The Power Of The Popes Part 6

John received very ill these paternal counsels; he drew Adalbert to Rome, affected receiving him with pomp, collected troops, and openly revolted against the emperor, in defiance of the approach of this prince and his army. But the forces were too unequal: John was compelled to fly to Capua with Adalbert.

Eccles. Hist. b.66. n. 6.

Otho entered Rome, and after receiving from the Romans an oath not to recognize any pope not approved of by the emperor, he wrote to John XII.

a letter, which Fleury relates in these words:

"Being come to Rome for the service of G.o.d, "when we demanded of the bishops and cardinals "the occasion of your absence, they advanced "against you things so shameful that they would be "unworthy the folk of the theatre. All, clergy as "well as laity, accuse you of homicide, perjury, sa- "crilege, incest with your relatives, and with two "sisters, and with having invoked irreverently Ju- "piter, Venus, and other demons. We therefore "beg of you to hasten instantly to exculpate your- "self from all these charges. If you have any appre- "hensions from the insolence of the people, we "promise you that nothing shall be done contrary "to the canons."

Eccles. Hist b. 56. n. 6.

In reply the pope declared that he would excommunicate the bishops who should dare to co-operate in the election of a sovereign pontiff. This menace did not impede the council a.s.sembled by Otho, from deposing John XII, and electing Leo VIII., notwithstanding some n.o.bles attached to the family of Alberic excited two seditions, one under the very eyes of the emperor, the other immediately after his departure. The second of these commotions replaced John on the pontifical throne, which he stained on this occasion with the most horrible vengeance: he confined himself not to excommunications, but caused to be executed or mutilated all who had concurred in his deposition. His sudden death suspended the course of these cruel executions: he perished from a stroke on the temple, applied at night by the hand of some secret enemy, no doubt by one of the husbands outraged by the Holy Father The Romans in contempt of all the oaths they had taken to the emperor, gave him a a successor in Benedict V: but Leo VIII. who had taken refuge with Otho, was soon led back to Rome by this prince; and Benedict the true pope according to Baronius acknowledged himself the antipope at the feet of the head of the empire, stripped himself of his pontifical vestments, sought pardon for having dared to a.s.sume them, and finally offered his homage to Leo as the legitimate successor of St. Peter4 The German publicists5 have no doubt of the authenticity of an act, which Otho caused Leo to subscribe at the time, addressed to the clergy and people of Rome: it is stated in it, that no person for the future shall have the privilege of electing the pope, or other bishop, without the emperor's consent; that the bishops elected by the clergy and the people shall not be consecrated until the emperor shall have confirmed the election, with the exception, however, of certain prelacies, the invest.i.ture of which the emperor cedes to the archbishops; that Otho, king of the Germans, and his successors in the kingdom of Italy, shall have the power in perpetuity of selecting those who shall reign after them; and that of nominating the popes, as well as the archbishops and bishops who receive from these princes their invest.i.ture "by the cross and the ring."

Bellarmine, says John XII, was almost the most vicious of the popes. Fait feri omnium deterrimus. De Rom. pontif. 6. 2. e. 29.

Ann. Eccles. ad. aim. 964.

4 Liutprand. I. 6. c. ult.-Vita Joannis xii. vol. 3. Rer. ltd. 1.

ii. pa. 328.

5 See Pleffell. Abr. Chron. of the History of the Public Rights of Germany, ann. 964; Koch's Sketch of the Revolutions of Europe. 3d period etc.

With the exception of these last words the act is delivered down to us in Grotius's decree; yet some Italian authors consider it apocryphal, without, a.s.signing any other reason for this opinion than the enormous extent6 which this const.i.tution seems to confer on the imperial power. We may, however, a.s.sert in this place, that though the authenticity of this text be not very rigororously insisted on, the testimony of contemporary historians7 invariably proves, that Otho obliged Leo VIII. to subscribe an explicit recognition of the imperial rights.

6 These decrees are inventions in which we find exorbitant concessions to the imperial power, as well in the spiritualities as temporalities of the Church of Rome. Cardinal Baronius in his Ecclesiastical Annals, 964, father Pagi in his Critique on Baronius, and others, have wisely rejected similar impostures.

Muratori's Annals of Italy, year 964. vol. 6. p. 410.

7 Liutprand. 1. 6, c. 6.-See vol. Pannom. 1. 8. c. 136; Grationi Decretum dis. c. 73; De Marca Concord. 1. 8, c. 12; St Marc. Abd.

Hist, of Italy, vol. 4. dog. 1167, 1185.

The recent revolt of John XII. sufficed to excite in the emperor an anxiety for this new guarantee: and Leo, his own creature, had no power of placing restrictions to it. The act was such as Otho willed it to be and this prince, a conqueror and a benefactor, would not rest satisfied with an ambiguous formula.

Leo VIII. and Benedict V. died in 965; the commissioners of Otho caused the election of John XIII. but the Romans revolted against this new pope, and banished him. Otho was obliged to return into Italy, and hasten to Rome to subdue the seditious and restore the pontiff. John could forgive none of his enemies: he signalized his return by atrocious vengeances, of which the emperor condescended to become the accomplice and the instrument. They have tarnished the glory of this prince, and justified the indifferent reception, at this period, of one of his amba.s.sadors to the Greek emperor, Nicephoras Phocas.:

"The impiety of thy master, said the empe- "ror of Constantinople to the amba.s.sador of Otho, "does not allow us to receive thee honorably: thy "master has become the tyrant of his Roman sub- "ejects; he has exiled some, he has torn out the "eyes of others; he has exterminated one-half of his "people by the sword and by the scaffold."

The amba.s.sador to whom this discourse was addressed, was the historian Liutprand, who himself relates it.

Otho, however, was not cruel by nature; in this instance he only yielded to the importunities of the vindictive John.

The successes of Otho the Great, his excursions to Rome from the year 962 to 966, laid the foundation of the power of the German emperors, his successors. He wished the imperial dignity to become forever inseparable from the united kingdoms of Germany and Italy; that Christendom in its full extent might form a republic which should recognize in the emperor its sole temporal head; that it should be the privilege of this supreme chief, to convoke councils, command the armies of Christendom, establish or depose popes, to preside over, and to create kings. But in order to elevate himself to such a pinnacle of greatness, he had need to manuvre the German bishops; they, therefore, received from him enormous concessions. He distinguished the cities into two kinds, prefectorial, and royal, since imperial, and confided the government of the latter to the bishops, who laboured hard to render them episcopal. The bishops became Counts and Dukes with royal prerogatives, such as the administration of justice, privilege of coining money, collecting customs, and other public revenues. It was by the t.i.tle of fiefs, and on condition of following him in his military expeditions, that Otho gratified them with such power and wealth: but these dangerous benefactions, in abridging the domains of the crown and the revenues of the State, served the ends of future anarchy and revolution. The clergy, as well the secular as regular, required in most of the countries of Europe a formidable power, which would have been further encreased, if already some symptoms of rivalry between these two bodies had not fettered their common aggrandizement. Converts multiplied from day to day, and enriched themselves almost beyond bounds. The Church's period of 1000 years was about to expire; and donations to the church, especially to monasteries, pa.s.sed for the most certain a.s.surance against eternal d.a.m.nation. From the retirement of the cloisters arose important personages, before whom the thrones of the world were humbled. Dunstan, from Glas...o...b..ry Abbey, sprung forward to govern Great Britain, to insult queens, and subject kings to penance. Otho the Great was at this period the only prince of Christendom who fully ruled the ecclesiastical authority: and if there remained among any people, ideas or 'habitudes'

of civil independence, it was among the Romans in the centre of Christianity itself.

The reign of Otho the Great, is the era to which we would willingly refer the origin of the two factions, the papal and imperial, since called those of the Guelphs and Ghibelins. But in the tenth century, the partisans of the pope, were only citizens, emulous of obtaining the independence of their city or republic, and to withdraw their elective head from all domination. Some would have even preferred a civil magistracy simply, as that of Alberic; they united rather in opposition to the emperor, than in favor of the pontiffs chosen without, or in defiance of, his authority. Such were the elements of the factions, which revolted with John XII. which nominated Benedict V. and which repelled, as far as in their power, Leo VIII. and John XIII. The emperor had no partizans at Rome save his personal agents, and a few of the inhabitants; the rest were subjected only by his presence or his arms.

Thus this pontifical faction which, in the sequel, appears to have supported the most monstrous excesses of pontifical ambition, was originally but a republican party, that more than once, it had been easy to engage in the destruction of the temporal power of the popes, by conferring on the Romans, and on some others of the cities of Italy, a suitable government.

Otho died in 973; and from his death to the pontificate of Gerbert or Sylvester II. the most remarkable events are, the accession of Hugh Capet to the throne of France, the excommunication p.r.o.nounced against his son Robert, and the attempts of Crescentius to force Rome from the yokes of Otho II. and Otho HI. the feeble successors of Otho the Great.

Crescentius was the son of Theodora, and, according to Fleury, of Pope John X. We behold him governing Rome in quality of Consul towards 980; but it is probable that from the year 974, he exercised a considerable influence; stormy or weak pontificates restored the civil magistracy.

Benedict VI. the successor of John XIII. had been dethroned, imprisoned, and strangled, or condemned to die of hunger. Boniface VII. the usurper of the Holy See, after having plundered the churches, fled with his booty to Constantinople: they hesitated not to fill his place, and the imperial influence determined the election in favor of Benedict VII. who belonged to the family of Alberic, now counts of Tusculum; a powerful family, by whom the Emperor Otho II. and his agents, strengthened the German party. But this emperor occupied in a war with the Greeks in the Duchy of Beneventum, feared to displease the Romans by taking too active a part in their affairs. He therefore prevented not Crescentius, who had obtained their confidence, from ruling both the city and its bishop. In 983, when Benedict VII. died, the Romans and their consul elected John XVI. Boniface, however, returned from Constantinople, made himself master of Rome and of the person of John, caused him to perish in a dungeon, and maintained himself during the s.p.a.ce of eleven months, at the head of the city and of the church. There is reason to think that Crescentius contributed to the fall of Boniface, whom a sudden death s.n.a.t.c.hed from the vengeance of the people. John XV. elected in 985, had disputes with the consul, who exiled him, and did not agree to see him until the pope had promised to respect the popular authority. In despite of this promise, Otho III. was called into Italy by John, who submitted with reluctance to the ascendancy of Crescentius. John died at the moment he expected to see himself delivered from this governor. Otho III. nominated for pope a German, who took the name of Gregory V.: this foreign pontiff elected by the influence of the Counts of Tusculum, on the approach of the imperial army, odious on every account to the Romans, became still more displeasing to them from German manners and hauteur8 It was at this moment Crescentius formed the project of replacing Rome under the sovereign authority of the Greek emperors, masters at once more gentle and more remote, accustomed to respect the privileges of the people, and under whose protection the Neapolitans and Venetians breathed freely and prospered. Greek amba.s.sadors proceeded to Rome under pretence of fulfilling a mission to the court of Otho; they conferred with the consul, who deferred not to expel Gregory, and to replace him by a Greek named Philogathus, who from being bishop of Placentia, became pope or anti-pope under the name of John XVI. But Otho came to Rome, and laid hold of this new pontiff, whom Gregory condemned, in spite of the prayers of St. Nil, to lose his life by a series of the most horrible torments. Crescen-tius had retired to the wall of Adrian; they affected to treat with him, they pledged themselves to respect his person: he relied on this promise given by the emperor, quitted the fortress, submitted himself to Otho, and was instantly beheaded with his most faithful partisans.

8 Bellarmine and others, have attributed to Gregory V. the inst.i.tution of the seven electorates of the empire: this absurd opinion has been often refuted. See for example, Natal. Alex.

Dissert. 18, in secul, 9 and 10; Maimbourg's Hist, of the decline of the empire, 1. 2, &c.; and Dupin's Treatise on the ecclesiastical power, p. 270.

It was John XV. who filled the chair of St. Peter, when in 987 Hugh Capet dethroned the Carlovingian race, and made himself king of France.

This prince knew how to make this necessary revolution acceptable to the French n.o.bles and bishops; it proceeded without commotion, and above all without the intervention of the Roman Court. Hugh did not apply to John as Pepin before had done to Zachary; and the happiness of not being indebted to the Holy See, for his elevation, was without doubt, one of the causes of the security of Hugh, the long duration of his dynasty, and the propagation of those maxims of independence, which have distinguished and done honour to the Gallican church. These maxims were proclaimed from the reign of Hugh, by a bishop of Orleans, and by Gerbert archbishop of Rheims? It was in the affair of an archbishop of this same city of Rheims, named Arnoul, who had betrayed the new king, and whom this prince had deposed. John wished to re-establish Arnoul and annul the election of Gerbert; but the monarch was firm, and, while he lived, Gerbert remained in the See of Rheims, and Arnoul in the prison of Orleans.

? Velly's Hist, of France, vol. 2, p. 275, &c.

Robert, son of Hugh, did not resist with equal success the attempts of Gregory V. Robert had married Bertha, although she was his relative in the fourth degree, and that he had been G.o.dfather of a son that she had by the Count of Chartres, her first husband. They exclaimed against a marriage made in contempt of two such serious impediments. Too much terrified by these clamours, Robert resolved to restore Arnoul to the See of Rheims: this complaisance by which he hoped to reconcile himself to the See of Rome, appeared but an indication of his weakness. The pope did not hesitate to declare the marriage void; he excommunicated the two spouses, and Robert, compelled to part Bertha, married Constance. This pliability has been much urged against him; but after the re-establishment of Arnoul, a perseverance in retaining Bertha would have led almost infallibly to fatal consequences. We must consider that Robert was the second king of his family; that this new dynasty had scarcely reigned ten years; that Gerbert, one of the most judicious men of this epoch, had left the King of France in order to attach himself to Otho III.; that this emperor had appeared at the council in which Gregory V. had excommunicated the son of Hugh; and finally, that these anathemas were then so dreadful, that at the present day we can scarcely avoid suspecting exaggeration in what is related to us of their effects. It was the first time France beheld herself placed under an interdict, and that she received the injunction to suspend the celebration of the divine offices; the administration of the sacrament to adults, and religious sepulture to the dead. We are a.s.sured that Robert, when excommunicated, was abandoned by his courtiers, his relations, his household, and that even two servants who remained with him caused to pa.s.s through the fire the things which he had touched.

"I know," says Bossuet, "that Peter Damien a.s.sures us, that no person held intercourse with the king, except two servants for the necessary occasions of life. But, either those of whom the pious Cardinal received this information have exaggerated, or at least we must suppose that the public officers continued to exercise their duties, since without it the government could not subsist an instant. Besides if it were true, that the exercise of certain public offices had been suspended for some time, all history would testify to this interregnum, and relate the confusion which would have resulted from it." Defence of the Grail. Cler. p. 2,1. 6, c.

27. Bossuet also observes, that at the moment in which Robert was struck with these terrible anathemas, n.o.body thought or a.s.serted that this excommunication could carry the least attaint to the sovereign authority of this monarch.

This Gerbert whom we have mentioned, became pope after Gregory V. by the name of Sylvester II. It was he who, being archbishop of Rheims, and seeing himself condemned by John XV. had expressed himself in these words:

"If the bishop of "Rome sin against his brother, and that, often warn- "ed, he obey not the church, he ought to be re- "garded as a publican: the more elevated the rank, "the greater the fall. When St. Gregory said, that "the church ought to fear the sentence of its pastors, "whether just or unjust, he did not mean to recom- "mend this fear to the bishops, who do not consti- "tute the flock, but are the heads and leaders thereof.

"Let us not furnish our enemies with an occasion to "suppose that the priesthood, which is one in every "church, be in such sort subject to a sovereign pon- "tiff that if this pontiff suffer himself to be corrupted "by money, favor, fear or ignorance, no person can "hence be a bishop, unless he upholds himself by "such means. The church has for a rule, the "Scriptures, the decrees, and the canons of the Holy "See, when these are conformable to Scripture."

Driven from Rheims, Gerbert was received by Otho the III., who created him, first, archbishop of Ravenna, then head of the church in 998. He died in 1002, after having in this short pontificate, confirmed as far as in his power, the imperial authority at Rome, and refused the indications of independence which had agitated her citizens.

We cannot take leave of the 10th centuiy, without lamenting the gross ignorance into which Europe was plunged. Possessions were regulated by custom, and transactions pursued by remembrance alone. In the midst of these people, these n.o.bles, these kings, who knew neither how to read nor write, the rudest instruction was, in the clergy suffered to put them in possession of the civil administration.

Concilior. vol. 9, p. 744. A discourse which Arnoul bishop of Orleans, p.r.o.nounced in the Council of Rheims in 991, has been occasionally cited under the name of Gerbert, which discourse may be read in the history of this council revised by Gerbert. This very remarkable doc.u.ment is too long to be inserted here.

Researches on France, b. 8, c. 13.

"The ecclesiastics, says Pasquier, di- "vide among themselves the keys as well of reli- "gion as of letters, altho' so to speak, they derived "from these only sufficient provision for their "cubs."

They alone could spell ancient writings, and trace some letters. They a.s.sumed the dictating of wills, the regulation of marriages, contracts, and public acts; they extorted legacies and donations, they freed themselves from the secular jurisdiction, and endeavoured to subject all things to a jurisprudence of their own.

Velly's Hist, of France, vol. 2, p. 293.

CHAPTER IV. ENTERPRISES OF THE POPES OF THE ELEVENTH CENTURY

A SHORT time after the death of Sylvester II. a patrician, consuls, twelve senators, a prefect, and popular a.s.semblies, were seen to re-appear at Rome. A second Crescentius, the son perhaps of the first, filled the prefectorial office. As to the patrician, who was named John, and who was the princ.i.p.al author of the reestablishment of this civil magistracy, he is expressly designated to us as son of the first Crescentius. But in 1013, Henry II. came to Rome: he received from Pope Benedict VIII. the imperial crown: and the Romans, in spite of their menaces, lost once more their independence. Baronius4 relates a diploma in which Henry confirms the donations of his predecessors: it is added that Benedict, before receiving this emperor, made him swear that he would be faithful to the pope, and regard himself only as the defender and advocate of the Roman Church. Glaber,5 a contemporary historian, after having related this coronation, says, that it appears very reasonable, and a thing well established, that no prince could take the t.i.tle of emperor, 'save he whom the pope shall have chosen and clothed with the insignia of this dignity:' words which seem much less to express in this place the sentiment of an individual than an opinion generally established in his time.

4 Ann. Eccles. ad ann. 1014. vol. 9, p. 48.

5 Hiclor, 1. l, c. ult.

However Mabillon6 and Muratori7 deny the authenticity of the diploma instanced by Baronius; and we see that in 1020, when Benedict VIII. resorted to Henry in Germany, this prince confirmed the donations of his predecessors with an express reservation of the imperial sovereignty.

John XIX. the successor of Benedict, was banished by the Romans, and restored by the Emperor Conrade, in 1033, whom he had crowned in 1027.

After John, who survived his re-establishment but a short time, his nephew was elected pope, and took the name of Benedict IX. when he, according to Glaber,8 was but ten years of age.