BOOK V.
FROM THE DEATH OF CHARLEMAGNE TO THE
DEPOSITION OF POPE GREGORY VI,
A.D. 814-1046.
CHAPTER VI.
FROM THE DEATH OF POPE SYLVESTER II TO THE DEPOSITION
OF GREGORY VI,
A.D. 1003-1046.
The unexpected death of Otho III left his wide
dominions without an heir, nor had any successor been provided. After much
negotiation, Henry, duke of Bavaria, descended from a brother of Otho the
Great, was chosen as king of Germany—chiefly through the influence of
archbishop Willigis, by whom he was crowned at Mainz. Henry, who is usually
styled the Second, had been intended by his parents for the ecclesiastical
state, and was a prince of very devout character, so that he attained the honour
of canonization, which was conferred also on his wife Cunegunda; but his piety
was not of a kind to unfit him for the active duties of his position. He
governed with ability and Vigor, in the midst of much opposition and many
difficulties, until the year 1024. In illustration of the mixture of saint and
statesman in him, we are told that on one occasion he appeared before Richard,
abbot of St. Vanne’s, at Verdun, in his Lotharingian dominions, and expressed a
resolution to become a monk. The abbot, after some consideration, admitted him
as a member of his own community, and immediately charged him, by his vow of
monastic obedience, to return to the administration of the empire which had
been committed to him by God.
The Italians, on the death of Otho, hastily set up a
king of their own, Harduin, marquis of Ivrea. But his power was controlled by
the quarrels of various parties, which were too much bent on the advancement of
their own private interests to combine in any policy for their common country.
While the nobles of Italy were desirous of national independence, as being most favorable to their class, the prelates and clergy in
general preferred the rule of a German sovereign, as less likely to interfere
with their own power than that of a nearer neighbour. Harduin incurred the
detestation of the clergy, not only by such oppressions as were usual, but by
acts of savage personal violence against bishops who refused to comply with his
will. To these causes of disagreement was added the rivalry between the two
chief cities of northern Italy—Milan, the residence of the later Roman
emperors, and Pavia, the capital of the Lombard kingdom. That Harduin had been
set up at Pavia ensured him the opposition of the Milanese, headed by their
archbishop, Arnulf, who in 1004 invited Henry into Italy. Harduin found himself
deserted by most of his adherents, who flocked to the German standard. Henry
was crowded as king of Italy at Pavia; but the popular abhorrence of the
Germans displayed itself, as usual, in the form of an insurrection. On the very
night after the coronation, the king found himself besieged in his palace. The
Germans, in order to divert the attack, set fire to the neighbouring houses.
Henry’s troops, who were at some distance from the city, were recalled by the
sight of the flames, and the rising was suppressed; but a great part of Pavia
had been destroyed, and the king recrossed the Alps with a feeling of disgust
and indignation against his Italian subjects. Harduin renewed his pretensions,
but in 1012 was compelled by a second expedition of Henry to abdicate; and,
after a vain attempt to recover his power, he ended his days in a monastery—the
last Italian of the middle ages who pretended to the crown of Lombardy.
In the meanwhile the Roman factions had taken
advantage of the difficulties in which the Germans were involved. John, a son
or brother of Crescentius, for some years governed Rome with the title of
patrician, as the head of a republican administration. It would seem that to
him three popes, who filled the chair from 1004 to 1012, were indebted for
their elevation. But 439 on the death of the last of these, Sergius IV, which
followed closely on that of the patrician, the disposal of the papacy was
disputed by another party, headed by the counts of Tusculum, who, like the Crescentians, were descended from the notorious Theodora,
her daughter Marozia having married their ancestor Alberic. The Tusculan party set up a pope named Benedict, whom they
contrived to maintain against all opposition. Gregory, the popular or Crescentian pope, was expelled from the city, and set off
to implore the aid of Henry. The king was not unwilling to have a pretext for
going to Rome, where he was received with the greatest honours, and was made
advocate of the church, which he swore faithfully to protect. But the visit
resulted in the establishment not of Gregory, but of his rival Benedict, from
whom Henry received the imperial crown.
Benedict VIII enjoyed greater power than his immediate
predecessors, who had been subordinate to the Crescentian family. His energy was displayed in opposition both to the Greeks (with whom
the Crescentian party had been connected) and to the
Saracens. He induced the Pisans to attack the infidels in Sardinia, where the
Christian inhabitants were oppressed and persecuted; and the expedition
resulted in the conquest of the island. When a Saracen chief sent Benedict a
sack full of chestnuts, with a message that he would return at the head of a
like number of warriors, the pope sent it back filled with grains of millet,
telling the Saracen that, if he were not content with the evil which he had
already done, he should find an equal or greater multitude of men in arms ready
to oppose him. In 1020 Benedict went into Germany, ostensibly for the
consecration of the church of St. Stephen at Bamberg; but the journey had also
the more secret object of asking for aid against the Saracens; and he persuaded
the emperor once more to lead his troops into Italy, where Henry delivered Rome
from its danger by the overthrow of the enemy.
A new power had lately appeared in the south of Italy.
The Normans, after their conversion, had caught up with peculiar enthusiasm the
passion for pilgrimages which was then so general. Companies of them—usually
armed, for defense against the dangers of the
way—passed through France and Italy, and, after visiting Monte Gargano, which
was famous for an appearance of the archangel Michael, they took ship from the
southern harbours of the peninsula for the Holy Land. Early in the eleventh
century, a body of about forty Norman pilgrims, who had returned from the east
in a vessel belonging to Amalfi, happened to be at Salerno when the place was
attacked by a Saracen force. The prince, Guaimar, was
endeavouring to raise the means of buying off the infidels; but the Normans,
after giving, vent to their indignation at the cowardice of the inhabitants,
begged him to furnish them with arms, sallied forth against the enemy, and by
their example roused the spirit of the Greeks to resistance. The prince
rewarded their aid with costly presents, and offered them inducements to remain
with him; they declined the invitation, but, at his request, undertook to make
his circumstances known in their own country. The sight of the rich and unknown
fruits of the south, of the silken dresses and splendid armour which they
carried home, excited the adventurous spirit of the Normans. A chief
named Osmond Drengot, who was on uneasy terms
with his duke in consequence of having slain a nobleman who enjoyed the
prince’s favour, resolved to go into Italy with his family. He waited on the
pope, who advised him to attack the Greeks of Apulia, and, before reaching
Monte Gargano, the band was increased to the number of about a hundred
warriors. These adventurers entered into the service of the neighbouring
princes and republics, mixed in their quarrels, and aided them, although not
with uniform success, against the Saracens and the Greeks. They were reinforced
by outlaws of the neighbourhood, and by fresh migrations of their countrymen;
they obtained grants from Henry and from the government of Naples, founded and
fortified the town of Aversa, in 1029, and established themselves as an
independent power, with a territory which was divided into twelve
counties—their chief bearing the title of duke of Apulia. But they soon
displayed the habits of robbers, and were at war with all around them. Churches
and monasteries were especial sufferers from their rapacity.
Both Henry and Benedict died in 1024. The Tusculans filled the papacy with a brother of the deceased
pope, named John, in whose favor they bought the
suffrages of the Romans with a large sum of money—a proceeding which the
strength which they had by this time acquired would perhaps have rendered
unnecessary, but for the circumstance that John was a layman. As Henry was
childless, the empire was again without an heir. The choice of the electors
fell on Conrad of Franconia, who was descended from a daughter of Otho the
Great, and is styled the Salic, probably in order to signify that he sprang
from the noblest race of the Franks. A difficulty was raised by some bishops on
the ground that Conrad had contracted a marriage within the fifth degree; he
was even required to renounce either his wife or the dignity to which he had
been chosen. But he firmly refused to consent to a separation, and his queen
was crowned at Cologne by the archbishop, Piligrin,
who, after having joined in the opposition, requested that he might be allowed
to perform the ceremony. The election of Conrad was justified by a course of
government which occasioned the saying that his throne stood on the steps of
Charlemagne.
It was now considered that the kingdom of Italy
depended on Germany, and that the German sovereign was entitled to the empire,
but was not actually emperor until his coronation at Rome. In 1026, Conrad was
crowned as King of Italy at Milan, by the archbishop, Heribert. He was met by
the pope at Como, and, after having suppressed a formidable insurrection at
Ravenna, he received the imperial crown at Rome, on Easter-day, 1027. The
ceremony was rendered more imposing by the presence of two kings—Canute of England
and Denmark, who had undertaken a pilgrimage, and returned with a grant of
privileges for the English church; and Rodolph of Provence, to whose dominions
Conrad succeeded in 1032, by virtue of a compact which had been made between
the king and the late emperor. From Rome Conrad proceeded into the south, where
he received the oath of fealty from the local princes, bestowed fresh grants on
the Normans, and took measures for organizing a resistance to the Greeks.
On the death of John XIX, in 1033, the Tusculan party appointed to the popedom his cousin
Theophylact, a boy of ten or twelve years of age. But this extravagant stretch
of their power resulted in its overthrow. The young pope, who styled himself
Benedict IX, appeared to be intent on renewing the worst infamies of the
preceding century; his shameless debaucheries, although they have been
questioned, are established on the testimony of one of his
successors—Desiderius, abbot of Monte Cassino, who in 1086 ascended the papal
chair as Victor III.
Conrad had chiefly owed his Italian kingdom to the
influence of Heribert archbishop of Milan, who had opposed the attempt of the
nobles to set up a French rival, Odo of Champagne. The archbishop relied on the
interest which he had thus established, and, elated by his spiritual dignity,
by his secular power, and by the success which had attended his undertakings,
he behaved with great violence in the commotions of the country. These had
become very serious. While the nobles cried out against the bishops, their own
retainers, or valvassors, rose against
them; bloody conflicts took place, and Conrad, at Heribert’s invitation, again
went into Italy for the purpose of investigating the cause of the troubles. The
nobles charged the archbishop with having deprived many of them of their fiefs,
and with having excited their vassals to insurrection; and Heribert, instead of
attempting to clear himself, addressed the emperor with such insolence that an
order was given for his arrest. No Italian would dare to touch him; but the
Germans were less scrupulous, and he was carried off as a prisoner. The
national feeling of the Italians was shocked by such an act against so eminent
a prince of the church; even the archbishop’s enemies shared in the general
indignation and alarm, while his partisans, by means of the clergy and monks,
industriously agitated the multitudes. Long trains of penitents in sackcloth
and ashes swept solemnly through the streets, and filled the churches with
their litanies, imploring St. Ambrose to deliver his flock. The guardians to whose
care Heribert had been committed allowed him to escape; he returned to Milan,
and held out the city against the emperor, who, finding himself unable to take
it, desolated the surrounding country. Conrad found it convenient to ally
himself with pope Benedict, who had lately been expelled by the Romans, and
whom, in other circumstances, he would have avoided with disgust; an anathema
was uttered against Heribert for his rebellion, and the pope sanctioned the
nomination of one of the imperial chaplains to the see of Milan. But both
clergy and people adhered to the archbishop, who now offered the crown of Italy
to Odo of Champagne. The tempting proposal induced Odo to relinquish an
expedition which he had made into Conrad’s Lotharingian territory, and to set
out towards the Alps; but he was intercepted and killed by Gozzelo,
duke of Lorraine, and the emperor became undisputed master of Lombardy. The
pope, in reward for his services, was conducted to Rome and reinstated in his
office by Conrad; and the vices which he had before displayed were now rendered
more odious by the addition of tyrannical cruelty towards those who had opposed
him.
After having again visited the south of Italy, the
emperor returned to Germany, with health shaken by a sickness which had been
fatal to many of his followers. Heribert found means of once more establishing
himself in Milan, was reconciled with Conrad’s successor, Henry III, and held
the see, although not without much disquiet from the contentions between the
nobles and the popular party, until his death in 1045. In the spring of 1039,
Conrad died at Utrecht. The last months of his life had been spent in visiting
various parts of his dominions; and at Arles, in the autumn of 1038, he
republished a law which he had before promulgated at Milan, and which became
the foundation of the feudal law of Europe — that the inferior vassals, instead
of being removable at the will of their lords, should possess a hereditary
tenure, which was to be forfeited only in case of felony established by the
judgment of their equals.
In 1044 Benedict was again driven from Rome, and John,
bishop of Sabino, was set up in his room, under the name of Sylvester III.
After three months, however, Benedict was able to expel his rival; and—induced,
according to one account, by love for the daughter of a nobleman who refused to
allow the marriage except on condition of his vacating the papacy—he sold his
interest in it to John Gratian, a presbyter who enjoyed a high reputation for
austerity of life. But Benedict was disappointed in his love, and resumed his
pretensions to the see, so that Rome was divided between three popes—“three
devils”, as they are styled by an unceremonious writer of the century— each of
them holding possession of one of the principal churches—St. John Lateran, St.
Peter’s, and St. Mary Major. Benedict was supported by the Tusculan party, and Sylvester by a rival faction of nobles, while Gratian, who had
assumed the name of Gregory VI, was the pope of the people. The state of things
was miserable; revenues were alienated or intercepted, churches fell into ruin,
and disorders of every kind prevailed.
That Gregory was regarded with ardent hope by the
reforming party in the church appears from a letter written on his elevation by
Peter Damiani, a person who became very conspicuous in the later history of the
time. But it is said that the urgency of circumstances obliged him to devote
himself to expeditions against the Saracens and the robber chiefs who
impoverished the Roman treasury by plundering pilgrims of the gifts intended
for it; and that on this account the Romans provided him with an assistant for
the spiritual functions of his office.
The scandalous condition of affairs cried aloud for
some remedy, and Peter, archdeacon of Rome, went into Germany to request the
intervention of Henry III, the son and successor of Conrad. The king resolved
to set aside all the claimants of the apostolic chair, and, before setting out
for Italy, he gave a token of the course which he intended to pursue by citing
before him and depriving Widgers, who had been
encouraged by the disorders of Rome to thrust himself into the archbishopric of
Ravenna. At Parma he assembled a council, but, as no pope was present, the
investigation into the pretensions of the rivals was adjourned. Gregory met the
king at Piacenza, and by his desire convened a second council at Sutri. The other claimants of the papacy were cited, but
did not appear; Benedict, who had retired to a monastery, was not mentioned in
the proceedings; Sylvester was declared to be an intruder, was deposed from the
episcopate and the priesthood, and condemned to be shut up in a cloister.
Gregory, who presided over the council, and had perhaps shared in inviting
Henry’s interference, was then, to his astonishment, desired to relate the
circumstances of his elevation. With the simplicity which is described as a
part of his character, he avowed the use of bribery (which was perhaps too
notorious to be denied); but he said that as, in consideration of his repute,
large sums of money had been bestowed on him, which he had intended to expend
on pious objects, he had been led to employ a part of them in this manner by a
wish to rescue the holy see from the tyranny of the nobles, from its calamities
and disgrace. Some members of the council suggested to him that the use of such
means was unwarrantable. At these words a new light broke in on the pope; he
acknowledged that he had been deceived by the enemy, and requested the bishops
to advise him. According to one account, they answered that he would do better
to judge himself: whereupon he confessed himself unworthy of the papacy, and
stripped off his robes in the presence of the council. Other writers state that
he was warned to anticipate a deprivation by resigning; while, according to a
third statement, he was deposed. The papacy was vacant; and Henry proceeded to
fill it with a pope of his own selection.
 |
