The Power Of The Popes Part 5

Joannis Epist ob.67.

Millofs Elem. of Hist, of France, vol. 1. p. 194.

And the bishop who held such language to his king, was the same Hincmar of Rheims, who had so energetically repelled the daring enterprizes of Adrian II. It seemed decreed that the monarch should have for his master, either the national clergy or the bishop of Rome; and already insecure against one of these powers, he inevitably sunk when they united.

John VIII. died in 882, and we may reckon up ten popes after him, in the course of the eighteen last years of the ninth century; none of whom had time to render themselves ill.u.s.trious by any very great undertaking. We shall only observe, that the election of Stephen V. in 885, was, after his installation, examined and confirmed by Charles-le-Gros; that the deposition of this emperor in 887, was p.r.o.nounced, not by the ecclesiastical authority, but by an a.s.sembly of the German and French n.o.bles;4 that Formosus, in interfering in a dispute between Eudes and Charles the Simple, spoke at least a language more evangelical, and less haughty, than in similar circ.u.mstances had been held by Nicholas II.

Adrian II. and John VIII. Formosus crowned two emperors, Lambert in 892, Amulf in 896: and in both these ceremonies, the Romans took the oath of fidelity to the prince, 'saving the faith pledged to the Lord Formosus.'5 This pope, in other respects, is only famous from the proceedings which his memory, and his corpse, experienced from his successors:-deplorable scenes, which are, however, foreign to the subject of which we treat.

Art of verifying dates, vol. i. p. 267.

4 Muratori's Annals of Italy, year 887.

5 Liutprand. b.i. c. 8.--St. Marc. Ab.of Hist of Italy, v.ii. p. 63.

In 898, during the pontificate of John IX. Arnulf was declared an usurper of the imperial dignity, and Lambert re-a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of Emperor. The pope held, on this occasion, a council at Ravenna, in which the sovereignty of the Western Emperors over Rome and the Ecclesiastical State, was recognized by many decrees.6 The following is the most important:

"Considering that on the death "of a sovereign pontiff, the Church is exposed to "great and many disorders, when the new pope is "consecrated without the privity of the emperor, "and without waiting for his commissioners, whose "authority might prevent the outrages and irregu- "larities which generally attend on this ceremony; "we desire that for the future the pope be nomi- "nated by the bishops and clergy, on being pro- "posed by the senate and the people; that, after "having thus solemnly and publicly elected him, "they consecrate him in presence of the commis- "saries of the emperor; and, that no person dare, "with impunity, under any pretence whatsoever, "exact of him other promises or other oaths, than "those which have been sanctioned by ancient "usage; so that the church may neither suffer "scandal nor injury, and that the authority of the "emperor may receive no detriment."

6 SC Marc. Ab. of Hist of Italy, vol. 2, p. 636-640,

But, in thus rendering homage to the imperial dignity, the popes seem to have reserved to themselves, by way of compensation, the right of conferring it. After the death of Lambert, and of Arnulf, the bishops and lords of Bavaria elected, in 899, a son of Arnulf, named Louis, and solicited the pope to confirm this election, excusing themselves for having made it without his approbation, in consequence of the pagans, that is the Hungarians, having cut off the pa.s.sage into Italy. Neither John IX. nor his successor, Benedict IV. were in haste to crown Louis.

After the example of John VIII. they endeavoured to accustom the Romans to dispense with an emperor: the empire remained vacant till 901.

We must recognize in the part.i.tion of the States of Charlemagne between the sons of Louis-le-De-bonnaire, and in the subsequent subdivisions of these states, the princ.i.p.al cause of the degradation of the civil authority, and the metamorphose of the pontifical ministry into a tremendous power:7

"Hence," says Velly, "these enterprises of the popes, who, "considering themselves as the dispensers of an "empire, of which they were only the first subjects, "a.s.sumed under the cloak of a purely spiritual "authority, to dispose sovereignly of empires.

"Hence, the enormous power of the bishops, who, "after having dethroned the father at the solicitation "of the children, believed themselves empowered to "elect, confirm or depose their masters; ambitious "prelates, rather warriors than priests, scarcely "knowing how to read, much less write; terrible "notwithstanding, as well from the spiritual thunders "which they after, as Pasquier expresses it, tilted "too freely and carelessly with, as from the tem- "poral power which they had usurped in their cities "and dioceses. Hence these almost independent "princ.i.p.alities that the monks established in those "countries, where some years before they tilled, with "their own hands, the grounds which a pious liberally "had abandoned to them."

7 Hist of France, vol. 2 (in 12), p. 244.

Although there had been no authentic act which erected the pope into a sovereign, and which freed from the imperial supremacy the authority which he exercised at Rome, his power nevertheless became in effect independent; and as, in consecrating the emperors, he already considered himself as creating them, since he dared to speak of their dignity as a favour for which they were indebted to him, he doubtless had the means of placing limits to that obedience which they might be desirous of exacting from him. Far from imposing laws on him in his own states, they often acquiesced in his, even in the exercise of their civil rights and political powers. In the course of the succeeding centuries, every thing depended, not on the progress of ignorance or the return of knowledge alone, but on the personal energy of the kings and of the pontiffs individually.

CHAPTER III. TENTH CENTURY

PROTESTANTS take a malicious pleasure in pourtraying the court of Rome in the tenth century, and in extracting from Liutprand a contemporary author, the unedifying details with which he has filled up the ecclesiastical and political history of this period. But without examining whether the relations of this writer are as faithful as they are satirical, we may say with Fleury8 that Rome under these unworthy popes ceased not to be the centre of Christendom. We may add with other theologians, that so many abuses not having drawn after them the destruction of the Holy See, their very excess serves to manifest the care of Providence to maintain this visible focus of Catholic unity.

8 Discour. 4, a. 10.

For the rest, the private lives of the popes is not the object which claims our attention; we shall only consider their political relations with secular governments. In confining ourselves to this view, we shall not be troubled with unravelling the thread of succession, somewhat confused, of thirty popes, who, in the course of this century, have occupied, more or less legitimately, the chair of St. Peter. When two shall start up at the same moment, we shall not stop to inquire which of them is the true one; we shall not take on us to decide between Baronius, who never wishes to recognize save the worthiest or the most canonically elected, and those authors who adhere to the most effective, that is, to the man who has more decisively exercised the pontifical power: these are delicate questions, requiring long discussions, and the investigation of a mult.i.tude of petty circ.u.mstances, foreign to the history of those great disputes between the pontiffs and kings. In the midst of those things and of those changes, two points appear to us incontrovertible; one, that the Holy See was at this period reckoned in the number of temporal governments; the other, that occupied with its own affairs, and the interior troubles which agitated it, it lost, without, a large portion of the influence and power which the preceding century had bequeathed to it. The first of these consequences is confirmed by Constantine Porphyrogenites, the Greek Emperor, who, previous to the middle of the tenth century, digested a sort of statistical table of the east and of the west: he in it represents the popes as 'sovereigns of Rome'.

Even in modifying this incorrect expression, we must admit, that this text places the bishops of Rome in the rank of princes who immediately governed states. As to the second conclusion, it followed almost of course: pleasure ever extinguishes the fire of ambition, discord shackles power, and the intrigues which employ us within, suspend our exterior projects; he who is compelled to defend himself in the bosom of his palace never meditates distant attacks. The excommunications so familiar to Gregory III. to Nicholas I. and to John VIII. menace, therefore, less frequently crowned heads. Theological opinions themselves become less exposed to anathemas. We find no general council, no new heresy in the tenth century.

This century may be divided into four epochs. The first would terminate in 932; it would be characterised by the influence of Theodore and her daughters. The second would present the administration of Alberic, and of his son, up to 962. The third would open with the coronation of Otho as emperor, and would terminate with the death of this prince in 973.

The consulate of Crescentius would designate the fourth.

The inhabitants of Rome had never ceased to nourish ideas of independence; old customs led them back to republican forms. Their city did not belong to the kingdom of Italy; it held only from the imperial crown, which the pontiff himself had so far the disposal of, as occasionally to keep it in reserve. We have noticed examples of this interregnum of the empire, under John VIII. and John IX. p 906, when the eyes of Louis III. who on this account was called: the Blind, had been put out, the Romans ceased to insert his name in the public acts; and although this, unfortunate prince persevered in a.s.suming the t.i.tle of emperor, the imperial dignity actually remained vacant, until the coronation, of Berengariusin 916.? During these interregnums, Rome accustomed herself to consider, her pontiff, alone as her sovereign, or rather her own, citizens, n.o.bles, priests, or; sometimes even plebeans.

This, collective sovereign, created popes, and sometimes unmade them.

There had been seven or eight of these elections, or revolutions, in the course of the first fourteen years of the tenth century; and each time two factions were seen attacking each other, into which the Roman n.o.bility was divided, from the time of the proceedings against the memory of Formosus. Some authors discover at this era, the origin of the Guelphs, and Ghibelins: we must confess, we only behold as yet the families which disputed the papacy, or these influence exercised, as well over the electors as over the elected.

? St Marc. Ab. Hist of Italy, vol, 2, pa. 668.

A party in favour of the Western Emperors is the least to be distinguished in the midst of these troubles; we rather have to remark a tendency, weak at first, towards the Greek emperors, but which disposition became much more evident towards the close of this century.

From the year 907, Rome behaved with complaisance to Leo VI. called the Philosopher, whose fourth marriage had been censured by the patriarch of Constantinople. The power of the clergy was, at this period, more formidable at a distance from Rome than in the capital of Christendom.

William of Aquitaine, in founding the abbey of Cluni, about the year 910, declared, that these monks should never be subject to him, to his relatives, or descendants, nor to any earthly power. In Northern and Western Europe the monks inherited, without being inherited of, and the edifice of their formidable opulence rapidly a rose. They made not such a hasty progress in the Roman State, where, under ephemeral popes, the elective chiefs of a species of republic, the intrigues attached to such a system occupied every mind. In the midst of these political movements, three female patricians arose, provided with all the resources of influence with which rank, talents and beauty could arm ambition.

Theodora, the mother of the other two, seduced the n.o.bles, calmed faction, subjected to her authority the Church itself, and finally softened public manners by corrupting them.

Concilior. vol. 9. p. 565-Bibl. Clun. -Fleury's Eccles. Hist. b.

54, n. 45.

One of her lovers, at first bishop of Bologna, she raised to the archbishopric of Ravenna, and, subsequently, to the sovereign pontificate, which he filled under the name of John X. from 914 to 928.

We cannot make a favorable report of the holiness of this pontiff, but in his character, as head of a state, he merits fewer reproaches. He did not dispute the rights of other sovereigns; he acknowledged that it belonged to kings alone to invest bishops he reconciled the princes whose rivalries destroyed Italy: on placing the imperial crown on the head of Berengarius, he endeavoured to ally him with the Greek Emperor against the Saracens, their common enemies: he himself marched against these Mahometans, fought them with more bravery than belongs to the office of a pope, and drove them from the neighbourhood of Rome.

Concil. Gall. vol. 3, p. 565.

It appears that Theodora died previous to the year 928. Marosia, one of her daughters, after having united herself in second marriage with Guy of Tuscany, dethroned John and cast him into prison, where in a short time he died, no doubt a violent death. He had for successors, a Leo VI.

and a Stephen VII.. creatures of Marosia's, and finally John XI. a young man of twenty to twenty-five years of age, of whom she herself was the mother, and whom she had borne to Pope Sergius II. according to Fleury Baronius Sigowus4 and many others, who adopt on this head the relation of Liutprand.5 Muratori6 makes Alberic, the first husband of Marosia, the father of John XI. However it be, this woman governed Rome, under the pontificate of her son, to the year 932, the era of a new revolution. Marosia in her third nuptials took for husband Hugues king of Provence, maternal brother of Guy of Tuscany.

This third spouse being disposed to maltreat Alberic, another son of Marosia's, a party devoted to young Alberic put him at the head of affairs: Hugues was driven from the city, and John XI. continued to fill in form, but without any actual power, the chair of St. Peter.

Eccles. Hist. b. 66. n. 5.

Annal. Eccl. ad. ann. 931.

4 De regnorum Ital. b. 6, p. 400.

5 Lib. 3, c. 12, p. 410.

6 Annali Italia ad ann. 931.

At this period commenced, in Rome, a secular government which continued about thirty years. Alberic with the t.i.tle of consul or patrician, selected the popes, ruled them, and held them in dependence. Out of the city, the popes only possessed the property in the land; which they had infeoffed in order to secure a part. An armed n.o.bility had arisen in their domains, which were now no longer part of their states, or which had never so been. They were ignorant, in those barbarous ages, of the art of distant government, the art of establis.h.i.+ng over extensive territories an energetic system of unity, subordination, and connection.

This art has been perfected only in modern times; and its absence in the middle ages, was probably a princ.i.p.al cause of the establishment and progress of feudal anarchy. They knew not how to retain an empire of any extent, but by parcelling it out to va.s.sals, who were desirous of becoming independent, wherever the personal weakness of their liege lord permitted them to become so. The pope, therefore, from 932 till towards 966, was but bishop of Rome, without any secular power, and his spiritual influence was very much restricted. Properly speaking, the Emperor of the West had also disappeared: for Henry the Fowler did not a.s.sume this t.i.tle in his diplomas: he characterised himself only as 'patron' or 'advocate' of the Romans:7 and this vain t.i.tle, below even that of patrician, embraced no authority, no duty, no political relation. With what independence Alberic ruled his fellow citizens, we can judge: he convoked them periodically in national a.s.semblies; he preserved or renewed in the midst of them, the republican forms he supposed favourable to the support of his personal authority. Alberic died in 954; and his son Octavian, who succeeded him, thought it requisite to strengthen the civil power by re-annexing it to the pontifical dignity: he became pope in 956, and took the t.i.tle of John XII. This double power would have been adequate to the restoration of the Holy See, if the extreme youth of John, the mediocrity of his talents, and the enterprises of Berengarius II. king of Italy, had not led to the re-establishment of the imperial dignity. John having need of Otho King of Germany to oppose to Berengarius, he crowned him emperor in 962.

7 Art of verifying dates, vol. 2, p. 10.

Berengarius and his son Adalbert were deposed: Otho reunited to his kingdom of Germany, that of Italy, and the imperial crown. In order to acquire such extensive power, he made most magnificent promises to the Roman Church, and received in return the oaths and the homage of the pope. These doc.u.ments of Otho's and of John are still in existence: Gratian has delivered them to us in his canonical compilation; and if their authenticity be disputed, the source is unquestionable.8 Otho confirmed the donations of Pepin, of Charlemagne, and of Louis I. he extended them perhaps, but expressly reserving to himself, the sovereignty over the city of Rome and all the ecclesiastical domains: "saving in every respect, he says, our own power and that of our son and our successors."?

8 Liutprand, b. 6, c. 6.-Pagi. Crit. Ann. Baron, ann. 962 -Fleury.

Eccles. Hist. b. 06, n. 1.

? "This clause," says Fleury, "shews, that the Emperor always preserved to himself the sovereignty and jurisdiction over Rome, and all places embraced in this donation: and the sequel of history will prove it."

The const.i.tutions which required the emperor's consent in the installation of a pope were renewed: Otho considered himself even invested with a right to depose the Roman pontiffs, and deferred not to lay hold on an occasion for exercising it. Scarcely had he left Rome, when John XII. measuring with terror the extent of the imperial authority, repented having re-established it, and conceived the idea of getting rid of it: Berengarius and Adalbert, with whom he had promised to hold no intercourse, were to a.s.sist him in this undertaking. The emperor who was soon apprised of it, received at the same time some relation respecting the private conduct of the pontiff: it was not the most edifying. Otho, appeared to pay but little attention to these recitals:

"The pope, said he, is a child; the example of wor- "thy men may convert him; prudent remonstrance "may draw him from the precipice down which he "is ready to cast himself."