the support of the holy empire. The last of them, Alexander II., died in 1072, after having reigned nine years, and the bishops were deliberating on the choice of a new pontiff, when a voice was suddenly raised from amongst the people, “Hildebrand for pope, St. Peter has chosen him.” This was as the voice of God, and Hildebrand, who had been popede factofor so many years, was enthroned under the title of Gregory VII. His first care was to arrange at a council the affairs of Italy and of France, and to contract alliances with Spain, Hungary, and various German principalities. He judged himself strong enough to undertake this severe and unwearied struggle, which he kept up throughout the whole of his reign, in the interests of the Church, against the sovereigns of Europe. He wished to obtain recognition of the independence of the Holy See, to dispossess the abbots and prelates who had been guilty of simony, reprimanding at the same time the emperors and kings who had trafficked in ecclesiastical dignities. He desired also to reform the loose morality of the clerks, at the same time that he condemned the careless indifference of the episcopate. He first attacked the Emperor Henry IV., he then threatened Philip I. with excommunication if he did not mend his ways; he launched an anathema against five of the principal members of the imperial household, and afterwards summoned the monarch himself to appear in person before a synod, to render account of what he had done. Henry IV., victorious over the Saxons, andirritated at the pope’s audacity, convoked a diet at Worms for the purpose of deposing him, and dismissed the legates whom he had sent. During this time a conspiracy was being hatched at Rome against the pope, the promoters of which were Cencius, prefect of the city, and Guibert, Archbishop of Ravenna. It was brought to issue upon the night of Christmas, 1075. Gregory, wounded in the forehead while he was celebrating mass in the basilica of St. Peter, was carried prisoner from the altar into one of the towers; from which he was almost at once delivered by the people, and brought back to the altar to terminate the service. The pope showed great clemency towards the conspirators. Six weeks afterwards the Diet of Worms pronounced his deposition, and the bishops gave in their solemn adherence tothe decree. Gregory VII., nowise cast down or discouraged, anathematized the emperor at a council held in Rome; and, then addressing himself to the whole Christian world, he entreated it to join him in the defence of their outraged religion. The most distinguished women of Europe—at the head of whom was Matilda, princess of Tuscany (Fig. 210), widow of Godfrey the Humpbacked—declared themselves openly for the pope, in whose favour a sudden reaction took place. Feudal Germany deserted the cause of the emperor, who was compelled to withdraw to Spires until a diet, convoked to meet at Augsburg, should decide as to the respective complaints of the two sovereigns. But the emperor, impatient to get rid of the sentence of excommunication which had been passed against him, went to meet the pope on his way to Augsburg with the Countess Matilda. This illustrious lady interposed to effect a reconciliation between the two rivals, who had an interview in the fortress of Canossa, near Reggio, when the emperor, in order to obtain his pardon, submitted to the humiliation of going on his knees to the pope to ask for it (1077). It was then that the Countess Matilda bequeathed all her patrimonial domains and all her personal property to the Church and to the Court of Rome. The unhappy Henry, ashamed of the penance which he had been made to undergo, peremptorily separated himself from the papal communion. Council after council was convoked, and in the space of two years Gregory had convoked no less than seven for discussing the general affairs of the Church. He had not omitted to secure for himself allies, while the emperor was confronted in Germany by enemies who were attempting to wrest from him the imperial crown. Henry IV. succeeded in defeating them, and then turned to encounter Gregory, against whom he had set up an anti-pope. After the victories of Fladeheim and Marburg he crossed the Alps, crushed the papal army, and threatened Rome, where Gregory, inflexible as ever, had assembled an eighth council, which excommunicated the emperor afresh. The investment of the city had lasted three years when the emperor, by the sacrifice of a vast sum of money, caused the gates of the town to be opened to him; and though Gregory attempted a last effort to assemble a fresh council, Henry was already inside with his anti-pope, whom he had crowned under the title of Clement III. The intrepid Gregory, immured in the Castle of St. Angelo, held out until the old Norman knight Robert Guiscard, Duke of Apulia, came to his deliverance. He then convoked a tenth council, which oncemore excommunicated the emperor, the anti-pope, and their numerous adherents. Before the emperor could return to Rome for the fifth time, Duke Robert Guiscard deemed it prudent to return to Apulia with the pope, whose death occurred at Salerno shortly afterwards (May 25th, 1085).

Gregory possessed too much foresight not to have thought of naming an heir capable of pursuing his vast designs. Amongst those whom he had named, Danfier, Abbot of Monte-Cassino, was ultimately selected, and, though it was not without hesitation that he accepted so heavy a burden, he was made pope with the title of Victor III. The new pontiff came to Rome, and occupied with his troops the Faubourg of Transtevere and the Castle of St. Angelo, while the anti-pope Clement III. held the other bank of the Tiber. This state of things could not, however, be of long duration. Victor, overcome with grief, died soon after at Monte-Cassino, and was succeeded by Eudes de Châtillon, who took the name of Urban II. (1087). Of French origin, and brought up in the Metropolitan Cathedral of Rheims, he had for twenty-eight years been prior of the famous abbey of Cluny. It was there that Gregory, whose unbounded confidence he had enjoyed, first knew him, and, under these circumstances, he naturally wished to continue the policy of that pontiff. But the Emperor Henry IV. frustrated this project by suddenly invading Italy, capturing Rome, and setting up a new anti-pope, Guibert, to rule in the Holy City, under the protection of the German soldiery. Urban, forced to abandon the Castle of St. Angelo, which was besieged by the imperial troops, transported his seat of government to Benevento, where he displayed more resolution than before, crowning Conrad, son of the emperor, King of the Romans, after getting him to abjure the schism, and excommunicated Philip I., who had sent away his wife in order to marry his concubine. After this, he returned to Rome in time to celebrate the Christmas services. He expelled the anti-pope, Guibert, and his followers, recovered the independence of the tiara, and assembled at Placentia, amidst the schismatical Lombards, a council which was attended by two hundred prelates, four thousand clerks, and thirty thousand laymen. This was an imposing protest on behalf of the peace of the Church, to which the presence of delegates from the Empires of Germany and the East, and from the Kings of France and England, lent additional significance. Urban went, in the course of the same year, to Clermont, in Auvergne (Fig. 211), to preside, under the auspices of Philip I., over another council, at which thefirst crusade (1095), preached by him throughout France, was decided upon; he afterwards returned in triumph to Rome (1096), happy in the thought that he had realised the wishes of Gregory, who first conceived the idea of the Holy War.

Fig. 211.—Pope Urban II. presiding over the Council of Clermont, in 1095, and calling the Christian peoples to the First Crusade for the deliverance of the Holy Land.—Fac-simile of a Wood Engraving from the “Grand Voyage de Hiérusalem,” printed by François Regnault in 1522 (in the Library of M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot).

The Council of Rome, at which the sovereign right of the Church to confer the investiture of ecclesiastical dignities was proclaimed, marked the close of his reign. He died in 1099, upon the eve of that century of strife and confusion over which his spirit and that of Gregory VII., as well as of several other popes and learned doctors who had come from Cluny, were destined, as it were, to hover, for the investiture quarrel was far from being settled. Pascal II. imitated the firmness of his predecessors, and the King of France gave way; but the Emperor Henry V., in spite of the formal engagements entered into by his father, revived his claim to appoint the bishops and the abbots, and to induct them into their charge. After entering Rome with his troops, and after having given the pope the kiss of peace, he had him arrested, together with several of his cardinals, and, by means of a long captivity, by threats, and by violence, he induced him to issue a bull, in which the pontiff acknowledged the emperor’s right to annul the canonical elections of bishops and abbots, and likewise promised not to excommunicate him for the future. Pascal II. had no sooner regained his liberty than he convoked a council at Rome, at which he confessed that he had failed in his duty, whereupon the council, with his consent, condemned afresh the ecclesiastical investitures conferred by the civil power. Another council, held in France, excommunicated the emperor, who succeeded in taking Rome. Pascal being dead, Gelasius II. had to take refuge at Cluny, and Henry V. appointed an anti-pope, who assumed the title of Gregory VIII.

At the death of Gelasius II., the cardinals who had followed him into France elected as his successor a Frenchman—Calixtus II., to whom belongs the renown of having put an end to the quarrel as to investiture. The emperor, finding that the irritation of the Germans, weary of his despotism, was growing perilous to his throne, convoked a diet at Würtzburg, when it was decided by him and the princes of the empire that ambassadors should be sent to negotiate with the pope, who had returned to Rome amidst the acclamations of the inhabitants.

Fig. 212.—Public and Solemn Functions of the Sovereign-Pontiff.—From a Roman Engraving of the Seventeenth Century.

1. Solemn mass celebrated in St. Peter’s by the Pope.—2. Celebration of the sacred services in which the Pope takes part, especially those of the Sundays in Advent and Lent.—3. Coronation of the Sovereign-Pontiff at St. John of Lateran.—4. The newly-elected Pope seated upon the altar of the Clementine Chapel and receiving the homage of the cardinals.—5. Solemn benediction which the Pope gives to the people.—6. Tribute of the white horse, formerly paid to the Pope each year, on St. Peter’s day by the King of Naples in token of his vassalship.—7. Solemn cavalcade of the Pope upon his first journey from St. Peter’s to the Lateran Church.—8. Public consistory for the reception of the ambassadors.—9. The Pope carrying the Holy Sacrament in the procession of the Fête-Dieu.—10. Opening of the holy gate by the Pope, for the twenty-five years’ jubilee.—11. Solemn procession on the days when the Pope, clad in the sacred decorations, goes to the Basilica of St. Peter to celebrate mass.]

According to the Concordat drawn up and adopted by Henry V. at theDiet of Worms, the emperor finally renounced his claim to investiture by the ring and the crozier, which were symbols of ecclesiastical dignity; he acknowledged the right of the dioceses and abbeys to elect their bishops and abbots, and the investiture of the elected dignitaries into their domains was to be conferred by the emperor, in Germany,beforetheir consecration, and in the kingdoms of Italy and Burgundyafterit. This Concordat was confirmed at the œcumenical council which Calixtus II. assembled at Rome in 1125.

We have dwelt at some length upon these matters, but it was necessary in order to show what was the action of the popes in the Middle Ages, and it was at this point that their influence reached its apogee. The two conceptions of Gregory VII. had been realised: in accordance with the idea generally received at that time, the kings or emperors, in the eyes of the people, only possessed authority as long as they were orthodox, and obstinacy, under the ban of excommunication, amounted to heresy; hence the pope was regarded as the supreme chief of the Christian republic, and was entrusted with the duty of making princes respect morality, the faith, the rights of the Church, and the rights of the people. The election of the head of the Church had, therefore, to be free from the influence of the temporal power, since that head would be called upon to be its judge. This was the point which Hildebrand caused to be recognised in respect to the election of the popes, beginning with Leo IX.; and the perseverance of his successors got the principle extended to that of the bishops, during the reign of Calixtus II.

The second object which Gregory VII. had in view, was the preservation of Christian civilisation from the Mussulman yoke, by carrying the war into the East; and the Crusades realised this great design. We may now sketch in a few lines the part played by the popes during the last centuries of the Middle Ages.

Fig. 213.—Gregory IX. (1227–1241) handing theDecretals, which he had embodied in one work, to an advocate of the Consistory.—Fresco by Raphael (1515), in theStanzasat the Vatican.

The great Roman families, anxious to obtain power, elected an anti-pope. By means of these agitations, Arnold of Brescia, under the pretext of creating a Roman republic, established a kind of dictatorship in the city. The emperor overthrew this usurper, who was burnt alive; but he set up anti-popes, and Alexander III., when besieged in Rome, declared himself the ally of the Lombard cities, the chief of the Guelfs against the Ghibelins, and the champion of Italian liberty. Under his pontificate, it was ordained(at the third Council of the Lateran, in 1179, that for the future, the cardinals alone should take part in the election for the pontiff, without the intervention of the clergy or the people. The Crusades occupied men’s minds during the last twenty years of the twelfth century. The thirteenth began with one of the most celebrated of the popes, Innocent III., who,following in the footsteps of Gregory VII., made emperors and kings to tremble by his threats of excommunication, and preached the crusade against the infidels and the Albigenses. His two successors, Honorius III. and Gregory IX., imitated his zeal and resolution. Gregory IX., amidst the multifarious cares of his holy office, found time to draw up a new collection of his own letters and constitutions, and those of his predecessors. He confided this heavy task, which was carried out with remarkable skill and order, to Raymundus de Pennaforti, his chaplain. This collection, which was received with respectful gratitude, has since been called theDecretals(Fig. 213).

After these three eminent popes, sedition broke out afresh inside Rome. The Holy See was vacant for a long period more than once during the latter part of this century, as the cardinals could not agree in their choice; and in consequence it was decided that the election should take place in conclave. After a numerous series of popes, who occupied the chair for only a short time, Boniface VIII. (Fig. 218) endeavoured to march in the footsteps of Gregory VII. and Innocent III. Philippe le Bel, anxious to destroy all traces of the feudal régime in order to obtain absolute power, would not submit to the reprimands and menaces of the pope, and it is well known how he caused the pontiff to be seized at Anagni by Nogaret. The aged pontiff, whom nothing could move, was set free by the people, who expelled Nogaret and his soldiers; but the rough treatment he had received hastened his death.

Philippe le Bel, who saw how seriously he had compromised himself, profited by the dissensions which arose between the Guelfs and the Ghibelins at the conclave to ensure the election of a Frenchman, Bertrand de Got, Archbishop of Bordeaux, who took the title of Clement V., and immediately came to reside in France. The prestige of the papacy was diminished by this selection of Avignon as a place of residence, for the Italians came to look upon themselves as being enfeoffed to the French kingdom. Rome and the Pontifical States fell into a condition of complete anarchy, and a man of enterprise, Rienzi, endeavoured to re-establish the ancient republic. The cardinals, nearly all of whom were Frenchmen, always nominated popes of their own nationality. One of them—Gregory XI.—who had come to Rome for a short visit, died there in 1377. The people then induced the cardinals by threats to select a pope of Italian birth, and their choice fell upon the Archbishop of Bari, who took the title of Urban VI.The cardinals who were at Avignon when the election took place, at first recognised it as valid, but when he manifested his intention of remaining at Rome, they declared it to be irregular, and chose Cardinal Robert of Geneva, formerly bishop of Cambrai, who took the title of Clement VII., and the Christian world was divided between the two popes. Each had several successors, and this long schism proved the termination of the Christian republic which had been the work of the Middle Ages. At last, the General Council of Constance, convoked by one of the anti-popes, but confirmed by Gregory XII., received that pontiff’s resignation, and Cardinal Otho Colonna, a man of great piety and zeal, elected by a unanimous vote, assumed the government of the Church under the name of Martin V. He shortly afterwards repaired to Rome, where he was received with enthusiasm; and his presence brought back the prosperity and prestige of the Holy City. Notwithstanding, one of the anti-popes, with a following of two cardinals, still had a successor who was recognised by the kingdoms of Aragon, Valentia, and Sicily; but he finally complied with the wishes of Christendom, and his abdication in 1429 put an end to the schism which had lasted for half a century.

Back to Index Next