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READING HALL

THE DOORS OF WISDOM

 

HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH FROM THE APOSTOLIC AGE TO THE REFORMATION A.D. 64-1517

 

 

 

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.

 

 

CHAPTER VII.

THE BRITISH CHURCHES - MISSIONS OF THE TENTH AND ELEVENTH CENTURIES.

 

 

HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH FROM THE APOSTOLIC AGE TO THE REFORMATION A.D. 64-1517