BOOK V.

FROM THE DEATH OF CHARLEMAGNE TO THE DEPOSITION OF POPE GREGORY VI,

A.D. 814-1046.

CHAPTER V.

FROM THE DEPOSITION OF CHARLES THE FAT TO THE DEATH OF POPE SYLVESTER II. A.D. 887-1003.

 

 

We now for the first time meet with a long period—including the whole of the tenth century—undisturbed by theological controversy. But we must not on this account suppose that it was an era of prosperity or happiness for the church. Never, perhaps, was there a time of greater misery for most of the European nations; never was there one so sad and so discreditable for religion. The immediate necessities which pressed on men diverted their minds from study and speculation. The clergy in general sank into the grossest ignorance and disorder; the papacy was disgraced by infamies of which there had been no example in former days.

Soon after the beginning of this period the Byzantine church was agitated by a question which also tended to increase its differences with Rome. Leo the Philosopher, the pupil of Photius, after having had three wives who had left him without offspring, married Zoe, with whom he had for some time cohabited. According to the Greek historians, the union was celebrated by one of the imperial chaplains before the birth of a child; and, when Leo had become father of an heir, he Zoe to the rank of empress. The marriage would, in any circumstances, have been scandalous, for even second marriages had been discountenanced by the church, and a fourth marriage was hitherto unknown in the east. The patriarch Nicolas, therefore, deposed the priest who had blessed the nuptials; he refused to admit the imperial pair into the church, so that they were obliged to perform their devotions elsewhere; and he refused to administer the Eucharist to Leo, who thereupon banished him to the island of Hiereia. The account given by the patriarch himself is somewhat different—that the son of Leo and Zoe was born before their marriage; that he consented to baptize the child only on condition of a separation between the parents; that Leo swore to comply, but within three days after introduced Zoe into the palace with great pomp, went through the ceremony of marriage without the intervention of any priest, and followed it up by the coronation of his wife. Nicolas adds that he entreated the emperor to consent to a separation until the other chief sees should be consulted, but that some legates from Rome, who soon after arrived at Constantinople, countenanced the marriage, and that thus Leo was emboldened to deprive and to banish him. Euthymius, an ecclesiastic of high character, who was raised to the patriarchate, restored the emperor to communion, but resisted his wish to obtain a general sanction of fourth marriages, although it was supported by many persons of consideration. On the death of Leo, his brother Alexander, who succeeded together with the young son of Zoe, Constantine Porphyrogenitus, not only restored Nicolas, but gave him an important share in the government, while Euthymius on his deposition was treated with barbarous outrage by the clergy of the opposite party, and soon after died. Alexander himself died within a year, when Zoe became powerful in the regency, and urged her son to insist on the acknowledgment of her marriage. But she was shut up in a convent by Romanus Lecapenus, who assumed the government as the colleague of Constantine, and in 920 the rival parties in the church were reconciled. An edict was published by which, for the future, third marriages were allowed on certain conditions, but such unions as that of which the emperor himself was the offspring were prohibited on pain of excommunication. At Rome, however, fourth marriages were allowed, and on this account an additional coolness arose between the churches, so that for a time the names of the popes appear to have been omitted from the diptychs of Constantinople.

The Greek Church continued to rest on the doctrines and practices established by the councils of former times. The worship of images was undisturbed. The empire underwent frequent revolutions, marked by the perfidy, the cruelty, the ambition regardless of the ties of nature, with which its history has already made us too familiar; but the only events which need be here mentioned are the victories gained over the Saracens by Nicephorus Phocas (A.D. 963-969) and by his murderer and successor John Tzimisces (A.D. 969-976). By these princes Crete and Cyprus were recovered, and the arms of the Greeks were carried even as far as Bagdad. And, although their more distant triumphs had no lasting effect, the empire retained some recompense for its long and bloody warfare in the possession of Antioch, with Tarsus, Mopsuestia, and other cities in Cilicia.

In the west, the age was full of complicated movements, which it is for the most part most difficult to trace, and impossible to remember. After the deposition of Charles the Fat, the only representatives of the Carolingian line were illegitimate—Arnulf, a son of the Bavarian Carloman, and Charles, styled the Simple, the offspring of Louis the Stammerer by a marriage to which the church refused its sanction. Arnulf assumed the government of Germany, which he held from 887 to 899. He ruled with vigor, carried on successful wars with the Obotrites and other Slavonic nations of the north, and broke the terror of the Northmen by a great overthrow on the Dyle, near Louvain, in 891. He also weakened the power of the Moravians; but in order to this he called in the aid of the Hungarians or Magyars, and opened a way into Germany to these formidable barbarians. No such savage enemy of Christendom had yet appeared. They were a people of Asiatic origin, whose language, of the same stock with the Finnish, bore no likeness to that of any civilized or Christian nation. The writers of the time, partly borrowing from the old descriptions of Attila’s Huns, with whom the Magyars were fancifully connected, speak of them as monstrous and hardly human in form, as living after the manner of beasts, as eating the flesh and drinking the blood of men, the heart being particularly esteemed as a delicacy. Light in figure and accoutrements, and mounted on small, active horses, they defied the pursuit of the Frankish cavalry, while even in retreat their showers of arrows were terrible. They had already established themselves in the territory on the Danube which for some centuries had been occupied by the Avars. They had threatened Constantinople, and had laid both the eastern empire and the Bulgarians under contribution. They now passed into Germany in seemingly inexhaustible multitudes, overran Thuringia and Franconia, and advanced as far as the Rhine. Almost at the same moment the northern city of Bremen was sacked by one division of their forces, and the Swiss, monastery of St. Gall by another. A swarm of them laid Provence desolate, and penetrated to the Spanish frontier, although a sickness which broke out among them enabled Raymond, marquis of Gothia, to repel them. Crossing the Alps, they rushed down on Italy. Pavia, the Lombard capital, and then the second city of the peninsula, was given to the flames, with, its forty-four churches, while the Magyars glutted their cruelty and love of plunder on the persons and on the property of the inhabitants. The invaders made their way even to the extremity of Calabria, while the Italians, regarding them as a scourge of God, submitted without any other attempt at defense than the prayers with which their churches resounded for deliverance “from the arrows of the Hungarians”

The Saracens also continued to afflict Italy. A force of them from Africa established itself on the Garigliano (the ancient Liris), and from its fortified camp continually menaced Rome. In another quarter, a vessel with about twenty Saracens from Spain was carried out of its course by winds, and compelled to put to land near Fraxinetum. They fortified themselves against the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, and, after having subsisted for a time on plunder, they invited others from Spain to join them, so that the handful of shipwrecked strangers was gradually recruited until it became a formidable band. They carried on their ravages far and wide, seized on pilgrims, stripped them of all they had, and compelled those who were able to raise largo sums by way of ransom. Some of them even crossed the Mount of Jupiter (now the Great St. Bernard) and established another settlement at St. Maurice. But the garrison of Fraxinetum was at length surrounded and exterminated by William duke of Aquitaine.

After the death of Arnulf, the Germans were broken up into five principal nations—the Franconians, the Saxons, the Swabians, the Bavarians, and the Lotharingians of the debatable land between France and Germany, which was sometimes attached to the one country and sometimes to the other—being either transferred by its inhabitants, or annexed by force or by intrigue. These nations were generally under the government of dukes; the fear of the Magyars and of the Slaves was the bond which united them in one common interest. Otho of Saxony was regarded as their leader; and on his death, in 912, they chose Conrad of Franconia as king of Germany. Conrad found Henry, the son of Otho and duke of Saxony, his chief opponent; but on his deathbed, in 919, a desire to prevent discord among the Germans prevailed over all other feelings, and he charged his brother Eberhard, who himself might fairly have claimed the succession, to carry to Henry the ensigns of royalty—the holy lance, the crown and mantle, the golden bracelets and the sword. In compliance with Conrad’s wish, Henry the Fowler (so styled from the occupation in which he is said to have been engaged when the announcement of his intended dignity reached him) was elected king by the Franconians and Saxons, and the other nations accepted the choice. Henry reigned from 920 to 936, with a reputation seldom equalled for bravery, prudence, moderation, justice, and fidelity. He recovered Lotharingia for Germany, triumphed over the Northern Slaves and the Bohemians, took from the Northmen the country between the Eider and the Schley, and erected the marquisate of Sleswick as a bulwark for the security of Germany on that side. But still more important were his wars with the Hungarians. On an expedition, which was marked by their usual barbarous ravages, one of their most important chiefs—perhaps, as has been conjectured, the king himself—fell into the hands of Henry, who refused to release him except on condition of peace, for which it was agreed that the Germans should pay gifts by way of annual acknowledgment. The peace was to last for nine years. Henry employed the time in preparations for war, and, on its expiration, returned a scornful defiance to an embassy of the Magyars. He twice defeated the barbarians; and in 955 their power was finally broken by his son Otho the First in the great battle of the Lechfeld, near Augsburg. By this defeat the Hungarians lost that part of their territory which may be identified with the modern province of Austria, and were reduced to the limits of Pannonia. On the deposition of Charles the Fat, Odo or Eudes, count of Paris, and son of Robert the Strong, assumed the royal title in France, and held it for ten years, during which he kept up a continual and sometimes successful struggle against the Northmen. At his death, in 898, Charles the Simple, who had in vain attempted to assert his title against Odo, became his successor; and the illegitimate continuation of the Carolingian line lasted (although not without interruption) until 987, when, on the death of Louis V, Hugh Capet, duke of France, a great nephew of Odo, was elected by an assembly at Senlis, hailed as king by the army at Noyon, and anointed by Adalbero, archbishop of Reims, whose possession of that city gave him the chief influence in disposing of the crown. But the royalty of France was little more than nominal. The power of Odo at first reached only from the Meuse to the Loire; the later Carolingians possessed little more than the rock of Laon, while the real sovereignty of the country was in the hands of the great feudatories, whose power had now become hereditary. At the end of the ninth century France was divided into twenty-nine distinct principalities; at the accession of Hugh Capet, the number, exclusive of the independent kingdom of Aries, had increased to fifty-five, and some of these were larger than his own dominions. Hugh, indeed, for the title of king, and for the hope that the royal power might in time become a reality, even sacrificed something of his former strength, by giving up the benefices which he had held to the clergy, and by bestowing fiefs on the nobles. Fortresses multiplied throughout the land; raised originally during the Norman invasions for the purposes of defense and security, they had become dangerous to the royal power and oppressive to the people. Charles the Bald, at the diet of Pistres, in 864, had forbidden the erection of such strongholds, and had ordered that those which existed should be demolished; but after the dismemberment of the kingdom there was no power which could enforce this law. The nobles everywhere raised their castles, and surrounded themselves with troops of soldiers; and the effects were soon visible both for evil and for good. The martial spirit, which had decayed from the time of Louis the Pious, revived; the dukes and counts, each with an army of his own, encountered the Northmen in fight, or turned against each other in private war the strength which they had gained by the degradation of the crown. And both in France and in Italy the lords of castles betook themselves to plunder, as an occupation which involved nothing discreditable or unworthy of their position.

Notwithstanding the victories of Odo and of Arnulf, the Northmen for a time continued to infest France in all quarters—penetrating even to the very heart of the country. In 911 Charles the Simple, by the treaty of St. Clair on the Epte, ceded to them the territory between that river and the sea, together with Brittany, and bestowed his daughter Gisella on their leader, Rollo, on condition of his doing homage and embracing the Christian faith. In the following year Rollo was baptized at Rouen, by the name of Robert, when, on each of the seven days during which he wore the baptismal garment, he bestowed lands on some church or monastery, as a compensation for the evils which they had suffered at the hands of his countrymen. Ignominious as the cession to the Northmen may appear, it had a precedent in that which the great Alfred had made after victory. The French king lost nothing by it, since the part of Neustria which was given up was actually in possession of the invaders; while, by professing to include Brittany in the gift, he may have hoped to turn the arms of his new liegemen against a population which had already established itself in independence. And in the result, the admission of the Northmen was speedily justified. They settled down in their new possessions; they laid aside their barbarous manners, and, under the teaching provided by the care of Hervé, archbishop of Reim (who, at the request of the archbishop of Rouen, drew up regulations for the treatment of them), their paganism was soon extirpated. They married wives of the country; in two generations the Norse tongue had disappeared, and it was among the offspring of the Scandinavian pirates that French for the first time took the rank of a cultivated and polished language. The country, which had long been desolated by their ravages, recovered its fertility; churches and monasteries rose again out of ruins; strangers of ability and skill in all kinds of arts were encouraged to settle in Normandy; and in no long time it became the most advanced province of France as to orderly government, industry, and literature.

 

ITALY

 

Italy suffered severely during this period, not only from the attacks of the Hungarians and of the Saracens, but from the contests of its own princes. On the deposition of Charles the Fat, the Italians were unwilling to acknowledge a foreign ruler. Guy duke of Spoleto, and Berengar duke of Friuli, both connected through females with the Carolingian family, contended for the kingdom of Italy and for the imperial crown, which was conferred on each of them by popes. Arnulf of Germany (A.D. 896) and other princes were also crowned at Rome as emperors; but the first revival of the empire as a reality was in the person of the German Otho the Great (A.D. 961), from whom the dignity was transmitted to his son and to his grandson of the same name. The Italian and German kingdoms were united in the Othos, and this subjection of Italy to a distant sovereign produced an effect important for its later history. The inhabitants of the towns, who had already been obliged to fortify themselves with walls and to organize a militia for defense against the Saracen and Hungarian invaders, now found that they were thrown still more on their own resources. Each city, consequently, isolated itself, contracted, its interests within its own immediate sphere, and established a magistracy on the ancient model—the germ of the mediaeval Italian republics.

The clergy and monks shared largely in the calamities of the age. In all the kingdoms which had belonged to the Carolingian monarchy, it was usual for princes to take for themselves, or to assign to their favourites, the temporalities of religious houses. Queens and other ladies enjoyed the revenues of the greater monasteries, without being supposed to contract any obligation to duty on that account. In many instances the impropriation of benefices passed as an inheritance in noble families. Great lords seized on bishoprics, gave them to their relatives, or even disposed of them to the highest bidder. In 990 a count of Toulouse sold the see of Cahors, and about the same time a viscount of Beziers bequeathed the bishoprics of that city and of Agde as portions to his daughters. Sometimes mere children were appointed to sees. Thus, in 925, on the death of Seulf of Reims, Herbert, count of Vermandois, who was even suspected of having shortened the archbishop’s days by poison, seized the temporalities for himself, and compelled the clergy and people to elect his son Hugh, a child not yet five years old. The election was confirmed by king Rodolph, and by pope John X, and the boy prelate was committed to Guy, bishop of Auxerre, for education, while a bishop was appointed to administer the see. In 932, on a political change, which threw the possession of Reims into the hands of another party, a monk named Artald was nominated as archbishop, received consecration, and was invested with the pall by John XI; but Hugh, on attaining manhood, asserted his title, gained possession of Reims by means of his father’s troops, and was consecrated to the archbishopric. The contest was carried on for many years; for Artald, as well as Hugh, was a man of family, was supported by stout retainers, and was backed by political power. At one time Artald would seem to have given up his pretensions on condition that he should be provided for by the immediate gift of an abbey, and by the promise of another see; but he was afterwards reinstated by Louis d'Outremer, and the question as to the archbishopric of Reims was discussed by councils at Verdun and at Mousson, at Ingelheim, Laon, and Treves. Hugh disregarded all citations to appear; but at Mousson and at Ingelheim, where two legates of Agapetus II were present, a rescript bearing the pope’s name was produced in his behalf. The councils, however, set aside this document, as being a mere peremptory mandate for the restoration of Hugh, obtained by false representations, and unsupported by argument or canonical  authority. Artald exhibited a papal letter of opposite tenor; and the council sentenced his rival to excommunication until he should repent. Artald held possession of the see until his death, in 961, and Hugh, who hoped then to enter on it without opposition, found himself defeated by the influence of Bruno archbishop of Cologne, brother of Otho the Great, and of Gerberga, queen dowager of France, through whom Bruno virtually exercised the regency of the kingdom. It is said that Hugh died of anxiety and vexation.

But the condition of the papacy is the most remarkable feature in the history of this time. From the beginning to the end of the period, it is the subject of violent contests between rival factions. Formosus, bishop of Portus, who had been employed by Nicolas as legate in Bulgaria, was charged by John VIII with having used his position to bind the king of that country to himself, instead of to the Roman see; with having attempted to obtain the popedom, and having entered into a conspiracy against both the pope and Charles the Bald. For these offences he was excommunicated by a synod at Rome, and by that which was held under John, at Troyes, and was compelled to swear that he would never return to Rome, or aspire to any other than lay communion. The next pope, Marinus, released him both from the excommunication and from his oath; and Formosus was raised in 891 to the papacy, which he held for five years. His successor, Boniface VI, after a pontificate of fifteen days, made way for Stephen VI, who, in the contentions of the rival pretenders to the empire, had taken an opposite side to Formosus; and it would seem that this political enmity was the motive of the extraordinary outrages which followed. By Stephen’s command, the body of Formosus was dragged from the grave, was arrayed in robes, placed in the papal chair, and brought to trial on a charge of having been uncanonically translated from a lesser see to Rome—a charge which, as there had already been a precedent for such translation in the case of Marinus, it was thought necessary to aggravate by the false addition that Formosus had submitted to a second consecration. A deacon was assigned to the dead pope as advocate, but it was useless to attempt a defense. Formosus was condemned, the ordinations conferred by him were annulled, his corpse was stripped of the pontifical robes, the fingers used in benediction were cut off, and the body, after having been dragged about the city, was thrown into the Tiber. But the river, it is said, repeatedly cast it out, and, after the murder of Stephen, in 897, it was taken up and again laid in St. Peter’s, where, as it was carried into the church, some statues of saints inclined towards it with reverence, in attestation of the sanctity of Formosus. A synod held in the following year under John IX rescinded the condemnation of Formosus, and declared that his translation was justified by his merits, although it ought not to become a precedent. It stigmatized the proceedings of the council under Stephen, ordered the acts of it to be burnt, and excommunicated those who had violated the tomb.

A rapid succession of popes now took place. Elections are followed within a few months or weeks or days by deaths which excite suspicion as to the cause; in some cases violence or poison appears without disguise. With Sergius III, in 904, began the ascendency of a party which had attempted to seat him in St. Peter’s chair after the death of Theodore II in 897-8, but was not then strong enough to establish him. Its head was Adalbert, marquis of Tuscany, who was leagued with a noble and wealthy Roman widow named Theodora. Theodora had a daughter of the same name, and another named Mary or Marozia—both, like herself, beautiful, and thoroughly depraved. For upwards of fifty years these women held the disposal of the Roman see, which they filled with their paramours, their children, and their grandchildren. Sergius, who held the papacy till 911, is described as a monster of rapacity, lust, and cruelty—as having lived in open concubinage with Marozia, and having abused the treasures of the church for the purpose of securing abettors and striking terror into enemies. The next pope, Anastasius III, died in 913, and when the papacy again became vacant in the following year, by the death of Lando, the power of the “Pornocracy” is said to have been scandalously displayed in the appointment of a successor. A young ecclesiastic of Ravenna, named John of Tossignano, when on a mission from his church to Rome, had attracted the notice of Theodora, had been invited to her embraces, and through her influence had been appointed to the bishopric of Bologna. Before consecration he was advanced to the higher dignity of Ravenna, and, as she could not bear the separation from him, she now procured his elevation to St. Peter’s chair. Disgraceful as were the means by which his promotion had been earned, John X showed himself an energetic, if not a saintly pope. He crowned Berengar as emperor—probably with a view of breaking the power of the nobles; he applied both to him and to the Greek emperor for aid against the Saracens; and, at the head of his own troops, with some furnished by Berengar, he marched against their camp on the Garigliano, and, by the aid of St. Peter and St. Paul (as it is said), obtained a victory which forced them to abandon that post of annoyance and terror to Rome. But his spirit was probably too independent for the party which he was expected to serve, and they resolved to get rid of him. In 928, some adherents of Guy, duke of Tuscany, the second husband of Marozia, surprised the pope in the castle of St. Angelo; his brother Peter, who was particularly obnoxious to the faction, was murdered before his eyes, and John himself was either starved or suffocated in the castle of St. Angelo.

John XI, who became pope in 931, is said by Liutprand to have been a son of Marozia by pope Sergius, while others suppose him to have been the legitimate offspring of her marriage with Alberic, marquis of Camerino. This pope was restricted to the performance of his ecclesiastical functions, while the government of Rome was swayed by Marozia’s third husband, Hugh the Great, king of Arles, and afterwards by her son, the younger Alberic, who expelled his stepfather, and kept his mother and the pope prisoners in his palace. For twenty-two years Alberic, with the title of prince and senator of all the Romans, exercised a tyrannical power, while the papal chair was filled by a succession of his creatures whom he held in entire subjection. On the death of Agapetus II in 956, the Tuscan party considered that it would not be safe to entrust the papacy to anyone who might divide its interest; and Octavian, son of Alberic, a youth of eighteen, who two years before had succeeded to his father’s secular power, was advised to take the office for himself. Perhaps some such step had been contemplated by his father, as Octavian was already in ecclesiastical orders. As pope he assumed the name of John XII—this being the first instance of such a change; but his civil government was still carried on under his original name.

The tyranny and aggressions of Berengar II pressed heavily on the Italians; the pope and many other persons of importance, both ecclesiastics and laity, entreated Otho the Great to come to their deliverance. Otho accepted the invitation; he was crowned with great pomp at Monza, as king of Italy, and proceeded onwards to Rome. On the way he took an oath to defend the territory of St. Peter, and to uphold all the privileges of the pope; and it has been said that he executed a charter, by which the donations of his predecessors to the Roman see were confirmed, with large additions, while the imperial right of ratifying the elections to the papacy was maintained. At Rome, Otho received the imperial crown from the hands of the pope, and he exacted from the chief inhabitants an oath that they would never join with Berengar or with his son Adalbert.

But no sooner had the emperor left Rome than John—perhaps in disgust at finding that Otho was determined to assert for himself something very different from the merely titular dignity to which the pope had hoped to limit time—threw himself into the interest of Adalbert, who, on Otho’s appearance in Italy, had sought a refuge among the Saracens of Fraxinetum. Otho, on hearing of this, sent to inquire into the truth of the matter; the answer was a report that the pope lived in the most shameful debauchery, so that female pilgrims were even afraid to visit Rome, lest they should become the victims of his passions; that he scandalously neglected his duties of every kind; and that he had attached himself to Adalbert because he knew that the emperor would not countenance him in his disgraceful courses. Otho remarked that the pope was but a boy, and would amend under the influence of good examples and advice; he attempted to negotiate with him, and John promised to reform his way of life, but in the meantime received Adalbert with welcome into Rome. The emperor returned to the city, and at his approach the pope and Adalbert fled, carrying off all that they could lay their hands on.

The Romans bound themselves by an oath never to choose a pope without the emperor’s consent, and prayed for an investigation into the conduct of John. For this purpose a council of Italian, French, and German bishops was assembled at St. Peter’s in the presence of Otho and of many lay nobles. The emperor expressed surprise that John did not appear in order to defend himself. The Roman clergy, who all attended the meeting, were for condemning him at once; evidence, they said, was needless in the case of iniquities which were notorious even to Iberians, Babylonians, and Indians—the pope was no wolf in sheep’s clothing, but one who showed his character without disguise; but Otho insisted on inquiry. Bishops and clergymen of the Roman province then deposed that the accused had been guilty of offences which are heaped together without any discrimination of their comparative magnitude. He had consecrated the Eucharist without communicating; he had ordained in a stable, and at irregular times; he had sold episcopal ordination,—in one case to a boy of ten; his sacrilegious practices were notorious; he had been guilty of murder, of arson, of revolting cruelties,—of adultery, incest, and every kind of incontinence. He had cast off all the decencies of the ecclesiastical character; he had publicly hunted, and had dressed himself as a soldier, with sword, helmet, and cuirass; he had drunk wine to the love of the devil; he was in the habit, while gaming, of calling on Jupiter, Venus, and other demons for aid; he omitted the canonical hours, and never signed himself with the cross. Otho, who could not speak Latin, cautioned the accusers, by the mouth of Liutprand, not to bring charges out of envy, as was usual against persons of eminent station; but both clergy and laity, “as one man”, imprecated on themselves the most fearful judgments in this world and hereafter, if all, and worse than all, that they had said were not true; and at their entreaty the emperor wrote to John, desiring him to answer for himself. The pope only replied by threats of excommunication against all who should take part in the attempt to set up a rival against him. The emperor spoke of this as boyish folly, and sent a second letter, which the messengers were unable to deliver, as John was engaged in hunting. Otho thereupon exposed the treachery with which the pope had behaved, after having invited him into Italy for the purpose of aiding against Berengar and Adalbert. John was deposed, and Leo, chief secretary of the see, a man of good character, but not yet in orders, was chosen in his room.

But a conspiracy was already formed against the Germans, by means of the deposed pontiff’s agents. Even while Otho remained at Rome, with only a few of his soldiers to guard him, an insurrection took place, and, after the emperor’s departure, John regained possession of the city. Another council  was held, which deposed Leo from all clerical orders, annulled his ordinations, and, borrowing the language of Nicolas I against the synod of Metz, declared the late synod infamous; and the temporary triumph of the Tuscan party was signalized by a cruel vengeance on the hands, the eyes, the tongues, and the noses of their opponents. Otho was on the point of again returning to expel John, when the pope died in consequence of a blow which he received on the head while in the act of adultery—from the devil, according to Liutprand, while others are content to suppose that it was from the husband whom he had dishonoured. The Romans, forgetting their late oath, chose for his successor an ecclesiastic named Benedict; but the emperor reappeared before the city, starved them into a surrender, and reinstated Leo VIII. A council was held, at which Benedict gave up his robes and his pastoral staff to Leo.

The pope broke the staff in the sight of the assembly; the antipope was degraded from the orders above that of deacon, which, at the emperor’s request, he was allowed to retain, and was banished to Hamburg. Benedict, who appears to have been a man of high personal character, met with great veneration in the place of his exile, and died there in the following year.

John XIII, the successor of Leo, was consecrated with the emperor’s approbation, in October 965; but within three months he was driven from Rome and imprisoned in Campania by a party which had become very powerful, and aimed at establishing a government on the republican model, under the names of the ancient Roman magistracy, in hostility alike to German emperors and to the papacy. In consequence of this revolution, Otho found himself obliged again to visit Rome.

The pope was restored; the republican consuls were banished to Germany; the twelve tribunes were beheaded; others of the party were blinded or mutilated; the body of the prefect who had announced the decree of banishment to John was torn from the grave; his successor in the prefecture was paraded about the city, crowned with a bladder and mounted on an ass. So great was the sensation excited by the report of these severities, that, when Liutprand was sent to Constantinople to seek a Greek princess in marriage for the heir of the empire, Nicephoras Phocas reproached him with his master’s “impiety”, and alleged it as a reason for treating the ambassador with indignity. Liutprand boldly replied that his sovereign had not invaded Rome as a tyrant, but had rescued it from the disgraceful oppression of tyrants and prostitutes; that he had acted agreeably to the laws of the Roman emperors, and, had he neglected so to act, he would himself have been “impious, unjust, cruel, and tyrannical”.

Crescentius, who is said (but probably without ground) to have been a grandson of pope John X, by one of the Theodoras, became the chief of the republican party, and governed Rome with the title of consul. His character has been extolled as that of a hero and a patriot; yet there is not sufficient evidence to show that his patriotism arose from any better motive than selfish ambition. In 974, when the sceptre of Otho the Great had passed into the hands of a young and less formidable successor, Crescentius decoyed pope Benedict VI into the castle of St. Angelo, where he was put to death. While the pope was yet alive, Boniface VII was set up by the Crescentian party, but was obliged to give way to Benedict VII, who was established by the Tusculan interest, and held the see until 983. Otho II, who survived him but a short time, nominated to the papacy Peter, bishop of Pavia, who, out of reverence for the supposed apostolic founder of the Roman church, changed his name to John XIV. But Boniface, who in his flight had carried off much valuable property of the church, and had converted it into money at Constantinople, returned to Rome, seized John, and shut him up in St. Angelo, where he is supposed to have been made away with, either by hunger or by poison; and the intruder, in concert with Crescentius, held the papacy until his death, which took place within a year. His body was then dragged about the streets and treated with indignity, until some of the clergy charitably gave it burial.

The next pope, John XIV, is described as a man of much learning; but it is said that his clergy detested him for his pride, and the biographer of Abbo of Fleury tells us that the abbot, on visiting Rome, found him “not such as he wished him to be, or such as he ought to have been”, but “greedy of base gain, and venal in all his actions”. John was held in constraint by Crescentius, who would not allow any one to approach him without paying for permission, and seized not only the property of the church, but even the oblations. At length, unable to endure this growing oppression, the Pope requested the intervention of Otho III, then a youth of sixteen; but as Otho was on his way to Rome, in compliance with this invitation, he was met at Ravenna by messengers who announced the pope’s death, and, probably in the name of a party among the Romans who were weary of the consul’s domination, requested that the king (although he had not yet received the imperial crown) would nominate a successor. The choice of Otho fell on his cousin and chaplain Bruno, a young man of twenty-four, who was thereupon formally elected; and the first German pope (as he is usually reckoned) assumed the name of Gregory V.

Gregory crowned his kinsman as emperor on Ascension-day 996, and, wishing to begin his pontificate with clemency, obtained the Pardon of Crescentius, whom Otho had intended to send into exile. But scarcely had the emperor left Rome when Crescentius made an insurrection, and expelled Gregory. After an interval of eight months, the consul set up an antipope, John, bishop of Piacenza, by birth a Calabrian and a subject of the Greek empire, who had been chaplain to Otho’s mother, the Byzantine princess Theophano, and had been godfather both to the emperor and to Gregory. The tidings of the Roman insurrection recalled Otho from an expedition against the Slaves. He was met by Gregory at Pavia, advanced to Rome, and besieged Crescentius in St. Angelo. The German writers in general state that he forced the consul to a surrender, while the Italians assert that he got him into his power by a promise of safety. If such a promise was given, it was violated. The consul was beheaded; his body was exposed on a gallows, hanging by the feet, and twelve of his chief partisans were put to death. The antipope John, who had shown an intention of placing Rome under the Byzantine empire, was cruelly punished, although Nilus, a hermit of renowned sanctity, who had almost reached the age of ninety, had undertaken a toilsome journey from Rossano in Calabria, to intercede for him. He was blinded, deprived of his nose and tongue, stripped of his robes, and led through the city riding on an ass, with the tail in his hand; after which, according to some authorities, he was banished to Germany, while others say that he was thrown from the Capitol. The varieties of statement as to the authors of his punishment are still greater: one annalist relates that he was blinded and mutilated by some persons who feared lest Otho should pardon him; some writers state that Otho and Gregory concurred in the proceedings; while, according to others, the emperor was softened by the prayers of Nilus, and the cruelties exercised on the antipope were sanctioned by his rival alone.

 

ARNULF OF REIMS.

During the pontificate of John XV the see of Reims had become the subject of a new contest, more important than that between Artald and Hugh. On the death of archbishop Adalbero, in the year 989, Arnulf, an illegitimate son of one of the last Carolingian kings, requested Hugh Capet to bestow it on him, promising in return to serve him faithfully in all ways. The new king granted the petition, chiefly with a view to detach Arnulf from the interest of his uncle Charles, duke of Lorraine, the heir of the Carolingian line. The archbishop, at his consecration, took an oath of fealty to Hugh, imprecating the most fearful curses on himself if he should break it. He even received the Eucharist in attestation of his fidelity, although some of the clergy present protested against such an application of the sacrament. But when the arms of Charles appeared to be successful, the gates of Reims were opened to him, and his soldiers committed violent and sacrilegious outrages in the city. The archbishop was carried off as if a prisoner, and sent forth a solemn anathema against the robbers who had profaned his church; it was, however, suspected that he had a secret understanding with his uncle, and the suspicion was speedily justified by his openly joining Charles at Laon. But Laon was soon betrayed into the hands of Hugh by its bishop, Adalbero; the king got possession of his rival’s person, and imprisoned him at Orleans, where Charles died within a few months; and a council of the suffragans of Reims was held at Senlis, A.D. 990, for the examination of their metropolitan’s conduct. Letters were then sent to Rome both by Hugh and by the bishops, detailing the treachery of Arnulf, with the wretched state into which his province had fallen, and asking how this “second Judas” should be dealt with. But the pope was influenced by a partisan of Arnulf, who presented him with a valuable horse and other gifts; while the envoys of the opposite party, who made no presents either to John or to Crescentius, stood three days at the gates of the papal palace without being allowed to enter.

But Hugh now found himself strong enough to act without the pope. In June 991, a synod was held at the monastic church of St. Basle, near Reims, under Siguin, archbishop of Sens. The president proposed that, before proceeding to the trial of Arnulf, an assurance of indulgence for the accused should be obtained from the king, since, if his treason were a cause of blood, it would be unlawful for bishops to judge it. Some members, however, remarked that the suggested course was dangerous; if bishops declined such inquiries, princes would cease to ask for ecclesiastical judgments, would take all judicature into their own hands, and would cite the highest ecclesiastics before their secular tribunals; and, in deference to these objections, the proposal appears to have been dropped. Siguin detailed the proceedings which had taken place; the pope, he said, had left the bishops of France a year without any answer to their application, and they must now act for themselves. All who could say anything in favor of the accused were enjoined, under pain of anathema, to come forward; whereupon Abbo, abbot of Fleury, and others produced passages from the Isidorian decretals, to show that the synod had no right to judge a bishop —the trial of bishops being one of those “greater causes” which belong to the pope alone. To this it was answered that all had been done regularly; that application had been made to the pope, but without effect.

Arnulf of Orleans, who was regarded as the wisest and most eloquent of the French bishops, spoke very strongly against the Roman claim to jurisdiction. He did not hint, nor does he appear to have felt, any suspicion of the decretals; but in opposition to their authority he proved by an array of genuine canons, councils, and papal writings, that for the decision of local questions provincial synods were sufficient; and he cited the principles of Hincmar as to appeals. The requirements of the decretals, he said, had already been satisfied by the reference which both the king and the bishops had vainly made to Rome. He denied the power of the Roman pontiff by his silence to lay to sleep the ancient laws of the church, or by his sole authority to reverse them; if it were so, there would really be no laws to rely on. He enlarged on the enormities of recent popes, and asked how it was possible to defer to the sentence of such monsters—destitute as they were of all judicial qualities, of knowledge, of love, of character—very antichrists sitting in the temple of God, who could only act as lifeless idols. It would, (he said) be far better, if the dissensions of princes would permit, to seek a decision from the learned and pious bishops of Belgic Gaul and Germany than from the venal and polluted court of Rome.

Arnulf of Reims was brought before the council, and protested his innocence of the treachery imputed to him; but he gave way when confronted with a clerk who had opened the gates of the city to the besiegers, and who now declared that he had acted by the archbishop’s orders. On the last day of the synod, when the king appeared with his son and colleague Robert, Arnulf prostrated himself before them, and abjectly implored that his life and members might be spared. He was required to surrender the ensigns of his temporalities to the king, and those of his spiritual power to the bishops, and to read an act of abdication modelled on that by which Ebbo had resigned the same dignity a century and a half before. The degraded archbishop was then sent to prison at Orleans, and Gerbert, who had taken no part in the proceedings against him, was chosen as his successor.

This eminent man was born of humble parentage in Auvergne about the middle of the century, and was admitted at an early age into the monastery of Aurillac, where he made extraordinary proficiency in his studies. He had already visited other chief schools of France, when Borel, count of Barcelona, arrived at Aurillac on a devotional pilgrimage, and gave such a report of the state of learning in Spain as induced the abbot to send Gerbert with him on his return to that country. In Spain Gerbert devoted himself especially to the acquirement of mathematical and physical science, which was then almost exclusively confined to the schools of the Saracens; but it is uncertain whether his knowledge was derived immediately from the Moslem teachers of Seville and Cordova, or from Christians who had benefited by their instruction. In 968 he visited Rome in company with his patron Borel, and was introduced to Otho the Great. He then went into France, and became master of the cathedral school at Reims; and on a second visit to Italy, in company with the archbishop Adalbero, he obtained the abbacy of Bobbio through the interest of the empress Adelaide. But he found the property of the abbey dilapidated by his predecessor; he was involved in contentions with the neighbouring nobles, who insisted on his confirming grants of the monastic lands which had been wrongfully made to them; while the monks were insubordinate, and his connection with the Germans served to render him generally unpopular. His position became yet worse on the death of Otho, which took place within a year from the time of his appointment; and, after having in vain attempted to obtain support from the pope, he resolved to leave Bobbio, although he still retained the dignity of abbot. “All Italy”, he wrote on this occasion to a friend, “appears to me a Rome; and the morals of the Romans are the horror of the world”.

Gerbert resumed his position at Reims, where he raised the school to an unrivalled reputation, and effectively influenced the improvement of other seminaries. The study of mathematics, the Arabian numerals, and the decimal notation were now for the first time introduced into France. The library of the see was enriched by Gerbert’s care with many transcripts of rare and valuable books; while his mechanical genius and science were displayed in the construction of a clock, of astronomical instruments, and of an organ blown by steam—apparently the first application of a power which has in later times produced such marvellous effects. He also took an important part in the political movements and intrigues of the time, acting as secretary to Adalbero, who, from his position as archbishop of Reims, exercised a powerful influence in affairs of state. Adalbero had fixed on him as his own successor in the archbishopric; but Gerbert’s humble birth was unable to cope with the pretensions of Arnulf, which, as he asserts, were supported by simoniacal means. He therefore acquiesced in his defeat, and retained the office of secretary under his successful rival. For a time he adhered to Arnulf in labouring for the interest of Charles of Lorraine; but he saw reason to change his course, formally renounced the archbishop’s service, and wrote to the archbishop of Treves that he could not, for the sake of either Charles or Arnulf, endure to be any longer a tool of the devil, and lend himself to the maintenance of falsehood against truth. Hugh Capet gladly welcomed the accession of so accomplished a partisan, and employed him as tutor to his son Robert.

The council of St. Basle wrote to the pope in a tone of great deference, excusing itself for having acted without his concurrence, on the ground that he had so long left unanswered the application which had been made to him. But John had already sent northward as his legate an abbot named Leo, who had reached Aix-la-Chapelle when he was informed of Arnulf’s deposition. On this the legate returned to Rome, and John issued a mandate to the bishops who had been concerned in the council, ordering them to appear at Rome for the trial of Arnulf’s case, and in the meantime to reinstate the archbishop, and to abstain from the exercise of ecclesiastical functions. The French bishops, in a synod held at Chela (Chelles, seemingly between Paris and Meaux), resolved to maintain the decisions of St. Basle; the king wrote to John, assuring him that nothing hail been done in breach of the papal rights, and offering to meet him at Grenoble, if the pope should wish to investigate the affair; while Gerbert protested to John that he had done no wrong, and exerted himself, by correspondence in all directions, to enlist supporters on his side. His tone as to the pretensions of Rome was very decided: thus he tells Siguin of Sens that God’s judgment is higher than that of the Roman bishop, and adds, that the pope himself, if he should sin against a brother, and should refuse to hear the church’s admonitions, must, according to our Lord’s own precept, be counted “as a heathen man and a publican”; he declaims on the hardship of being suspended from the offices of the altar, and urges the archbishop to disregard the pope’s prohibition.

John, without making any public demonstration for a time, endeavoured, by the agency of monks, to excite discontent among the people of France, so as to alarm the new sovereign. Gerbert found his position at Reims extremely uneasy. Some of his most powerful friends were dead. He tells his correspondents that there is a general outcry against him—that even his blood is required; that not only his military retainers, but even his clergy, have conspired to avoid his ministrations, and to abstain from eating in company with him. In this distress he was cheered by receiving a letter from Otho III, then in his fifteenth year. Gerbert gladly accepted the invitation, and in the end of 994 repaired to the German court, where he found an honourable refuge, and became the young prince’s tutor and favourite adviser. In this position, where new hopes were set before his mind, he could afford to speak of his archbishopric with something like indifference. He writes to the empress Adelaide (widow of Otho the Great) that, as the dignity was bestowed on him by bishops, he will not resign it except in obedience to an episcopal judgment; but he will not persist in retaining it if that judgment should be against him. In 995 the pope again sent Leo into France. The legate put forth a letter to Hugh and his son, by way of answer to Arnulf of Orleans, and others who had taken part in the council of St. Basle. He meets the charges of ignorance against Rome by citing passages of Scripture, in which it is said that God chooses the foolish things of this world in preference to the wise. In reply to the charges of venality, he alleges that our Lord himself and His apostles received such gifts as were offered to them. The bishops, by their conduct towards the Roman church, had cut themselves off from it; their behaviour to their mother had been like that of Ham to Noah. Arnulf of Orleans, “with his apostate son, whoever he may be”, had written such things against the holy see as no Arian had ever ventured to write. The legate cites the expressions of reverence with which eminent men of former times had spoken of Rome: if, he says, the chair of St. Peter had ever tottered, it had now reestablished itself firmly for the support of all the churches. He reflects on the irregularity of the proceedings against Arnulf, and on the cruelty with which he was treated; and he excuses the pope’s neglect of the first application in the matter on the ground of the troubles which were at that time caused by Crescentius.

A council, scantily attended by bishops from Germany and Lotharingia, was held under Leo at Mousson in June 995. The bishops of France had refused to appear either at Rome or at Aix; Gerbert alone, who had already removed to the German court, was present to answer for himself. In a written speech he defended the steps by which he had (reluctantly, as he said) been promoted to the see of Reims, together with his behaviour towards Arnulf. He declared himself resolved to pay no heed to the prohibition by which the pope had interdicted him from divine offices—a mandate (he said) which involved much more than his own personal interest; but, at the request of the archbishop of Treves, he agreed, for the sake of example, to refrain from celebrating mass until another synod should be held. Arnulf was restored to his see by a synod held at Reims in 995; but he was detained in prison for three years longer.

Robert I of France, who succeeded his father in October 996, a prince of a gentle and devout, but feeble character, had married as his second wife Bertha, daughter of Conrad king of Burgundy, and widow of a count of Chartres. The union was uncanonical, both because the parties were related in the fourth degree, and because Robert had contracted a “spiritual affinity” with the countess, by becoming sponsor for one of her children; yet the French bishops had not hesitated to bless it, for in the marriages of princes the rigor of ecclesiastical law often bent to political expediency. Robert, however, felt that, on account of this vulnerable point, it was especially his interest to stand well with Rome; and he dispatched Abbo of Fleury as an envoy to treat with the pope in a spirit of concession as to the case of Arnulf. The abbot took the opportunity of obtaining privileges for his monastery from the new pope Gregory V; he returned to France with a pall for Arnulf; and in 998 the archbishop was released, and was restored to his see, which had been miserably impoverished during the long contest for the possession of it.

But if Robert supposed that his consent to this restoration would induce the pope to overlook the irregularity of his marriage, he soon found that he had been mistaken. A synod held at Rome in 998 required him and his queen, on pain of anathema, to separate, and to submit to penance; and it suspended the bishops who had officiated at the nuptials from communion until they should appear before the pope and make satisfaction for their offence. As to the sequel, it is only certain that Robert yielded, and that the place of Bertha was supplied by a queen of far less amiable character. Peter Damiani, in the following century, relates that Bertha gave birth to a monster with the head and neck of a goose; that the king and the queen were excommunicated by the whole episcopate of France; that the horror of this sentence scared all men from them, with the exception of two attendants; that even these cast the vessels out of which Robert or Bertha had eaten or drunk into the fire, as abominable; and that thus the guilty pair were terrified into a separation. But the terror to which Robert really yielded was more probably a dread of the spiritual power of Rome, and of the influence which, by uttering an interdict against the performance of religious offices, it might be able to exercise over his subjects; or it may be that, as is stated by the contemporary biographer of Abbo, he gave way to the persuasions of that abbot, who performed the part of Nathan in convincing him of his sin.

These triumphs of the papacy were very important for it, following as they did after a time during which there had been little communication with France, while at home the papal see had been stained and degraded by so much of a disgraceful kind. They assured the popes that they had lost no power by the change of dynasty which had been effected without their sanction. And if, as has been supposed, the sternness with which Gregory insisted on the separation of Robert and Bertha, was instigated by the wish of Otho to humiliate the French king, “it is one of many proofs that the rise of the papacy to a superiority over all secular princes was mainly promoted by their attempts to use it as a tool in their jealousies and rivalries against each other”.

The victory over the French episcopate was also important in consequence of the position which the popes took in the affair. They had already gained from the French church as much as was requisite for the admittance of their jurisdiction in the particular case—that a metropolitan of France should not be deposed without the concurrence of the pope. This had been allowed by Hincmar himself; it had even been the subject of a petition from the council of Troyes in 867; it was acknowledged by Hugh Capet and his bishops until the pope’s neglect of their application provoked the inquiry whether they might not act without him. But, not content with this, the popes and their advocates claimed that right of exclusive judgment over all bishops which was asserted for the papacy by the false decretals; and the result was therefore far more valuable for the Roman see than it would have been if the popes had only put forth such claims as were necessary for the maintenance of their interest in the case which was immediately before them.

The German pope died in February 999. It was a time of gloomy apprehensions. The approach of the thousandth year  from the Saviour’s birth had raised a general belief that the second advent was close at hand; and in truth there was much which might easily be construed as fulfilling the predicted signs of the end—wars and rumours of wars, famines and pestilences, fearful appearances in the heavens, faith foiling from the earth, and love waxing cold. In the beginning of the century, the council of Trosley (Troli, near Soissons) had urged the nearness of the judgment-day as a motive for reformation; and preachers had often insisted on it, although their opinion had met with objectors in some quarters. The preamble, “Whereas the end of the world draweth near”, which had been common in donations to churches or monasteries, now assumed a new and more urgent significance; and the belief that the long expectation was at length to be accomplished, did much to revive the power and wealth of the clergy, after the disorders and losses of the century. The minds of men were called away from the ordinary cares and employments of life; even our knowledge of history has suffered in consequence, since there was little inclination to bestow labour on the chronicling of events, when no posterity was expected to read the records. Some plunged into desperate recklessness of living; an eclipse of the sun or of the moon was the signal for multitudes to seek a hiding-place in dens and caves of the earth; and crowds of pilgrims flocked to Palestine, where the Saviour was expected to appear for judgment.

In the room of Gregory, Otho raised to the papacy the man who had hitherto been its most dangerous opponent—Gerbert. Gerbert’s learning and abilities had procured for him a great ascendency over the mind of his imperial pupil, from whom, in the preceding year, he had received the archbishopric of Ravenna. On attaining the highest dignity in the church, he assumed the name of Sylvester II—a name significant of the relation in which he was to stand to a prince who aimed at being a second Constantine. For Otho, who lost his father at the age of three, had been trained by his Greek mother, and by his Italian grandmother, Adelaide, to despise his own countrymen as rude, to value himself on the Byzantine side of his extraction, and to affect the elegancies of Greek and Roman cultivation. He introduced into his court the ceremonies of Constantinople; on revisiting Germany, he carried with him a number of noble Romans, with a view of exhibiting to his countrymen a refinement to which they had been strangers; he even entertained the thought of making Rome the capital of his empire.

The new pope, in order, as it would seem, to reconcile his present position with his earlier career, granted to Arnulf of Reims the pall and all the other privileges which had been connected with the see. It was thus made to appear as if Arnulf had been guilty, and as if his restoration were an act of grace on the part of the rival who had formerly been obliged to give way to him. Arnulf held the archbishopric until the year 1123.

Sylvester’s pontificate was not eventful. He had the mortification of being foiled by Willigis, archbishop of Mainz, a man of great influence, both from his position as primate of Germany and from his abilities as a politician. The contest is said to have arisen out of the pride of the emperor’s sister Sophia, who, being about to enter the nunnery of Gandersheim, disdained to receive the veil from any prelate of less than metropolitan dignity. Willigis was therefore invited to officiate at Gandersheim, and not only did so, but even held a synod there. Osdag, bishop of Hildesheim, within whose diocese the convent was situated, complained of these invasions, and for a time the matter was accommodated in his favour; but Willigis again interfered with the rights of the bishop’s successor, Bernward, and a synod held at Rome, in the presence of the pope and of the emperor, decided that Bernward should exercise the rights of diocesan over the community, but left the further settlement of the case to a synod which was to be assembled in Germany, under the presidency of a papal legate. This assembly met in 1001, at Palithi or Polde in Saxony. The archbishop, seeing that its feeling was against him, assumed a tone of insolent defiance towards the legate, broke up the session by means of his disorderly adherents, and had disappeared when the council reassembled on the following day. As the influence of Willigis appeared to render a fair trial hopeless in Germany, it was resolved to summon all the bishops of that country to attend a council in Italy; but, although the papal citation was seconded by the emperor, who needed the aid of their followers for the reinforcement of his army, so powerful were their fears of the primate that hardly any of them appeared. The pope found himself obliged to adjourn the consideration of the question; and on the death of Otho, which followed soon after, the power of Willigis was so much enhanced by the importance attached to his voice in the choice of a new emperor, that Sylvester did not venture to prosecute the matter. In 1007 the controversy was determined in favour of the see of Hildesheim; but by the authority of the emperor Henry, and without the aid of Rome. It was, however, again revived, and was not finally settled until 1030, when Aribo, archbishop of Mainz, acknowledged to Godehard, of Hildesheim, that his pretensions against the diocesan jurisdiction had been unfounded.

The pilgrims who flocked to the Holy Land were subjected to much oppression and annoyance by its Mussulman rulers, and frequent complaints of their sufferings were brought into western Christendom. By these reports Sylvester was excited to issue a letter addressed in the name of Jerusalem to the universal church, beseeching all Christians to sympathize with the afflictions of the holy city, and to aid it by gifts, if they could not do so by arms. The letter was not without effect in its own time, for some enterprises were in consequence undertaken against the Saracens; but the great movement of the crusades, of which it may be regarded as the first suggestion, was reserved for a later generation.

The young emperor appears to have fallen in a morbid state of melancholy. He had been lately shaken by the deaths of his cousin Gregory V, of his aunt Matilda, abbess of Quedlinburg, who in his absence carried on the government of Germany, and of other relations, which left him without any near kindred except two young sisters, who had both entered the cloister. He may, perhaps, have been touched by regret for the cruelties which had been committed in his name against the republicans of Rome; perhaps, also, the millenary year may have aided in filling his mind with sad and depressing thoughts. After having secluded himself for fourteen days, which he spent in prayer and fasting, he was persuaded by Romuald, the founder of the Camaldolite order, to undertake a penitential pilgrimage to Monte Gargano; he visited the hermit Nilus, near Gaeta, where he displayed the deepest humility and contrition; and, after his return to Rome, finding himself still unable to rest, he set out on a long journey through his dominions beyond the Alps. At Gnesen, in Poland, he knelt as a penitent before the tomb of Adalbert, bishop of Prague, who had been known to him, and perhaps little regarded by him, in earlier days, but had since found the death of a martyr in Prussia, and was now revered as a saint. At Aix-la-Chapelle, the emperor indulged his gloomy curiosity by opening the tomb of Charlemagne; and in 1001 he once more arrived at Rome, where he founded in the island of the Tiber a church in honour of St. Adalbert, whom he had already honoured by a like foundation at Aix.

An insurrection took place, and Otho was besieged in his palace. It is said that from the walls he indignantly reproached the Romans for their unworthy requital of the favors which he had shown them, even to the prejudice of his own countrymen; that he received the Eucharist with the intention of sallying forth, but was restrained by the exertions of his friends.

The short remainder of his days was spent in restless movements and in penitential exercises, while he cherished the intention of raising his feudatories for the punishment of the Romans; but his projects were cut short by death at Paterno, a castle near Mount Soracte, and within sight of the ungrateful city, on Jan. 24, 1002. Although the German chroniclers in general attribute his end to small-pox, a later story, of Italian origin, has recommended itself to some eminent writers—less perhaps by its probability than by its romantic character. Stephania, it is said, the beautiful widow of Crescentius, provoked by her husband’s wrongs and her own to a desire of deadly vengeance, enticed the young emperor to her embraces, and by means of a pair of gloves, administered to him a subtle poison, which dried up the sources of his strength, and brought him to the grave at the age of twenty-two. In Otho became extinct the Saxon line which had ruled over Germany from the time of Henry the Fowler, and which for three generations had filled the imperial throne.

Within little more than a year, Sylvester followed his pupil to the grave. On him, too, it is said that the vengeance of Stephania wreaked itself by a poison which destroyed his voice, if it did not put an end to his life. But a more marvellous tale is related by the zealous partisans of the see which he had so strongly opposed in its assumptions, and which he had himself at length attained. To the authentic accounts of his acquirements and of his mechanical skill they add that he dealt in unhallowed arts, acquired from a book which he had stolen from one of his Saracen teachers. He understood, it is said, the flight and the language of birds; he discovered treasures by magic; he made a compact with the devil for success in all his undertakings; he fabricated, under astral influences, a brazen head, which had the power of answering questions affirmatively or negatively. To his question, “Shall I be apostolic pontiff?” it answered “Yes”. When he further asked, “Shall I die before I sing mass in Jerusalem?” the reply was “No”. But as is usual in such legends, the evil one deluded his victim; the Jerusalem in which Gerbert was to die was the Roman basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme.

 

 

CHAPTER VI.

FROM THE DEATH OF POPE SYLVESTER II TO THE DEPOSITION OF GREGORY VI,

A.D. 1003-1046.