The Power Of The Popes Part 8

This princess gave all her possessions to the Holy See, and three distinct monuments have been cited of this famous liberality. The first act, subscribed by her in 1077, has not been found. The second, which she signed twenty-five years later, when Hildebrand no longer lived, is preserved at Rome;5? and a will is also spoken of, which is not forthcoming, but which they say, confirms the two preceding donations.

There exist indeed some difficulties, respecting these three acts: why has the first been allowed to go astray? wherefore do historians say, it was signed at Canossa, while it is referred to in the second, as having been subscribed at Rome? And this second deed itself, which so completely divests the giver, which reserves to her only some life enjoyments, how reconcile it with the extensive domains with which she continued to enrich monks and canons, from the year 1102, to 1115? Why not publish her will, which had, perhaps, explained these apparent contradictions? To all these questions we shall reply, that the act of 1102 subsists; that it expressly renews that of 1077; and that of all the donations of which the Holy See hath availed itself, that of Matilda is undoubtedly the best authenticated as well as the richest.

58 Apud omnes sanum aliquid sapientes luce clarius con-stabat falsa esse quae dicebantur. Nam et papa tam esimie tamqne apostolice vitam inst.i.tuebat, ut nec minimum sinistri rumoris maculum conversations ejus sublimitas admitteret; et illa in urbe celiberrima atque in tanta obsequentium fire-quentia, obscnum aliquid perpetrans, latere nequaquam potu-isset. Signa etiam et prodigia quae per orationes pap frequen-tius fiebant, et zelus ejus ferventissimus linguas communie bant.-Lambert Schafur. ad ann. 1177. This chronicler attributes, as we see, to Gregory, the gift of miracles, and concludes from it that his commerce with Matilda was irreproachable. "Nevertheless, says the Jesuit Maimbourg, as the world, from a certain malignity attached to it, has a greater 'penchant' for believing the evil than the good, especially with persons of some reputation for virtue, this commerce failed not to be of bad effect, and tended to blacken his character of Gregory at this period."

5? Diss. of St Marc. p. 1231. 1316 of v. 4. of Ab. Hist, of Italy.

In truth, the emperor Henry V. the heir of this Countess, made himself master of all she had been possessed of, and which reverted at a later period to the Court of Rome; but, with time, the popes have secured a part of this inheritance, and have termed it the Patrimony of St. Peter: they are indebted for it to the cares of Gregory VII.

Heniy IV. had obtained a victory over the Saxons, when he was addressed by two legates, who communicated to him the order, to appear at Rome, in order to reply to the accusations brought against him: it related to invest.i.tures granted by him, 'by the cross and ring;' it was requisite to obtain pardon, or submit to an excommunication6 Henry, although he despised the menace, thought proper to give the pope some trouble in the city of Rome: a tumult took place, and Gregory was seized, struck, imprisoned, and ransomed. The effect of this ill-treatment was to cast an interest on the person of the pontiff, and to prepare him against a more serious vengeance. The emperor in a council at Worms, deposed Gregory, who, too confident of the inefficacy of such a decree, replied to it by the following:6

"On the part of the Almighty G.o.d, and of my full "authority, I forbid Henry, the son of Henry, to "govern the kingdom of the Teutons and Italy: "I absolve all Christians from the oaths they have "taken, or shall hereafter take to him; and all per- "sons are forbidden to render him services as a "king."

6 Lamb. Schaf. ad ann. 1074.-Life of Gregory VII. ap. Bell. t. 17.

p. 148.

6 Concilior. vol. 10. p. 366. Here is, according to Otho of Freisingen, the first example of the deposition of a king by a pope. Lego et relego Roma norum regum et imperatorum gestu, et nusquam invenio quemquam eorum ante hune a Romano pontifice excommunicatum vel regno privatum. Otho. Fies. Chron. 1. 6, c.

35.- Quanta autem mala, quotbella, bellorumque discriminia, inde subsecuta sunt? Quoties misere Eoma obscessa, capta rastata? Ibid.

c. 36.

We would willingly discredit it, but it is proved that these extravagant words, s.n.a.t.c.hed from the monarch the fruit of all his victories. The civil war was again kindled in the centre of Germany; an army of confederates was a.s.sembled near Spires, surrounded Henry, opposed to him the sentence of the pope, and made him pledge himself to forbear the exercise of his power, until the decision, to be p.r.o.nounced at Augsburgh, between him and the pope, in a council over which the latter was to preside.

To prevent this last decision, Henry determined to seek pardon of Hildebrand; he found him in the fortress of Canossa, where the pontiff was shut up with his countess Matilda. The prince presented himself without guard, and without retinue: stopped in the second enclosure, he suffered himself to be stripped of his vestments and clothed in sackcloth. With naked feet, in the month of January 1077, he awaited in the midst of the court the Holy Father's reply. This reply was, that he should fast three days before he could be permitted to kiss Hildebrand's feet; and at the end of three days, they would be willing to absolve and receive him, under the promise of a perfect submission to the forthcoming decision of Augsburgh. Gregory might have foreseen that this excess of pride and tyranny would disgust the Italians, by whom he was already detested. His power had this disadvantage in their eyed, that it was not beheld at a sufficient distance. Lombardy armed itself in behalf of Henry, whom the Germans deserted; and while Germany elected another emperor Italy chose another pope.6

Rodolphus duke of Swabia having been nominated emperor, Gregory excommunicated Henry once more. "I take the crown from him he said, and give the Teutonic kingdom to Rodolph." He even made a present to the latter of a crown, round which was to be seen an indifferent latin verse, of which here follows a translation. "La Pierre a donne a Pierre, et Pierre donne a Rodolphe le diademe."6 Peter, a stone, has given to Peter, and Peter gives to Rodolph a diadem. At the same time Henry elevated to the papacy Guibert the archbishop of Ravenna, and a.s.sembled an army against Rodolph. In vain Gregory prophesied that Heniy would be vanquished, would be exterminated before St. Peter: it was Rodolph who fell; he was killed in a skirmish by G.o.dfrey of Bouillon, nephew of Matilda. Henry marched down on Rome: after a long seige, he took it by a.s.sault; and Gregory shut up in the mole of Adrian, continued to excommunicate the conqueror.

6 Henry's Eccles. Hist. 1074, 1080, 1. 62 and 63.

6 Petra dedit Petro, Petrus diadema Rodolpho.

It will be perceived that the pun is perfect only in the French, the English is wholly incapable of it.

The commotions which were prolonged in Germany, compelled Henry to make frequent journies. During the siege of Rome, and after his entrance into this capital, he quitted it more than once. Robert Guiscard took advantage of one of these occasions to deliver Gregory, but still more to ravage and pillage the city: he burned one quarter, which has since remained almost deserted, that between St. John de Lateran and the Coliseum, and reduced to slavery a great number of the inhabitants. This was the most memorable result to the Romans, and the most lasting to this pontificate64

Hildebrand, borne away by the Normans to Salerno, terminated his career there the 24th of May, 1085, excommunicating Henry to the last, with the antipope Guibert, and their adherents65 So lived and so died Gregory VII., whose name, under Gregory XIII., was inscribed in the Roman martyrology, to whom Paul V. decreed the honours of an annual festival66 and for whom Benedict XIII. in the 18th century, challenged the homage of all Christendom: but we shall see the parliaments of France oppose this design with an efficacious resistance.

64 Vita Greg. 7, edita a Card. Arrag. p. 313.-Landulph Sen. I. 3, c.

3, p. 120.-Rer. Jtal. vol. 5, p. 587.

65 Pauli. Beruried. Vit. Greg. VII. c. 110, p. 348.-Sigeb. Chron.

ann. 1085.

66 Fleury's Eccles. Hist. 1. 63, a. 25.-Act. Sonet. Bell. 25. maii.

It is deserving of greater reprehension than Gregory himself merited, the canonization, after five hundred years of study and experience, of his deplorable wanderings. For the excuse cannot be alleged in favour of his panegyrists that his enterprises may find in his enthusiasm, his ignorance, and the thick darkness of his age. Pasquier,67 with too much reason describes him as:

"one of the boldest "combatants for the Roman See, who forgot nothing, "whether of arms, of the pen, or by censures, of what "he conceived to tend to the advantage of the Papacy "or disadvantage of Sovereigns."

The audacious Gregory VII. had a timid successor in Victor III. It is from him we have borrowed the words at the commencement of this chapter, to depict some of the preceding popes. Victor III. filled scarcely for a year the pontifical chair. He confirmed, however, in a council at Beneventum, the decrees pa.s.sed against invest.i.tures.

67 Researches on France, 1. 3. c. 7.

Urban II. who succeeded him, was during ten years a more worthy successor of Hildebrand: he instigated against Henry, Conrade, the eldest son of this emperor, encouraged this ungrateful son to calumniate his father, and recompensed him by crowning him king of Italy.

Christendom was then divided between Urban II. and Guibert, who had taken the name of Clement III. and whom Henry IV. re-established in Rome in 1091. Urban till 1096 travelled in France and Northern Italy. Philip, king of France, repudiating his Queen Bertha, had married Bertrade: Philip was excommunicated in his own States by Urban, his born subject, to whom he had given an asylum68 But these journies of the pontiff are especially celebrated by the preaching up of the first crusade.

Hildebrand had conceived6? the earliest idea of these distant expeditions, which were, in aggrandizing the church, to diminish the power of the Greek emperors, or compel them to return under the domination of the Holy See. He beheld in them an opportunity of regulating at once all the movements of the Christian princes, of establis.h.i.+ng himself judge of all the quarrels which might arise among them, to divert them from the Government of their States, and to augment by their absence the habitual influence of the clergy over all kinds of affairs. The pilgrimages to the Holy Land became under Gregory VII. more frequent than they had previously been: the recitals of the pilgrims were one day to provoke a general movement. This day did not arrive till Urban's time: a man named Cucupietre, called Peter the Hermit, made to the pope a lamentable recital of the vexations which the Christians experienced in Palestine; he implored on their behalf powerful succours against the Musselmans. Urban dispatched Peter to all the princes and churches of Italy, France, and Germany; and after leaving the preacher time sufficient to spread his enthusiasm among the people of these countries, the crusade was finally proposed in a council or a.s.sembly at which the pope presided, in an open plain not far from Placentia. There were collected upwards of thirty thousand laics alone, independent of prelates and priests: the expedition projected was universally applauded, but it was applauded alone; no one as yet a.s.sumed the cross.

Urban had better success in France; the crusade was resolved on at Clermont, in an a.s.sembly at which he presided and harangued. They exclaimed "'Tis the will of G.o.d;" and these words became the device of the crusaders, the number of whom encreased beyond measure. The military history of this expedition does not concern us: we have only to observe, that the first act of this army was to re-establish 'en-pa.s.sant' pope Urban, in the city of Rome, at the end of the year 1096. Henry, driven from Italy by the troops of the Countess Matilda, retired to Germany.

Urban did not die till 1099; and the pontificate of his successor Pascal II. belongs princ.i.p.ally to the twelfth century.

68 Velly's Hist, of France, v. 2, p. 493.

6? Fleury. Hist. Eccles. 1. 62. n. 14.

The age which we have pa.s.sed over, ought to remain for ever famous in the history of the popes. If they are not yet recognized as sovereigns, if their temporal power has not yet been declared independent, it in effect rivals and threatens the throne which ought to govern it. Already the Two Sicilies had become fiefs of the Holy See; the donations of Matilda have extended, over almost all Middle Italy, the rights or pretensions of the court of Rome. But what signify the limits and the nature of these temporal possessions, when the spiritual authority no longer recognizes restriction, when the gospel ministry transforms itself into a universal theocracy, which brands, curses, deposes kings, and disposes of their crowns. One man alone, it is true, had fully conceived this tremendous system; but the opinions, of which the ignorance of this man, as well as his contemporaries, was composed, encouraged his undertakings, however monstrous, and political circ.u.mstances promised him success from them. New dynasties had arisen in France, England, and other countries: the French emperors, threatened in their own palaces, had lost every remnant of authority in Italy: it was sufficient to humble the Emperor of the West; he alone counterbalanced in Europe the weight of the Holy See. In attacking him one might reckon on the support or neutrality of other monarchs; they were jealous of his preponderance: Rome in humiliating them, disposed them to reconcile themselves to it by the spectacle of more serious outrages reserved for their head; they childishly rejoiced in the great share he should have in the common humiliation. They turn, in the mean time, against him, the old or new factions which troubled Germany; they redouble their insolence and their power by the thunder of the anathemas with which they struck him; and if so many efforts did not overthrow him, at least, they staggered and weakened him. Such was the war waged by Hildebrand, against Heniy IV. the first at the period, or as we may term him, the only representative of the civil power in the West. In bequeathing this war to his successors, Hildebrand vanquished as he was, had pointed out the object, traced the plan, and tempered the arms.7 There had needed to complete his work, perhaps, in the course of the following century, but two or three successors of his inflexible enthusiasm. Giannone accuses him of having forged the Donations of Constantine, Pepin, Charlemagne, and Louis-le-Debonnaire. We have seen the first of these donations adduced in the eighth century;7 the rest are mentioned by writers anterior to the eleventh: all these acts were spoken of before Gregory's time: at the most he could only have arranged the texts more categorically, and more favourable to his pretensions. It is certain, that no means adopted for the establishment of pontifical tyranny would have alarmed his conscience: the most efficacious, therefore, appeared to him the most laudable; and, if some of his proceedings, judged of after the events, seem to us equally imprudent and violent, we should reflect that so enormous an enterprise could only be accomplished by audacity in the extreme.

7 Giannone's Hist, of Italy. 1.10, c. 6.

7 Ibid. p. 12.

CHAPTER V. CONTESTS BETWEEN THE POPES AND THE SOVEREIGNS OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY

WITH the pontifical power, such as Hildebrand would have it, not to gain a great deal was to lose a little. Now under the popes of the twelfth century it was not much extended: they knew not how to reap the fruits of the labours of Gregory VII. Pascal II. however, who reigned near twenty years, from 1099 to 1118, very earnestly aspired to universal monarchy; but his designs, opposed by circ.u.mstances, were still more so by the weakness of his character. The antipope Guibert, who died in 1100, had for a long period for his successors, an Albert, a Theodoric, a Maginulph: obscure persons, whose pretensions, nevertheless, though weakly supported by a small Dumber of partisans, sufficed to intimidate Pascal. He did not press the excommunication of Henry king of England, when in 1101, the war of invest.i.tures was kindled between this monarch and Anselm archbishop of Canterbury. If he evinced greater boldness against Philip, king of France, it was, doubtless, because Urban II. had commenced the quarrel, and that the notoriety, the censures with which this prince had been struck, admitted of no retraction. Pascal II.

therefore, ventured to send legates into France, who were to excommunicate king Philip anew, but still on account of his divorce.

Indignant at the attempts of these priests, William, count of Poitou, and Duke of Aquitain, did himself honour under these circ.u.mstances, by a courage, that Philip, however, did not imitate.-. Philip demanded absolution of the pope, and obtained it, on swearing to renounce Bertrade. He came with bare feet in the depth of winter to take, in a council at Paris an oath which he did not observe.-We know of no authentic act, which re-established the marriage of Bertrade with Philip; but they continued to live together without being disturbed by the church: the states and rights of their children were never called in question.

At the same period that Matilda renewed her donation, Pascal II.

confirmed the anathemas of his predecessors against Henry IV.7 and raised him an enemy in an ambitious and ungrateful son.

7 He writes in these terms to Robert, Count of Flanders: "Pursue every where with all your power, Henry, the chief of heretics, and his abettors. You can offer to G.o.d no more acceptable sacrifice than to combat him who has raised himself against G.o.d; who endeavours to deprive the church of the kingdom, and who has been banished by the decree of the Holy Ghost, which the prince of the apostles has p.r.o.nounced. We appoint this undertaking to you, and also to your va.s.sals for the remission of your sins, and as a means of arriving at the celestial Jerusalem."

In vain did a paternal letter invite this son to repentance:7 it was replied, that an excommunicated person was not acknowledged as father, or as king.

7 Velly's Hist, of France, vol. 2, p. 480.

Loosed from his oaths, and from his duties, by the sovereign pontiff, the youthful Henry took up arms, and had himself elected emperor in a diet held at Mayence. Henry the elder, retired to the castle of Ingelheim: there the archbishops, sent by the Diet, came to summon him to surrender to them the crown and other insignia of his power:

"Thou "hast rent the church of G.o.d, said they to him, "thou hast sold the bishop.r.i.c.ks, the abbeys, every "ecclesiastical dignity; thou hast in no case res- "pected the sacred canons: for all these causes, it "has pleased the pope and the German princes to "expel thee from the throne as from the church."

"I adjure you," replied the monarch, "you archbi- "shop of Cologne, and you of Mayence, who "hold of me your rich prelacies, to declare, what "was the price at which you purchased them of "me. Oh! if I only exacted from you the oath of fide- "lity to me, wherefore do you become the accom- "plices, the chiefs of my enemies? Could you "not wait the termination of a life which so many "misfortunes might abridge, and at least, permit "my own hands to place the crown on the head of "my beloved son."

But Henry was not speaking to fathers; he addressed himself to inflexible prelates:

"Is it not to us, cried one of them, the privilege "belongs to create kings, and to dethrone them "when we have made a bad choice?"

At these words, the three archbishops fell on their sovereign; they tore the imperial crown from his head; and while he a.s.sured them, that if he suffered at this moment for the sins of his youth, they would not escape the punishment due to their sacrilegious disloyalty, they smiled at his menace, and to secure impunity for their crime by consummating it speedily, they hastened to Mayence, to consecrate and bless in the name of G.o.d the parricide Henry V.74