An Introduction to the History of Western Europe Part 16

[Sidenote: Simony corrupts the lower clergy.]

The evil of simony was, therefore, explicable enough, and perhaps ineradicable under the circ.u.mstances. It was, nevertheless, very demoralizing, for it spread downward and infected the whole body of the clergy. A bishop who had made a large outlay in obtaining his office naturally expected something from the priests, whom it was his duty to appoint. The priest in turn was tempted to reimburse himself by improper exactions for the performance of his regular religious duties, for baptizing and marrying his paris.h.i.+oners, and for burying the dead.

So it seemed, at the opening of the eleventh century, as if the Church was to be dragged down by its property into the anarchy of feudalism described in a preceding chapter. There were many indications that its great officers were to become merely the va.s.sals of kings and princes and no longer to represent a great international inst.i.tution under the heads.h.i.+p of the popes. The Bishop of Rome had not only ceased, in the tenth century, to exercise any considerable influence over the churches beyond the Alps, but was himself controlled by the restless n.o.bles of central Italy. He appears much less important, in the chronicles of the time, than the Archbishop of Rheims or Mayence. There is no more extraordinary revolution recorded in history than that which raised the weak and demoralized papacy of the tenth century to a supreme place in European affairs.

[Sidenote: Three rival popes.]

61. One of the n.o.ble families of Rome had got the selection of the popes into its own hands, and was using the papal authority to secure its control over the city. In the same year (1024) in which Conrad II became emperor, a layman was actually exalted to the heads.h.i.+p of the Church, and after him a mere boy of ten or twelve years, Benedict IX, who, in addition to his youth, proved to be thoroughly evil-minded. His powerful family maintained him, however, on the papal throne for a decade, until he proposed to marry. This so scandalized even the not over-sensitive Romans that they drove him out of the city. A rich neighboring bishop then secured his own election. Presently a third claimant appeared in the person of a pious and learned priest who bought out the claims of Benedict IX for a large sum of money and a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of Gregory VI.

[Sidenote: The interference of Henry III in papal affairs and its momentous consequences.]

This state of affairs seemed to the emperor, Henry III, to call for his interference. He accordingly went to Italy and summoned a council at Sutri, north of Rome, in 1046, where two of the claimants were deposed.

Gregory VI, more conscientious than his rivals, not only resigned his office but tore his pontifical robes in pieces and admitted his monstrous crime in buying the papal dignity, though his motives had been of the purest. The emperor then secured the election of a worthy German bishop as pope, whose first act was to crown Henry and Agnes his wife.[106]

The appearance of Henry III in Italy at this juncture, and the settlement of the question of the three rival popes, are among the most important events of all mediaeval history in their results. In lifting the papacy out of the realm of petty Italian politics, Henry unwittingly helped to raise up a rival to the imperial authority which was destined, before the end of the next century, to overshadow it and to become without question the greatest power in western Europe.

[Sidenote: Difficulties to be overcome in establis.h.i.+ng the supremacy of the popes in western Europe.]

For nearly two hundred years the popes had a.s.sumed very little responsibility for the welfare of Europe at large. It was a gigantic task to make of the Church a great international monarchy, with its head at the old world-center, Rome; the difficulties in the way seemed, indeed, well-nigh insurmountable. The great archbishops, who were as jealous of the power of the pope as the great va.s.sals were of the kingly power, must be brought into subjection. National tendencies which made against the unity of the Church must be overcome. The control enjoyed by kings, princes, and other feudal lords in the selection of church officials must be done away with. Simony with its degrading influence must be abolished. The marriage of the clergy must be checked, so that the property of the Church should not be dissipated. The whole body of churchmen, from the priest to the archbishop, must be redeemed from the immorality and worldliness which degraded them in the eyes of the people.

[Sidenote: Pope Leo IX, 1049-1054.]

It is true that during the remainder of his life Henry III himself controlled the election of the popes; but he was sincerely and deeply interested in the betterment of the Church and took care to select able and independent German prelates to fill the papal office. Of these the most important was Leo IX (1049-1054). He was the first to show clearly how the pope might not only become in time the real head and monarch of the Church but might also aspire to rule kings and emperors as well as bishops and abbots. Leo refused to regard himself as pope simply because the emperor had appointed him. He held that the emperor should aid and protect, but might not create, popes. So he entered Rome as an humble barefoot pilgrim and was duly elected by the Roman people according to the rule of the Church.

[Sidenote: Papal legates.]

Leo IX undertook to visit France and Germany and even Hungary in person, with the purpose of calling councils to check simony and the marriage of the clergy. But this personal oversight on the part of the popes was not feasible in the long run, if for no other reason, because they were generally old men who would have found traveling arduous and often dangerous. Leo's successors relied upon legates, to whom they delegated extensive powers and whom they dispatched to all parts of western Europe in something the same way that Charlemagne employed his _missi_. It is supposed that Leo IX was greatly influenced in his energetic policy by a certain sub-deacon, Hildebrand by name. Hildebrand was himself destined to become one of the greatest popes, under the t.i.tle of Gregory VII, and to play a part in the formation of the mediaeval Church which justifies us in ranking him, as a statesman, with Caesar, Charlemagne, Richelieu, and Bismarck.

[Sidenote: Pope Nicholas II places the election of the popes in the hands of the cardinals, 1059.]

62. The first great step toward the emanc.i.p.ation of the Church from the control of the laity was taken by Nicholas II. In 1059 he issued a remarkable decree which took the election of the head of the Church once for all out of the hands of both the emperor and the people of Rome, and placed it definitely and forever in the hands of the _cardinals_, who represented the Roman clergy.[107] Obviously the object of this decree was to preclude all lay interference, whether of the distant emperor, of the local n.o.bility, or of the Roman mob. The college of cardinals still exists and still elects the pope.[108]

[Sidenote: Opposition to further reforms.]

The reform party which directed the policy of the popes had, it hoped, freed the head of the Church from the control of worldly men by putting his election in the hands of the Roman clergy. It now proposed to emanc.i.p.ate the Church as a whole from the base entanglements of earth: first, by strictly forbidding the married clergy to perform religious functions and by exhorting their flocks to refuse to attend their ministrations; and secondly, by depriving the kings and feudal lords of their influence over the choice of the bishops and abbots, since this influence was deemed the chief cause of worldliness among the prelates.

Naturally these last measures met with far more general opposition than the new way of electing the pope. An attempt to expel the married clergy from Milan led to a popular revolt, in which the pope's legate actually found his life in danger. The decrees forbidding clergymen to receive their lands and offices from laymen received little attention from either the clergy or the feudal lords. The magnitude of the task which the popes had undertaken first became fully apparent when Hildebrand himself ascended the papal throne, in 1073, as Gregory VII.

CHAPTER XIII

THE CONFLICT BETWEEN GREGORY VII AND HENRY IV

[Sidenote: The _Dictatus_ of Gregory VII.]

63. Among the writings of Gregory VII there is a very brief statement, called the _Dictatus_, of the powers which he believed the popes to possess. Its chief claims are the following: The pope enjoys a unique t.i.tle; he is the only universal bishop and may depose and reinstate other bishops or transfer them from place to place. No council of the Church may be regarded as speaking for Christendom without his consent.

The Roman Church has never erred, nor will it err to all eternity. No one may be considered a Catholic Christian who does not agree with the Roman Church. No book is authoritative unless it has received the papal sanction.

Gregory does not stop with a.s.serting the pope's complete supremacy over the Church; he goes still further and claims for him the right to restrain the civil government when it seems necessary in the cause of righteousness. He says that "the Pope is the only person whose feet are kissed by all princes"; that he may depose emperors and "absolve subjects from allegiance to an unjust ruler." No one shall dare to condemn one who appeals to the pope. No one may annul a decree of the pope, though the pope may declare null and void the decrees of all other earthly powers; and no one may pa.s.s judgment upon his acts.[109]

[Sidenote: Inadequacy of civil government in the Middle Ages.]

[Sidenote: The Church claims the right to interfere only when necessary.]

These are not the insolent claims of a reckless tyrant, but the expression of a theory of government which has had advocates among some of the most conscientious and learned men of all succeeding ages. Before venturing to criticise Gregory's view of his position we should recollect two important facts. In the first place, what most writers call the _state_, when dealing with the Middle Ages, was no orderly government in our sense of the word; it was represented only by restless feudal lords, to whom disorder was the very breath of life. When, on one occasion, Gregory declared the civil power to be the invention of evil men instigated by the devil, he was making a natural inference from what he observed of the conduct of the princes of his time. In the second place, it should be remembered that Gregory does not claim that the Church should manage the civil government, but that the papacy, which is answerable for the eternal welfare of every Christian, should have the right to restrain a sinful and perverse prince and to refuse to recognize unrighteous laws. Should all else fail, he claimed the right to free a nation which was being led to disaster in this world and to perdition in the next from its allegiance to a wicked monarch.

[Sidenote: Gregory VII puts his theories of the papal power into practice.]

Immediately upon his election as pope, Gregory began to put into practice his high conception of the role that the spiritual head of the world should play. He dispatched legates throughout Europe, and from this time on these legates became a powerful instrument of government.

He warned the kings of France and England and the youthful German ruler, Henry IV, to forsake their evil ways, to be upright and just, and obey his admonitions. He explains, kindly but firmly, to William the Conqueror that the papal and kingly powers are both established by G.o.d as the greatest among the authorities of the world, just as the sun and moon are the greatest of the heavenly bodies.[110] But the papal power is obviously superior to the kingly, for it is responsible for it; at the Last Day Gregory must render an account of the king as one of the flock intrusted to his care. The king of France was warned to give up his practice of simony, lest he be excommunicated and his subjects freed from their oath of allegiance. All these acts of Gregory appear to have been dictated not by worldly ambition but by a fervent conviction of their righteousness and of his duty toward all men.

[Sidenote: Death of Henry III, 1056.]

64. Obviously Gregory's plan of reform included all the states of western Europe, but conditions were such that the most striking conflict took place between him and the emperor. The trouble came about in this way. Henry III had died in 1056, leaving only his good wife Agnes and their little son of six years to maintain the hard-fought prerogatives of the German king in the midst of ambitious va.s.sals such as even Otto the Great had found it difficulty to control.

[Sidenote: Accession of Henry IV, 1065.]

In 1065 the fifteen-year-old lad was declared of age, and his lifelong difficulties began with a great rebellion of the Saxons. They accused the young king of having built castles in their land and of filling them with rough soldiers who preyed upon the people. Gregory felt it his duty to interfere. To him the Saxons appeared a people oppressed by a heedless youth under the inspiration of evil counselors.

As one reads of Henry's difficulties and misfortunes it seems miraculous that he was able to maintain himself as king at all. Sick at heart, unable to trust any one, and forced to flee from his own subjects, he writes contritely to the pope: "We have sinned against heaven and before thee and are no longer worthy to be called thy son." But when cheered for a moment by a victory over the rebellious Saxons, he easily forgot his promise of obedience to the pope. He continued to a.s.sociate with counselors whom the pope had excommunicated and went on filling important bishoprics in Germany and Italy regardless of the pope's prohibitions.

[Sidenote: New prohibition of lay invest.i.ture.]

The popes who immediately preceded Gregory had more than once forbidden the churchmen to receive invest.i.ture from laymen. Gregory reissued this prohibition in 1075,[111] just as the trouble with Henry had begun.

Invest.i.ture was, as we have seen, the legal transfer by the king, or other lord, to a newly chosen church official, of the lands and rights attached to the office. In forbidding lay invest.i.ture Gregory attempted nothing less than a revolution. The bishops and abbots were often officers of government, exercising in Germany and Italy powers similar in all respects to those of the counts. The king not only relied upon them for advice and a.s.sistance in carrying on his government, but they were among his chief allies in his constant struggles with his va.s.sals.

[Sidenote: Henry IV angered by the language of the papal legates.]

Gregory dispatched three envoys to Henry (end of 1075) with a fatherly letter[112] in which he reproached the king for his wicked conduct. But he evidently had little expectation that mere expostulation would have any effect upon Henry, for he gave his legates instructions to use threats, if necessary, which were bound to produce either complete subjection or out-and-out revolt. The legates were to tell the king that his crimes were so numerous, so horrible, and so notorious, that he merited not only excommunication but the permanent loss of all his royal honors.

[Sidenote: Gregory VII deposed by a council of German bishops at Worms, 1076]

The violence of the legates' language not only kindled the wrath of the king but also gained for him friends among the bishops. A council which Henry summoned at Worms (in 1076) was attended by more than two thirds of the German bishops. Here Gregory was declared deposed owing to the alleged irregularity of his election and the many terrible charges of immorality and ambition brought against him. The bishops renounced their obedience to him and publicly declared that he had ceased to be their pope. It appears very surprising, at first sight, that the king should have received the prompt support of the German churchmen against the head of the Church. But it must be remembered that the prelates owed their offices to the king and not to the pope.

In a remarkable letter[113] to Gregory, Henry a.s.serts that he has shown himself long-suffering and eager to guard the honor of the papacy, but that the pope has mistaken his humility for fear. "Thou hast not hesitated," the letter concludes, "to rise up against the royal power conferred upon us by G.o.d, daring to threaten to deprive us of it, as if we had received our kingdom from thee. As if the kingdom and the Empire were in thine and not in G.o.d's hands.... I, Henry, King by the grace of G.o.d, together with all our bishops, say unto thee, come down, come down from thy throne and be accursed of all generations."

[Sidenote: Henry IV deposed and excommunicated by the pope.]

Gregory's reply to Henry and the German bishops who had deposed him was speedy and decisive. "Incline thine ear to us, O Peter, chief of the Apostles. As thy representative and by thy favor has the power been granted especially to me by G.o.d of binding and loosing in heaven and earth. On the strength of this, for the honor and glory of thy Church, in the name of Almighty G.o.d, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I withdraw, through thy power and authority, from Henry the King, son of Henry the Emperor, who has risen against thy Church with unheard-of insolence, the rule over the whole kingdom of the Germans and over Italy. I absolve all Christians from the bonds of the oath which they have sworn, or may swear, to him; and I forbid anyone to serve him as king." For his intercourse with the excommunicated and his manifold iniquities, the king is furthermore declared accursed and excommunicate.[114]

[Sidenote: Att.i.tude of the German princes.]

For a time after the pope had deposed him everything went against Henry.

Even the churchmen now held off. Instead of resenting the pope's interference, the discontented Saxons, and many other of Henry's va.s.sals, believed that there was now an excellent opportunity to get rid of Henry and choose a more agreeable ruler. But after a long conference the great German va.s.sals decided to give Henry another chance. He was to refrain from exercising the functions of government until he had made peace with the pope. If at the end of a year he had failed to do this, he was to be regarded as having forfeited the throne. The pope was, moreover, invited to come to Augsburg to consult with the princes as to whether Henry should be reinstated or another chosen in his stead. It looked as if the pope was, in truth, to control the civil government.

[Sidenote: Henry submits to the pope at Canossa, 1077.]